A selected reading from Tessians chapter 12, verses 19 thru 22:
19 Lo, the clouds did open up before Saint Paul the Inebriate. And a voice spake forth from heaven, declaring thus: "Paul, thou good and faithful servant: the time has come to set aside thy beer bottles and commemorative Sonics shot glasses; go forth and spread my gaming wisdom amongst the tablet masses.
20 "For I fear this to be a lost generation, adrift upon a never-ending sea of tedious and generic touch-screen titles. But thou wilt be my guide to lead them into the light. Behold, this shall be a sign unto thee: thou shalt find my chosen twelve, wrapped in tight video editing and lying in yonder YouTube video."
21 And Paul didst consider all he had been told by the Prince of Palladium, and replied he unto the lord: "As thou has commanded, so will I do. But promise me this, oh King of Zincs: whenst come I to my heavenly rest, thou wilt allow me to be the big spoon."
22 And the copper lord was wroth with anger, and didst slay the iniquitous Paul with an Atari Lynx to the head. "Thou shalt have no spoons before me! Neither behind me shalt thou have spoons. Spoons shalt thou not have against the Metal Jesus in any position. Now where canst I find Emabulator so that he might post mine video, no questions asked?"
This is an excellent guide for anyone who, like myself, has been looking for some new games to get into on iOS but gets frustrated wading through the morass of titles available in the App Store and not being able to tell what's good short of buying it. Seriously, Apple--how about mandatory demo versions of your games, a'la XBLA? AND a better browsing interface while you're at it.
Oh, and btw: Drag Racing is a freemium game that is RIDICULOUSLY addictive and surprisingly deep. I mean, the basic mechanic is just racing your car in a straight line and shifting at the right times. But when you get into the tuning and trying to upgrade your car while staying within a specific class--it's hella fun trying to beat your friends and compete on the world leaderboards, especially for wanna-be tuners like myself.
Here's the list of games, for those trying to remember on December 26th.
Jetpack Joyride
Anomaly Warzone Earth HD
Scribblenauts Remix
Zombie Gunship
Shadowgun
Sonic CD
Epoch
Perfect Cell
Fling
Don't Run with a Plasma Sword
Temple Run
Riptide GP
My Xbox Live
Seriously, Apple--how about mandatory demo versions of your games, a'la XBLA?
Demos would be cool...but then again, I paid a grand total of $13 on all of these games! Compare that to one XBLA title! It makes it way easier to take a chance on something. Crazy...
MJ, can you suggest which of these games would be good on an iPhone or I guess which one would really suffer on the smaller screen? Just made the jump to an iPhone and was looking for a couple of decent games for it. Thanks for the info!
__________________
In the past quarter century, we exposed biases against other races and called it racism, and we exposed biases against women and called it sexism. Biases against men we call humor. —Warren Farrell
MJ, can you suggest which of these games would be good on an iPhone or I guess which one would really suffer on the smaller screen?
I would definitely pick up Jetpack Joyride on your iPhone and just use your LEFT hand for the controls, so you can continue to see what is in front of you. Same with Don't Run with a Plasma Sword. Also, Riptide should play well on the iPhone, since it only uses the touch controls for left/right.
The only game that I think would really suffer on a small screen would be Anomaly, because it's a strategy game, and not seeing much of the map might be tricky.
Apple is widely known for their ease of use & exceptionally intuitive interfaces.
How the fuck does the app store fit in with them? I hate iTunes and the app store with a passion... It's always an exercise in frustration to find a decent game in there. Or to use iTunes to work with the device.
Maybe it's just me or maybe I'm grumpy today, but here is an instance that they failed completely at. Yes I know how successful it is thanks.
(IMO)
__________________ I was nerdy before it was cool to be nerdy.
How the fuck does the app store fit in with them? I hate iTunes and the app store with a passion... It's always an exercise in frustration to find a decent game in there. Or to use iTunes to work with the device.
I don't use the App Store to just randomly find games honestly. There are just too damn many, and hundreds released every week.
Instead, I rely on web sites like TouchArcade.com and AppSpy.com. They are really great about curating the massive amount of weekly releases.
Apple never actually expected the App Store to be the success it is today. Remember, Steve Jobs famously fought against it originally. But I agree, it may not be a bad idea for Apple to rethink the whole online buying experience for their music, apps and TV shows. Oh yeah, and kill of Ping. Seriously.
You want mandatory demo versions of mobile games? Than get a Windows Phone 7 and stop being Evil Appletards.
I'm seriously considering going witha Wp7 phone next time I upgrade, seeing as how Microsoft are nearly giving them away in an effort to gain market share against Apple and android. I guess maybe they learned from the Xbox that buying your way intoa market can have a long term up-side. Still, it's pretty sad to look at the number of apps available for WP7 compared to either ios or Android. It would be nice if the platform started getting more support, but I'm not holding my breath until it does.
gzsfrk that was a kick ass intro this week, and MJ you've put together another great vid!
__________________
"Two of my favorite things are sitting on my front porch smoking a pipe of sweet hemp, and playing my Hohner harmonica."
~Abraham Lincoln
Demos would be cool...but then again, I paid a grand total of $13 on all of these games! Compare that to one XBLA title! It makes it way easier to take a chance on something. Crazy...
I think that mandatory Demos for all XBLA and XBIG games was one of the best moves Microsoft made for gamers this Gen, and just seems like sucha no-brainer for their competitors to copy. I can't begin to fathom why most of them have yet to do so.
That being said, I have to admit that it was awesome over this past week and a half when Google was having their 10 apps a day for 0.10 each sale. I bought nearly every one of them on my Cyanogenmod-updated Touchpad, and still only spent about 8 bucks. Amazing. I now havea library of over 50 games I can take with me wherever I go for such a miniscule investment. And that's not even counting emulators, which play perfectly on my tablet using a wireless Sixaxis controller. Totally sweet to whip out the Touchpad and PS3 gamepad and just start playing Wipeout 2097 or Contra Hard Corp whenever I feel like it.
JetPack Joyride is currently FREE in the App Store (I just grabbed it). Perfect Cell is only 99 cents, on sale.
Another great must go-to site is AppShopper.com. They have a listing of all apps in the app store, as well as a pricing history for each. And, by creating an account there, you can flag apps for your "watch list" and be alerted when they drop in price. And they have an App as well so you can check your watch list daily.
Almost everything on my iPad was aquired at 99 cents or free thanks to the AppShopper alerts, it's fantastic.
Oh, also, if you want some more games to cheque out:
Dungeon Defenders: Second Wave - Not on sale at the moment, but only $2.99 full price. I've killed many hours with this on my mobile devices, prior to getting this on the PC. (Oh, and it's Free on Andriod).
Real Racing 2 HD - Racing games ROCK on the iPad, and this is one of the better ones.
Any of the non-Freemium Gameloft games - Gameloft makes some of the best knock-offs around, and they look and play great on the iPad. And they always go down to 99 cents at some point.
__________________ "If I want to say [George Washington] didn't [have slaves] that's my right, and now, thanks to Wikipedia *taps keyboard* it's also a fact."
-Stephen Colbert
Neuroshima Hex
Draw Race (the first one)
Small World
Kard Combat
Ticket to Ride
Carcassone
Infinity Blade 2
Zen Pinball
Death Rally
Need for Speed Hot Pursuit
Dungeon Raid
Dark Nebula 1 and 2
Chromixia
Sushi Cat
Civilization Revolution
Sentinel 2
And one that I made, and its actually good: Babo Crash (demo: Babo Rush)
I'm seriously considering going witha Wp7 phone next time I upgrade, seeing as how Microsoft are nearly giving them away in an effort to gain market share against Apple and android. I guess maybe they learned from the Xbox that buying your way intoa market can have a long term up-side. Still, it's pretty sad to look at the number of apps available for WP7 compared to either ios or Android. It would be nice if the platform started getting more support, but I'm not holding my breath until it does.
Well on my WP7 which I've had less than 1 month, I now I have:
Netflix
Last.fm
Kindle
Groupon
Foursquare
MS Office
Facebook
Twitter
Wikipedia
Yelp
Adobe Reader
CNN
Zune
Photo/Pictures apps
Compass
GPS/Maps
Converter app
DC Comics
Bank of America app
Best Buy app
eBay
Fandango
Flashlight
Fox News
IMDB
Stock tracking
Stopwatch
Tag reader that can both QR and MS tags
USA Today
Weather Channel and Weatherbug
Inrix Traffic
Internet Explorer
Lists
Level
Messanger (IM)
Alarms app
Calendar
E-mail app
Amazon apps
iHeartRadio
Voice recorder app
Angry Birds
Bejeweled
Collapse
Fruit Ninja
Need for Speed
Puzzle Quest 2
Tetris
Uno
Guitar Hero 5
Pac Man Championship
And dozen of other Live and non-Live indie games all with demos
WP7 has most of the core applications developed, but what they're missing is a huge and widely varied ecosystem of niche apps and games for just about anything you can imagine. iOS is already there, with Android close behind and fairly likely to overtake Apple at some point in the near future as Android grabs an ever larger share of the handset market.
Based on the latest figures I can find, WP7 has about 40,000 apps, Android has about 380,000, and iOS has a staggering 500,000+. Granted, quantity != quality, but it is a fairly reliable gauge of developer enthusiasm in this case.
Still, I think there's a place for Microsoft in the mobile market, especially if they continue making aggressive moves to get their platform in users' hands like they are with the $50 phone strategy. Of course, that's assuming that the $50 phone actually works well and leaves users with a good impression.
