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Appisode 92: iPad Protection, Apps Gone Free , Plus An App So Hot We’re Giving It Away

March 16th, 2010 Appstore Apps none Comments

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Spite and Malice, Castle Conflict and Monkey Flight are all free for a limited time.

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Review: Street Fighter IV

March 16th, 2010 Appstore Apps none Comments

Overview

The Street Fighter franchise is one of Capcom’s most popular franchises, and in a surprise announcement the franchise will be coming to the App Store. True to their word, it’s out for the iPhone and iPod Touch. With such a massive fanbase, I don’t doubt the game will succeed. However, does this mobile version provide a good enough experience, or does it fall flat on its feet? Read on to find out.

Features

Street Fighter IV has a roster of eight different characters including Abel, Blanka, Chun Li, Ryu, M. Bison, Guile, Dhalsim, and Ken. The game also includes seven different environments to fight in.

There are tons of moves in Street Fighter IV, with Focus Attacks, Super Combos, Ultra Combos, and more. The controls can also be moved around, tweaked in terms of transparency, and you can also unleash special moves with the “SP” button, or manually enter the combo.

Head-to-head fighting via a Bluetooth connection has also been included. In addition, a new “Dojo” mode teaches you how to play the game and become a good Street Fighter by giving you tips and a set of objectives with restrictions or requirements that you have to complete against an opponent. Both casual and hardcore gamers can play this alike, since there are four varying levels of difficulty.

The Good

The gameplay mimics arcade machine controls, since you’ll have the joystick on the left, with various punch, kick, focus attack, and special attack buttons on the right. You can choose to fight in a Tournament, Free Sparring, Dojo, or Training, and for the first two modes you can select the number of rounds (one, three, five, or seven) in each fight and whether special move assist (the SP button) and Auto Block are enabled or not.

You’ll fight against various characters with diverse attack styles. Street Fighter IV is definitely a Street Fighter game here: it’s not a mini-game like other big name games, but nor is it a revolutionary new interpretation. If you’ve played a Street Fighter game before, you’ll know how it works.

The graphics are sprite based, and they’re quite good-looking. The screenshots in iTunes don’t represent what you really see in game, since sprites caught in a still screenshot normally look out of place. I can assure you that the in-game graphics are better than what you see.

The “Dojo” mode is a worthwhile addition for new players, teaching them how to effectively use moves, specials and ultra attacks, as well as create combos with each of the eight characters. You can also unlock a survival mode called “An Endless Battle Royale” mode after completing all of the Dojo missions. The Dojo also gives ratings for how well you do on each exercise, and you’ll have to spend some time to get the highest rank, “S,” on every single one.

The fast loading times and numerous moves and combos are something that I must praise Capcom for. At the most, it takes around 15 seconds for me to select a character and stage, load everything, and start fighting (on a 2nd gen iPod Touch). The list of moves has not diminished either, and doubtless veterans will find their favorite moves in this game, and newcomers will marvel at the choices that they can select from.

The Bad

More characters and environments should definitely be added, since this game currently doesn’t have enough content to warrant the premium $10 price point. At the most, I’d value this game at around $5 for the included content, and another $5 just for the “Street Fighter” namesake alone, just like the Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies game that Activision released. In analyzing the value for your money, Street Fighter IV is vastly overpriced for what it currently has.

A control scheme utilizing the iPhone and iPod Touch’s strengths would also be nice. Gesture-based control schemes are innovative and fit the iPhone and iPod Touch’s screen, so they’d work just as well, if not better, than the standard d-pad and button combo.

In addition, the screen seems much too cluttered with such a big d-pad in one corner and four big buttons on the other side. Granted, the d-pad allows near-perfect execution of moves, but it’s aesthetically ugly and seems ripped straight out of the arcade machines. There’s so much innovation possible with a touch screen, but it seems Capcom didn’t take the time to add the extra things in.

Another thing is that the fighting mechanic is cheap – you can totally abuse some moves and just spam the same combo over and over and you’ll be able to win a round. This eliminates a lot of the fun and skill necessary when you hit upon a difficult opponent or challenge.

Also, Street Fighter IV’s save system is broken. Since this is a mobile game, a working save system is a must since you never know when you’ll have to close the game and do something else. Street Fighter IV has a save system, but it doesn’t work. If you’re in the middle of a tournament and quit the game, it will not save your progress. This is a major flaw and something Capcom should take a serious look at.

Lastly, the lack of online multiplayer is extremely disappointing. I was kind of expecting it to be included since this is at the top tier of iPhone and iPod Touch gaming pricing. Online multiplayer is all the rage for Street Fighter games, and it’s what the iPhone can excel at. Including it in this one would make up for some of the other missing or broken components of the game.

The Verdict

If you are a hardcore Street Fighter fan, you probably have already purchased this game. For casual fighting gamers and action game fans Street Fighter IV is something you should consider buying if you have $9.99 that you can spare, but the game is far from perfect.

Street Fighter IV is a worthwhile purchase and one that has the possibility to capture your attention for a good amount of time. On the other hand, there are many more fun, unique, and innovative games at more affordable price points on the App Store that give much better value for you money. Like stated earlier the game seems to have a larger price for the street fighter name, and not the quality of the game.

Keep in mind that the controls seem somewhat awkward at first for new players and that the save game system does not function. If you don’t like arcade fighters, then the game will seem like a repetitive button masher. On the whole however, Street Fighter IV is a good attempt by Capcom at a serious foray into the iPhone and iPod Touch gaming market, but there is so much more that it could have been, and many places it can improve on now.

Review: Gelex

March 16th, 2010 Appstore Apps none Comments

The Overview

When I first saw Gelex I yawned, “Ho hum, another Tetris-style, match three game.” But then I actually played it. Turns out the game was made by a 78 year old grandmother from the Czech Republic. THEN I got impressed.

In Gelex, you guide I or L shaped collections of 3 blocks to the bottom of the well, rotating them as they fall – all pretty standard Tetris stuff. When three or more blocks of the same color are touching sides, they dissolve – again, totally standard for the Match 3 genre.

This game gets its unique flavorful feel from the Flubberesque physics the blocks take on. Blocks don’t sit still at the bottom of the well – the dropping blocks bounce and toss around the other blocks.

As soon as three similar colored blocks touch sides, they are primed for dissolution. Even if they bounce apart, they will still disappear within seconds. This bouncing will also trigger blocks they touch of the same color – making the big chains.

Sounds fun right? Well there’s a downside. If any blocks have bounced above the game end line when the newest block enters, the game is over. Notice the screenshot directly to the right, I lost that game on the 3rd or 4th brick with a score 0 by bouncing a set of blocks then holding them up above the game end line. BTW… losing that badly is an achievement… awesome, huh?

The Features

Gelex has a ton of achievements to accomplish. Some of them feel nearly impossible (destroy 20 bricks in one turn? Nice!). And it allows you to post your achievements to your FaceBook page.

Not an actual feature of the game, but Marie has her own blog, The Good
Gelex has fun, cartoony graphics. The brick’s faces give great commentary on how they are being treated: angry, scared, elated, etc.

The bouncing physics of the gel blocks make precision placement difficult and creates the special atmosphere of the game.

The Bad
The pause button is tiny, hiding up in the right-hand corner and is a bit hard to hit.

Plus+ or OpenFeint integration would be nice…being able to post to FaceBook is okay, but the other scoring/achievement systems are becoming the defacto standard for all games.

The Verdict

Gelex is not just a fun match 3 game – it is an adventure in basic programming. Through Marie’s blog at grannycoder.com, you can see her development process. though not the best game in the App Store, it is definitely impressive that it was programmed by a septuagenerian in under four months (all while still taking care of her goat).

iPad Update: Find My iPad, Delayed Accessories, ePub Support, Battery Replacement & More…

March 16th, 2010 Appstore Apps none Comments

Along with the launch of the iPad pre-orders, Apple put up quite a lot of new details about the iPad’s features last week. The iPad is now actually boasting a tab of its own on Apple.com, but the interesting bits are scattered a bit all around. Here is what we found out:

Find my iPad

Just like the iPhone, the iPad can connect to MobileMe and take advantage of the find my iPhone/iPad features. You’ll be able to locate it, wipe it remotely, make it show a message or play an alert. You can actually get $30 off your first year of MobileMe if purchased with an iPad.

ePub support through iTunes

This is a very interesting one, the format selected by Apple for the iPad’s eBooks is an open-source one called ePub. While you won’t be able to export the eBooks bought in the iBook app, the opposite will be possible. Just take any eBook in the ePub format, drag it to iTunes, sync, and voilà!

Not only this means that you’ll be able to buy your eBooks in other ePub-supporting stores outside of the iPad, but this gives you the possibility to import on your iPad a huge collection of freely available books, like the ones from Google books. (And of course, the Gutenberg Project)

VoiceOver

Your iPad can read things like emails or eBooks out loud.

Delayed Accessories

If you haven’t pre-ordered your iPad case or your iPad keyboard dock already then you’re out of luck. Apple has started updating its delivery times on some of its accessories and the delays are important. The case has just been delayed two weeks to mid-april, and the keyboard dock all the way to May. Some believe this presages some major shortages.

Battery replacement policy

In the unfortunate situation your iPad would need to have its battery replaced, Apple will actually replace your iPad altogether. Out of warranty, the swap will cost you $99 + shipping and taxes.

Youtube Facebook sharing

You can share your favorite Youtube videos to Facebook right from the app.

The App Store to get a dedicated iPad section

Apple is dedicating a separate category in the App Store for iPad-specific apps.

Did we miss anything?

PayPal v2.0 Update Adds Loads Of Features And A New Look

March 15th, 2010 Appstore Apps none Comments

Before today the PayPal iPhone app was a complete yawn-fest not really worthy of a place on your springboard unless you were the kind of person who absolutely needed to send money while on-the-go because that’s basically all it could do, that and view your current balance and history. The recently released v2.0 however, gives the app some actually worthwhile features while also sprucing it up with a brand new interface.

PayPal iPhone app users will no doubt welcome the new look and feel in v2.0, sporting a more colorful and rich interface, but really it’s all about the features. The app now sports the somewhat gimmicky, although fun, Bump feature, allowing you to bump two devices together to quickly and easily transfer money.

PayPal v2.0 allows you to do a lot more with your money as well, giving you the ability to withdraw funds from your PayPal balance into your bank account, collect money from a group, event, gift, or cause, and request money.

Other neat features include the ability to instantly split a bill at a restaurant, calculate a tip, and request everyone’s share, and the ability to set reminders so you never miss paying a bill.

PayPal v2.0 is now available in the App Store for free.

Learn And Master Guitar On Your iPhone With Gibson

March 15th, 2010 Appstore Apps none Comments

The Gibson Les Paul is the best selling guitar of all time. With the Gibson Learn & Master Guitar App, you can now have one on your iPhone.

Gibson has teamed up with Legacy Learning Systems and Deepwell Software, to develop an App that they claim “is a must-have application for any guitar player”. Having bought a few of the best Guitar Apps available on iPhone I asked myself a simple question “what makes this app better than the rest?” The answer, as far as the Chromatic Tuner, Chord Database and Metronome are concerned is, nothing. These features are available as standard in any Guitar App in the App Store.

So why is the Gibson App so special? Well, The Gibson Learn & Master Guitar App, has an Ace up its sleeve with the “Lessons” feature. “Lessons” offers you free, full length guitar lessons from the award winning Learn & Master Guitar course for beginner, intermediate and advanced. “Lessons” puts this app ahead of the competition, particularly considering that it is free. It certainly is worth a look at for most guitarists, and even more so if you’re a huge Gibson fan.

Gibson Learn & Master Guitar App is available in the App Store – Free.

From GDC: Glu Mobile Announces Three New Games

March 15th, 2010 Appstore Apps none Comments

We met with Glu Mobile during GDC, and they revealed three new games. The first game is How to Train Your Dragon: Flight of the Night Fury which was released the day we met with them last Wednesday. The game is built upon the same engine as the Glyder series just with the Dreamworks movie tie in.

The gameplay itself is pretty similar, though there are a few simplicities like having a dragon so you don’t need to manage your air the same way as in Glyder. You can pick it up today, or wait for a full review which should be coming shortly.

The next game is called escape from NOM which is quite away from being finished, but we got to see a real early build. It’s a physics puzzler where you try to change the color of the nom to land in the colored pool at the bottom. You will need to use tools like bumpers to change color, deal with various hazards and switches, as well as enemies.

There are five different worlds with 10 levels each. On top of that a level editor is planned. The game is similar to Peggle in that you scroll to line up the nom to launch it through the course.

The final game is Stranded 2 Mysteries of Time which is a classic franchise they’re bringing to the iPhone. It’s an adventure game with a deluxe story that places you on an island trying to figure out its mysteries. You explore using virtual d-pad controls, and attempt to beat all the missions and sub-quests given by various characters you chat with.

The game plays unlike many other games in the App Store by allowing you to progress and fire at the same time in a top down view. In the end you’ll be figuring out mysteries of an island, and traveling though time, wait isn’t there a TV show with that premise? The game is expected to take quite a few hours to get through, and is arriving sometime in April.

Glu overall is a mobile game maker who makes games for all mobile platforms, and isn’t just on the iPhone/iPod Touch. They have the iPhone more in mind though recently, and are going to be bringing social features to their games, but whether it’s their own service or something like OpenFeint they haven’t decided.

From GDC: Hands On Preview Of Gameloft’s Zombie Infection and Fishing Kings

March 15th, 2010 Appstore Apps none Comments

Gameloft gave us hands on time with three upcoming games including Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction, as well as Zombie Infection, and Fishing Kings. Zombie Infection is another App Store game where you blast away zombies, but this is a game we’ve seen before. It’s very similar to Resident Evil 5, and even begins in Africa.

It’s a third person shooter with an over the shoulder camera. In the game all movement is slow, and you have to stop to fire. Controls are standard for Gameloft with a left virtual stick, and action buttons in the bottom right. You tap on the gun to aim, then tap again to fire, and then you have to holster it before moving on.

10 levels are included of zombie shooting action with a familiar storyline of a cameraman looking for his brother who picks up a female counterpart. I got hands on time of blasting away infected Africans in a slum type area, and then moved on to a zoo infested with zombie animals. An arena mode is also included for continuous zombie action, though the heart of the game is the campaign.

It’s another game that looks great running smoothly right in front of me. The zoo environment looked great with nice shadowing effects, as did the zombie enemies. The game progresses slowly though, and there’s always extra button presses to fire that you occasionally forget to do. A map in the upper right always shows you where to go so you’re never stuck or have to think, so you can play just as a mindless zombie.

You have to fire multiple times to kill any zombie, though when you get them to the ground you can walk over, and stomp on their head resulting in an explosion of blood. For a zombie shooter which are known for killing tons of zombies quickly, this one feels dull in comparison. The game is expected later this month, and we will have a full review once it’s released.

The third gameloft game we saw was Fishing Kings. It’s a fishing simulator that when you see it you instinctively think of Flick Fishing from Freeverse. The controls are similar where you flick to cast, and then spin the reel to reel in a fish. The difference is once you cast an underwater camera appears.

Now you see the fish, and can see when a potential bite is close. You can tell a fish is hooked when it jumps at you like popping out of the screen. Then you start to reel it in which will take a few minutes of tedious reeling. The fish will struggle hard, and your line will become tight quickly so you need to reel a little, then let go and just tilt the device in the direction the fish is going all in an attempt to tire it out.

The fish will finally give up for a little so you can reel it in quickly, but the fish will get a second wind, and more struggling will ensue. The entire time there is a voice over telling you what to do, like let it go left which is annoying to say the least. Five varying locations are included with three fishing spots per giving you 15 in total, and each location giving you appropriate fish (30 to catch).

The game is really well designed providing a deluxe 3D view above and below the water that no other fishing game on the iPhone has yet to provide. The game will be available later this month as well, and a full review will soon follow its release.

Overall from our sit down we can expect more of the same from Gameloft as they port existing ideas to the iPhone that look great. When actually playing though the gameplay will fall short of many other games in the App Store from developers who don’t have the name recognition to charge similar prices.

From GDC: Hands On Preview Of Gameloft’s Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction

March 15th, 2010 Appstore Apps none Comments

Gameloft showed us three upcoming games at GDC with the biggest name being Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction which is going to be very similar to the console version of the same name. If you’re unaware of the franchise it centers around Sam Fisher who after all the different games through the years has gone from being part of an elite NSA team called the “Third Echelon” to pretty much a rogue agent trying to save his kidnapped daughter.

In the upcoming iPhone version the game plays like the entire franchise where the goal is to be as stealth as possible. You can go in guns blazing, but more often than not you will be killed. The game is a third person shooter where you move in the shadows targeting enemies. You can also open up the action firing your way through levels, and a few levels are made that way.

The game features 10 levels across the globe, and I got hands on with the docks at night, and in the middle east. The default controls have a virtual stick in the bottom left, and action buttons on the right. In the top right corner there is an eye that shows how much you’re spotted.

Being a stealth game it gives you the opportunity to sneak up on enemies, and snap their necks, or shoot out the street lights, or even target multiple enemies from cover. Playing as Sam Fisher you know that you will have weapons, but more importantly you use all types of gadgets to get through.

From playing the game you instantly see how well it’s designed with the same 3D engine as NOVA, and runs smoothly on a 3rd gen iPod Touch. Gameloft knows how to make great looking games in a cookie cutter mold they’ve been given. The gameplay though for the most part has lacked that fun engaging experience giving you a pretty package without soul.

In limited play time with Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction it feels more of the same just going through the motions. Stealth type games are few and far between on the platform, but having great production values doesn’t make a great game. In only minutes with the game it was just moving from cover to cover tapping the multi target action button, and then tapping fire.

We’ll have a full review once it hits the App Store, and put the game to the test. The console game is coming April 13th, but we don’t have an exact release date for the iPhone version though it should be close to that time.

Confusing: Developers Who Complain Apple’s iPhone is Closed AND Think HTML5 is the Future

March 15th, 2010 Uncategorized none Comments

TechCrunch links to noted developer Tim Bray who’s taking a position as “Developer Advocate” at Google for Android but who announces it while taking a swipe at Apple’s iPhone and the closed nature of the App Store:

The iPhone vision of the mobile Internet’s future omits controversy, sex, and freedom, but includes strict limits on who can know what and who can say what. It’s a sterile Disney-fied walled garden surrounded by sharp-toothed lawyers. The people who create the apps serve at the landlord’s pleasure and fear his anger.

Which is completely and utterly wrong, of course. That’s Apple’s vision of the mobile, curated App Store which they intend to be a family friendly, corporately liable software repository. Apple’s vision of the mobile internet is Mobile Safari and its WebKit rendering engine and other technological underpinnings, most of which are open source and heavily supported by Apple.

You can, now, today, get porn on the iPhone via Mobile Safari. You can get Google Voice. You can pretty much get anything and everything without any interference from or need for approval by Apple. It’s the definition of the Winer-ian vendor-less platform Bray quotes. Never mind:

I’m going to have to get savvier about HTML5-based applications, because a lot of smart people think the future’s there, that the “native app” notion will soon seem quaint.

And HTML5 (which allows web-based apps to behave more like native apps) is something Apple has been pushing very hard as well (from promotion at Apple’s Developer Tech Talk World Tour to WebKit.org itself). And again, now, today, you can code and run some of the best, most robust HTML5 applications for mobile to run well on iPhone Safari — and other WebKit-based mobile browsers.

We’ve said many times Safari is Apple’s open app store, and Apple even includes it beside Mac and iPhone on developer.apple.com. That’s what confuses us about comments like Bray’s and TechCrunch’s mention of former Facebook for iPhone developer Joe Hewitt (who has since said the iPad is “everything he’s wished for”).

It’s awesome for Bray and Google and Android and developers, and we congratulate and wish all of them well on his new position. But it’s important to point out that while Apple’s App Store might be “closed”, Mobile Safari is wide open; if you’re a web developer it’s delivering as well or better than anyone else on the promise of of that platform today.

Confusing: Developers Who Complain Apple’s iPhone is Closed AND Think HTML5 is the Future is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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