GAMES

It’s been almost a month since a new Assassin’s Creed game was released on iPhone. For those of you suffering from withdrawal, Ubisoft today launched Assassin’s Creed II: Multiplayer on the App Store, and we recommend that you get it — soon. Even if you aren’t sure about the game, or don’t even like Assassin’s Creed, or are borrowing an iPod Touch from someone, you should get it. Because, for the next two days, ACII: Multiplayer is free (regular price is $2.99). The App Store listing confirms this promotion, so the release definitely isn’t a mistake this time.

As for the game itself, ACII: Multiplayer features a top-down perspective from which players attempt to find and kill each other, while blending into crowds in such a way as to avoid being spotted first.

Assassin’s Creed II: Multiplayer (Free):

‘Assassin’s Creed 2 Multiplayer’ iPhone game free until Wednesday originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We cover mostly productivity-related iPhone apps around these parts, but if you’ve got a little one who could use some educational—or just distracting—games, MetaFilter founder, blogger, and dad Matt Haughey has rounded up 14 kid-tested, parent-approved iPhone games for kids.

It started out innocuously. We were waiting for a table at a restaurant, my daughter was about two years old and fidgeting. I checked the App Store on my iPhone for a kid genre, found a fake phone game, and let her go to town on it. It saved the day and bought us 20 min of quiet time. Since then I’ve downloaded a lot of games and educational apps for my daughter (who is now four and a half) and I’ve been meaning to write up the ones I think are worth a few bucks and have stood the test of time, and here they are.

They’re not all free (most are a couple of bucks), but they’ve saved the parents in the Haughey household from many a long wait with an impatient kid. If that sounds like something you might appreciate from time to time, head over to the post for his full run-down. Got a little experience of your own hunting down great, kid-friendly iPhone apps? Share your favorites in the comments.

Electronic Arts has allegedly purchased Australia-based IronMonkey Studios, best known for developing several successful iPhone titles for the mega-publisher. If true, the purchase continues EA’s path of “restructuring,” as it strongly acknowledges the casual, online and mobile market.

Aussie website Tsumea broke the acquisition story using “very reliable sources,” noting that “details are very slim at the moment.” Our own attempts in getting EA to acknowledge the purchase are being answered by the sounds of silence. We’ll be sure to update as soon as EA decides to say anything — although, if it’s in Simlish, we’ll likely need a translator.

[Via Develop]

Rumor: EA buys developer IronMonkey Studios originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 23 Feb 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When Street Fighter IV lands on the iPhone in March, it won’t be as full-featured as 2009’s console versions. Then again, it won’t cost $50, either.

Capcom confirmed today that there will only be eight fighters available in the handheld version of the game, those being Ryu, Ken, Guile, Blanka, Chun-Li, Dhalsim, M. Bison and Abel.

A reduced roster comes with a reduced price, however, with the game set to retail for $10. Not a bad deal considering the graphics and all, but that control scheme is going to take some work…

Street Fighter 4 iPhone release details revealed: $10 in March with eight characters [GamePro]

We cover mostly productivity-related iPhone apps around these parts, but if you’ve got a little one who could use some educational—or just distracting—games, MetaFilter founder, blogger, and dad Matt Haughey has rounded up 14 kid-tested, parent-approved iPhone games for kids.

It started out innocuously. We were waiting for a table at a restaurant, my daughter was about two years old and fidgeting. I checked the App Store on my iPhone for a kid genre, found a fake phone game, and let her go to town on it. It saved the day and bought us 20 min of quiet time. Since then I’ve downloaded a lot of games and educational apps for my daughter (who is now four and a half) and I’ve been meaning to write up the ones I think are worth a few bucks and have stood the test of time, and here they are.

They’re not all free (most are a couple of bucks), but they’ve saved the parents in the Haughey household from many a long wait with an impatient kid. If that sounds like something you might appreciate from time to time, head over to the post for his full run-down. Got a little experience of your own hunting down great, kid-friendly iPhone apps? Share your favorites in the comments.

I’m a big proponent of games you can play with single taps on the iPhone and, as such, I was pretty skeptical about how well Call of Duty: World at War‘s zombie mode would make the leap to the diminutive platform. Though I’ve played FPS games that technically worked on iPhone, they’re very rarely something I find myself returning to.

Call of Duty: Zombies cleverly skirts the issue by providing so much help with aiming, you’re able to focus on what makes the mode so much fun on consoles.

Continue reading iPhone It In: Call of Duty: Zombies

iPhone It In: Call of Duty: Zombies originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 17 Feb 2010 21:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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After a two-year break from gaming, and a short trip into space to visit the International Space Station, Ultima creator and former NCsoft executive Richard Garriott is back, this time as the technical director of a social media company.

Austin-based Portalarium will focus on “developing and publishing online social games, virtual worlds and related services and products,” according to its website.

The company’s first product is The Portalarium Player, a web brpwser plug-in that is supposed to help games run seamlessly inside a variety of major social networks.

The first game to make use of this new player is Texas hold ‘em card game Sweet @$! Poker, which is in beta testing on Facebook. The plug-in is in development to run within MySpace and other social networks as well as the Mac, iPhone and Android.

“The Portalarium mission is exactly what I want to be doing next in games,” Garriott said in a prepared statement. “This really takes me back to my roots in the game business – small development teams, low barriers to entry, affordable budgets for quality projects, and unlimited new interactive frontiers to explore together with our customers.”

Other company execs at Portalarium include Dallas Snell (chairman and development director) and Fred Schmidt (CEO and publishing director), both of whom previously worked together with Garriott as executives at ORIGIN Systems, Electronic Arts and, most recently, NCsoft. Stephen Nichols, who spent his entire 17-year gaming career in online games, most recently as producer and lead programmer of NCsoft’s Dungeon Runners, will be the company’s vice president and technical director.

I’ll be interested to see what this group does in a space that is becoming increasingly important to all types of gamers. It certainly isn’t the sort of gaming start-up I’d expect from the person behind Ultima Online and a slate of other massively multiplayer online games.

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting tired of waiting for the perpetually delayed Plants Vs. Zombies to make its way onto the iPhone. Fortunately, Trenches has been satisfying my itch for side-scrolling tower defense gaming.

Trenches drops you smack dab on top of enemy lines during World War I’s gas, artillery… and yes, zombie ground warfare as you command troops desperate to defeat the refreshingly non-Nazi Germans.

Loved
Trench Warfare: In the game you use a slowly rising budget to call out one of four British troop types or order attacks by gas and shell. Instead of waiting for enemies to come to you, you tap and swipe the screen to urge your troops to advance or retreat across the scrolling battlefield. The goal is to make your way past the barbwire, the trenches and the Germans to the opposing bunker to blow it up and advance to the next level.

Skirmish: The campaign mode of the game, recently tweaked with the addition of special levels that have you assassinating or protecting special units, is a lengthy and fun experience. But it ends. The Skirmish modes don’t. These modes let you choose your map, the difficulty and whether it ends for limitless fun. The most recent update also added some new ways to plays, like making you take out a set number of enemies with artillery only. Or protecting a limited number of troops until they make it to the other side.

ZOMBIES!!!: The zombie infection, it appears, has spread from World War II to World War I. In this mode your brave soldiers, (riflemen, snipers, machine gunners, and mortars) try to stave off an ambling mass of the undead. You can’t win, but you can certainly take a bunch of the rotting bastards with you.

I loved playing Trenches when it first hit, but I had a few minor reservations. All of those have been resolved with the latest patch which added new types of play to the campaign, tweaked the look of the goal and starting point for troops and added the ability to command an entire screen of troops with one gesture.

Upcoming updates to the game promise to deliver cooperative and competitive multiplayer, more units and factions and extra skirmish mode, which is fantastic, but not necessary. Trenches is already an amazing game.

Trenches was developed and published by Thunder Game Works for the iPod Touch and iPhone on Jan 28. Retails for $.99 USD. A copy of the game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes. Played all game types in both campaign and skirmish modes.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

We talk about a wide variety of iPhone games in this feature, but we’re increasingly in support of games like Canabalt which require just a single touch to play. Call us lazy, but one-thumb tapping seems to be the exact amount of interaction we need on our phones, and Crush the Castle, our latest iPhone addiction, delivers on just that.

You play as a sentient trebuchet attacking an increasingly intricate and fortified series of castles filled to the brim with royalty and their servants. With a single touch, you’ll start the firing arc, with a second tap to choose the exact moment to release your (increasingly potent) ammunition. The fewer shots it takes you to bring down the castle, the greater the reward, in the form of bronze, silver and gold medals.

Continue reading iPhone It In: Crush the Castle

iPhone It In: Crush the Castle originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 28 Jan 2010 19:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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EA and Blue Planet Software confirm Alexey Pajitnov’s hallmark puzzler has become “the best-selling mobile game of all time.”

Tetris has been a staple in the gaming industry for more than 25 years. Created by Alexey Pajitnov while he was working at the Computer Centre in the Russian Academy of Science, the seminal puzzler was initially programmed for the Electronica 60 and has since seen iterations on platforms ranging from the original Game Boy to current-generation systems such as the Wii and Xbox 360.

Tetris hit the big time on the NES.

Today, the Associated Press reports that Tetris is the best-selling mobile game of all time, achieving in excess of 100 million paid downloads on cell phones globally. EA Mobile and license holder Blue Planet Software confirmed the news for the AP, and the publisher is expected to make its official announcement tomorrow.

EA declined to say how much revenue Tetris has generated, though the wire service notes that the iPhone edition of the game runs for $5. EA Mobile vice president Adam Sussman told the AP that Tetris is currently available in 60 countries and is compatible with 64,000 different handset models.

For more on Tetris, check out GameSpot’s interview with Pajitnov from the 2007 GameCity event in Nottingham, England.

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