I have an iPhone, and I bought Monkey Ball when the app store launched, and it's pretty cool. It's definatley worth $10 and has helped me kill a ton of downtime at work and traveling.
I'm tempted to try de Blob, but other than that, everything is a tiliting racer, or a sliding puzzle game. I had jailbroken the phone, and games that involved the 'button overlay' style, where a virtual controller was kind of translucently drawn onto the screen sort of worked, but were JUST frusteratingly inaccurate enough to never actually make me full enjoy playing anything.
So now I'm reading all about these developers saying its more powerful than a Dreamcast, a PSP, a DS, all sorts of crazy stuff. And I was thinking today - so what? It has no buttons, no triggers, Just an accelerometer and a touch screen. What can people possibly port to the iPhone to make use of it's gaming potential?
And so far only 2 things have hit me.
1 - Chu Chu Rocket. A Chu Chu Rocket DC port, with larger squares, could really be awesome. Swipe on a square in the direction of the arrow you wish to lay, and bam, there it is. Maybe limit it to 1 vs 1 rockets, because of the size.
and
2 - WORMS. Fuck yes worms. Worms could TOTALLY work with a tap and drag style in landscape mode. Tap once to bring up your weapons, tap and hold to charge them up and release to fire, tap a worm and drag them to move, double tap to jump...its actually very well suited for a port. Worms Armegeddon on the iPhone would be amazing, and would look pretty slick.
So, with the potential for some great graphics and processing power, but no controls, any ideas what games could be brought to the iPhone that would actually end up being fun?
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I'd kill for Worms on my iPod touch though.
A lot of the early DS titles could works since most of em' centered on the touch screen.
Okay, I just tried out Galcon on the PC in the last ten minutes--you can learn the game that quickly--and damn it's catchy.
It's kind of like real-time Risk with no dice rolling. Hard to explain it well, but it's a five meg download and the tutorial will only take you five minutes. Give it a shot.
If I had an iPhone I'd buy this game immediately.
Oh, no multiplayer? Meh. It's still a great game.
Alternatively, you can play it free on PC at Instant Action.
Edit: As for games which need iPhone ports, it strikes me that Geometry Wars might work. Drag the little ship with one finger, use your other finger to fire. The game speed might need to be toned down a little bit, but considering that the horrible java cell-phone version where you could only fire in the direction you were moving got decent reviews, it's definitely worth someones time to give it a shot.
Editedit: Also, the obligatory "Nethack" response. It was done with Jailbroken iPhones, but that's apparently a pain right now.
Thanks for the heads up - my bad, and I corrected the OP with what I was really trying to say. Sorry about that, won't happen again!
I wonder how much fun House of The Dead on iPhone could be though -- tap to shoot? Isnt the fun of house of the dead flailing your gun around trying to shoot the enemies? I feel like tapping on thier heads would eliminate what made pulling off a headshot in HotD fun.
Although honestly, I'd still buy it I bet.
Typing of the Dead!
Also, Dreamcast > iPhone until they can provide games proving me wrong.
Can trade TF2 items or whatever else you're interested in. PM me.
I wouldn't want to play any kind of game requiring fast reflexes and precise control on the iPhone, but I could see a lot of things working pretty well on it.
One thing I think a lot of developers would need to do is implement a two-tap system--when doing any kind of action, you'd have to tap and then confirm before anything happened. Like, say you're playing an RPG--tap once to highlight the enemy you want to attack, tap again to actually attack it. Would help avoid problems with precision.
I could also see throwing a couple of big modifier buttons on the bottom corners or something (wherever would be easily reachable by a thumb). Make 'em really oversized and visible, and whenever you rest a thumb on them it changes what action tapping somewhere on the screen triggers (like holding Shift, Control, or Alt on the PC).
Yea for real if the Iphone can give me a Superior version of MvC2 then we can talk. Truely I should get an Iphone... Then work can't bring the hammer down on my websurfing even tho all my work is done in a timely manner.
If you're faking mouse control, sure.
If you're trying for the instant-response tactile-feedback goodness that can only be found with a true button, no.
Can trade TF2 items or whatever else you're interested in. PM me.
You know the really annoying thing? (apart from me not getting a company iphone) Is that they wouldn't be bought if I hadn't showed my boss my ipod touch when I came back from holiday.. he was all "oooh, pretty.. the iphone is like that?" and i'm "yes, identical apart from it being a phone" and he's all "i'm off to buy an iphone!"... </high school bimbo talk>
Sigh.
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I've got a spare copy of Portal, if anyone wants it message me.
But really even with the latest firmware I've had applications continue to crash for no reason, so it is kind of like playing games on a gameboy with low battery. It can turn off any second!