MacMost Now 175: More iPhone Game Reviews

A quick look at eleven iPhone games, including Fieldrunners, Pac-Man, SinkSub, Touch Physics, Idle Hands, Ocarina and more.

You can also watch this video at YouTube (but with ads).

Video Transcript: Hi. This is Gary with MacMost Now. Today let's take a look at a few iPhone games. Well, there are now hundreds of iPhone games that you can download from the iPhone App Store. Let's go and take at some of them that I have on my iPhone, and I'll put links to all of them in the show notes for this episode at MacMost.com.
Here's one called Fieldrunners. You play Fieldrunners by basically placing defenses to stop an invasion. It's a tower defense kind of game. I love this kind of game, and this is a really good implementation of it especially for the iPhone. So you go ahead and you place some defenses around the screen. 
Then, when the invasion starts, your defenses start firing at the invaders and stopping them. And of course each wave gets harder and harder, and you have to build up cleverer and cleverer defenses to stop them from coming.
A variation on this type of strategy game is Castles. In this game, you do a similar kind of thing by placing defenders, and you get to move them each turn. So it's a turn-based strategy game, which is a little bit different and may appeal to a different type of strategy game player.
Now, if you're really into strategy like I am, there is one real-time strategy game that I found that's pretty good. In Strategic Assault, you get to set up bases and generate new armaments and things like that, just like you would in a regular strategy game. It looks pretty good, too, and plays pretty well.
Here's a classic game that's supported to the iPhone. For me this is all about nostalgia, but I'm really impressed with how well the game plays. It plays pretty much like the original, looks like the original, and even sounds like the original. 
Here's another game that might make you feel nostalgic. It's called SinkSub. The idea is you have to drop depth charges to sink the submarines underneath your destroyer. You have to watch out so they don't destroy you. Unfortunately, I have to go ahead and move the iPhone left and right in order to move your ship, so it's hard to demonstrate here. 
Now here's a game that gets a little more innovative with the use of physics inside of a touch screen application. You have this little purple ball here, and you need to create new objects by simply drawing them. The objects fall and push the blue ball into the yellow star. 
You have all these different levels that you need to play. For instance, you have to figure out how to get this ball all the way up to the star by drawing levers and large objects to fall and things like that. It takes a lot of trial and error, but you can eventually figure it out. It's a lot of fun. It's called Touch Physics.
Along those same lines, here's a game called Trace. In this one it's a platform game where you can move the character across, make him jump, but you're going to have to go ahead and draw things in the environment to complete the game. For instance, I draw a platform right there, and then I can have him run and jump to get to his goal. Each level gets a little bit more complex, and there are objects in his way. So you have to draw some more complex configurations to get him to the goal.
Here's another physics-based game called Jelly Car. In this one you have to move a car across the screen using touches and also reorienting the iPhone to make it go up or down. 
Here's a novel game that simply tests your typing speed. It's called Idle Hands. The cool thing it does, though, is it has a monthly challenge. You can compete with people from around the world to see who is fastest. You type in the phrase. Then you see how quickly you can type it in compared to other people around the world, or you can simply use it as a way to measure your typing speed.
I saved the weirdest for last. This is an app called Ocarina that mimics the musical instrument of the same name. It uses your breath over the microphone to determine how fast you're blowing into it. Then you get to press on these holes that are in the screen and play it kind of like a little flute instrument. You play all sorts of different tunes on it. 
What's even cooler is the fact that it takes the tunes that you're playing and it goes and spreads them out through the Internet. Other people can listen to what people are playing all over the world in this kind of 3-D earth-like view, where you see all the music emanating from different places in the world as people play them. So it's kind of like a community musical instrument. 
As I mentioned, I'm going to put links to all of these in the show notes for this episode at MacMost.com. Also remember, if you like iPhone games, we have a whole collection of web-based iPhone games specifically built for the iPhone. You can find them at MacMost.com/iphonegames. Until next time, this is Gary Rosenzweig with MacMost Now.

Here are links to the apps mentioned in the episode:
Fieldrunners, $4.99
Castles Lite, free
Castles, $4.99
Strategic Assault, $0.99
Pac-Man Lite, free
Pac-Man, $5.99
SinkSub, $4.99
Touch Physics, $0.99
Trace, free
JellyCar, free
Idle Hands, free
Ocarina, $0.99
You can browse and search for more iPhone apps at the MacMost iPhone Apps Directory.
You can play some free iPhone games at the MacMost iPhone Games section.

Comments: One Response to “MacMost Now 175: More iPhone Game Reviews”

Sam Jabr

16 years ago

To Whom it May Concern,

My partner and I recently started creating games/applications for the IPhone platform and plan to port popular titles over to the Android/Blackberry platforms in the future. We have had some success with one of our games and would love for more people to get an opportunity to have access to our games.

The reason I am contacting you is because I would like for you to review our games. I have never dealt with a review site before so I am not clear on the criteria on which you use. Is there a process to submitting an application, are there specific parameters that must be met for you to evaluate our product to see if it would fit your review criteria?

Any help on this would be very much appreciated.

Comments Closed.

MacMost Now 175: More iPhone Game Reviews

Comments: One Response to “MacMost Now 175: More iPhone Game Reviews”

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