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Posts tagged with "games"

iOS Game Developers Excited About the iPad 2 Graphics

After the announcement of the iPad 2 last week, we reported developer Firemint, well known for its award-winning Real Racing series, announced they were seriously interested in updating their iPad game for the new device, and had actually been considering its tech specs for a while, even before the official announcement from Steve Jobs. Firemint sort of knew the iPad 2 would be thinner and lighter for a better handling, have a faster processor for improved graphics, and so forth. The iPad 2 has an Apple A5 CPU with graphic performances up to 9 times faster than the iPad 1 – a feature Apple is promoting and Steve Jobs mentioned multiple times on stage. With the iPad 2 available later this week, Firemint will be able to test its updated version of Real Racing HD with gyroscope support, better graphics and perhaps a new control system built around the new tablet form factor.

Firemint, however, isn’t the first game developer that’s excited about the possibilities offered by the iPad 2. MacNN reports industry-leading company Unity has announced that, in spite of their framework already working with dual-core processors like the A5, they’re going to “really fine tune and really optimize it to run fantastic on the iPad.” We guess iOS developers relying on Unity will take advantage of the new features available once the engine is updated with full iPad 2 support.

What about the popular Unreal Engine 3? Epic VP Mark Rein (Epic Games is the company behind the Unreal Engine, or games like Infinity Blade for iOS – based on Unreal) says the iPad 2 is already capable of taking advantage of the iPad 2’s improved performance:

You can see Unreal Engine 3, what happens as we get more power, you can take a PC and put a much more powerful graphics card in, and turn all the dials up in your game to get more detail, more textures, more shaders – things like that. Clearly those are the kinds of opportunities here. More CPU means potentially more physics and more enemies on the screen, a wider view of an environment. It’s just really fantastic.

These are interesting days to see how game developers are quickly announcing support for the iPad 2, unveiled last week and available “on short notice” this Friday. I wonder how many games with “iPad 2 support” in the changelog will be released next week, and how many will need additional weeks to pop up in the App Store. In the coming months, it would be nice to see Apple update its App Store interface to specify features only available for certain devices – it didn’t happen with the powerful iPhone 4, but we’re betting on the iPad 2 to bring an easy-to-read tech specs page to the App Store this time. [via TUAW]

Australian Government Wants To Classify Mobile Games

The Australian Government has today revealed that it plans to enforce a classification of review of any mobile games (and possibly apps) that are referred to the Australian Classification Board after a complaint. Any app referred for review would have to receive a rating of MA15+ or lower to remain on sale legally in Australia.

The Government has said that if the proposal goes through it would force Apple and Google to comply by removing any app that is banned by the Classification Board as well as ensuring that any app that has gone through classification would have its classification displayed for consumers to see.

Currently there is ambiguity over classifying new online content including mobile apps for the iPhone or for Google’s Android OS in Australia with some suggesting that technically every game should be classified, an impossible feat with the number of apps in the App Store alone. The new proposal by the Home Affairs Minister would only require classification of game apps that the Classification Board receive complaints about and the Minister believes that there would be “very, very few games” that would be refused classification (banned).

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Apple Removing 32 Games and 3rd Party Mac Products from Retail Stores

According to The Loop’s Jim Dalrymple, Apple is in the process of removing a series of boxed games and third-party Mac products from its retail stores to make room for other services that require space and additional employees. Namely, Apple has apparently decided to cut 32 games off the shelves and products like printers, hard drives and scanners to leave plenty of room for employees to work on the “personalized setups”, a service launched in January that allows customers to go through a friendly Mac setup process together with an Apple Store employee that will guide them through the first OS X installation, iTunes account creation and Mail setup.

Due to the popularity of the personalized service, Apple is expanding it and will need to make more room for employees to work with customers.

Among the products that will no longer be displayed in the retail stores are printers, scanners and possible some hard drives. These peripherals will still be stocked in the store and available if a customer requests them.

At the point of sale, the Apple salesperson will still recommend the customer purchase one of those peripherals if they feel it fits in with the customer’s purchase.

With the removal of 32 games from the Apple Store, the number of games being displayed on the shelves will go down to around 8 per store, according to The Loop. It also appears that employees will being suggesting customers to go look for games in the Mac App Store – again, a very easy way to promote the new digital online store in the heavily trafficked retail locations. Apple has also recently stopped selling boxed copies of MobileMe, which is now exclusively available online and it’s rumored to be revamped soon with a free version for iOS and Mac users.

BIT.TRIP BEAT For Mac Is Trip-Tastic

CommanderVideo has given you a paddle, and you’ll have to keep up with the beat in order to succeed in BIT.TRIP BEAT on the Mac App Store. It’s like pong and maybe like brick breaker, where you bounce back various “beats” that are streamed across your display in conjunction with the level’s vibe. These aren’t your traditional ping pong bits either – they’re high intensity, moving bullets that bounce and force players to return a variety of patterns without missing. The more beats you return consecutively, the more rewarding the game gets with higher intensity tunes and occasionally trippier visuals. But like Guitar Hero, if you miss a beat, you’ll face the bleak reality of failure. Color fades into monochrome, and the screen beat is reduced to mere 8-bit blips. If you’re not getting those additional bonus points by chaining those high-pitched returns, it’s game over for CommanderVideo.

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Nintendo Still Doesn’t Get The (New) Mobile Market→

Nintendo Still Doesn’t Get The Mobile Market

Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata, speaking about “quality video games” and mobile platforms like iOS and Android:

In a feisty attack on the fastest-growing sectors of the video-game industry, Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata said that smartphone games and social-media games focus on quantity instead of quality.

“They are not like gaming consoles, there’s no motivation [for] high-value video games,” Iwata said at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

I’d say this is one of the biggest problems a company like Nintendo is facing right now: trying to compete in the mobile gaming space with a device that’s just meant for gaming, while consumers are demanding something that goes beyond cartridges and games sold at $40 a piece. And so they try to build “social functionalities” into their consoles, hoping that an avatar creation feature or in-console communication would provide a solution to a market that’s deeply changed in the past four years.

Should Nintendo change at its roots and start doing all that consumers want? No. But the way I see it, they should pull their head out of the sand and understand that the rules have changed and it’s time to stop complaining, and start building to stay in the game. Those Angry Birds won’t go away by themselves.

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Firemint Announces Real Racing 2 HD with Enhanced Graphics for iPad 2

Just in time for some truly magical iPad 2 hands-on videos featuring games being played on the new device, developer Firemint has announced that the brand new version of award-winning game Real Racing HD will take advantage of the more powerful graphic capabilities offered by the iPad 2.

Firemint says they were not aware of the detailed specs of the iPad 2, but they had a fairly accurate idea that turned out to be good for what they’ve been building. That means gyroscopic controls, faster graphics, lighter form factor easier on gamers’ hands when holding the device.

Real Racing 2 HD has been significantly enhanced beyond what could work on existing devices, and our efforts have definitely given us a head start on iPad 2.

All these attributes combined with our enhancements to Real Racing 2 HD will create the most precise and intuitive car racing experience on any device. The 1080p HDMI output also opens up some great possibilities.

We can’t wait to see more developers jumping on board with great-looking games built specifically for the iPad 2. March 11 can’t come soon enough.

Unreal Engine 3 To Power Four Gameloft Games In 2011 And 2012

Gameloft has today announced that they have partnered with Epic Games to bring four games to mobile devices using Unreal Engine 3. The game engine will power two games this year and two aimed for release in 2012.

Unreal Engine 3, which was released late last year, was the game engine that powered the tech demo of Epic Citadel as well as Epic Games very succesful Infinity Blade.  The Unreal Development Kit is free for developers to download and try, but if used they must pay a $99 licensing fee and a 25% royalty fee after the first $50,000 in sales.

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Hackers Find A Way to Stream PlayStation 3 Games to iOS Devices

Here’s something you’d probably like to try right away, but likely can’t because it’s really too geeky to understand: a group of hackers and developers known as “pandaelf” managed to stream PlayStation 3 games to the iPhone and iPad on a local network using a series of USB devices attached to the PS3, and an “interpreter” to send iOS gestures back to the console. Somehow, it’s working.

Here’s what they did: they connected a USB mouse and keyboard to the PS3 as input controls, and another “third party capture device” that streams video to a PC running a build of “everyAir”, a remote desktop controller. everyAir really handles everything, from iOS to PC communication to live video streaming from the TV and PS3 to the iPhone and iPad. It’s one hell of a setup but as you can see from the demo video below, it seems to be working.

Video and Q&A below. Somebody please find a way to play Game Cube games on the iPad now, and I’m sold. [via iThinkDifferent] Read more

Joystickers’ Classic Will Put Buttons On Your iOS Device

If you’re a hardcore iOS gamer and you’ve always felt like your iPhone and iPad could use some hardware button love in certain games (*cough*shooters and platforms*cough*), you should take a look at this new Kickstarter project by a Chicago-based startup called Joytstickers, which aims at improving the quality of your gaming by putting physical buttons on the shiny glass surface of your iOS device of choice.

Question is: how? The Classic, a product that’s been in development for 9 months, is a set of buttons that can stick to an iPhone’s screen thanks to a special “micro-suction cup material imported from Japan” that’s invisible to the naked eye but allows the material to stay put on the screen without damaging it or leaving any sign of attachment. As you can see in the promo video, they really just stick. The reason why Joystickers is doing this is to overcome the lack of tactile feedback when playing iOS games. Personally, I can say this sounds extremely good for games like Pizza Boy or shooters that require a “fixed” control position on a glass screen that, admittedly, doesn’t usually make gamers so excited. The only major problem for now is that there’s no solution for directional (D-Pad) controls, meaning that you’ll either have to stick 4 buttons on screen and forget about diagonal input or just use a Classic for non-directional virtual buttons.

The startup is also promoting a brush and a stylus for iOS, but we think The Classic is the most interesting product available on Joystickers’ Kickstarter page. You can back the project here by pledging $1 or more, and it will be funded if $25,000 is pledged by March 24th. [via MobileCrunch] Read more