Much as we may have wanted it, we’ve never been able to play against PlayStation owners from our Xboxes when it comes to games with the same name. On mobile platforms, it’s quite different though.
We’re going to see this kind of thing a lot more in the coming months. With numerous mobile game studios working on both iPhone and Android applications, it makes perfect sense that the games would be able to talk to each other. One of the first to market is Com2Us Homerun Battle 3D (iTunes link), a new variation of a previous iPhone game called Baseball Slugger. Though a well-regarded baseball game in its own right, the fact that you can play multiplayer games between iDevices and Android devices through an online connection without any fuss is the kind of thing that we wish console manufactures would have allowed with their online services from the beginning. Check out the video below from Touch Arcade to see it in action.
Apple’s big announcement today was certainly significant in terms of asserting the company’s dominance in the mobile space, but what does it really mean for gamers? We look at what was shown today, and ask Ngmoco founder and CEO Neil Young for his perspective.
This morning we spent some time with Apple’s new iPad tablet device at the company’s press conference and hands-on demonstration at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater in San Francisco. Given the ballyhoo and speculation, there was virtually nothing that Apple could have revealed that would have matched the hype, so it’s understandable that there has been some cynicism from observers.
Outside of the questions regarding the challenges Apple faces in introducing it’s “third pillar” (to borrow a term from Nintendo) it’s worth addressing a few questions and observations regarding the device’s strengths and weaknesses as a game platform. Truthfully, the game demonstrations at this morning’s press conference were arguably the least impressive of any of the products shown. Several groups were invited to test Apple’s new software development kit two weeks ago to see what they could do, and both Gameloft and Electronic Arts showed their results. Gameloft had spent some time adapting its online first person shooter N.O.V.A. to the device, while Electronic Arts made some tweaks to Need for Speed: SHIFT, it’s fast, tilt-controlled adaptation of the popular console game. Both titles are powered by the Open GL 2.0 graphics engine, so they scaled up nicely to the iPad’s larger screen, but they also exposed some aspects of iPad development that studios will have to adapt to quickly. For N.O.V.A., which uses and on-screen d-pad and fire button to simulate a console controller, there were definitely some physical issues to overcome. The iPad is not just a larger iPod Touch…it is actually a slightly different form factor because the screen doesn’t sit flush with edge of the device. As you can see in the photographs, there is a black frame around the edge of the screen. For games with on-screen d-pads, you now have to reach over the frame in order to place your thumbs on the screen – which is much more uncomfortable than playing on an iPhone or iPod Touch. Interestingly, the Gameloft team had started putting some thought into new multi-touch controls, including a novel way of targeting multiple enemies at once by drawing a box around targets.
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