18 replies to this topic

[dojoboy]

Anyone have iPad gaming reports?  I'm very interested in Warpgate by Freeverse.  Anyone?

[Sneaky Snake]

dojoboy, on 03 April 2010 - 11:55 AM, said:

Anyone have iPad gaming reports?  I'm very interested in Warpgate by Freeverse.  Anyone?

I heard that we have Red Alert coming, but I don't really know any details

[DaveyJJ]

I haven't got mine out of the box yet beyond the fondling stage.

I'm back in Waterloo after our successful shopping trip ... I caved in and brought back the 16GB for the firm, but also as a reserved customer, was allowed to buy a second ... which I did without hesitation so I now have a 64GB baby in hand. Was there really any doubt?

Details: I got to Walden Galleria Apple store at 7:45am with the kids (wife at hotel next door sleeping) at was about number 50 in the reserved line. There was a second line of "non-reserved" folks who wanted one but that line was a) about 150 people long already, and b) was told it would be at least a few hours before they were let in to buy. Buffalo seemed to have a huge stock, and by the time I left the store at 9:20am the reserved line was 150 long and the non-reserved had to have been about 300+. I got mine, went back to the hotel, then came back for shopping. At 1PM, when I left the mall and headed back towards the border, there were still 20-30 in the reserve line (about 5 let in at a time) and the line for non-reserved was massive.

Once I get the banking all sorted (I am an anal-retentive WASP when it comes to keeping track of my finances) I will gett his baby synced up and buy some stuff and report back. Games on my immediate list include Civ Rev, Flight Control, Small World (one of last years best board games), Plants vs Zombies, etc. I will report ASAP.

[Sneaky Snake]

DaveyJJ, on 03 April 2010 - 05:26 PM, said:

I haven't got mine out of the box yet beyond the fondling stage.

I'm back in Waterloo after our successful shopping trip ... I caved in and brought back the 16GB for the firm, but also as a reserved customer, was allowed to buy a second ... which I did without hesitation so I now have a 64GB baby in hand. Was there really any doubt?

Details: I got to Walden Galleria Apple store at 7:45am with the kids (wife at hotel next door sleeping) at was about number 50 in the reserved line. There was a second line of "non-reserved" folks who wanted one but that line was a) about 150 people long already, and b) was told it would be at least a few hours before they were let in to buy. Buffalo seemed to have a huge stock, and by the time I left the store at 9:20am the reserved line was 150 long and the non-reserved had to have been about 300+. I got mine, went back to the hotel, then came back for shopping. At 1PM, when I left the mall and headed back towards the border, there were still 20-30 in the reserve line (about 5 let in at a time) and the line for non-reserved was massive.

Once I get the banking all sorted (I am an anal-retentive WASP when it comes to keeping track of my finances) I will gett his baby synced up and buy some stuff and report back. Games on my immediate list include Civ Rev, Flight Control, Small World (one of last years best board games), Plants vs Zombies, etc. I will report ASAP.

Civ Rev is out for the iPad ???

[dojoboy]

Sneaky Snake, on 03 April 2010 - 06:56 PM, said:

Civ Rev is out for the iPad ???

Yep.

[Sneaky Snake]

dojoboy, on 03 April 2010 - 09:27 PM, said:

Yep.

is it decently featured?? Like how close is it to the computer versions?

[placy]

EA actually has 5 games coming out for the iPad:

SCRABBLE, Tetris, Need for Speed SHIFT, Mirror's Edge and Command & Conquer Red Alert

http://www.ea.com/ne...-games-for-ipad

[dojoboy]

Sneaky Snake, on 03 April 2010 - 09:44 PM, said:

is it decently featured?? Like how close is it to the computer versions?

The artwork is identical to the DS version, but the gameplay itself is identical to the 360, PS3, and DS.  However, you do not get the bells and whistles, like dancing bears, from the console versions.  I say this now only because I have the iPhone version.  I pre-ordered the 3G capable version, so I'm still a few weeks away.  

[Rev-O]

Saw that Small World is out for the iPad as well. If much more gaming content comes out for it I'm going to start having unnatural thoughts.

[DaveyJJ]

Rev-O, on 04 April 2010 - 08:41 AM, said:

Saw that Small World is out for the iPad as well. If much more gaming content comes out for it I'm going to start having unnatural thoughts.

Small World was my first iPad game purchase. I've spent hours now downloading and organizing apps. Fun, fun, fun. Scrabble and C&C still US-only.

[Mr. Selvetarm]

Has anyone tried N.O.V.A yet? I'm very itnerested in the first real FPS.

[Mr. Selvetarm]

After buying an iPad for myself, I can answer my own question by saying that I absolutely love the game. Captures the best parts of the original Halo perfectly. Now if there were some new or updated apps from our in-house Devs my iPad would be complete....

[NAG]

I've played a few games:

Minigore is fun although I probably wouldn't buy it if I had the iPhone version (reason why I didn't rebuy Plants vs Zombies for the third time).

Castlecraft is kind of meh. It's very much a beta game (they were handing out free resources and free troops throughout the weekend due to bugs). I think the reason I dislike it the most is that it is one of those self playing mmos where you have very little input so I don't really see why I would subscribe to the game. The developers are very friendly though (they had someone in chat almost all the time).

Pocket Legends is a freemium game where you either spend real money on gear and mana pots or you sit around and wait long periods of time for your mana bar to fill naturally. This is horrible game play because it encourages leaches in the mmo. Someone will just stand around while the rest of the group does all the work. A clear example of how freemium can completely destroy gameplay.

Worms is another game I wouldn't buy if I had the iPhone version. I didn't buy the iPhone version because I heard it just didn't work on such a tiny screen. It works well on the iPad though. The AI is a tad random (this can be good or bad). I've had the AI make very strategic shots only to turn around the next turn and literally drop a stick of dynamite next to an explosive barrel and sit on it, killing two of his worms and injuring one of mine. It makes it kind of fun but if you want a real game you'll need to be in the same room with a friend.

GameTable is pretty but the only games that work are chess and checkers. The deck of cards is completely bugged out. You can group your hand up into a pile with the pinch gesture but the only way to separate them again is to drag each card off the pile one by one, making looking at your hand a chore. Oh, it has no AI so it's purely friend in the same room multiplayer.

Aurora Feint 3...I've honestly only played three levels so far. It's free and the artwork is much improved from the first two games. I don't know, I just don't see myself twirling around the iPad to get good block combinations as much as I did on the iPhone. The device is just a tad too large for that.

Mirror's Edge is fun. It's a tad short and the story is disjointed due to the fact it is told by the load screen (they did a great job with the load screens). I miss how the first game told the story but realize that this is essentially a completely different game with similar art style. It's like Canabalt but with more moves than jump and more levels (although I wish it was longer). Oh, and the inside levels are as fun as the outside levels, unlike the console version of the game although the later levels will suffer from the "where the heck am I going" problem that the console inside levels had to some degree. Additionally, while you can't use a gun in the game this time around they seem to be actively encouraging you to try to kill the police instead of trying to avoid them. It's a tad comical how you can avoid hundreds of bullets flying at you while you run at the police to kick them in the face to make them fall off a ledge. It's funny how the iPad version of the game feels more like Oni than the console version of the game due to killing the police in comical ways and the disjointed ending that comes out of left field leaving you with an achy feeling.

Warpgate is okay. It kept feeling like it was almost Escape Velocity. But whenever the story comes along it feels like it kicks you in the groin. I don't think the Escape Velocity story was a literary classic but the writing in Warpgate is just bad. The other thing that kind of sucks is that you can't control your ship in battles. You can't fly around in circles avoiding gun fire. You just hit the weapon buttons as they go off cooldown and hope that you entered the battle late enough that the friendly AIs will take the hits and not you (the ships they start you with are absurdly lightweight but can carry absurdly powerful weapons since the only way they gate your ship upgrades is by how much money you have, it would be like running around in Escape Velocity in a shuttle equipped with a forklift). It's a fun game but combat is somewhat lacking and the story makes you want to avoid the story missions and just kill pirates all day. The easiest and most obvious solution to this game's problems is for Ambrosia to come out with Escape Velocity for the iPad (they can even put in plugin support since the iPad now allows for apps to have documents loaded into them) so we can all forget about Warpgate even existing.

Percent played:

During the weekend I mostly played Castlecraft, Warpgate and Minigore. I deleted Castlecraft because it just felt like a colossal waste of time and eventually a waste of money (they give you a month free). I'm now mostly playing Minigore, Mirror's Edge and Worms. Warpgate fell off the list because the story makes me want to rip my hair out but I'll probably go back eventually. Pocket Legends was deleted after three levels because it felt like all the worst aspects of WoW in a tiny, lint-covered package.

[Eric5h5]

That would have made a good feature article on IMG, which has had sadly little along those lines for some time now.

--Eric

[Rev-O]

::quietly waits for DaveyJJ's review of Small World::

[DaveyJJ]

Rev-O, on 07 April 2010 - 06:02 PM, said:

::quietly waits for DaveyJJ's review of Small World::

It's version 1. It is only two player. It lacks in-game sounds. These are on their list to get moving on as well as a version of Memoir 44 (huzzah!!!!).

That said ... it's bloody brilliant. If you like Small World you'll love this implementation of it. It's the perfect two player version of SW. It plays fast, graphics are decent, no pieces to lose, easy to move and conquer, nice touches like you score that flips over (hide the coin from your opponent).

Go buy it. Right now. I am addicted.

[NAG]

Update for Warpgate:

The update added a couple features to the combat mechanics. You can now divert weapons power to shields and supposedly use the accelerometer to control your ship's movement in combat. The shield boost button works okay. It feels like a rushed fix for the glass canon aspect of combat (shuttle with a forklift). It essentially gives you more shields (I don't know how much due to the fact it doesn't change your shield meter) and puts every weapon not on cooldown on cooldown. I don't know if the shield is stronger if it puts more weapons on cooldown but it didn't feel like it. As far as maneuvering, complete garbage. Your ship is still limited to a tiny bubble meaning if the enemy has a beam weapon you can't out range it. This assumes you can control your ship at all. Many times I was only successful at making my ship spin really really fast. I think this is a combination of no accelerometer calibration/bubble to tell you where you are and how the combat warps your ship right next to the enemy even if you're across the system. It has a direction arrow but that isn't helpful considering it doesn't tell you how far you have to tilt the iPad to move in another direction. Combat is still essentially rolling dice with very little skill. They just added another button to press to help you survive longer than a couple hits.

[dojoboy]

My 3G iPad arrived yesterday.  I haven't played much on it, setting it up to replace my work windbloze laptop.  I have fired up the We Rule iPad version, which looks wonderful.  I was really impressed with how well the iPhone versions of CivRev and Warpgate blew up.  OT: I'm finding I'd much rather use the websites in place of some apps, such as news sites and FB.

[Monster_user]

The iPad games I want, are SimCity, and Air Hockey.

The iPhone/iPod Touch screen is just too small for those games. Zooming in and out on SimCity is aggravating, and having two people playing hockey makes it hard to see the puck. Playing those games on the iPad is only slightly better, but a native version at a higher res would be so cool!

Then I might finally get an iPad.