Is anyone out there playing games on their iPad? I finally bought a couple of bigger games, Tiger Woods 2012, a couple of FPSs, and a driving game. Before that I mostly stuck with lighter games (Angry Birds, cribbage, etc) that were free. The games are downloading now so I haven't tried them. Is there a good way to search? I wanted an air combat game but couldn't really so anything but search for "air" and "flight" which gave me a lot of misses. They don't really have category browsing. I did a search for "retro" and found an Atari game center and Midway game center. The games are usually $0.99 to $6.99. The comments sections have two basic gripes: game crashes and paid upgrades. Updates seem to be hit and miss, sometimes causing more crashes than they fix. The upgrades are what bugs me. They seem to get you in at a low price but then constantly try to get you to buy more items to make the game complete. In some ways it's good since you won't really care deleting a game that was free or $0.99, other ways you realize that you really don't know what a game is like unless you constantly keep purchasing additions. It feels like getting nickled and dimed to death. I'd rather just know everything the game does, download a demo, and decide to purchase a full version for the full price if I want to, not buy rockets, then buy bombers, then buy turbos, then buy yadda yadda yadda... There's also a ton of junk to sort through so even if it's only a dollar or two you feel like you're spending money by randomly throwing darts at a board. Who knows if there are 10 better editions of what you're looking for.
So far I'm enjoying DoDonPachi HD, Espgaluda HD and Darius Burst -sp-. It might just be me, but I find controlling a shmup with your finger is much more precise than using an arcade stick, which is normally my preferred input method. If you want an air combat game, go for Sky Gamblers. If you have an appleTV 2 or 3 you can play the iPad game on your telly in 720/1080p using the iPad to control it. It's really quite impressive. Have a look on YouTube for some demo videos.
Unfortunately, you are in the minority on that one it seems. I'm looking at switching over to Unity for my games, which would give me Android and iOS capabilities, and the vast majority of games that I am seeing are freemium (free initially, but pay to unlock or keep playing after a while, may or may not have ads). It seems that players want everything for free, but are willing to do microtransactions.
Apart from a few games like the aforementioned Cave games and a few others, I'm pretty disappointed with the offerings for the iOS in general. Most of the efforts are lackluster and amateurish...reminscient of poorly made shareware titles. Even games based on proven formulas (ie: Super Mario Bros) seem to fall flat and are lacking in control and basic mechanics which elevate good games to 'superior' status.
To me iOS represents everything wrong about gaming. DLC, Horrible touch screen controls. Inferior versions of better games. Not to mention a new iwhatever every 6 months
I agree with the above regarding the rapid planned obselescence cycle. There's no way to upgrade your existing device. I understand Apple's desire to lock down the iOS and keep things realtively standard, but there's just no need for a new Ipad or Iphone just about every year. As it is, the upgrades are marginal.
The only "bigger" games worth playing are the Cave ones and the Monkey Island games, although they managed to make the classic graphics mode in Monkey Island unplayable, so you're stuck using the shitty 3D graphics. Beyond you should just stick to solitaire and puzzle games.
The Cave shooters are nice ports and the controls are OK. NOWHERE near the precision of an arcade stick though, and switching between styles (laser/shot) by pressing a "button" on a touch screen is beyond inconvenience. I absolutely hate it (I play the demo versions when I'm ultimately bored on the bus sometimes). And it costs $11... what the hell? I'm absolutely serious when I say that I'd rather buy the $500 arcade PCB than spend $11 on this crappy, worthless download shit.
Shmups are unplayable with touch controls. You need a precise stick or D-pad. The imaxipad and phone and pod do not have such a thing. and the iCade is a joke. So what's the point?
The Cave games actually work surprisingly well, considering that touch screen plus 2D shooter should equal disaster. Obviously nowhere near as good as using a stick or (Saturn) pad.
As I sad, they do work okay as long as you just move around but switching styles is a pain in the ass - and that's what you need do all the time, really. Maybe it's a matter of how you want to play the games. If you don't care that you die every second, ignore the score system entirely, just want to blast your way through and play it without thinking, yeah, then it might work for you. But then you could also play a round of chess on a deflatable boat swimming in a pool filled with creamed ale with a bunch of naked chicks throwing pies at you before licking it all off and savoring themselves in a bath of marshmallows while listening to max volume dubstep right next to you. That's about how of a fuck you'd give about that game of chess and that's about how much of a fuck someone gave about the actual shooting game when switching styles with a retarded touchscreen BUTTON.
Yeah, that's exactly what you do with a touch screen version. If you want to play it by giving it more thought, you play the console version. Besides, Cave's scoring systems are a load of convoluted shit anyway.
Tiger Woods 2012 is pretty good. It works well on the iPad. Not the best graphics in the world but if you want a standard golf game it's kind of hard to screw it up. I bought Metal Storm for air combat but I was playing it in bed last night and it's hard to use the motion function unless you're sitting upright in a regular chair. I got Modern Combat 3 but I haven't tried it out yet. They had a $0.99 special, down from $6. I'm curious as to how the controls will be.
Games crashing? really? a fully locked-down design with only two variations (three now but the ipad1 may be unsupported any day now) and they cant make games that wont crash? As far as serious gaming I guess you're stuck with a handful of games like deadspace and GTAIII, and now that new mass-effect but I havent played it so I dont know And freemium is the new shareware, remember that one? it was already old and being phased-out when I started playing games (and breathing, hehe) still found tons of disks even years after that Is the printer/gilette model where they give you the printer/razor but then you have to pay for the ink/blades to actually use it Believe it or not its TREMENDOUSLY profitable basically because the games are literally engineered not to be fun or provide an actual memorable experience but to be extremely addictive to the point that the player cant stop playing it, and because the gameplay is so poor and devoid of details they have to purchase virtual shit (I mean goods! right...) to enhance the "experience". Go ahead, ask any freemium player to describe you a memorable moment they had playing the game, in fact ask them to describe how it was to play that game for the first time. You'll get nothing... I have TONS of memories playing games, from everybody at the old game store being dumbstruck seeing Mario64 for the first time to some of my coworkers getting hooked to Vanquish (btw the dude with the Wii was playing alone).
And I have a Windows7 phone so I'm out of the loop. xD Although, I played the game on a friend's phone and just drew penises and she got PISSED. The word was "Zelda". So I drew a penis. I showed it to my friend and she said, "Erase that! They can see that!! BLAHBLAHBLAH" So I erased it, drew an outline of a penis, she told me to erase that. So I just drew the triforce and sent the picture. She was upset and i told her, "It's okay, they'll just think I was trying to draw a sword."
Give Epoch. a go. It's a gorgeous looking robot combat game running on the Unreal Engine. Also both the N.O.V.A. games. I completed the first one this weekend and started on the sequel. They play rather well and look fantastic on the New iPad's screen.
