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As a GTA clone, Gangstar is successful. Its scope is wide, offering up a fictionalized Los Angeles as a playground to both explore and bathe in blood. Gangstar occasionally stumbles due to the virtual controls (sometimes there is no replacement for physical sticks and buttons), jittery framerates, and the dialog is awful, but taken as a whole, it is an impressive effort to recreate the Grand Theft Auto franchise on the iPhone/iPod Touch. (more…)

iMech is a very single-minded game (which is one of its strengths). You climb into the cockpit of a lumbering giant robot and then blast the hell out of up to seven other players in real-time online matches. There is no single-player campaign; this is multiplayer-only. The arenas are packed with power-ups, such as laser cannons, flamethrowers, rockets, and mines. The only goal here is to grab as many of these as possible (or just your favorites) and kill, kill, kill.

The controls are nicely assembled, save for one little thing. Movement is handled with a virtual pad on the left side of the screen. Swiveling your cockpit to look and change direction is assigned to a pad on the right. The catch is that when you tap the right pad, you fire in addition looking. There is no ammo limit per se, so this does not become a supply issue. However, unloading my machine guns or flamethrower just to turn only draws attention to my mech. Stealth isn’t a part of the game, but survival is. Keeping back when another player obviously doesn’t see you is a real strategy in death match games like this.

The screen is not cluttered with too many buttons and meters. Off to the left, you have an energy gauge and shield gauge. To the right are gauges that help you judge when to release a charged-up weapon, like the lasers. There is a chat icon nearby that lets you pick from generalized phrases, although in the heat of a match, I did not want to good with chat too much. My thumbs were a bit busier laying waste to incoming mechs.

The game uses multiple servers, grouped by territory, to cut down on potential lag. During my play time, I sweated it out on the west coast server. There were rare instances of lag. For the most part, the game worked exactly as promised — seven other players and I ripped each other to shreds. The only thing that could have made it better was if I could have actually talked some smack through voice chat.

Flying Dino should be very proud of delivering an immensely playable eight-person deathmatch with iMech. This is hardcore online action for hardcore gamers. No other game on the App Store right now delivers a multiplayer experience like this. Right now, the game is just $.99  (an introductory sale), which is a total steal. Grab it and get online.

Lasers, flamethrowers, and machine guns... oh my!

It's about to get a lot hotter in here...

I suppose cows are useful for things other than milk.

IUGO Mobile’s Spy Bot Chronicles is a follow-up to the acclaimed Toy Bot Diaries trilogy. It’s set in the same universe, features some of the same characters, boasts a similarly colorful and polished 2D style, but it plays very differently. In Toy Bot, you controlled the whimsical main character, a lovable robot, through the world by twisting the iPhone to the left and right, which I thought worked pretty well. In contrast, Spy Bot Chronicles is much more of a traditional platformer and owes its control scheme to the genre classics, a truth that doesn’t translate as fluidly to Apple’s handheld as I might’ve hoped. Yet, navigational inconsistencies noted, Spy is still a fun outing that features all the charm and smart designs of its predecessor.

The story is very unremarkable. Toy Bot has been kidnapped by the always pesky Thief Bot and it’s up to you to steal him back. That’s it. The developer hasn’t concerned itself with storytelling, but that doesn’t mean Chronicles is light on presentation, because it isn’t. The game sparkles with vibrant, fluid hand-drawn 2D backdrops that span four unique themes and scores of stages, characters animate smoothly, explosions and lightning bolts come to life with adequate particle systems, and more. As far as platformers on iPhone go, you’re not going to find many competitors where style and polish are concerned.

Rather than relying on the accelerometer for tilt-based movement, the developer has instead created a touch-screen interface — a mock left/right digital pad on the lower left and a jump button on the lower right. This is, of course, the common workaround that iPhone game creators take so that they might recreate traditional experiences for the platform. I don’t take any issue with that. In fact, Chronicles’ scheme usually feels very good, both responsive and speedy, necessities for any good platformer. I also really like the character’s projectile system — you simply touch the area of the screen you want to shoot and he’ll zap away. There’s also an enjoyable hacking component.However as with any other title that uses a mock directional pad, supposing you’re not always attentive, your thumbs will inevitably slide further out of place as you go until, at last, your inputs are no longer recognized during clutch gameplay situations. Suddenly, your Spy Bot, who behaved so admirably moments before, has fallen to his death, not because you didn’t react quickly enough, but because your touch inputs went unrecognized by the game.

The weird thing is, these control inconsistencies are oftentimes frustrating, but in my experience ultimately forgivable. I simply kept coming back to the experience again and again despite any hiccups I might’ve encountered with the touch interface. I came back because the game is charming, sure, but the biggest draw is Spy Bot’s great level designs. It’s clear, as it was in the Toy Bot series, that the developer knows how to create fun and engaging stages, ones filled with smart platforming challenges and puzzles.

I’ll be honest, I like the Toy Bot series better because the control scheme seems more ideally suited to Apple’s handheld. Spy Bot arrives with some control inconsistencies that I feel are at least partly to blame on the mock touch-pad controls. Expect some frustrations as a result, but once you come to grip with the setup and remain attentive of your thumb placement, all of which comes with a little practice, you will soon discover another fun, charming platforming from IUGO Mobile. At $3.99, it costs the same as any single Toy Boy entry, and content wise it’s about the size of two games in the previous series.

The environments look both inventive and and well constructed.

Gears... a platform hero's worst enemy.

Touch anywhere on screen to fire your laser and fry some baddies.

MachineWorks Northwest has already proven itself with Prey Invasion for the iPhone, a first-person shooter for a platform that doesn’t seem to be very friendly towards the genre. Yet Prey Invasion was enjoyable thanks to its workable movement controls and tap-to-shoot alien-blasting. Now the developer has essentially taken lessons learned from Prey and applied them to their newest project; Duke Nukem 3D, a complete port of the PC original with all three episodes.

Duke Nukem 3D offers two control schemes. There is a traditional analog-style control that places two circles in the lower corners of the screen. Pushing your thumbs around these virtual pads moves Duke and looks around. Not a fan. Far better is the control bar setup that places four bars on the screen (that you can move as well as adjust their transparency). I have a much easier time moving and looking with these, especially with the tap-to-shoot mechanic. I find it much easier after tapping an alien to death to place my thumb back on a specific part of the control bars than a mushy circle and move exactly where I want to go.

However, Duke Nukem 3D uses a series of additional virtual buttons for additional moves like crouching and jumping. Yes, you can set the transparency of these buttons, too, but the screen is just a tad cluttered. Having to move your thumb around all these extra buttons actually reminds you that no matter how hard a developer works to replicate a traditional FPS set-up, the iPhone remains somewhat hostile.

As mentioned, Duke Nukem 3D includes all three episodes of the game: LA Meltdown, Lunar Apocalypse, and Shrapnel City. That’s quite a bit of game. If you are familiar with the PC originals, you will be pleased with the fidelity of MachineWorks’ port. Everything is exactly where you remember it, from the placement of weapons and health packs to aliens and secret areas. Duke still has his Evil Dead-inspired one-liners, too.

However, Machineworks has updated the visuals. Instead of aliens turning in fields of huge blocks when you get close for the boot-kicking kill, they are now smoothed out. Everything appears sharper, from Duke’s hands when he reloads a gun to the texture work on buildings. And if you crank up the movement speed, Duke really screams through stages. It’s quite impressive how fast the game moves. There is some slowdown here and there, though.

MachineWorks has also retained the four difficulty levels for Duke Nukem 3D. Unlike many other games, these difficulty levels actually mean something. The ‘piece of cake’ setting is perfect for gamers that need a few minutes to get used to the control schemes MachineWorks offers. Once you’re ready, definitely juice the game up to ‘come get some’ to get a real challenge. There are more aliens everywhere, and if you are not mindful of your shots, you will run out of ammo.

Unfortunately, there is no multiplayer here, which is a loss. Multiplayer was such a big part of the Duke Nukem 3D experience and MachineWorks was even able to get it up and running on their mobile port of the game. Hopefully, it will come along in an update to the game because I foresee a lot of Duke players being disappointed when they realize deathmatch is just not part of the equation. But $2.99 for a classic first person shooter isn’t much to ask especially for fans of the age old series.

In Civilization Revolution, you select one from sixteen possible societies and then hopefully establish that people as the dominant players in the world. You can conquer your opponents through cultural inspiration by earning 20 ‘great people’ or military aggression. Or you can reach for the stars and initiate a space program that pretty much says to all neighboring nations that you are outta here. Each civilization has strengths and weaknesses, such as the gold production of the Aztecs, the decreased costs of roads and wonders of the Romans, and the advanced resource access of the Indians. You establish a capitol city, send settlers out to found additional cities, build armies to defend territory, negotiate treaties with rival civilizations, and explore different technologies in one of the game’s most intriguing features: a branching tech tree that guarantees no two societies will develop the exact same way.

Building your empire is more than just creating a bunch of cities and soldiers. In addition to researching technology that opens up new buildings and skills, you must consider the cultural significance of your society, resource production (food, science, etc.), and the economy of maintaining an empire. There really is a lot going on under the hood. And it all changes as the game goes on, moving from one era of human history to the next.

There is a very deep, satisfying strategy game inside Civilization Revolution. But to get at it will require a degree of patience that I think many players will not give. The opening set of gameplay tips are a fine start, but soon the game gives way to a series of complicated and sometimes downright obtuse quandaries. There really is a lot to manage in Civilization Revolution, from the production of each city to the overall technology goals of your chosen society to each individual unit as they fan across the world map. I don’t believe this port does a good job organizing all of this. The in-game tutorial-like hints are functional, but they do not offer the degree of help needed for a Civ newcomer. Some menus dig a few levels deep and if you cannot remember what is where or why you need to be focusing on a specific resource over another, you can drown. I could see somebody getting frustrated and giving up within an hour or two of play.

The interface is also problematic. Almost everything is handled with touch, save for a few tilt-controlled menus. Dragging units around a map should be perfect for touch controls, but Civilization Revolution gets bogged down here. Scrolling around the world is easy with a single finger, but if you try to drag a unit outside of the current view and plan a longer trek, the screen will not scroll with you. You have to stop and zoom out to a higher view by reverse pinching the screen and that is very touchy. You will waste a lot of time fidgeting with the view in order get a good view for seeing surrounding features by close enough to effectively tap and drag units. I have never wished for a stylus until Civilization Revolution. I do not have gorilla hands. But in crowded areas, I had to zoom in good and close to select the right unit from a full field. The catch, of course, is that by zooming in, I just limited my ability to plan treks for the selected unit beyond just one or two moves.

Another surprise: total lack of multiplayer. Come on, this is Civilization. This is a turn-based strategy game. This is something the iPhone can handle. Hopefully, this will be added in an update because Civilization is a wonderful game to play with friends.

The iPhone is actually a pretty powerful gaming rig, but you wouldn’t know it from Civilization Revolution. The world is flat with hand-drawn sprites instead of 3D units. In battle scenes, these sprites line up and go through three or four frames of animation with some nice battle sounds in the background. Now, Civilization Revolution does not require slam-bang 3D to be good, but let’s be honest, these sprites are not that attractive. The get all blocky close up. And they disappear completely when you zoom out too far.

Civilization Revolution is a very deep strategy game that any fan of the series can enjoy. Actually, any fan of strategy games like SimCity can enjoy it, too. However, there are some unfortunate technical issues that keep me from strongly recommending it right now especially at the premium price of $9.99. The repeat crashes (I am using an iPhone 3G — and yes, I restarted after install and each crash), the wonky visuals, and the loss of game time if you get a call or crash are incredibly frustrating. Hopefully, an update will stabilize the game for all players and then let’s cross our fingers for a better menus and multiplayer update.

Poor little Spaniard.

Advancing an era comes with a slew of improvements.

The over world map is is quite unimpressive.