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Command & Conquer: Red Alert iPhone

Zack Stern — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:16:04 -0600

You can hide the clutter on the right, but you'll often need to use those commands.

Command & Conquer: Red Alert translates a great Mac and PC game into an adequate iPhone title. Instead of designing the action around the portable device, this version feels like developers crammed in as much of the full computer game as possible. We wanted a nimble, portable, action-strategy blitz, but got a clumsy game that frustrates as much as it entertains.

Red Alert casts you as commander of either a U.S.-European alliance or Russian threat in an alternate-history battle for the world. Fanciful sci-fi units, including attack bears, zeppelin bombers, and electrified turrets create most of the excitement.

You'll occasionally need to construct buildings before battle.

The strategy unfolds from those units' specific abilities. Bombers go unchallenged unless you have fighter planes or surface-to-air guns available; and tanks roll over rocket-launcher infantry in close range but are in danger if the soldiers are perched in buildings. This depth is the best part of Red Alert, although if you just amass enough powerful tanks, for example, you can often muscle past strategic attacks.

Red Alert downplays its building construction. You'll still want to strategically place defensive turrets to keep foes out of your base, but in the story mode, most everything is built for you already. And in those situations, you'll almost never run out of money, so you don't have to create buildings that mine resources for money. The cost per unit feels irrelevant; just keep buying more to slowly chip at the enemy.

Select missions cast you as an army of one, tossing strategy aside.

While sufficient, the game controls left us wanting a mouse and keyboard. You'll tap single units to make selections, and tap an enemy to attack. Double-tap a unit, and the game will select all of the same type. A mode lets you draw a box around units, select everything on the screen, and even toggle between three collections of your own choice. But we needed more precision, getting frustrated by trying to tap a vulnerable engineer out of a cluster of tanks. And a big palette of building commands often gets in the way of on-screen action.

The game felt buggy and slow on an iPhone 3G. Especially after creating a big army, audio effects stuttered, and we had to make multiple scroll and zoom gestures to see results. Red Alert took about 35 seconds to first load, and often 30 seconds to begin a level. It crashed occasionally, too.

Hands-on Impressions: Command & Conquer: Red Alert for iPhone

Zack Stern — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 17:36:49 -0500

Allied forces charge ahead.

Like Rock Band, Command & Conquer: Red Alert for the iPhone takes a game many will recognize and effectively condenses it into Apple's handheld device. If you've led troops through the PC or Mac strategy game, this version will be instantly familiar. I've been advancing through a pre-release version and am looking forward to EA shipping the title later this month.

In the iPhone edition, you'll still build up bases and armies for battles. On-screen taps create most of the same soldiers, tanks, and other vehicles as the original game, plus you'll get most of the same building options, including defensive turrets, power stations, and airbases. You'll move troops and attack enemies by tapping a destination.

Want to pay a dollar for more stuff? There's a map for that.

Some of the complexity is cut in the translation, which seems like the best choice for an iPhone game. Units lack the same sorts of upgrades and special powers as in the computer version; instead, each type tends to serve a single, main function.

But the game plays out in a similar style. You can heard units together in up to three preset groups, double-tap to pick all units of the same type, or select multiple units by dragging a selection box. These controls work well on the iPhone, although units often act dumb, having trouble automatically driving together over a narrow path, ignoring attacking enemies, and otherwise being absent-minded. Hopefully, EA can improve these issues ahead of the game's release.

Russia gets its revenge.

Otherwise, for better--and occasionally worse--Red Alert behaves much like its long-running Mac/PC strategy originator. Some battles can feel drawn out; while you can stop and resume in the middle of a fight, Red Alert demands a longer attention span than many iPhone games. There's no multiplayer option, and you choose from two factions instead of three. The game will ship with 12 levels, although in-app purchases could expand its length.

But the crafty, strategy core feels intact. There's always a certain unit that works best to defend or attack in a given situation. Discover and exploit these patterns, and you'll feel like a brilliant general.

The end, until you play as the other side.

RockBand Heads to iPhone/iPod touch

Cory Bohon — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 16:37:19 -0500

A mobile version of the popular music rhythm game franchise, RockBand, will be heading to an iPhone or iPod touch near you soon enough. TechCrunch is reporting that the game should be due out in mid-October with 20 songs (15 playable up front, 5 unlockable).

There's no announced price, but we do have some additional info about the game. It will feature Bluetooth gameplay, allowing 4 people to rock out together in regular Rockband fashion (vocals, drums, bass and guitar).

The gameplay is the same as what you might find in TapTap Revenge in that you tap on the notes to play them. The vocals are done the same way -- sorry, you won't be able to belt out your favorite tune while you wait for your bus. See the video above for a demonstration of each instrument.

Here's the full track listing:
“Attack” – 30 Seconds To Mars
“Girls Not Grey” – AFI
“Move Along” – All American Rejects
“Sabotage” – Beastie Boys
“All The Small Things” – Blink-182
“Hanging on the Telephone” – Blondie
“Learn To Fly” – Foo Fighters
“Everlong” – Foo Fighters
“Bad to The Bone” – George Thorogood & the Destroyers
“Hymn 43″ – Jethro Tull
“Bad Reputation” – Joan Jett
“Simple Man” – Lynard Skynard
“Ace of Spades ‘08″ – Motorhead
“Debaser” – Pixies
“Ladybug” – Presidents of The United States of America
“Give It All” – Rise Against
“Lazy Eye” – Silversun Pick Ups
“Cherub Rock” – Smashing Pumpkins
“Take The Money and Run” – Steve Miller Band
“We Got The Beat” – The Go Go’s

Video via MacRumors.

Madden NFL 10

Zack Stern — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 03:46:00 -0500

Without Favre, Green Bay has no chance.

How do you distill the most complicated, true-to-life videogame sports series into an iPhone game? Instead of clearly aiming for either the casual football gamer or simulation nut, Madden NFL 10 tries to reach both players. It's fun overall, but each side of that audience will find faults.

Football fans still get a lot in the iPhone game. All of the teams, stadiums, and players are represented, with EA promising paid, downloadable updates to rosters as the real season continues. You can dive into a single game, or play through a full season of this year's schedule; including trades to craft an only-in-the-game super team. Dozens of plays are available, letting you call the right moves on offense and defense.

You can't audible, but you can re-draw pass routes just before the snap.

Casual players will appreciate smaller touches. Instead of calling offensive audible, you can re-route receivers by drawing a new path with your finger. You'll tap an open player to throw passes. While the game clock counts down with NFL rules, there's no play clock or penalties, letting you pick up and put down an in-progress game at anytime.

But all players will be let down by the controls, pushing an on-screen joystick and tapping superimposed buttons. Ball carriers feel sloppy, unable to nimbly change direction. There's no tutorial mode to teach with passing, kicking, and tackling drills either.

That mess of buttons changes in context, but you'll mostly scramble for the stopwatch icon.

Plays unfold too quickly to feel like you're in command; you'll constantly poke for the stopwatch button to slow down time and execute fake-out movements, interception attempts, and other precise actions. The time manipulation only barely works; we wanted the whole game to feel more responsive versus slowing it down when needed.

Ads!? Are you kidding? You'll have to look up that phone number yourself. At least you can't dial from the app.

The graphics and animation look good at first, but grow disappointing. You can clearly see what's happening, but the ball rarely looks like it's caught or handled; it teleports from flight into possession. Players rarely tackle, and instead just run into each other and fall down.

Spore and Galactic Adventures Now Fail on Multi-Processor Macs [Updated]

Zack Stern — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 18:34:25 -0500

This article has been updated with details from TransGaming below.

Don't open the shrink-wrap.

I enjoyed Spore at its launch last fall, even though I faced many bugs. So I was looking forward to the first real expansion pack, Galactic Adventures. (I'm not counting the weak Creepy & Cute cash-in.) Too bad the updated game--and even the original--won't launch on a dual-processor Mac anymore.

I'm playing on a loaded Mac Pro, and even though I couldn't find any official recognition on Spore message boards, EA told me that dual-processor Macs face this problem. A game update in the past few months introduced this bug, since I'd been playing fine before.

EA representatives admitted the issue and said that they're waiting for TransGaming--the Mac developer--to fix the problem. But other than saying that the companies are working on it, EA had nothing significant to add.

I have no idea when to expect a fix. And that's too bad if you just bought the game for your high-end Mac and had no warning. At least you can commiserate with me in the comments here.

Look, EA, TransGaming: fix this, and break this trend. Am I asking too much to expect games to be bug-free, especially from these show-stoppers? Sometimes, I actually wonder if I'm too demanding, given the record between those companies. Have gamers been so beaten down by buggy titles that they're more tolerant of problems?

EA had exited the Mac market before enlisting TransGaming and its Cider Engine to port over Windows software. Since Macs and Windows PCs run on essentially the same hardware now, the Cider Engine acts as a wrapper around the original Windows game code to translate those requests into Mac commands. With this approach, EA, Ubisoft, and a few others have shipped about two dozen Mac titles.

I want to play games on my Mac Pro, but if this is the typical result, I'm starting to reconsider. Why do I even bother? I can get a better experience on an Xbox 360 or even a Windows PC. Or maybe I should stick with smaller companies that seem to respect the Mac audience more.

Update 8-12: A TransGaming representative responded to this article, saying that the company had previously identified this problem. A patch "is in the deployment process and should be available to consumers shortly," according to the spokesperson.

Details from EA suggested that this bug would affect a wide margin of multi-processor systems, but the TransGaming representative has "confirmed this occurrence in less than a handful of cases" and says it's not a greater multi-processor issue.

I look forward to the patch and will update this post when Spore works again.

Apple Stores Preview The Sims 3

Zack Stern — Thu, 28 May 2009 14:22:54 -0500

Click to embiggen. And I was like "no way!"

The Sims 3 will be released on June 2 for OS X, iPhones, and Windows (if you're into that whole Hodgman thing). But you can get a jump on the game at any Apple store now, with a demo of the Create-a-Sim stage.

This first stage of the dollhouse-style simulator lets you define your characters. Gamers pick from more than 60 body types, facial features, hair styles, attitudes, and emotional traits to create unique results. Sims also relish style, with players choosing clothing and otherwise customizing their look.

In the full game, you'll guide up to 8 finished sims throughout their lives, engaging in relationships and careers. The Apple Store demo includes just the character creation; you'll have to wait until the full release before exploring the game world. The setup also just gives a sample; you won't be able to transfer Apple Store-created sims into the full game later.

But if you're losing sleep waiting for The Sims 3 release, the Apple Stores are the only place offering a hands-on glimpse before June 2.

Hands-On Impressions: The Sims 3 for iPhone

Zack Stern — Mon, 25 May 2009 03:25:03 -0500

Many clothing choices help your sim be popular.

The Sims 3 on previous dollhouse-style simulators subtly, by adding more ways to interact with other characters. Other under-the-hood changes add deeper, smarter characters, but it's mostly the same The Sims again. I recently played the Mac and iPhone versions of the title, which EA is readying for a June 2 release.

Both versions looked good, but I'm actually looking forward to the iPhone edition more; as a casual fan of The Sims, the simplified iPhone game seemed more appealing. But even Sims-crazy gamers will enjoy how much of the full Mac game fits into the go-anywhere iPhone. However, you won't be able to migrate characters between the games; EA could theoretically add that feature, but the company has no current plans.

You'll first create a character's physical look and emotional traits, such as defining their hairstyle and body. After picking one of the 6 personas--including "nice guy" and "maniac"--you'll check off 5 of 17 personality traits. Like in the Mac game, these emotional styles give your character specific goals. A maniac, for example, wants to watch other sims sleeping. Creepy.

The in-game lighting conditions keep changing with the in-game time.

This framework follows the Mac game, just with fewer character types, ambient sims, and other moderate cutbacks. For example, you can design a full house in the Mac game, but the iPhone house has to be upgraded in specific, predetermined steps. You still have access to a catalog of dozens of furniture items that you can place how you want in the iPhone game. And EA plans to sell more upgrades as microtransactions once the iPhone 3.0 software is released.

Leading my sim through the iPhone world, I still enjoyed interacting with the townsfolk. The 3D graphics showed great detail in the world. I zoomed with a slider and adjusted the camera angle with multitouch gestures. I thought the frame rate ran slowly at times, but that could be improved before the game is finalized. (Iron Monkey Studios, fresh from developing Need for Speed on the iPhone, hadn't quite finished work on The Sims 3.) But even with that concern, the characters and town looked great, especially with the lighting changing as the game clock moved through the day and night.

Meet sim-friends at the sim-lake in your sim-life.

The game's 75 goals will help direct players to specific objectives, such as catching a salmon and giving it to a certain sim. Four mini-games, including fishing and cooking, give a few other activities. But much of the game is still about exploring and playing in your own terms.

Sims still converse in Simlish, the made-up gibberish language, but you can try many branching ways to interact. For example, I tapped on another sim and was presented with many options to flirt, give a compliment, goof off, and otherwise communicate. If the other sim is receptive, they might move into my house or otherwise build a relationship with my sim.

Swipe around the town to visit new places.

EA says that if you try to fulfill the goals, you'll get through the game in about 12 hours. At that point, you could play again with different personality traits or vocations; you're even rewarded with the option of a new career as a thief, although the ambient characters will be the same the second time.

EA began working on all mobile phone versions of The Sims 3 in November, 2007. With many iPhone games being rushed through a several-month development process, I'm looking forward to a deeper experience when The Sims 3 is released on June 2. The Mac version, developed by Transgaming with its Cider engine, will ship on the same day. Pricing has not been announced.

Podcast #82: iPhone Rumors and HD Videos in iTunes

Mac|Life Staff — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 17:06:23 -0500

We check out the less-than exciting iPhone rumors and wonder where the over-the-top rumors are. HD rentals and purchases come to the iTunes store which prompts Jan to suggest we all sit around and watch every 14-year old girls favorite movie. Plus, we share our thoughts on what an internship with Mac|Life will entail.

A hip-hop artist is chosen for our weekly, "Keep or Delete." Each week we download and review the free iTunes song of the week and decide whether we're going to keep or delete the file. This week's artist:

Jay Rock - All My Life in the Ghetto

Don't forget, the Mac|Life staff would love to hear your thoughts, comments and ideas for the new podcast. Just leave a message on the Mac|Live question/comment line: (877) 404-1337, extension 622. Please limit the length of your messages to 1 minute max. We'll review these calls each week and feature our favorites, along with responses, on that week's podcast.

To subscribe to the Mac|Live podcast series through an RSS feed, click here; if you want to subscribe through the iTunes Store, click here.