The Appcast #46: December 20, 2009 – Games for new iPod Touch owners

This week’s show: Games for New iPod Touch owners. We take a look at our favorite games that we think many new post-holiday iPod Touch owners will want to get right away.

Episodes can be downloaded by clicking the Episodes tab above.

Intro Music: Borderline D.U. Mix  from Mixter Two – I Don’t Know What I’m Doing by Brad Sucks.

Show Outline:

1. Introductions
2. News: AT&T backs off “tiered data pricing” rhetoric
3. News: Lots of Sales, Clearing out the Queue
4. News: Dragon Dictation now allowing opting out of Contacts access
5. New Apps for the Week
6. Core Topic: Games for New iPod Touch Owners

New Apps Discussed on December 20th, 2009:

1. Dragon Search – Free – The developers of Dragon Dictation now present Dragon Search, allowing iPhone users to speak their search terms for usage with Google, YouTube, Twitter, Wikipedia, and other preset searches. Quick, fast, and another usage for speech-to-text.
2. Bing - Free – Microsoft’s Bing search is now immediately at your app-tapping fingertaps. With a quick navigation menu, slick backgrounds (that even become informative tidbits about themselves), speech-to-text searching, and even maps, Bing is a very solid presentation and it’s good to see Microsoft adding more to the iTunes app library.
3. Drunken Contacts - $0.99 – Search your Contacts list by only looking through new contacts added yesterday, a week ago, last weekend, or any other time period you specify. It’s actually a really neat feature and one that will certainly help out the iPhone user with a huge contact list.
4. Glyder 2 – $2.99 – Soar through Glu’s sequel to the popular item-collecting, steampunk-inspired flying game. With 6 more worlds to explore, plenty of items to collect, and an even smoother and colorful presentation than the original, Glyder 2 shows you that iPhone games can just be a casual and relaxing diversion without the need for defense towers, guns, or farts.
5. Gamesalad Devices – Free – More of an app to help game developers, Gamesalad Devices shows you the exact coordinates the iPhone would interpret given the accelerometer’s position. It’s neat if you just want to check out what coordinates go where, but certainly it’ll help out a lot if you are looking to write your own apps.
6. RIDGE RACER ACCELERATED - $2.99 – The Ridge Racer series finally comes to the iPhone and it’s more a nostalgic experience than a proven one. Controls are adequate and the promise of a fully-built out game are coming (with several courses and cars being added in 2010). The best part of the game stems closer to it’s camera that glides and hangs back and forth behind your car as you tilt to drive along the course. It’s a pretty decent package with a lot of promise… for the cheap price.

Apps of the Week:

VectorTD – (Bob) – $1.99 – The popular flash-based tower defense game is now on the iPhone. Adapted for touch controls with 8 levels and the classic techno music, VectorTD is now in the tower defense arena hoping to show off its former glory.

Depict: The Multiplayer Drawing and Guessing Game - (Kevin) – $0.99 – It’s Pictionary for the iPhone! Join into an online match and begin drawing and guessing items. It’s fast, sometimes intense, and loads of fun without any of the usual fussy instructions you’d get from other games. This one is a charmer and looks like it will stay around as a crowd-pleaser.

Silly App of the Week:

Rescue Cleaner – (Bob) – $1.99 – Let some dogs and cats lick your iPhone screen clean while also knowing that 25% of all proceeds will be going to helping rescue animals that are in need. It’s quick and simple animal fun (that even includes a ferret).

The Muppets Animal Drummer – (Kevin) – $1.99 – Beat the drums with Animal as you follow along with this Simon Says-based rhythm game. Decpetively simple from the beginning, the game does get harder as your progress and even includes some tricky rhythms that slow down the tempo, forcing you to really concentrate. It’s a great use of a license and a great, silly, and funny app to boot.

Core Topic: Games for new iPod Touch Owners

We split our lists this week on the premise of two ideas: what are the great games you can get together for $10 and what are the great at-cost games that feel closer to the real handheld gaming software selection you’d expect on other platforms.

• Blue Defense!, $0.99 – Protect the Blue Planet by shooting down oncoming red attackers in this simple game that instantly gets you acquainted with tilt and touch controls.
• Parachute Panic, $0.99 – Guide and protect parachute-men as they glide down to the safety of naval vessels. Learn to swipe across the screen to guide your men away from the dangers on the screen.
• Zenonia, $2.99 – Gamevil’s RPG is still a solid choice for those looking for a lot of SNES-style classic RPG gameplay. With over 40 hours of gameplay each time, and three different classes to play, Zenonia offers a lot of great gameplay for the price.
• Fieldrunners, $2.99 – The app that may have popularized Tower Defense games on the iPhone. With great graphics, expanded maps, and lots of different possible ways to strategize, Fieldrunners was big enough to wander off to the PSP and likely other platforms. A true classic for the iPhone.
• Eliminate Pro, Free – ngmoco’s attempt at free-to-play with pay-to-upgrade, Eliminate Pro is still quite solid for an online, multiplayer FPS game.
• Showdown Gunslinger, Free – Bluetooth-based quick-draw fun between two devices.
• Tap Tap Revenge 3, $0.99 – Likely the biggest rhythm-based game on the iPhone, Tap Tap Revenge 3 is packed with features, additional downloadable song packs (including popular songs you’ll know of), and even a ton of community features.
• Hot Dog Down a Hallway, $0.99 – One of our favorite Silly apps is also a great and simple game in which you try to launch a hot dog as far down a hallway as possible. The whole app is played for laughs, especially the achievements that involve sexual innuendo.
• Nano Rally, $0.99 – Imagine if you could drive your Micro Machines through your cluttered home. With very tight controls and a lot of challenging maps, Nano Rally is the type of top-down 2D racer that is easy to play, but tough to master.

• MiniSquadron, $2.99 – Pilot cartoon-styled biplanes to try and shoot down waves of other biplanes. Featuring tons of planes to unlock, several levels of increasing difficulty, multiplayer, and an additional Survival mode, there’s a lot to do with this game. Oh, and it’s all very good too.
• Cliffed, $1.99 – Race down a series of platforms to try and continue your falling spree. Simple and addicting, it only gets better when you discover that the multiplayer option is also incredibly fun.
• PAC-MAN: Championship Edition, $2.99 – The best version of Pac-Man is now available for the iPhone with even more levels. Control schemes vary and eventually you’ll find one that works for you.
• Baseball Superstars 2010, $2.99 – The best arcade Baseball game on the iPhone. Gamevil presents the works in this game including Season mode, Create-a-Player (with RPG elements!), and the usual Exhibition and Homerun Derby modes. There’s also tons of unlockable, plenty of options, and more to keep you entertained.
• geoDefense Swarm, $1.99 – An addicting and challenging Tower Defense game with really difficult levels and impressive graphics.
• Super K.O. Boxing 2, $4.99 – The follow-up to Glu’s flip-phone mobile game, Super K.O. Boxing 2 is so well-polished that you’d expect to see it for $30 at a retail store. It’s the closest you will get to the original Punch-Out series on a mobile platform.
• The Electric Box, $1.99 – Use different machines and items to transfer electricity and solve different puzzles in this challenging thinking-man’s game.
• Geomaster, $1.99 – Test your geography skills with this quick and simple game that asks you to identify cities, states, countries, and even flags as quickly as possible.
• Tomena Sanner, $1.99 – The wackiest Japanese iPhone game I’ve ever played. There’s plenty of strange obstacles that need to be dodged through timed taps. With Tomena Sanner coming to other handhelds in 2010, this is the first place you can get Tomena Sanner in the United States.
• Inotia: A Wanderer of Luone, $7.99 – An incredibly-polished Japanese-style RPG in the tradition of older SNES games, Inotia’s follow-up sequel is a small wonder with plenty of RPG gameplay and crisp graphics.
• Dungeon Hunter, $4.99 – Gameloft’s attempt at a hack-and-slash RPG in the style of the Diablo series, this loot-drop dungeon crawler has plenty of different items to collect and quests to gain experience with. Graphics, controls, framerates, and presentation are all incredibly professional to the point where you wouldn’t believe it is just $5.

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Other Links to this Post

1. Drunken Contacts featured by “The Appcast” « iApe — December 22, 2009 @ 3:36 pm

2. Vector TD iPhone Release/Review Roundup! | Downloadable Games | The Candystand Blog — January 7, 2010 @ 7:29 pm

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