It’s been 5 months since I purchased this lovely device with the explicit intention of playing a ton of games on it. I imagined I would read the occasional e-book and article, perhaps write a quick blog post. But the purpose, the raison d’etre, of an iPad in my life would be games. My mind soon filled with images of all the remarkable games that would consume my time. I was, to say the least, optimistic.
Today, I’m slightly more pragmatic about the iPad. Like when the iPhone first got the App Store, the iPad’s initial batch of games have been a mixed bag. I often feel apologetic when describing the challenges that iOS developers face. What do you do with an iPad? It’s a massive slab of multitouch glass with an accelerometer. Challenging or not, some games on the iPad are little more than a developer charging 200-300% more for their game after they’ve slapped on some high-res graphics and then tweaked the control schemes a bit. These games suck–even if they are good. On the other hand, a few nobler developers simply updated their iPhone apps to be universal. These devs are to be sainted by The Mac Gamer Monster. In addition, there are those few gems out there that manage to create something uniquely suited to the iPad as a gaming device.
For this part, the first, I will focus on the Universal games. They are by far the best bang for your buck. In many cases, universalness not with standing, they are some of the very best games on my iPad.
In no particular order:
Canabalt: Run really fast, faster, faster, faster, oops! I played this game a lot during my pre-iPad days. In Canabalt you’re a little pixelated dude running over rooftops (presumably) trying to stay alive in the midst of some massive, city-wide invasion. Survival is the only reward. And this is measured in distance ran. You tap to jump and avoid the myriad of obstacles that can bring about you’re untimely death. With a kick ass soundtrack, and unlimited replay value, Canabalt is the best $5 I have spent in the App Store. That it was updated to run universally simply cemented that fact. My advice: buy this game now.
Chopper 2: This is the sequel to the original App Store classic. And it is packed with so much kick-assedness that I almost feel guilty not giving it a proper review. It uses a two-and-a-half dimensional view that, while maintaining the same side-scrollish action of the original, adds a wonderful sense of depth. Its gameplay is consistent with its predecessor: you machine gun, bomb, land and then rescue. But new to the mix is a video-out mode that allows the iPad and iPhone to export to a monitor while using the device as a controller. If that wasn’t enough, the real coup de grace is a feature I’d only seen on jailbroken NES emulators: when you load the game on both the iPad and iPhone or iPod Touch, you can use the iPhone as a controller and the iPad as its display. OMFG <head explodes>. This could come off as purely gimmick, but it works incredibly well and makes for a very impressive tech demo.
Solipskier: I hate the name, and I can’t really pronounce it, but the gameplay is fantastic. I call it the love child of Line Rider and Canablt. In it, you use your finger to draw the slopes that your skier will ski on.
Shanghai: This game isn’t likely to get a lot of mention from the hardcore gamers, but if you saw how old school gamblers in China play Majhong you’d change your mind. Majhong is a game we’ve all likely played at some point in some variety and at its core it’s basically a memory game. It’s been around since at least the 16th century and this is arguably the best digital version of the game I’ve ever played. It’s beautifully designed, with various tile sets and the ability to download more. It’s also universal and updated with retina graphics for the iPhone 4.
Mega Worm: This one is much more recent. This is the iOS equivalent of a movie like Mega Shark vs Giant Squid. You control an initially not so mega worm that chews through dirt to emerge topside and swallow whole men, women, dogs, cattle and as the game progresses, trucks, tanks, airplanes, helicopters, parachutists, balloonists, and hang gliders. You are aided in this orgy of destruction by the fact that you can slam the A button to speed up and, after you play through a few levels and evolve, also shoot acid and fire from your mouth and detonate EMP devices that you have in your belly. Everything about this game is fun, the pixel graphics, the music, even the little speech bubbles people have asking you not to eat them. My only gripe is that the game is over too quickly but even so it’s still a blast to replay.
The Incident: Yes it’s a little too precious and over designed but it’s this attention to detail that makes the game such a delight to play. In fact where it not for the minutia of detail in that 8-bit version of a Herman Miller chair (famous for being the favorite high end ergonomic chair of dot com bubble start-ups) that just bounced off my head, the game might actually be fairly mediocre. It is after all not terribly complicated. You’re this guy, and your sole objective is trying to go higher on the mountain of crap that keeps falling from the sky while avoiding being flattened by a falling fridge, flat panel monitor, or German looking smart car. Collect coins and a few miscellaneous power ups that help keep you alive a bit longer. In some ways the game could be considered a sort of allegory on modern consumerism. The controls use a mixture of the accelerometer to move left and right and taps on the screen to make your fellow jump.
Version 1.2 (which was released while I wrote this) takes a page from Chopper 2 and lets you use an iPhone/iPod Touch as a controller. The iPhone screen is replaced with a graphic of the character dreaming and a thought bubble that gives you a preview of what the next piece to fall is going to be. This is an unequivocal dose of awesome and, as the second game to use this, is one of the perks of having a universal app. I hope more devs pay attention and implement this control scheme. It’s a joy to use and feels like I have a tiny gaming console.
Strategery: Risk, but cooler looking. It’s Risk for the hipster, cool hunting, Daring Fireball crowd with sleek ultra minimal graphics. The maps are all randomly generated so you won’t be pretending to be Hitler taking over the Asian Continent, but in some ways this actually makes the gameplay more intense. This is the Risk gameplay distilled to its very core. It’s maddeningly difficult at times against the A.I but also includes a decent multiplayer mode. Another wonderful universal update for an old iPhone game.
Predators: This game is so fucking awesome. I wish the Robert Rodriguez movie had been this good. You’re a predator and you have to kill a bunch of people including Danny Fucking Trejo, which alone is worth the price of admission. If that wasn’t good enough you have semi RPG-ish elements where by you gain points for how creatively you dispatch your enemies which you use to upgrade your various weapons, claws, laser beams, nets, and armor. The main campaign is a fairly quick play through but the Survival mode is just a delightful way to blow off some steam massacering wave after wave of human guerillas.
That’s it. Those are my Universal iOS must haves. I’m sure there are others that I either think suck or just haven’t played. So feel free to sound off in the comments and check back for Part II covering iPad-only games next week.
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