The splendid folks at EA Mobile have kindly shared some teaser screencaps of NBA JAM for the iPhone and iPod Touch with us. As you can see above, the game looks to be way underestimating Blake Griffin’s jumping ability, but also looks big fun.
Here’s a little early detail on the game that EA has shared, that sounds a lot like its App Store description page:
NBA JAM is about to set your iPhone/ iPod touch ON FIRE with all the over-the-top, high-flying, 2-on-2 arcade basketball action just like you remember it – and like you’ve never seen before! So go to the hole. Go strong. Go for the monster jam. KABOOM!
Key Features:
HEAT UP ON iPHONE & iPOD TOUCH.
Slam and JAM with all 30 NBA teams, favorite NBA stars, dozens of unlockable legends from the classic arcade era, plus some secret players you can only get on iPhone/iPod touch. Unlock outrageous cheats, too. You up for some “Big Head” action?
PLAY NOW! PLAY CLASSIC! IT’S SHOWTIME!
2 modes of play, lets you ball the way you want, including a JAM CAMP Tutorial:
· Play Now – Select a team and jump right into the game
· Classic Campaign – Defeat all other teams to win the championship, and unlock legends, hidden players and cheats
DOMINATE WITH AUTHORITY!
Also select from two different control schemes (D-Pad and gesture-based) and take advantage of the outstanding versatility of your iPhone/iPod touch. Is it the shoes?
YOU’RE ON FIRE!
If you’re from the Old School, you’ll feel the ‘90s nostalgia while you play the hottest new arcade sports game on the App Store. Featuring the voice of Tim Kitzrow the original NBA JAM play-by-play announcer), you’ll hear all the classic catchphrases plus a few new ones recorded just for this game. This JAM is all about “boomshakalaka” !
And here’s another screencap that features some folks whose vertical game is just a bit weaker than Blake Grifin’s, although the POTUS is apparently close:
We already know how fun and popular the Angry Birds game is, and some die-hard fan really shows his love for it with this cool example using Stop Motion Animation using construction paper.
Created by Gregory Cortez, this is a remake of one level from the Angry Birds game that is recreated beautifully; even the sounds and scores are accurate, making you want to pick up your iPhone / Droid and play it again.
Did you oooh and ahh at the fantastic gaming graphics that accompanied today's Apple keynote? You won't have to wait for next week's iOS 4.1 to get a taste of those textures for yourself. Though the full-on gladiator dueling of Epic's "Project Sword" may be a while off, you can get your hot little hands on "Epic Citadel" right now, a 82.2 megabyte download that explores a beautiful medieval castle town. Oh, and did we mention it's free? Even id Software's mindblowing 60FPS Rage demo must be quaking in its boots right about now.
With the iControlPad seemingly slipping further and further from reality, iPhone gamers with an affinity for buttons have fewer reasons to get out of bed in the morning and face the world. If that's you then it's time to wake up, Sunshine, because the iPhone Game Pad is here to bring a little light to your life. It's a somewhat chubby slip-on case that, as of now, works only with the original model iPhone. (There's a 3G/3GS model to come.) On the face it offers four primary control buttons plus a D-pad, what appears to be Select and Start buttons, plus a pair of shoulder buttons atop. This combination should make it perfect for emulation hounds or any 'ol heathen who values tactility over design purity. As of now it's just a prototype, but if you have the resources to bring this thing to production the folks at CP Design who crafted it would surely love to hear from you.
A popular iPhone dogfighting game called Skies of Glory has been ported to Android smartphones, and iOS and Android users can fight one another in real-time — a rare feature for mobile games.
In fact, it’s a rare feature on almost any platform. Most multiplatform gaming experiences have been online games like World of Warcraft that work on both Mac and Windows () computers, although there have been some exceptions — for example, Final Fantasy XI is playable on the PlayStation 2, PC and Xbox 360, and a few Xbox Live games can interact with their Windows counterparts. Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 gamers can’t play together on any existing game, however.
It’s good to know that Android () and iOS games can connect with one another given that the smartphone market will be split for some time. Skies of Gloryisn’t the first such game, but it’s noteworthy because it’s one of the most popular iPhone games.
You can download it on the Android Market () for devices running Android 2.0 or greater today, or in the Apple App Store [iTunes link] for iOS devices.
The Moject project proved that smartphones and pico projectors do indeed have a thing for one another, but Ethan Janson has taken things one step further with an unnamed contraption that holds his iPhone 3GS, a Microvision Show WX and an "ancient" point-and-shoot camera. Put simply, the handmade thingamajig allows him to play his iPhone games on a far larger screen, and since the Show WX is continually in focus regardless of distance from walls, there's never a blurring issue when flailing about in order to control the gameplay. The full skinny is down there in the source, but shortcut takers can head straight past the break for a video.
Who would you rather shoot at: Real-life rouge agents played by your friends or abstract pixels? Enter Gunman, the first augmented reality shooter for the iPhone
that taps the enemy recognition technology to take care of the body count.
The iPhone OS 3.1 update brought along a sought-after new capability enabling developers to create the so-called augmented reality programs. Basically a cross between the virtual and real world, augmented reality comes to life when live video feed is overlaid with a computer-generated imagery, such as shopping information, building stats, etc. In the case of Gunman, a unique urban paintball-like shooter that puts you in the crossfire, augmented reality is its killer feature. Instead of chasing virtual foes and waste time playing preloaded levels, Gunman liberates the gameplay from the confines of your device and takes it to the real-life. As a result, you and your friends are put directly in the line of fire.
The seemingly simple idea opens up a whole new world of possibilities. Suddenly, everyday objects like chairs, lockers, trees, buildings, and trashcans become quick hiding place where you dig in before the shots start flying. You can play against a friend in one on one mode or connect with up to four friends via WiFi for hardcore mayhem. When you select a mode, you are required to pick the shirt color of your enemy (red, green, blue, gray, and white), and the match duration (2 minutes, 5 minutes, and unlimited). When you’re all set, hit the “Start Mission” button and you’ll get transported to – the real world.
Use the live video coming from your iPhone’s built-in camera to track your friends. If they’re too far, pinch zoom the scope. When you have the enemy inside a crosshair overlay, tap the “Fire” button (shake the device to reload). Each hit buzzes the enemy’s device and vice versa. The game saves a screenshot after each hit so you can review them in case of any ambiguities. You can also save your favorite shots to the camera roll and tweet images of your best hits. Both hits and misses are counted so keep in mind that accuracy matters.
Does it really work?
If the above concept sounds too futuristic, don’t worry – Gunman works flawlessly. The game uses a nifty trickery based on the color detection technology to determine whether you have hit your enemy – that’s why you have to pick your opponents’ shirt colors. Gunman then uses this information when analyzing the live video feed in order to determine if a guy was inside a crosshair when the shoot had been fired. The developer “trained” the algorithm, but warned its accuracy varies depending on the lighting conditions.
In order to test the limits of the engine, I asked a friend of mine to “shoot” me with my iPhone 3G outdoors at around 8pm, when only street lights lit the scene. As shown in the images below, it was snowing outside and I was wearing the red jacket and black cap. Much to my surprise, Gunman detected all hits, although I was standing some 30 yards away from a friend who had to pinch-zoom his scope to the max.
KILLING ME I’m hiding behind a tree (left). Lookie who’s here (middle) – but a friend still doesn’t have a clear shot, so he pinch zooms (right) a scope.
I had less success under artificial lights indoors. As you know, the iPhone’s camera produces yellow-tinted, grainy images under low-light conditions or artificial light sources. As a result, accuracy of the color detection technology did drop notably. If you’re playing the game in daylight or under acceptable lighting conditions, the aforementioned caveats won’t apply to you the tiniest bit.
Needless to say, the game plays the best on a speedy iPhone 3GS due to a higher frame rate of its camera and faster processing that makes all the difference for the color detection engine. I have only played the game on my iPhone 3G, but a net buddy who purchased Gunman for his iPhone 3GS swears by his name he experienced none of the occasional jerkiness that I did on my device. Iit is my subjective estimate that Gunman maintains 12-15 frames per second in daylight on the iPhone 3G, which is in line with the video recording apps for the jailbroken iPhone 3Gs.
Conclusion: A whole new playing experience
The next Gunman update that’s already in development will support geolocation features and online leaderboards. It’ll also add achievements and badges in mulitplayer and new weapons like semi-automatic rifles and grenades. Gunman is, to my knowledge, the first augmented reality shooter for your iPhone and a damn fine one, too. Of course, there’s no point in playing this game if you don’t add your friends to the mix. Truth be told, the game sports the Pro mode where you take aim at innocent bystanders, but it simply saves the first 30 shots for your review at the end of the match and doesn’t use the color detection technology so it gets old after a while.
That said, if you were looking for a single player shootout, Gunman probably isn’t for you. But if you do have real life friends who own the iPhone, I strongly recommend you all take a break from playing games alone in your bedrooms. Instead, grab a copy of Gunman and take your iPhone for a spin outdoors. You’ll enjoy incredible and real-life fun, you’ll socialize, and your atrophied muscles will thank you. Gunman is being developed by Shadowforce and it works only on the iPhone due to the lack of built-in camera on the iPod touch
. The game requires iPhone OS 3.1 or later and is a $2.99 download
There's certainly plenty of good looking iPhone games available these days, but things could be about to get quite a bit more interesting, as Epic has now demonstrated its Unreal Engine 3 (the same one used for games like Gears of War 2) running on the iPhone 3GS and 3rd gen iPod touch to our friend Anand Shimpi of AnandTech. Unfortunately, it hasn't also announced any games or licensees that will be using the engine, but it seems like it has at least managed to get it running remarkably well on the hardware -- albeit in a somewhat limited demo, as you can see in the video after the break. What's more, Epic also reportedly said that it would be showing off the engine running on "another mobile platform entirely" at CES next month, but didn't drop any further hints besides that. Video after the break, and hit the read link for the full scoop.
With a little work and the help of an undocumented feature in Apple's iPhone Software Developers Kit, one iPhone developer was able to turn its game into a version suited for playback on big-screen TVs.
After discovering the hidden MPTVOutWindow class in the iPhone SDK last month, ArsTechnica's Erica Sadun got in touch with Freeverse, makers of Moto Chaser, and encouraged them to experiment with the APIs. A few hours later, the TV version of the iPhone game was born (video below).
Though largely demonstrative, the game uses the iPhone's accelerometer for input and steering while routing the game's video through a video-out cable to the TV. Freeverse noted that the program ran best on the second-generation iPod touch, which includes a 532MHz processor compared to the iPhone and iPhone 3G's 412MHz chip.
Even so, Moto Chaser maxed out at around 20 frames per second, making it "nearly playable," according Freeverse, whose producer Bruce Morrison noted that the "norm for commercial games is 30fps, a point at which motion becomes as smooth and watchable as normal TV video." Sound quality, however, was said to be greatly improved when pumped through a respectable sound system.
"When Morrison approached senior programmer Mark Levin, he had basically one set of instructions. 'Make it work before lunch.'," Ars reported. "Freeverse had very little time to allocate to putting together the demo. In the end, the entire development effort took about three hours."
Obviously one could imagine the possibilities of faster iPhones paired wirelessly with Apple TV to serve as a video game controller. In the meantime, you can read more about Apple's plan to muscle advanced gaming graphics into iPhones.
Most people will tell you that video games are too subjective a thing to rate – after all, one man’s Halo 3 is another’s Dance Dance Revolution. However, those people are WRONG. Not only CAN you rate videos games, I have done it. Here are they are…
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All you art collectors out there. Here is a chance to get a Giclee copy of some of Ian M Sherwin work. Ian is planning on doing a whole series of Marblehead, Massachusetts paintings. His work is amazing.
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