#oneaday Day 734: Pay Attention

Since getting an iPad a few short days ago it’s become more clear to me than ever that if you are ignoring the iOS platform on the grounds that it’s “just mobile games”, then you are Doing It Very Wrong.

Let’s face some home truths first of all, however. Traditional control schemes suck on touchscreens. The lack of tactile feedback is the main thing — you can’t feel those buttons under your fingers, so it’s all too easy to drift away from them, particularly if they’re of the breed that are fixed in place. Alongside that, your thumbs blocking part of the play area isn’t a great look, particularly on the small screen of the iPhone and iPod touch.

That is the main issue with iOS gaming, but also a blessing in disguise.

The fact that traditional control schemes sucking is such a well-established fact by now means that iOS developers are forced into making some important decisions when creating their games. Do they remain steadfast and shoehorn in a virtual joypad control method? Do they support external controllers such as the iCade and make the assumption that anyone serious about playing that kind of game on iOS will already own one? Or do they throw conventional thinking about what makes a good portable game out of the window?

It’s the latter option that leads to the most interesting experiences, and it tends to lead in one of two directions. The first direction leads to the explosion in new styles of gameplay we’ve had since gaming really started to take off on the platform. Granted, some of these existed in the form of independent and Flash games prior to iOS’ emergence, but Apple’s platforms have very much brought them to the masses. Physics-based puzzlers. Line-drawing games. Match-3 puzzlers. “One-touch” games. All of these provide simple mechanics that are surprisingly versatile. In the case of the line-drawing genre, for example, go play Flight Control, DrawRace 2 and Heroes vs Monsters and tell me that isn’t an incredibly versatile control scheme.

The second direction is in the resurgence of genres which have lain all but dormant everywhere except the independent PC game development community for many years. Turn based strategy titles. Board game adaptations. First person flick-scrolling dungeon crawlers. Deep, hardcore roleplaying games. Roguelikes. All have made something of a comeback on iOS, and it’s no coincidence that these games provide some of the most satisfying experiences on the platform. It’s also these titles which provide the strongest, most compelling evidence that yes, you do get “proper” games on iOS, and there’s no reason to believe that you’re getting a “lesser” experience than what you would get from a console, except perhaps from some diminished graphical quality — and even then, that gap is rapidly closing.

iOS does also bring with it its share of controversial topics. The monetization of games in particular. It’s not unusual these days for games to have the option to purchase in-game currency or even skip out parts of the game altogether. I’m not a big fan of this practice, but if done correctly, it can actually have several benefits for both consumer and developer alike.

Firstly, it allows the game itself to be released at a far cheaper price point than you’d ever see it on 3DS or Vita. I bought a racing game today for 69p. It has impressive graphics, fun gameplay and is certainly on a par with the PSP version of Burnout in terms of depth. 69p. You can’t even buy a cup of coffee for that anywhere, yet here I am paying it for a game that would have been at least thirty quid a few years back. And how can it afford to do that? Because of the few people out there who value their time more than their money and would rather unlock content in the game quickly through dropping a few pounds on it rather than playing through it normally — which, I hasten to add, is very much still an option.

The downside to above is that it has affected the perceived value of these games. If you paid 69p for a game — or even got it for free in some cases — are you more or less likely to play it through to completion? I’m guessing “less”, because if you’re anything like me, that feeling of “I just spent forty quid on this, I’d better bloody play it” just isn’t there. This factor is actually mitigated somewhat by the titles that are considered “expensive” on the platform — look at Square Enix’s £10 RPGs, for example, or £5 titles like Infinity Blade and Galaxy On Fire. £5-10 is considered “expensive” for an iOS title so people are more likely to think before they buy, and by extension take a bit more time to play through these less “disposable” titles.

I think by far the greatest thing about the platform, however, is how there’s something to appeal to pretty much everyone. In my circles of family and friends, there are kids and grandparents who like playing Angry Birds; hardcore strategy gamers who like deep, complex mechanics; commuters who appreciate having something quick and low-maintenance to play on said commute; hardcore gamers who crave the depth of a console or PC title in a format they can carry around with them; people who don’t have time to immerse themselves in the sprawling experiences that are today’s interactive entertainment titles but appreciate the opportunity to play a quick game of Words, Scramble or Hero Academy with friends. All of them are catered to, and there’s a bunch of crossover between the groups too. That’s amazingly awesome, and it’s probably done more to help the image of gaming in the mainstream audience than any other technological innovation we’ve had over the years.

So in summary, then, if you arestill of the belief that iOS as a platform isn’t important to the games industry and games culture at large, I say again: you are Doing It Wrong.

#oneaday Day 733: The Greatest iOS Game You’ve Never Played

Oh boy do I have a treat for you iOS owners out there. A free game that is brilliant, doesn’t try to con you out of any money and doesn’t have a single ad in it anywhere. Not only that, but it also features the most spectacular Engrish you will ever see, as evidenced by the screenshot which accompanies this post.

The game in question is HungryMaster by xionchannel. I found it completely by chance while browsing titles related to Square Enix’s catalogue on iPad, and downloaded it out of sheer curiosity. I was expecting it to be a five minute novelty, to be deleted immediately afterward.

What I instead found was a wonderfully silly, addictive little game whose use of touch controls puts big-name developers to shame.

The premise is simple and insane. Delica is hungry and walking in the woods one day when she comes across a talking white cat called Saten [sic]. Saten offers to give Delica magical powers for some reason I feel is somewhat lost in translation. Said magical powers allow Delica to defeat monsters by turning them into food, which kills two birds with one stone.

In gameplay terms, the player controls Delica by touching on the screen anywhere, and she follows. In order to use her new-found magical girl powers, the player must draw a line starting from her and running through enemies. The player can lock on to as many enemies as they can draw a line through while a brief timer is running, then they explode and turn into food when the player releases their finger. Delica can then collect the food by running over it. Collecting more food in rapid succession gives a combo bonus, and the main objective of most levels is to collect enough food to deliver to houses scattered around the map. There are occasional boss fights, too, where twenty pieces of food can inexplicably be used to set off a bomb.

It’s as gloriously ridiculous as it sounds, but the gameplay is very solid thanks to the excellent touch controls. The whole thing is presented on the iPad or iPhone screen in portraitwise orientation, features 80s-style pixel art and scanlines. It’s like holding a forgotten 80s arcade machine in your hand — the sort you only ever found at that one arcade at that one seaside resort, but would always insist on going to whenever possible because that hidden gem of a game was just so good.

I’m very happy that I’ve found such a hidden gem on iOS. Check it out for yourself here.

#oneaday Day 727: Together Apart

You know what it’s like. You want to play with friends but they all live on the other side of the world to you, so you can never find a convenient time to play together, and as such, you never get the chance to take each other on.

Not so if you happen to have a smartphone or tablet. There’s a bunch of asynchronous multiplayer games out there for you to play, meaning that you can take it in turns to play together when it’s convenient for each of you. While it’s not quite the same as playing live, it’s the next best thing.

But what are these games? Well, focusing on iOS, here’s a few:

…With Friends

Whatever you may think of Zynga the company, it publishes some of the most popular multiplayer titles in the iOS library: Chess, Words, Hanging and Scramble With Friends.

Of these four games, Scramble is my favourite because it’s quick and easy to play, and impossible to cheat at. Words is far too open to abuse (there are tons of “cheat” apps on the App Store), Hanging is a bit boring and, well, I suck at Chess.

The fact that, at the time of writing, I am unbeaten at Scramble certainly helps!

Disc Drivin’

If you’ve ever flicked a coin around a makeshift course or played that racing game where you flick wooden discs around a racetrack, Disc Drivin’ is for you. Offering a bunch of courses, some powerups and the ability to play with up to three friends, this is a fun one for a while, though lacks depth.

Carcassonne

Carcassonne is a brilliant entry-level board game, and its iOS version, while relatively expensive, is an excellent port. Offering not only a great port of the base game but also a fun solitaire puzzle mode, this is a personal favourite.

Ascension: Wrath of the Godslayer

A great card game, as discussed the other night. Ascension lends itself well to the asynchronous format because players compete with one another for points, but turns are pretty self-contained. What little direct interaction there is between players is easily resolved at the start of the next player’s turn. The only thing this one is missing is a chat facility — you just play.

Starbase Orion

I admit I haven’t spent a huge amount of time with this yet, but it’s probably the deepest game on this list. Playing out like Master of Orion (or sort of Civ in space, if you like), this is a lengthy, complex game that strategy buffs will have a blast with in either single or multiplayer.

Hero Academy

The newest title on this list, Hero Academy from Orcs Must Die! developer Robot Entertainment is a turn-based combat strategy game that combines elements of DOTA, tower defense, Final Fantasy Tactics and, err, Scrabble. (Yes, really.) Providing players with a “rack” of units and abilities to use each turn, then allowing five actions per turn, this is a simple to understand but tough to master game with a lot of potential for awesome development in the future — new teams, maps and other possibilities are all in the works.

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So there we go. If you have an iOS device and you’re looking for some multiplayer action you can fit around your life rather than having to set aside hours at a time, the above are a great place to start.

Do you have any recommendations to add? Let me know in the comments!

#oneaday Day 687: E for Exploitative, A for Arseholes

EA and I are done. I will not be purchasing any of their future titles (with the possible exception of BioWare titles — though even those are becoming prone to the problem I’m about to describe) and I think the world should pay attention to what they’re up to, rather than simply letting them get away with it.

What, then, is their sin?

Exploitation of consumers, to put it in simple, general terms. This accusation covers a variety of unpleasant behaviour, and none of it is good for people who like playing games and holding on to their money. Let’s delve into these things one at a time.

Origin

Let’s start with EA’s digital distribution platform Origin. I don’t have a problem with digital distribution platforms which aren’t Steam, but EA needs to accept that I, along with many other gamers out there, choose to rely on Steam for the vast majority of our PC gaming needs.

There are a variety of reasons for this, not least of which is Steam’s ubiquity and social functionality. If you want to see what your friends are up to in an Xbox Live style, chances are, you’ll be able to see via Steam. Most people even add their non-Steam games to their Steam library, so you’ll always be able to see what they’re up to.

Origin has designs on this too, with its own integrated social functionality, but no facility to add non-Origin games. And given that the platform launched with only EA titles, few people are going to want to switch to Origin as their primary means of communicating with friends during gameplay. It’s just silly to try. Steam works, no pun intended. It works well. That’s why it’s popular.

Alongside this, there’s the shady business of EA removing its titles from Steam on the grounds of mysterious, non-specific “policies” that supposedly no other digital distribution services impose on poor little EA. Funny how these objections only arose shortly after Origin showed up.

And then there’s the fact that increasing numbers of people are reporting that they’re losing access to their games — even single-player titles — following often wrongful bans from the EA forums. Granted, some people who have been in touch deserved a forum ban (come on, do you really think making your username “TheGreatRapist” is really going to depict you as a fine, upstanding member of the community?) but even then, there is no way that behaviour on forums should prevent people from accessing the content they have paid for. Rock, Paper, Shotgun is running a good investigation into the matter at present.

And then there’s EA’s stubbornness even when it comes to online games. In their recent mobile releases (which we’ll come on to shortly) all online functionality is handled not through Game Center which is, let’s not forget, built in to iOS, but instead through Origin. This has the ridiculous side-effect of meaning that you can’t use the Game Center app to do things like check high scores or compare games — something which it is designed for.

Anyway. Enough about Origin — except for the fact that EA’s adoption of that particular name is like rubbing dirt into the good name of Origin Systems, who produced some of the finest games ever created.

Project Ten Dollar

This is all the rage now, and not just with EA. I blame EA for introducing it, however, since it was they who talked about it first. But it is not cool to lock off content from full-price games, whether it’s single player or multiplayer. If I pay £40/$60 for a new game, I damn well expect to get what I paid for on the disc without having to enter a selection of alphanumeric codes. And if I buy a used copy of the game, I likewise expect to get full access to the game. People don’t tear out the last five chapters of a second-hand book, people don’t erase five random scenes from a second-hand DVD. So why should a game be gutted for those of us who didn’t want to buy it new, whether that’s due to financial constraints or simply being unable to find a new copy?

An episode of Extra Credits had a good solution for this which would be perfectly palatable to me. If they must lock off content, then charge less for the game in the first place. Sell me a disc with the single player gameplay on for considerably less than $60 and charge me an additional $15-20 for the multiplayer mode — a $15 to $20 that I don’t feel obliged to pay, largely because I rarely play multiplayer modes, anyway — particularly in games that don’t need them.

As it is, Online Passes are a transparent method of fleecing more money out of consumers. They are indefensible.

Drip-Feed DLC

This largely relates to BioWare games. I would much rather have a full-on expansion pack for $15-20 than drip-fed DLC which often adds very little to the experience. The few pieces of Dragon Age DLC I’ve played really weren’t worth the money — they didn’t even integrate with the main campaign — and they’ve put me off checking out Mass Effect 2‘s offerings.

Part of this is for pricing reasons. But part of it is, again, due to the fact that I’d much rather have the whole game up front. In the case of Mass Effect 2, why not hold the release back and include the content in the game? Answer: because it makes more money, which is kind of the root of all these problems. Money-making trumps consumer convenience and goodwill every time.

Thar Be Whales!

By far the most obnoxious behaviour that EA has been indulging in recently relates to its mobile games. First of all, they updated their iOS version of Tetris. This is not, in and of itself, a bad thing. All iOS developers update their games fairly regularly, whether that’s with bugfixes or additional content. And, for the most part, buying that app in the first place means that developer is happy to provide additional content to you for free throughout the product’s active development lifecycle.

Not so with EA. They removed the original version of Tetris from the App Store before replacing it with the new version, meaning that even people who had already bought the original and wanted to take advantage of the new features had to pay again. Dishonest.

Couple that with the fact that the game has added compulsive, manipulative social game features such as an utterly meaningless “rank bar” and virtual currency — both of which you can pay real money to jack up at a higher rate — as well as a subscription option (for Tetris! Seriously!) and you get something altogether unpleasant.

Then there’s Theme Park. Theme Park was a brilliant strategy/building game which many people would love to play again today in its original form. It doesn’t need anything changing. But no — EA decided that it really needs to be a gameplay-free social game, complete with aforementioned compulsive, manipulative mechanics such as an XP bar and purchasable virtual currency. Not only that, though, but some of the rides in the game cost up to $100 of real money to purchase. Let that sink in for a moment. To buy certain attractions in Theme Park, you need to pay more than the cost of one and a half full-price console titles.

The trouble is, there are just enough idiots out there who have more money than sense who will pay these ludicrous prices just to be “the best”. These people are unaffectionately known as “whales”, for obvious reasons — and it only takes a few of them to make such a business strategy worthwhile.

In all, I’m pretty ashamed of EA right now, and have no desire to give them any of my money for the foreseeable future. The trouble I have is that they’re swallowing up otherwise reputable companies like BioWare and forcing them to fit in with their shady business practices. I have no doubt that Mass Effect 3 will be a great game, but I also know that it will have an Online Pass, it will doubtless have a “robust post-release DLC strategy”, it will surely cut out content from the main game to sell back to me at a later date, and it will almost certainly only be available on Origin for PC.

I long for the days when EA were the ones with the funny logo that looked like EOA, and they make games like M.U.L.E. and Racing Destruction Set. I know you can’t go back, but you can move in a direction which doesn’t make you look like you just want to squeeze your customers for every penny they’ve got, rather than provide them with quality entertainment.

In summary: sod off, EA. Get back to me when you’ve had some humble pie.

Talking Point: What do you do when a favourite developer (BioWare) is an cahoots with an organisation like EA? I like BioWare games, as I’ve said above. But I’m strongly tempted to not buy any more for the reasons outlined above. I certainly won’t be purchasing anything from Origin and especially if it’s an Origin exclusive. Competition is good. Removing your products from the competition (Steam) is not.

#oneaday Day 635: Version 5.0

I’ve been playing with my shiny new iPhone 4S for a day and a bit now and I have to say it’s rather nice. While fundamentally pretty similar to the 4, as you might expect, the speed boost is nice and having a Home button that works made the whole upgrade process worthwhile, too — let’s hope that whatever “known issue” plagued iPhone 4 Home buttons is a thing of the past with the new model ones, because having to take 4 or 5 attempts to pop up the multitasking bar was rather annoying.

iOS 5 is the star of the show and, unlike when iOS 4 hit the iPhone 3G, older phones can benefit from most of the features. (For the unfamiliar, iOS 4 not only brought the 3G to a near-standstill, it for some reason couldn’t handle functionality as basic as Home screen wallpaper — and certainly no multitasking.) I spent a couple of days with my 4 running iOS 5 and didn’t have any issues — not heard from anyone who installed it on a 3GS, however.

The best change is to notifications. No longer do we suffer session-interrupting popups that monopolise the entire system. Instead, we have discreet banners at the top of the screen, or multiple messages with app icons on the Lock screen. Not only that, we have a pleasant pull down place to see all our recent notifications and jump straight to the app that sent them. Big improvement, particularly as this also integrates with the new Reminders app, displaying all your most important Reminders first. You can also turn off the OCD-nightmare badge counts — even for incoming emails — and set anything you like (that notifies you, obviously) to pop up with a banner. You can switch back to the obtrusive messages if you want, but if you do you’re a big silly.

Then comes all the voice recognition business. For starters, most apps that include the default soft keyboard now have a microphone button for dictation. Accuracy is generally pretty good, and it knows contextually which homophones you might be using, though if you talk a little too quickly or don’t say your words with perfect diction it occasionally struggles. (For the record, it dictated me saying “penis penis penis penis penis penis penis” at it perfectly earlier, but failed on a similar test using the word “buttocks”.)

With the voice recognition, of course, comes Siri, your personal assistant. While a lot of attention has been given to the numerous Easter eggs built into Siri’s responses — proving that Apple does have a sense of humour after all — the practical uses of the system are more impressive. “Remind me about my gym induction tomorrow at 11am,” I said. Siri responded by setting up a reminder at the correct time. “Set an alarm for tomorrow morning at 10.30 with the label ‘gym induction’,” I added. Siri complied, even adding the requested label and activating the alarm. Okay, belching at Siri twice did inadvertently dial my friend Holly’s phone number, but I wasn’t expecting a “pardon you”. That really would be impressive.

In terms of software, the speed increase of the new tech is very much noticeable in games — particularly those which even caused the 4 to struggle. Final Fantasy Tactics and Dungeon Defenders both run beautifully on the 4S, making me think that this phone, if any, is going to be the one to make big developer think “hmmm… yes.” We’ve already seen a couple of iPad 2/iPhone 4S exclusive titles appear — Machinarium only runs on iPad, for example, while Rockstar’s reissue of Grand Theft Auto III later this year will only run on 4S or iPad 2. We’re also seeing titles like Real Racing 2 offering enhanced graphics for the newer hardware, coupled with the AirPlay feature which effectively turns an Apple TV and iPad/4S combo into a Wii U, albeit one with no buttons.

So if you’re on the fence about the 4S and thinking “hmm, I’ll wait for the 5” first of all, stop it, the thing just came out — and secondly, don’t hesitate. The most accessible smartphone on the market just got a whole lot better. Sure, Android can do more — but iOS does it with grace, no need for rooting and you know that, as I said yesterday, any new features Apple have implemented are in there because they think — and are usually right about these things, given past performance — that the time is right for them to become “mainstream”.

In other words, you may feel like a dick talking to your phone now, but when everyone realises that we’re actually a step closer to Star Trek, shit’s gonna get real, yo.

Siri, publish this post. No, publish. What are you doing? No, don’t phone them! Damn you!

#oneaday Day 570: Nintendon’t

So apparently Nintendo are under pressure from their investors to say sod the 3DS and start developing for smartphones. I can’t help but think that this is a really good idea. The 3DS was a bold experiment for the company, but it’s not going particularly well for them right now — hence the massive price cut. Said price cut still isn’t enough for me to want to purchase one, however, which I think is part of the problem. Nintendo doesn’t seem to know who the 3DS is for. Is it for the casual market, a la Wii? Is it for core gamers? Is it for people who played their DSes religiously?

The answer to all of those questions is a shrug of the shoulders and a non-committal “Idunno”.

The trouble is, of course, iOS and to a lesser extent Android. Why should people purchase a dedicated game system featuring an initially impressive but ultimately useless gimmick when they can have equivalent gaming experiences (albeit without the 3D) on their phones? The only real advantage I see of the 3DS (and, by extension, the Vita) over the smartphone platforms is the addition of physical controls — a relatively big deal, sure, but a lot of developers are getting wise to the best ways to work controls around a touchscreen now.

iOS and Android have a bigger ace up their sleeve than physical controls, though: pricing. This occurred to me today when considering the disgruntlement people expressed over Final Fantasy Tactics releasing at £10.99/$15.99 on iOS. Final Fantasy Tactics is about 14 years old, and was a full price title on its original release. It was then a full price title on its more recent PSP release before dropping down to around the $10 mark on PSN. The iOS port is more expensive than the PSP version, sure, but it has been revamped for the touchscreen — and rather well, I might add.

Still think it’s expensive? Let’s take a look at the one game people consider to be an “essential purchase” for the 3DS: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D. A game of an equivalent age to Final Fantasy Tactics. Given a slight makeover with some new textures, 3D graphics and an interface revamp, sure — along with the addition of the Master Quest variant that I’m pretty sure no-one ever plays — but still, in essence, the same Ocarina of Time we were playing on the N64. The price? $40.

Now hold on a minute. Suddenly Final Fantasy Tactics doesn’t seem like such a bad deal after all. If Nintendo are going to charge that much more for the privilege of having the game on physical media rather than a digital download, then I say bring on the digital future. If Nintendo are so stubborn as to remain dedicated to their own proprietary hardware, then they need to think about how they can be competitive. Because at the moment, they’re not — and the sales figures are showing that. Perhaps the 3DS will show a sharp upswing in popularity when the price drop comes into effect tomorrow, but said price drop still isn’t going to solve the system’s most critical problem — a lack of good games, and those games that are good released at a price way higher than you’d find similar experiences on the App Store — even the most expensive ones like Final Fantasy Tactics.

It’d be sad to see Nintendo crushed after they dominated the handheld market for so many years. But I have a feeling it’s going to happen — and the sooner they accept it, the better. I for one would certainly be very happy to see a Virtual Console app appear on the App Store, and I’d be delighted to play titles like Super Mario Bros., Castlevania and numerous others on the go. But I’m not buying a 3DS for the privilege — if Nintendo can’t accept the common knowledge that people of 2011 want fewer devices in their pocket, not more, then frankly they deserve everything they get.

#oneaday Day 568: iOS Gaming Not Proper Gaming? To That I Say “Balls!”

There’s a degree of at least partly-justifiable snobbery surrounding iOS devices such as the iPhone and iPod touch — an assumption that they’re not “proper” game platforms because they don’t have the words “Nintendo”, “Sony” or “Microsoft” emblazoned anywhere upon them, and that software for them is much cheaper than for aforementioned devices with “Nintendo”, “Sony” or “Microsoft” emblazoned upon them.

This is a flawed assumption. However, as I say, it is at least partly understandable given the meteoric popularity of titles such as the ubiquitous Angry Birds and all manner of other casual-friendly games. In many ways, iOS devices are the Wii of the handheld world, featuring a lot of casual games, a lot of shovelware and a surprising number of diamonds in the rough which it’s entirely possible that self-professed “hardcore” gamers will gloss over on the grounds that they’re “just mobile phone games”.

That in itself isn’t a negative thing, though; if you’re waiting for a bus/train/poo to fall out/tardy date/kettle to boil then these quick-fire, quick-play games are ideal. You can load up Bejeweled Blitz, play a game and post your score to Facebook in the amount of time it takes to make a cup of coffee. You can play a level of Angry Birds in the time it takes your toast to be toasted. If you’re as bad at Flight Control as I am you’ll have caused a hideous air traffic accident by the time you’ve finished a poo.

But here’s the key thing: iOS gaming isn’t just about this kind of game, but that’s where the flawed perception of it comes from. Take Square’s recently-released Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions, for example. This has attracted widespread bewilderment and criticism for its “unreasonable” £10.99 price point — but this is a game for which I paid £50 for an import version upon its original release 14 years ago (Christ, that makes me feel old — that game’s nearly half as old as I am), and whose PSP version released at £35. Okay, sure, you can grab it for less than a tenner from PSN now, but for a couple of extra quid you can get a version with new touchscreen controls — touchscreen controls that work extremely well with the game, I might add (yes, I caved and bought it — I love me some FFT) along with a ridiculous number of hours of gameplay. Final Fantasy Tactics is not a short game — so consider its £10.99 price point in terms of “price per hour” and you’ll find it a bit more reasonable.

At the other end of the pricing spectrum is the excellent (if poorly-translated) Zenonia series of action-JRPGs, the latest entry of which is completely free with a few optional microtransaction items available for those happy to pay some money or watch some ads. Zenonia is an excellent 16-bit style RPG that is simple to play yet deep and very addictive. And again, it’s not a small game. The touchscreen controls are a bit fiddly — any game that attempts to incorporate a traditional control scheme usually is — but once you get used to them and customize them to your liking there’s a lengthy RPG that will keep you occupied for many commutes there. The kind of lengthy RPG that you’d pay at least £20 for on DS. For free. And despite featuring microtransactions and premium items, the game never hassles you to spend money on it — it’s just an option that’s there if you want it, but I haven’t paid a penny and it still feels like a proper game.

The list goes on: Kairosoft’s series of management/sim games have provided a resurgence in popularity of a genre which has laid fairly stagnant for some time. Virtual renditions of well-established boardgames allow multiplayer action at times convenient to both players — even if that’s not at the same time. And some of the finest roguelikes in existence (100 Rogues, Sword of Fargoal) are to be found on the platform.

iOS is here to stay as a gaming platform, and the sooner people wake up and stop seeing it as some sort of bastard offspring to the “mainstream” gaming industry, the better. Sure, there’s a ton of amateurish shovelware out there — but that doesn’t by any means diminish the significance of the some the games which are available for the platform — a platform which is growing more and more likely to give both Nintendo and Sony in particular cause for concern as the months roll by.

#oneaday Day 557: Play Some Music

I’ve been playing Groove Coaster on my iPhone. If you haven’t already downloaded it, stop reading this right now and go and download it while it’s still 99 cents/69p.

So now you’ve played it. So you understand.

Groove Coaster is pleasing for a number of reasons, not least of which is the fact that it’s a gorgeous-looking, solidly-playing game with plenty of content for the miniscule amount of money you pay for it. The Infinity Gene-style visuals complement the gameplay well, being attractive without distracting, and they look beautifully pin-sharp on the Retina display of the iPhone 4.

That’s not the best thing about Groove Coaster, though. No; the best thing about it by far is how it calls to mind the days when music games were home to a huge amount of creativity. We had virtual turntables (BeatMania), a rapping dog (Parappa the Rapper), a guitar-toting sheep that really didn’t look like a sheep (UmJammer Lammy), a rabbit that liked prancing around on wiggly lines (Vib Ribbon) and weird things that liked racing down tunnels (Frequency/Amplitude).

These days, though, what do we have? Guitar Hero and Rock Band, and it’s questionable whether or not we really have Guitar Hero still. Okay, we have DJ Hero too, but for the most part, it’s all about the plastic instruments.

Groove Coaster casts the mind back to a time before Guitar Hero, when music games were about the music, not about the things you had in your hands while you were playing (not your penis, you filthy pervert. You know your mind was going there.) No; Groove Coaster is about losing yourself in an enormously diverse array of clearly Japanese music tracks and letting your finger do all the work. Success is down to how well you engage with the music, and how well you can equate the on-screen figures (which twist and turn rather than following the linear path of Guitar Hero and Rock Band) with the way the music is going. You can’t play it passively — it’s a game you need to concentrate on. It’s not about “party play” — no bad thing in itself, I might add — but it’s about getting inside the music and “feeling” it in a way I haven’t experienced since Frequency and Amplitude.

The other great thing is the characteristically Japanese music makes me think of Namco’s PS1 games — Ridge Racer Type 4 and Anna Kournikova’s Smash Court Tennis specifically. These games had fantastic non-licensed music that was obviously Japanese but had enough Western-style “funk” about it to appeal to a universal audience. There are several tracks in Groove Coaster that would certainly not have been out of place in a Namco title from the late 90s. This, as they say, is a Good Thing.

I don’t even mind the fact that the game gratuitously sells “boost” items and extra tracks for actual money, because 1) I paid so little for the game in the first place, 2) there’s plenty of content in there without buying anything extra and 3) the “boost” items don’t necessarily give you a massive advantage, they’re just a bit more convenient.

So, then, if you ignored my first paragraph and still haven’t downloaded Groove Coaster I say again: go get it now. (If you want to. Please don’t hit me. What are you doing with that shov–)

#oneaday Day 529: You Have a Tiny Tower

Have you played Tiny Tower on iOS? This is one of those games that should be complete shite but actually ends up being strangely compelling.

Why should it be shite? Well, because it incorporates a ton of the features that make Facebook games particularly obnoxious — real-time waits for things to happen, monetization allowing you to “buy victory” in the game and no real strategy or depth.

Despite this, though, Tiny Tower manages to remain addictive, compelling and entertaining, even though your interaction with your little people is limited to restocking floors that have run out of arbitrary products, carrying people in your lift and occasionally playing an impromptu game of Where’s Wally when someone bursts in demanding to know where Tammy Walters is.

A big, big part of the game’s appeal is surely down to its excellent pixel-art graphics. I say “excellent”, but they’re actually pretty primitive, being deliberately lower-resolution than even the older iPhone screens. The graphics are reminiscent of the late 8-bit to early 16-bit era and have a lot of character about them. The little “bitizens” who populate your tower are all based on the same basic model, but the sheer number of hats, moustaches, crazy glasses and whatnot that they walk in wearing makes each and every one of them seem like an individual — particularly once you get some residents staying in your tower and you find out what their names are. Because then not only do you assign them to a job, but you can also spy on their Facebook… sorry, Bitbook page, filled with the sort of vapid inanity that your average Facebook user spouts on a daily basis along with occasional gameplay hints that you don’t really need. (The Mexican restaurant is closed? No shit!)

One of the more appealing things about the game that makes it less obnoxious (though probably less profitable) than anything Zynga has ever put together is the fact that the game’s premium currency of Tower Bux can be earned rather than just bought. Sure, you can pony up some real-life cash to get a wad of Tower Bux to make your life easier, but through actively playing the game and participating in its silly little Where’s Wally challenges you can get a reasonable income of them without having to pay a penny. This is a Good Thing.

Then there’s the fact that you can ogle your friends’ towers at any point, with them organised by order of size, so you can get all frustrated when the person you’ve been several floors ahead of suddenly leapfrogs you.

In short, it’s an excellent example of an iOS game. It’s simple, easy to play, friendly to both long and short play sessions and, best of all, free. So, err, buy it.

#oneaday Day 77: Updates Are Available

Remember when we didn’t have to update things? I do. It was a good time. You could put something in to your computer or console, safe in the knowledge that it (probably) worked… and if it didn’t work, it would probably get recalled and/or refunded. It was a binary state. In the world of consoles, this situation prevailed until the last generation ended—the era of the 360 and PS3 ushered in the Age of the Patch.

Of course, PC users have been dealing with this for considerably longer. Anyone who has ever used Windows will be intimately familiar with the incremental update process. It just used to happen slightly less regularly before we had the Internet there with easy access. You might get a disc (or huge pile of floppy disks) with an updated version on providing significant new features, rather than just plugging Security Hole Number 5,237,429.

Nowhere is “update culture” more apparent than in the world of smartphone apps. It’s like keeping on top of your email inbox—you’ll never beat it. Update everything on your phone and within an hour or two at least one app will have been updated with either “bug fixes” or “AMAZING NEW FEATURES”. And people have come to expect, nay, demand these updates. Read reviews in the App Store (I know, I know) and you’ll see products which have just been released with consumers demanding updates.

Of course, you don’t have to update things when they come up. People who don’t have an Internet connection don’t, of course. And in theory, this shouldn’t cause much of an issue—unless you own an Apple device.

I’ve become convinced with the past few iOS updates that Steve Jobs has a big magic “obsolescence” button in his office that immediately renders all iOS-based devices nigh-on unusable unless they’re running the absolute latest version of the system software—even if they were happily working just fine the day before.

You may accuse me of paranoia at this juncture, and it wouldn’t be an unreasonable assumption. However, let me cite the example of last night to you. Last night, Twitter for iPhone started playing silly buggers and decided to start crashing every five seconds. I deleted and reinstalled it and still it had trouble. So I downloaded Echofon instead. This ran, but slowly and jerkily. Given that I’m running an iPhone 4, supposedly THE MOST POWERFUL MAN IN THE UNIVERSE (Smartphone. I meant smartphone.) the word “slowdown” really shouldn’t be in the vocabulary I use when talking about it. But slowdown there was. And lo, it was annoying.

It then occurred to me that I hadn’t updated to iOS 4.3, which came out a few days earlier. So I quickly (ha!) updated my phone. And wouldn’t you know, everything suddenly, magically ran the way it was supposed to. How about that?

So, the moral of this story, then, is update your shit. Otherwise the CEOs of the world will enjoy torturing you from afar.