Posts Tagged iphone games
Flick Baseball Brings Fun Arcade Sports To The iPhone
There’s been a lot of buzz about Flick Baseball prior to its release. Showing it’s worthy of the hype, the new game proves to be one of the most entertaining arcade baseball titles we’ve seen on a mobile platform.
Emphasis on “arcade.” If you were hoping for serious baseball simulation, you’ll be disappointed. However, if you’re in search of a fun baseball game with a console-like presentation, you won’t have to look any further. This is the sports game to get.
Right off the bat (yes, it’s a pun), you notice the excellent graphics and audio, which bring a feel that makes it seem like a full-fledged console title, instead of an App Store download. It’s a hint at the kind of sophistication we should expect from future games on the platform and it works out beautifully here.
You get to do a lot in Flick Baseball: bat, pitch, field fly balls and more. Every action actually feels like a mini-game unto itself, making the experience of a single game intensely fun and varied.
When batting, you tilt your iPhone around an onscreen crosshair to line up your bat, tap the screen to swing and advance bases by tapping on them. When pitching, you select a throw, tilt the handset to aim and tap the screen to let it loose. The AI batter also picks its own pitch and, in case their choice matches yours, earns extra power on the hit. Most fielding is done automatically, although you can contribute by playing a timing-based mini-game during fly balls. Tap the four gloves that come onscreen when they intersect and you’ve got a catch.
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Freaking Inkies For iPhone Makes Matching Colors Exciting
You know creativity is at a high when a studio can make a game about paint and have it deliver an action-packed experience. That’s exactly what Atakama Labs did with Freaking Inkies, a wacky monster-shooting game for the iPhone that sees you destroy enemies by nailing them with paint bullets of matching colors.
Three half buttons (really – half buttons) go on either side of the screen, each of them coming in one primary color (red, yellow and blue). You’ll have to put your thumbs on both half buttons of the right color if you want to fire, with aiming managed by tilting the handset from side to side. The right color, by the way, is determined by the monster. Blue monsters need to be shot with blue paint and so on. Sounds simple enough, right? Well, it gets complicated (and more fun).
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Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 Hits The iPhone, Plays Awesome
Remember Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 on the original Playstation? Highly-regarded as a classic of the genre, the game has now found its way to the iPhone and the port is every bit as good.
Calling it good doesn’t mean it’s perfect. Mainly, it suffers from the issues of porting a 10 year old game into a modern platform. While we’re already familiar with the difficulties of going from physical to virtual controls, it’s not that bad here. In fact, if you’ve never played the original, it’s likely not going to be an issue. The main problem for me is the fact that it saves progress only after each level (just like the PS version). Get interrupted by a phone call in the middle of play and you’ll be right back to the last saved game.
One of the best things about Pro Skater 2 is that it blends an in-depth career mode with an open world. The iPhone version brings all that in, allowing you to play it both as a skater coming up in the ranks or just a dude roaming the streets, finding fun things to do. All the upgrades have been retained, from learning new tricks to earning new gear, which you amass by progressing through your career. Both the graphics and sound are great, probably even better than the original in some ways. They weren’t able to port the old soundtrack completely, although I didn’t particularly find it to be a major drawback.
While old fans of Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 will undoubtedly find this to be a gem (the skating plays very much like the original), it does lack some of the more social features we’re used to in modern titles. Imagine this game with online leaderboards and replay sharing, for instance. Wouldn’t that be a blast? In fact, I’ll be willing to pay $5 more for an update like that. As it is, though, this is an extremely fun game that’s well worth the $9.99 price.
X2 Snowboarding For iPhone Brings Great Graphics, Engaging Tricks And Immersive Gameplay
Pumped up from the Winter Games? You can snowboard like a heavily-padded athlete on your iPhone too with X2 Snowboarding, the first really good snowboarding title to ever grace the platform.
First, a disclaimer. I’m not a big fan of snowboarding games. In fact, I’d never been able to tolerate them until a friend turned me onto SSX some years back. While it hasn’t grown on my stable of favorites, I do enjoy a pick-up game every once in a while.
The graphical presentation of X2 is really noteworthy. While cartoony, the overall look is exceptional, especially when compared to competing titles on the App Store. The instant replay, which allows you to watch scenes from various angles over and over, are a constant source of amusement.
You get a choice of six characters, each one with a varied skill set that gives you different advantages and disadvantages during play. There are six possible venues (USA, Switzerland, Japan, New Zealand, Canada and Chile) and three types of competitions (Freestyle, Race, and Trick-Race). The slopes are very long, with plenty of variations, making for a challenging romp every time down.
Controls are a combination of tilt and touch, but are geared quite loosely, which works really well for both the platform and the fast-paced action. The basic buttons control jumping and turbo, while a third one helps you tie tricks together. When you’re up in the air, buttons appear to perform various grabs. You can also tilt the phone to rotate the character during the trick.
With an excellent soundtrack to top everything off, X2 Snowboarding is one of the most immersive and exciting solo sports games on the iPhone. Very surprising. The price feels a bit steep, though, at $6.99.
Horror Racing For The iPhone Is Not Really Scary, Offers Decent Fun
Never been a fan of racing games on the iPhone. Steering via either the virtual screen or the accelerometer has never really appealed to my tastes. Chillingo’s brand new Horror Racing strikes me in a similar way, although it does add an element of combat to vary things up a bit.
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