Now don’t get me wrong, this ain’t no Braid, but what it does have to offer is a fun, easy-going puzzle-platformer that will quickly begin to occupy your time. First a little background. Like a lot of iPhone games, this game originated as a flash game. Yeah, i know, sucks for the iPhone right. Well, maybe not. Certainly the iPhone’s 3D capability is worth more than the average flash/browser based game, but there is definitely a place for the better of the fore-mentioned genre to have a second coming. iShift is brought to us by the flash games site Armor Games and is more than likely the first iteration in a slew of games coming from this franchise, which we should see pretty quickly due to their already being four SHIFT titles freely available online (SHIFT, SHIFT 2, SHIFT 3, and SHIFT 4). According to the iTunes product page, the original SHIFT was released back in 2008 and has seen over 10 Million plays since. Quite the following.

What sets iSHIFT apart from other similar platformers is in the name itself, SHIFT. If you fired up the game, you would soon notice that the levels are entirely black and white. The interesting and compelling thing about iSHIFT is that pressing the shift key allows you to flip the level, and become part of the level of the opposite color. If you can grasp this concerpt, then you should quickly begin to see that possibilities of this title. This may not make much since by just explaining, so see the screen captures below. And yes, the SHIFT key on the keyboard originally performed this function. Thus the name.

As with all iPhone games, the control scheme has to be properly addressed. And with platformers in particular, the transition to the iPhone does not always go over so gracefully. I almost always shriek in horror at the very though of seeing an iPhone game with an onscreen joystick. How does iShift address this issue? Well, since the game was originally in standard definition aspect ratio, it simply adds that to the iPhone as the gaming area, and uses the bars on either side to control the direction the character is moving. Now here is the part that i like. Pressing both arrows at the same time allows your player to perform a jump. Not only is this pretty intuitive, but it allows you to pull off precision jumps pretty easily. Impressive. Also, the SHIFT button, has a few options depending on how your feeling. You may choose to control it via left/right tilt, backward/forward tilt, or use the shift button. Controls are great.

Well, here is the skinny. I am sad to say for all that praise that I can give this game I will definitely say that it has one very bad fault. There are NOT ENOUGH LEVELS. I can’t remember the exact count, but as I found myself really getting into this game, it was over before I knew it. And with little or no replay-ability, it is crucial to have a crap-ton of levels. I sampled the Lite (free) version of this game at first and was instantly hooked. I was more than compelled to purchase the full game. Like I stated earlier, to my dismay, it ended way too soon. That being said, it was only $0.99 so i wasn’t too miffed. My recommendation would be to just download the lite version on your iPhone, and if you really like it, play the full freely available version online.

Well, another week of iPhone gaming in the can. Happy Gaming! Three out of five stars!

[3/5 Stars]

TWIIG: This Week In iPhone Gaming

Let’s Golf, published by Gameloft,  puts arcade style golfing at your fingertips. No, literally. Shots are setup much like one would imagine. Tapping on either side of the screen moves the trajectory path in the desired direction. The lower left section of the screen offers a menu for easily selecting the club of your choice. The upper right section of the screen offers a map of the course and allows you to zoom in for greater precision of your shot. Shots are actually performed in one of two methods, classic or advanced. Classic shots are performed in normal 3-click systems that is used by most of the popular golf games of the past, one click to start the shot, one for power, and the other for precision. The advanced shot system is perform by moving your finger backward across an on-screen arrow to pull your club back, and the moving your finger forward across that arrow to actually perform the forward swing.

Personally, I prefer the classic swing. I found the advanced swing is okay, but there is a minor learning curve. That being said, I’m a precision junky, but I do feel the advance swing can be mastered with time.

Graphics are pretty much what you would expect here, like most other games on the platform, they fall between the PSP and DSLite/DSi. The game has four anime style characters with largely over-sized heads, which are very similar to those of Hot Shots Golf. It also features 63 holes in four different locations; Fuji Beach, American Mountains, English Countryside, and Scottish Lochs.

Game modes include instant play, multiplayer, tournament, and free hole. Instant play chooses three random holes for you to dive into for a quick game, which I find convenient whenever you have five to ten quick minutes to blow. The multiplayer mode includes two multiplayer types, which are hot seat and wireless. In hot seat multiplayer, you are able to take on someone with a single device. I guess this is okay, but I would find it really annoying passing the iPhone back and forth. On the other hand wireless multiplayer allows you to join up over Wi-Fi to take on a friend over your local network. This too is okay, but I would have really liked the game to have some type of online challenge that enables you to take on people all over the world via the internet. Unfortunately, I’m finding that this is a major drawback with a lot of iPhone games. Other modes are tournament, which allows you to play a full tournament round, and free hole, which is for practice.

All in all, I would have to say this one is a keeper. The $5.99 price tag is not something that I’m happy about, but the quality is there to warrant a slightly higher price. If you love golf games, especially Hot Shots Golf, i would definitely recommend that you pick this one up. Four out of five stars!

[4/5 Stars]

First off, I have never really been a true handheld gamer. Albeit often times dazzled by them, I have never owned any of the Nintendo Gameboy/DS handheld devices, and have purposely stayed away from the Sony PSP. I had pretty much given up on the handheld gaming market as a consumer, until I was greatly surprised to find that the Apple iPhone had serious gaming chops. Sufficient to say, owning an iPhone has been a pretty awesome experience. TWIIG, my new column (This Week In iPhone Games), is all about iPhone games and setting apart the gems from the crap. First up, Fastlane Street Racing!

Racers have long been one of my favorite game types to play and often the genre that I have excelled in the most. More recently though, I have found the transition to gimmick racers (and when i say gimmick, i just mean different control interface/type) like those on the Nintendo Wii to be more of a struggle. Which raises a question that I have seen a lot, “Do new gamers become adept to different control types faster than avid gamers who are use to the old way of doing things?”. Probably so.

The iPhone brings its own ‘gimmick’ to the genre, with the use of the accelerometer. Fastlane Street Racing, developed and published by ATOD-AB, is a 3D racer for the Apple iPhone that attempts to bring you quality racing on the go in said fashion. We all know by now the iPhone brings a certain uniqueness to gaming, but how does this translate to game types that we have played forever with direction pads or a keyboard and mouse? Certainly the notion of using the accelerometer for steering in a racing game may seem cool at first, but does this actually translate into great gameplay? The easy answer is… Yes and No.

FSR allows you to use the iPhone as an impromptu steering wheel. Smartly, the ATOD-AB guys have adjusted the in game camera to tilt opposite the way you turn, so your view stays steady for the most part. For basic turning and weaving through traffic, this scheme gets the job done. But herein lies the problem for someone like me, I want precision. I have found with the use of the device for steering, that it is almost impossible to be precise. For someone that is use to perfect runs, it’s more than frustrating not being able to turn the corner, or hit a drift just as you had intended. And while you don’t get punished as much for hitting a wall on easy mode, hard mode is almost impossible.

FSR has five game modes, ten original cars, eight city routes, two race circuits, and six challenge tracks. As you could have guessed, it follows the pattern of most games these days by allowing a few tracks to be played several different ways (i.e. regular, backward, the grouped tracks) and the standard unlocking tracks/cars by achieving first place status in a race. As far as the cars, your not going to see anything branded here, nothing but generics are available.

As far as graphics are concerned, I still find it hard to believe the 3D graphic power that this device is capable of producing. The quality of the graphics for this game very much remind me of the arcade-like graphics of a Sega Dreamcast. I constantly wonder how far they actually can push the graphics of this device. It will be interesting to see the graphic quality of the games that are being produced a year from now.

Now let’s take a look at the sound. FTR offers an eight track soundtrack that is upbeat and techy. It would have been nice to have an option to play your own music rather than the music that came with the game, but I’m sure that will be added with an update later. While iPhone speaker quality is another topic for another day, I would always advise using your headphones when playing an iPhone game, or listening to music for that matter.

What the future of the franchise? Who knows, but here are a few things I would like to see. I would be very much interested in seeing this game use the Wi-Fi or 3G network connectivity to make this game online compatible. With any racing game, multi-player compatibility is a must. And with the new iPhone 3.0 SDK there may even be a possibility for this game becoming multi-player via Bluetooth connectivity for short range multi-player matches. It would also be a nice feature to be able to export video or images of a run to you iPhone.

In conclusion, I would definitely recommend this title if you like racers and you own an iPhone. Shortcomings aside, this is still one of the better racers on the platform. Fastlane Street Racing is currently available in the iTunes/iPhone App Store for a mere $1.99. Three and a half out of five stars.

[3.5/5 Stars]

Two years ago, if you would have told me that Apple was coming out with a gaming device, I would have called you a liar without blinking. And if you told me it would  initially be masqueraded as a phone, i would been even more skeptical. Let us be honest, as far as gaming goes, APPLE COMPUTERS have never really been a viable gaming platform. But what Apple could not do in the desktop/laptop arena on the gaming side, they have more than made up for in the handheld space. Let’s take a look at how Apple has positioned themselves to become a strong number three, behind Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP, in the handheld gaming arena.

A Formula For Success?

If I were to build a formula for success in the gaming industry, the first thing I would do is find someone that’s fairly successful and emulate them, while adding things that I feel are important to me. I know this may be blasphemy to most Apple fan boys, but the iPhone software platform is similar to what Microsoft’s XBOX Live has done in a lot of ways.

• Provide an awesome platform for development
• Allow anyone to distribute through an online store

Essentially, in many ways, the gaming features in the Apple iPhone SDK, can be equated to the Microsoft XNA. Both provide tools which allow for the development of games on hardware which can be mass distributed. Likewise, the XBOX Live Marketplace, is the equivalent to the iPhone App store.

The average Joe can make a game for the iPhone, submit it to the app store, and instantly get it published for millions to download and purchase. I have even seen a few games by the same developers popup on both platforms.  Also, as far as getting your app in the Marketplace/App Store, I’d probably choose Microsoft’s peer review systems over the Apple app store review, simply because of the level of clarity and disclosure on things that would allow/prevent certain games from making it into the App Store.

As you could have guessed it, there is a downfall to this user submitted systems, crap ware. You can easily overlook a great title while wading through the crap. Lucky for us, Apple provides top apps functionality when browsing for a new title.  Also the app store allows for demos, which let allows the user try before buying, which is a huge plus. Next let’s take a look at where the iPhone falls amongst the big two handheld gaming platforms, Nintendo DS and Sony Playstation Portable, or PSP.

In Comparison

Okay, I think first and far most we should look at the obvious things, what sets the iPhone apart from the big two and what are their similarities.

The Apple iPhone graphics easily fall between the the great almost Playstation 2 quality graphics of the Sony PSP, and the subpar Nintendo DS graphics. As we know from the PSP, great graphics does not always translate into great games. Let’s not kid ourselves, clearly Nintendo reigns supreme in the games arena. Playing on nostalgia and uniqueness of play (i.e. stylus and duel screen), the Nintendo software library is far superior to that of the PSP. In fact, the number one complaint about the PSP platform is that there are no good titles, which is also a common argument towards the PSP’s big brother. Where does the iPhone fit into all of this?

The iPhone is in a perfect position to play on the gimmick’s of the DS and the better graphics of the PSP. The touch screen and the tilt sensor has allowed for game programmers to provide a uniqueness to games that often only comes from Nintendo (DS, Wii). While the enjoyability of tilting your iPhone back and fourth on a racing game, or something like Sega’s Super Monkeyball can be disputed, there is no question as to the innovations this platform provides.

We have also seen that Apple has increased the graphics capabilities with each iteration of the iPhone/iPod Touch, with the latest iPod Touch having the most powerful graphics. Also, the product cycle of the iPhone and iPod touch is about once a year, which provides great potential for Apple to incrementally position itself, since the life cycles of the DS and PSP are about three years and ten years respectfully.

The Future

Sufficient to say, the future is looking bright for the iPhone gaming platform. With at least one hardware iteration and one major software update a year, the iPhone is well on it’s way to becoming a major contender in the handheld gaming space. The only question is will developers continue to create new and interesting titles that will continue and expand this gaming platform. We are also looking for the iPhone/iPod Touch game that will make this device a must have! (Oh, and maybe a hardware add-on for buttons/d-pad!)