iPhone Games Catch-All

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OK, The App Store is live, and you can install the firmware by hand. So post your thoughts here. I'll be buying a ton of the games just to try them out. Bomberman anyone? Pinball? Enigmo?

Note a LOT of games seem to be under "entertainment" not "games."

Note: There's a spreadsheet tracking the various iPhone friendslist systems here. Add yours!

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?...

So where can I go to check all this stuff out? I'm wondering what kind of prices they're gonna charge people. Now that it looks like AT&T is subsidizing the Iphone, it looks more affordable.

If someone sees a site that lists a bunch or all of the apps, please link No iTunes at work.

Good coverage on TUAW.

Initial impressions:

- Apps take WAY less space than I was afraid. Negligible really. Monkey Ball took 30 megs I think. I was worried about that.
- The iTunes remote and twitterific are essentially perfect applications, and incredibly useful.
- Games: so far Monkey Ball is, well, Monkey Ball. Enigmo is really good though, and bomberman is suprisingly playable.
- No chess? Really? C'mon people.

I ended up downloading iTunes anyways. I see 2 chess games, both $10

This seems a bit anticlimactic for the forum's 40,000th thread.

Man, there sure are a crap-load of apps already available.

Now if only they'd drop the price of the 32GB Touch to $299...

I am getting an iphone in large part because of this. It was a big thing that was missing from the iPhone and that has now been rectified quite well. I looked over the available apps so far and there seems to be a good selection. I'm still hoping Spore will come to the iPhone. The demo they did of spore means it very likely will. I'd also love to see versions of Risk and Axis & Allies. I really enjoyed Risk on the treo. Prices are very reasonable so far, too.

I just hope fellow GWJers here have found a way to combat the "Apple Tax"...

My only concern is the same thing that happened with LIVE downloads... there are possibly too many apps available of dubious quality.

SommerMatt wrote:

My only concern is the same thing that happened with LIVE downloads... there are possibly too many apps available of dubious quality.

Bill's got an app up? That is outstanding!

Seriously, though, EA issued a press release today saying, in part:

EA Mobile was one of the first companies to announce that they are making games for the iPhone. This July EA Mobile will announce the ever popular SCRABBLE, Sudoku and Tetris(R) for the iPhone and iPod touch, and coming this fall EA Mobile will announce an original game called Spore(TM) Origins, based on the PC/Mac version of Spore.

(emphasis added)

FYI, if you plan to install using the currently available firmware, there are two huge caveats that you need to know about.

#1 - This firmware is only for the iPhone, iTouch users are SOL.
#2 - You MUST be using iTunes 7.7 before you install. Your iTunes will not auto-update until tomorrow (presumably) so download it from apple.com.

See my thread for an installation guide: http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/40004

The games are going to be fun, but I won't be able to buy an iPhone until there is an ssh client available (I need it for work, and I'm *really* hoping to upgrade the Treo 650 I've been lugging around for 3 years). I did a quick search through the current app list on itunes, and no dice. Sigh.

I've got 2000 words outlining the top 20ish games going up at 1up tonight. I'll link it here when it's live.

Yes, I spent my whole day playing iPhone games. I do it because I care.

Shorthand: MonkeyBall is IMPOSSIBLY HARD. CroMag is a lot of fun. Pinball is boggy. Apple's Poker is good. Enigmo is the standout winner. Bomberman rocks.

Serengeti wrote:

FYI, if you plan to install using the currently available firmware, there are two huge caveats that you need to know about.

#1 - This firmware is only for the iPhone, iTouch users are SOL.

I thought they were selling firmware 2.0 for the touch?

SommerMatt wrote:
Serengeti wrote:

FYI, if you plan to install using the currently available firmware, there are two huge caveats that you need to know about.

#1 - This firmware is only for the iPhone, iTouch users are SOL.

I thought they were selling firmware 2.0 for the touch?

This in reference to the leaked update, not the official release.

Rabbit, I think you missed Tetris. I really like it.

My brief game reviews:

Bejeweled 2 - Yeah, it's been around the block, I've paid for the PC version and the 360 version in the past, and now the iPhone version too. That said, it is a great little time waster, so it's worth the $10. Now, the one thing that you get on the iPhone that you don't get anywhere else is the touch interface, and I've got to say, this is the way Bejeweled was meant to be played. (Wish I could return the PC and 360 versions now)

Monkey Ball - The game is beautiful and insanely difficult. The tilt controls felt wierd at first, but I'm starting to get used to them. The controls are very touchy, this is not a game you could play say in the passenger seat of a car on a cross country trip, or on the bus on the way to work. You really need to be sitting still to avoid inappropriate tilting. Lots of fun, even though I'll probably never be able to finish it... but then I never could finish it on the consoles either

Enigmo - Pretty cool, only played a few levels but I like it so far.

Bomberman - Control scheme is definitely different, but not in a bad way. I've been disappointed by Bomberman games in the past, so I was hesitant to pick this one up. No worries though, it's great. It feels like old-school Bomberman.

Non-games:

Facebook App - It's free, and it seems like the main benefit vs the iPhone Facebook web page is to not have to download the facebook graphics every time you load the page. That said, it doesn't have all the features of the web page yet. Once they do a little more work on it, it'll probably be better, but for now keep using the web page.

Weatherbug - Nice little app. Weather info, alerts and a radar view all in one location. Beats the snot out of the default weather app. Also has live feeds from weather cameras, though it only found 2 of them in Iowa. Big city folk would probably find more

Also, I found this odd; If I try to launch iTunes from my phone while on Edge, it tells me that I have to be on WiFi to use the iTunes store, but the App store works fine over edge.

Has anyone seen any impressions yet on how all these apps affect the original iPhone's battery life? If I leave AIM on and take a 30 minute walk with Pandora feeding me music, will I have a dead battery in no time or are these background and foreground apps pretty good on energy conservation?

is the iphone in canada yet or what? its such a piss off, at&t is'nt in newfoundland, and im not sure where in canada it is, presumably no where.

Dave172 wrote:

is the iphone in canada yet or what? its such a piss off, at&t is'nt in newfoundland, and im not sure where in canada it is, presumably no where.

Rogers would be the iPhone provider for Canada, Newfoundland included.. Unfortunately Newfoundland's coverage for GSM is only from Clarenville to St. John's. Everywhere else on the island is CDMA.

AIM won't do much - it's not pushing, it's essentially the same as using one of the (less ugly) webapps that we already had.

My experience with streaming radio to my old Treo was that it absolutely KILLED my battery life.

Good coverage on 1up Rabbit. It's good to know that the first batch shows that gaming will be viable, and yes I always have my iPod in my pocket unlike my DS or PSP, so if they can provide a solid experience on the go, I'm sold.

polypusher wrote:

Has anyone seen any impressions yet on how all these apps affect the original iPhone's battery life? If I leave AIM on and take a 30 minute walk with Pandora feeding me music, will I have a dead battery in no time or are these background and foreground apps pretty good on energy conservation?

I don't speak from personal experience, but the reviews I've read already have the 3G iPhone's battery as lasting 25% or so less than on the original phone... mostly because of the 3G network. I think Mossberg mentioned that he ran out of juice a lot faster than he did with the older phone. Games and other apps that access data, by nature, will really affect battery life.

That sounds really bad. The early feature lists said the 3g phone's battery was going to last much longer, like over a week on standby. I get 2-3 days on mine now, thats with about 1 hour of music playing every day and some calls and browsing here and there.

Tomorrow Ill be walking to work with Pandora playing. We'll see how that does.

Looks like my Itouch got bricked going to the new software. Nothing I do brings it back. Damn! And I paid $10 for the 2.0 crap AND I paid $10 for Bejeweled 2. This just sucks...

Pandora was a little sketchy on the walk to work. The program was obviously struggling with the weak signal and slow Edge speed but I still got about 5 songs out of it. The breaks in connection were short and infrequent. Batterywise, there was no significant change in about 30 minutes of the program running.

Overnight however, AIM was running in the background and the phone went from full battery to half battery. I deleted AIM since there didnt seem to be a way to just stop its process.

I did the 2.0 update on my iTouch this morning with no problems, sorry to hear a couple of you were bricked. Is there any way around that?

I've been messing with a few of the apps since Thursday and as you'd expect, not everything has been golden so far. Since I'm usually spending my breaks at work reading the news from a roster of EDGE-friendly sites (I still have the 1st generation iPhone and am still debating on upgrading later on), the news apps (NYTimes & Mobile News) have been pretty handy, though if they were anything but free I'd be just as happy with the web versions. IGN Reviews has been rather nice but it's still IGN - I'd be happier still with 1up doing the same thing. WeatherBug is okay, though it doesn't bring anything that the webapp didn't and there's better/more informative out there. But this is the games thread so onto the four my budget would allow.

Trism: I have to admit I haven't put enough time into this to really figure out the mechanics as well as I'd like. The execution of the game is done well enough, it's just that they've almost thrown too many possibilities with the whole tilting aspect. It does make me want to sit and play with it for long periods of time to really master how it works, so it's got that going for it.

Texas Hold'Em: This is a really well done version of one of my favorite poker games. The presentation is...well, interesting. If you hold the iPhone in it's normal up/down orientation the game plays almost like Poker for beginners - the view switches to video of various actors as they overact playing poker. It's actually very reminiscent of some of the early CD-ROM PC games where every publisher thought you needed real video to sell a game. The mode is somewhat entertaining but not very useful or even playable but thankfully you can rotate the iPhone to a landscape orientation and remove all that crap for a full-table view that really allows the game to shine. So far the poker play has been quite challenging (as it should be) and entertaining. The main gripe I have with this game is that the multiplayer is all but useless since you can only play with other iPhones on the same wireless network as you. With the iPhone's constant connection to the Internet there's no reason for this limitation. Still, it's my favorite game of the four so far.

Reel Deal Slots: Okay, I'll admit I'm a computer slot machine whore. To me, they're a great mindless way to kill some time while between trips to the real casino. The Reel Deal series on the Mac has been my favorite for a while now as they've got a nice variety of machines and fun little bonus rounds and the iPhone version is pretty much the same exact thing - only less so. There's only three machines and no "Players Club" to spend bonus points in for little virtual trinkets. The fact that the machines are so well modeled doesn't make up for the lack of play here. It's not a bad little time-waster but I want MORE.

Super Monkey Ball: This game is HARD. Yes, it's got a great presentation (my friend commented that it looked like it came right off the PSP) but using the iPhone's motion sensor to control the tables AND the camera makes the game incredibly challenging. Even the gentlest of movements can still cause the camera to flip out and make things rapidly go to hell once you reach a tight corner. I'm not sure how I feel about this one yet but it's the most "videogamey" of the bunch in that you actually have to sit and concentrate on playing before you'll get anywhere. This is definitely NOT a casual game.

In conclusion, I'm pretty impressed with the quality of gaming so far. I think once developers see that the iPhone can be a valid gaming platform and we start getting more variety in the types of games available (I'm holding out for the first RPGs) things will improve immensely.

I'm gonna tell you, I have just about had it with this thing. I'm now over 24 hours without my music/mp3's with no end in sight. I'm now deep into talking to the guys from new Delhi named "Sam" who say they are not familiar with the problems I am describing and can I please give them my serial number (which I can't even read it is so small and Itunes doesn't have it because it's screwed up too). I am mighty close to tossing this thing and heading to best Buy to pick up a Creative labs one that is drag and drop. This is just bordering on ridiculous.

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