iGame Radio

 

ETA: Apologies, everyone…with all the whirl prepping for Macworld, the wrong episode had been playing here. Fixed now.

What’s inside this episode:

• A review of the long awaited Bioshock, by Feral Interactive, the FPS that pits you against the insane inhabitants of the underwater city of Rapture, and their Little Sisters.
  
• Plus, a review of Crush the Castle, a strategy shooter of sorts for the iPhone. See yon castle fair? Now go beat it down with thy trebuchet in tiny bits!
  
• Finally, a review of Groovin’ Blocks, a musical puzzler that brings new life to old Tetris-clones worldwide. Bring ‘em down to the beat, and multiply your score. Because I love my C64. Well, that should have been one of the lyrics to the song, I think.
  

Show Notes:

• The trials and tribulations of being a Macworld 2010 GameSalad Challenge judge. Pity me.
• The Apple iPad. Did you think I’d talk about anything else? Oh, and the cool games we might see….Plants vs Zombies…oooooooooh….

Music Notes:

• Michael Hu-wong featured music on the show from Fizzball. You can get more information about Michael Hu-wong’s work from his site Game Noise.
• Steven Johnson featured music on the show from Escort Wing.

Really, it’s all GameSalad’s fault that the podcast is delayed! I’ve been spending this week playing more games than any human should. I’ve had to play over 30 games for the Macworld 2010 GameSalad Challenge, of which I am a judge, and then do the painstaking job of whittling all those games down to a top 5 list. It wasn’t easy, and I ended up setting some personal criteria for it that I will talk about later (like, after the judging is all completely over). But took up so much of my time that I wasn’t able to get to writing the reviews for this week’s games until this afternoon, and I still have one game left to write up.

I think you’ll like this podcast because I’ll be talking gaming on the iPad (no, I will not be making those jokes, because I’m above that sort of thing, you know!), and I did something a little different with the Bioshock review that is interesting.

So, pop by here tomorrow to get your iGame Radio fix!

European game developer Nordcurrent has released a game compilation for the iPhone, 101-in-1 Games for the iPhone, guaranteeing that people will mispronounce the title. But at least folks will think they got a free extra game out of the deal. Heh.

Composed of 101 mini-games for the iPhone, 101-in-1 Games for the iPhone let’s you play the first 10 games unlocked. As you gain more points, more mini-games are unlocked, allowing you to play more. Some mini-games require more points than others to unlock. Games range across the genres, including puzzle, racing, sports, cooking, and shooting style games. From the screenshots, they all look like original games, rather than licensed IP, so you’ll be playing new games with this.

The game is available for $2.99 for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

The announcement has been made, and the rumors became true. Not that I had any doubts that Apple would be releasing a tablet Mac. The real rumor would be what it was called.

It’s the iPad (cue Maxipad jokes in 3, 2, 1…).

What is the iPad? It might best be described as a cross between a netbook and an iPhone. A tablet sporting the iPhone OS, using a custom Apple chip running at 1GHz. The screen is 9.7 inches long (basically, 10 inches), 1/2 inch thick, and is an LED touchscreen. The sucker weighs in at about 1.5 lbs, and uses the same mechanisms that an iPhone uses for the home and sleep/awake switches. A battery that Apple claims will hold for 10 hours of normal use is inside. No word yet on whether it can be replaced, but I’m betting not unless you’re an “Apple Certified Technician”.

No USB…connecting via a dock mechanism. I’m not too impressed with that. However, there is a dock mechanism for holding up the thing and connecting a keyboard to type with. Wifi includes 802.11n, also 3G if you’re willing to pay extra. Still AT&T, but big bonus, NO CONTRACT REQUIRED. Bluetooth and GSM also included. Lastly, 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB drives available.

For the software side, includes Safari, Mail, iPhoto, YouTube access, iTunes, an iPod app, a new iBook app, and instant access to all of the App Store apps currently available. The iBook app is Apple’s new ebook reader. Yeah, they’ve gone so green that they’ve decided to recycle names now.

When the iPad is available, you can buy it for $499 for 16GB, $599 for 32GB, or $699 for 64GB. This is for the Wifi only version. Want 3G? Add $130 on top of that.

So, what about games? Well, Steve Jobs said that a couple of weeks ago, they invited a few developers to take a look at the iPad and see what they could produce. Gameloft came on stage first to show off what they had done. Nova is a shooter wherein they took advantage of the entire screen real estate to best effect. EA also came on stage to show off Need for Speed, which apparently ran quite smoothly. They were able to add additional features to the game because they had so much more space on the screen, such as the ability to look inside the car.

So, what is the future of this device? What has been the response from people? How will it do with gaming?

First, I’ll start with the response. I noticed that from those who are intimately tied to the programming world…i.e. those that are programmers, and especially those that would have the skill to tweak their own devices for doing what they want…the response has been mostly negative. They are not interested in something that they don’t see will improve performance for them. Basically, they have everything set up the way they want it right now, and the iPad won’t fill a niche for them because, quite frankly, there isn’t a niche to fill.

And I hate to let them in on a big secret that they apparently haven’t figure out, but THEY AREN’T THE TARGET MARKET. The majority of the people who will be buying this device are the folks who overwhelmingly bought the iPod. And they are much more positive towards the iPad. This is a device for the consumer to consume media content. Not for the producer to produce more.

Will it revolutionize the ebook world with the iBook app? No, I don’t really think so. And I don’t think that’s it’s intent. But I have to tell you, when I wake up in the mornings, and when I am finished for the day and spend my evenings in the living room, much of the time I’m sitting on a couch or comfie chair with my laptop open, surfing the web, checking email, and doing work that doesn’t require GHz in speed. Or just playing games that don’t require Teh Pro System to play. This would be the perfect fit for me, because lugging the Macbook Pro around the house is a pain in the butt. And I’m quite certain a significant portion of the population of the US, Canada, Europe, and even Asia will probably agree.

As far as gaming is concerned, obviously you’re not going to be playing Dragon Age: Origins on this thing. And why would you want to? This is the perfect device for the online gaming scene. I hesitate to use the word “casual” at this point, because that word tends to conjure up images of hidden object and puzzle games, when that industry has grown far past that point. The increased real estate allows for a large number of choices that the iPhone did not provide before in gaming.

So, will this actually go anywhere? That’s super hard to say. Frankly, at this point, I’m on the fence about it. I’m excited by the gaming potentials regarding it. If I were a consumer and I was looking for a new electronic device for media consumption, I’d be interested in this device. But I think that I’ll have to really play with it a bit to decide just how useful it is in the everyday world. I think I’ll take the wait and see attitude at this point.

Oh, and for the record? If there were more women in the tech industry, tragedies like calling an electronic device an “iPad” wouldn’t happen. Just sayin’.

The major Apple event that everyone is talking about wherein our precious Tablet and who knows what else (I can haz iPhone 4G, anyone?) will/may be revealed will start momentarily. If you want to keep up on the latest you can hop onto live blogging sites such as The Loop or Mac|Life. I will also be watching these sites and will be tweeting the latest and greatest news as they happen. Lastly, I’ll provide an overview afterwards.

Republic of Fun announced yesterday the launch of Slug Wars, a real-time strategy game involving unarmed mollusks (you did know slugs were mollusks, right?) fighting epic battles. Because, you know, slugs fight brave wars across yards across the worlds daily. You knew that, too, right?

Available for both iPhone and iPod Touch, Slug Wars involves managing units as they slime down one of three lanes to attack the enemy base, rebuffing enemies along the way. There are eight different slug combat units, including an awesome salt-shaker wielding suicide slug (should I not be saying that?), and you must decide the most effective order to release them in to defeat the enemy base.

Slug Wars has a single-player Campaign and Skirmish mode, or you can engage in the two-person Slug-It-Out mode by challenging a friend. The game is available for $1.99 in the App Store.

Freeverse has announced the imminent arrival of Parachute Ninja, a platform game for the iPhone. Sling a ninja (or at least part of him) through 30 levels in 4 regions using tap-activation for the parachute. You’ll be defeating enemies and collecting fireflies through both a story mode and a survival mode.

You can challenge yourself, friends, and family with online leader boards and Plus+ support for gathering awards. And the price upon release will be only $0.99.

99Games launched Create a Mall for your iPhone in the App Store today. Another in the line of simulation games, Create a Mall lets you build your mall up during the game, by purchasing jewelry, clothing, or office decorations. Despite the game’s name, it seems that you are not creating a mall from scratch, but populating mall’s already in existence with stores for customers to use.

The game comes from a partnership between Roiworld, a fashion and gaming web site acquired by Lifetime Networks in 2008, and social media and computer games publisher Merscom. You can purchase the game for $3.99 in the App Store.

Warheads, an action arcade shooter, is the latest iPhone endeavor to come from the iPhone hothouse of Pangea Software. Basically Missile Command updated for the 2000-oughts, the game features great 3D graphics and powerups to defend against the missiles raining down upon you. Just tap the screen to launch your own missiles to intercept them. New audio has also been introduced to complete the picture.

Warheads requires iPhone OS 3.0 or later, and uses the iPhone 3GS’s faster 3D graphics capabilities. You can pick it up for just $0.99.

Okay, now with that sad attempt to link into this not-quite-having-anything-to-do-with-games post out of the way, I can mention that Heatwave Interactive has announced a contest to give away an 8 GB iPod Touch to the lucky winner who comes up with the perfect Samuel L. Jackson one-liner to be included in the iSamJackson iPhone app. Heatwave is a new game studio that is attempting to develop games with crossovers in film and television. They’ve released an iPhone app of Samual L. Jackson one-liners (by the man himself) that you can, uh, replay at, uh, I suppose appropriate times. Or something. Someone out there will get something out of that.

But, hey, you can get a free iPod Touch out of it if you come up with the winning one-liner. Think mine will win?