I have every entry in the Katamari Damacy series. The fact that it has become an entire series with no sign of slowing down makes me very happy. As I flipped through the new mobile games I see it. “A new Katamari game?!” “On my cell phone?!” “Hell’s yeah!!” So how does this stack up to it’s platform siblings? Only one way to find out.
I love adventure games, almost as much as Scuba loves ZJ’s, if it is possible to love something that much. The first time one of my friends came over to my house and had a copy of Maniac Mansion, my obsession began. LucasArts brought such classics as Indiana Jones & the Fate of Atlantis, Full Throttle, Grim Fandango, and Day of the Tentacle to my computer screen, while Sierra occupied days of my life with Kings Quest, Police Quest, and Rise of the Dragon. Many consider Myst as one of the last hoo-rah’s of the Adventure gaming fad.
Well now it’s back baby! With two of the best, The Secret of Monkey Island and Beneath a Steel Sky just to kick it off. Telltale kept the heart beating strong with Sam & Max and Strong Bad episodic adventures but the true resurrection has begun…. on the iPhone.
Anyone who is looking to get your Altair fix will get that chance and have the ability to do so on the move. Assassin’s Creed has been rumored to be coming to portable gaming and is now official. This could be a great step for mobile gaming and if it is as good as we all think, expect some more monster titles to come to your portable Apple device.
By all accounts we can expect very similar free-running gameplay across the ancient cities. The iPhone Assassin’s Creed conversion will be brought to us by Gameloft, which recently announced its working on the Terminator Salvation adaptation, so it’s set to be a big iPhoning year for the French developer.
It’s that time of year again. Loot Ninja is bringing you our picks for 2008’s Game of the Year. We’re breaking it down into various categories leading up to the overall Game of the Year pick coming soon. Check back every day for something new.
Today we’re kicking things off with our picks for best Mobile game of 2008. Mainly, this category is iPhone/iPod Touch gaming. Once the App Store came about, the mobile gaming scene burst open with developers taking a crack at Apple’s little wonders. Who did the best?
Massive amounts of statistical gaming information is one of my favorite things about the current generation of games. Being able to instantly look up just how well you compare to friends and random strangers in all sorts of categories makes playing the game that much more interesting. That is why Frenzic, by The Iconfactory, has me hooked and constantly coming back for more.
Frenzic is a new twist on the puzzle genre. The game originally shipped on the Mac OS X platform and has a pretty solid following. I personally have never tried Frenzic until this point and I am sorry I hadn’t. The game operates exactly like it’s Mac OS counterpart, which would explain the reasonably high amount of polish in version 1.0. Few games get this close to perfection on the first attempt at the App Store.
Touchgrind, without a doubt, has the most intriguing use of a touch screen to date. The game controls just like the fingerboards that kids still play with today. The developer Illusion Labs really nailed the feel of this intriguing pastime and whether you enjoy skateboarding or not, you have to give them credit for taking a chance at a very unique control scheme.
Touchgrind has a steep learning curve. I absolutely can not stress this enough. My first few attempts at just popping an ollie failed miserably and I was tempted to just stop trying and walk away forever from the world of digital fingerboarding. As time progressed, I became familiar with the controls and everything felt natural. Just keep trying, you will get the controls, I promise.
Version 1.0 of Fieldrunners arrived at the App Store back in October. At that time it was a great game but was without audio and only included a single map. Even with these shortcomings, the game was a huge success. Subatomic Studios has listened to their fans and brought version 1.1.1 down the pipeline with all sorts of game play enhancements and features. Could this single update bring new life to an already great iPhone/iPod Touch game? The answer is a resounding yes.
Fieldrunners may seem like your basic run-of-the-mill tower defense style game. The concept is simple, stop the invading infantry from getting through your fortress gates. The depth and longevity of each game is what really sets this one apart. A single game can last literally an hour, a rare occurrence on a portable gaming platform. There is no need to worry about finishing the game in a single sitting because the game saves automatically upon quitting so you can always just pick up where you left off. No lives are given, you just can’t allow 20 of the opposing infantry to enter your fortress, once you do the game is over.
The App Store is loaded with puzzle games, so it’s quite difficult to find the right one to suit a person’s specific tastes. Do you go for value, graphics, replay value or something entirely different? Glyph is able to offer all of the above and more at a great introductory price. Sounds kind of like an advertisement, doesn’t it?
Glyph has the basic concept of most Bejeweled style games. Match three or more like colors to remove the pieces from the board. What Glyph has going for it is variety of gameplay and longevity. The main campaign of Glyph consists of 200 stages. Yes, 200 stages that attempt to tell the story of Kuros and how discovering glyphs can save the world. The story itself isn’t exactly mind blowing, but we’re not here for the storytelling, we want to match some colored pieces.
After playing Zombie Drive only a few times, it’s easy to see the potential that exists, but it’s hard to understand why it wasn’t fully realized. I wish I could review the game based on the fact that it brings back grand memories of my hours spent running people over in Carmageddon, but I can’t. Zombie Drive feels more like an entertaining tech demo than a fully playable game.
Everyone loves to destroy zombies, I have heard it’s actually a national past time. Zombie Drive has the simple concept of you as the wheelman of a hot rod running over zombies. The story goes a little something like this. A city has been infested with zombies and the army has barricaded the entire city with you in it. The objective is to take out as many zombies as possible within the allotted time. The gameplay is very easy to grasp. The camera is stationary in the standard behind the vehicle view and the player steers by tilting the iPhone/iPod touch. Tilt it forward to go, back to reverse and side to side to steer. It takes a little getting used to especially if you haven’t used the accelerometer before in a driving game, but it’s much more entertaining than buttons.
Trace is one of those free games at the App Store that at first glance a lot of people might just pass on because of the simplistic art style. The game is completely free-handed and the animations are extremely simple but the gameplay is what makes Trace a joy to play. Think Line Rider with a controllable character.
Developer Bovinedragon Software’s first foray into App Store gaming is a solid effort. The game controls are straightforward. The iPhone/iPod touch is put into a landscape mode at all times to create more screen real estate for the platforming portion of the game. All of the controls are located at the bottom of the screen with the left and right character control arrows on the left side of the screen and the jump button all the way to the right. This small area doesn’t take up much of the screen plus the controls are mapped just like a basic gaming controller. A retry, back and draw/erase button are all located in this area as well.
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