The iOS gaming thread

[rumblecat]

No, it didn't. I tested the theory years back. Billie Jean played no matter which vehicle, an awesome design decision.

Ah, I see. Well... it's Bryan Adams now...

[Rudderless]

How do the controls work for something like Vice City?

Badly. It's a fleeting nostalgia trip with worse controls than the original - which was clunky enough at the time - and most will think it's great then stop playing it after an hour and move onto the games actually designed for a touchscreen device rather than awkwardly shoehorned into one. The novelty with these games wears off quicker than most are prepared to admit.

[Lorfarius]

How do you link Game Center friends to Happy Street? I go to the Friends section and it only shows Facebook. It mentions using the GC app to add them but I can't figure out how

[RFT]

Badly. It's a fleeting nostalgia trip with worse controls than the original - which was clunky enough at the time - and most will think it's great then stop playing it after an hour and move onto the games actually designed for a touchscreen device rather than awkwardly shoehorned into one. The novelty with these games wears off quicker than most are prepared to admit.

Disagree on that, at least as far as a tablet is concerned.

It takes some getting used to, (and fiddling with the button placement) but I played through all of GTA3's story on the ipad version, which is more than I managed on the original release. On the phone - yes, there's too many virtual buttons to fit onto the screen unless you have tiny thumbs, but tablet is nice and playable for me.

[Rudderless]

I still think it's a compromise. Vice City was very much a product of its time, and a terrific achievement when it was released, but its systems have been improved so much in other games since I'm not sure why anyone would spend so much time playing a worse version of a game that, in light of the progression made in open world titles since, hasn't aged particularly well.

[Eats hoops and leaves]

Huh!? Because of its style, humour and atmosphere of course. What a strange way of viewing things.

[RFT]

Also - Because it's in the handheld format? plus - it's not just a straight port - the GTA3 conversion added instant mission retrys and the ability to just drop in and out of the game without being so tied to the in-game save points (a big boost to "just grabbing 10 minutes" style of play). you're also gaining better character models, animation, up-rezzed graphics, quite a bit.

There isn;t really a better game in that genre I can just grab at a moment's notice and play while the wife's watching the telly.

would it be better with a gamepad? most probably.

is it still 3 quids worth of fun? Definitely

I still own ny PS2 and copy of Vice City and could, at any point in the last 10 years, have revisited it that way. I didn't, because things moved on and there are better GTA/Action games available on the "Console, Telly, and Gamepad" model. but for those times (and there can be a lot of them) when I have to let someone else use the TV, then this form of handheld gaming is great, and VC still stands up.

[Looper]

I'm enjoying Vice City and I generally don't get on with virtual joysticks. It's not got to any hectic shootouts yet, but 4-5 missions in I haven't felt like it was difficult to control. On iPad mind.

[Lorfarius]

Is Vice City iCade compatible?

[Cosmic_Guru]

Thanks for the impressions of Vice City guys - I think I will give it a miss. More or less finished Avernum:Escape from the pit and it's a lovely thing - a slice of classic turn based RPG with beautiful touch pad implementation and presentation.

[JamesTW]

Vice city for iOS is shit

Well, the controls are anyway

[scottcr]

Badly. It's a fleeting nostalgia trip with worse controls than the original - which was clunky enough at the time - and most will think it's great then stop playing it after an hour and move onto the games actually designed for a touchscreen device rather than awkwardly shoehorned into one. The novelty with these games wears off quicker than most are prepared to admit.

A friend of mine has an iPad Mini and swears that it's got the best version of GTA 3 on it... I'm sure he does it just to wind me up.

[scottcr]

Good, because I liked it!

It's an interesting point here

You're take on it is that you get 69p of enjoyment from it. 69p... that's like the price of a Twirl. Is playing Lili for an hour (before getting fed up with it) more valuable that a Twirl. Probably is. You got a full hour of entertainment for 69p. In fact, you got to experience something that probably cost thousands of pounds to build for 69p. That's good value.

My take on it is, after having extracted 69p of value from it - the game is actually pretty rubbish. I don't want to play it. It makes you grind if you don't do IAPs. The 'quests' are dull and the actual game is really shallow. It looks lovely and my first wee while with it had me quite excited for a 'Zelda' like game on a phone...

My point is that I ignore the price I paid - it's about whether or not I like the game. It's driving the market to create more of these games at the expense of creating better games elsewhere. That's why I don't buy this type of thing anymore purely out of principle...

[Cheeko]

I still think it's a compromise. Vice City was very much a product of its time, and a terrific achievement when it was released, but its systems have been improved so much in other games since I'm not sure why anyone would spend so much time playing a worse version of a game that, in light of the progression made in open world titles since, hasn't aged particularly well.

Like what though? There's not a single open world game I've played since Vice City that I've enjoyed more. Sure, there may be some elements that are a bit clunky now, but that's like criticising a good novel for some grammatical mistakes, who cares.

[Froettmaning]

A friend of mine has an iPad Mini and swears that it's got the best version of GTA 3 on it... I'm sure he does it just to wind me up.

Your mate's not wrong! The controls for GTA work particularly well on the iPad mini - ditto Jet Set Radio, which had the potential to be a proper train wreck. It's a much better fit than the iPhone, where everything is a bit cramped, and the full-size iPad, where it's too easy for your fingers to end up miles away from the virtual buttons.

He probably is doing it to wind you up, mind.

[K]

Chanced £2.99 on Raiden Legacy at lunchtime - tremendous fun. You get four games for the price - I can't really remember playing any of them back in the day to any degree of familiarity, but they all seem to run well on my iPad. Worth a go if you're looking for a shmup.

*theatrical shriek*

I've been waiting for this for ages! Shame it hasn't got Raiden II, but otherwise this looks splendid.

[Harmunt]

Thanks to whoever first mentioned Vs. Racing 2

Having a good old time with it so far.

No problem. You're welcome.

[Avuncular]

Badly. It's a fleeting nostalgia trip with worse controls than the original - which was clunky enough at the time - and most will think it's great then stop playing it after an hour and move onto the games actually designed for a touchscreen device rather than awkwardly shoehorned into one. The novelty with these games wears off quicker than most are prepared to admit.

I just played Vice City on my iPad for 20 minutes then stuck the PS2 version on for an hour. The graphics on the iOS version are nicer but playing with a pad is so much better.

[mercenarri]

I loved Kingdom Rush, such a well polished game. Another excellent tower defence game is Fieldrunners 2.

[Puck]

Defense Zone 2 is my current TD game of choice. The HD flavour looks lovely on iPad too.

[DirkCrisis]

Raiden is about the best implementation it could be given the touch screen interface.

It also seems a lot more fluid which means that I can't use the old trick of red bullets and green homing missiles to slow everything down. Also there's no slot for 10ps on the iPad 2.

[superquake]

I scrapped Kingdom Rush 2 after about half an hour - it just didn't click. I'm a pretty experienced TD player but I would just get overwhelmed incredibly quickly. Where was I going wrong? Can anyone tell me what the trick is with upgrading units?

[Davros sock drawer]

"Archers rrready!"

Slowing the waves down is key, so use barracks to create choke points. You can change the placement of your soldiers, so do that to place them more efficiently.

I always put a Mage tower near the exit, plus a barracks to slow the enemies down that are about to cross the finishing line.

[Distinct muttering]

Hit level 20 last night on Happy Street, which opened up some more options, which was an unexpected little bonus!

also I blew 90 Flooz on the santa house!

[superquake]

Cheers Davros, I'll reinstall tonight

[Eighthours]

Chalk me up for the "liking the Vice City port" camp (iPad). It looks a lot nicer than the PS2 version, it's just a shame that the devs didn't/couldn't do anything about the pop-in for cars. The draw distance for the actual city itself is really good, but the other cars really do appear right in front of your eyes when you're travelling any kind of speed. The controls are obviously not as good as a pad, but I'm not having any problems with them yet (after switching to analogue steering). I wish Apple would just design a control pad and release it for the iOS platforms, though. Such an obvious thing to do.

Despite these criticisms, I'm having a real nostalgia blast playing the game and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. The music is amazing and the atmosphere is still all there. Maybe I'll change my mind when I get to some difficult shooty missions (and that bloody RC copter thing), but we'll see.

[Teeohbee]

Is anyone playing Into The Dead? It's a first person endless runner with zombies obviously. It looks like it's got potential and is drenched in atmosphere!

[RFT]

The RC Copter mission's not too bad - I did it last night without too many issues. I did wonder if they'd slackened off the time limit to account for the trickier control. (it was 7 minutes in the IOS game. dont; know what it was on PS2).

done a few rampages as well - the "tap who you want to target" mechanic seems to work OK (and this is how you can rob stores, by tapping the shopkeeper)

a welcome improvement since the GTA3 port is that the panning when zoomed in to a scoped weapon has been sped up, a lot.

[Davros sock drawer]

I've unlocked all the cars and maxed them out in Vs Racing 2 now, just got the Secret Tracks to find (which is a nice feature). The competition between my colleagues and I has gotten ridiculous, one of them beat my time by 0:001 seconds the other day.

Because we're all using the maxed out car which can accumulate nitro via drifting, the game has started to feel like a top down version of F-Zero X. It's bringing back fond memories of my old housemate and I trying to best each other on the Silence track. It's coming down to minute differences in nitro boosting, and I've had the shakes a few times after finally beating one of their ghosts.

Awesome game.

[merman]

The Simpsons Tapped Out updated with new wintery graphics and Christmas tasks...

...and locked players out. Had to delete the app and reinstall through the App Store. Fortunately I did not lose any progress, but some users are reporting they have lost levels and paid-for donuts.