Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Thursday, December 25, 2008
I love Katamari for iPhone
I Love Katamari iPhone Review
Disastrous technical issues totally spoil a quirky cult favorite.
by Levi Buchanan
December 15, 2008 - Who loves Katamari? A lot of gamers do, actually. Though still considered a cult series, Katamari Damacy and its many sequels are quite well known amongst gamers. The plight of the prince, destined to roll up stars in an unending quest to earn the approval of his father, has rarely changed since the original PlayStation 2 outing. Chocolates, cats, cars -- all of it needs to rolled into a mass large enough to go atomic and become a star in the heavens. The iPhone edition of Katamari employs a strict "if it ain't broke" philosophy, which seems like a wise idea from the outset. But when you try to actually control the giant ball of junk...
It is not often that I find myself holding my iPhone upside down, craning my neck while hanging off the side of my chair. Actually, I never had to resort to contortions at all to play an iPhone game prior to I Love Katamari. After reading a very easy-to-understand set of controls that make complete sense -- tilt the phone side to side to curve the katamari, tilt it forward and back to accelerate or apply the brakes -- I started rolling up caramels and pencils in hopes of getting a katamari large enough to pick up a cat, as requested by the King. The game seemed a little sluggish at first, but tapping on the katamari a couple times gives you a nice speed boost that helps when rushing through a line of stuff or hopping over a small obstacle.
However, as the katamari grows and grows in later levels, the controls go south. Tilting the device forward no longer seemed to get the ball rolling. I kept having to tilt it farther and farther away from my face to get it to move forward, especially when my katamari was as large as car. Soon, I was tilting it so far I had to stand up to look over the edge of the screen. Trying to boost the katamari by tapping it did little but spin the ball in place. And that's when the iPhone was finally dilly-flipped so I could finish a level in time. (There are no save points in Katamari. If you are 2 millimeters shy of your goal at the end of a 7-minute stage, too bad. Start over.) The larger the ball, the slower the game -- and that just drains the fun out of Katamari.
According to Namco, you can recalibrate the tilt by by just touching the katamari. So, any time you want to tap the katamari for a speed boost, you are also recalibrating the katamari. And even this does not solve the problem of a slow, ungainly ball that doesn't move smoothly at all, no matter how many times you try to recalibrate the accelerometer.
Also frustrating about I Love Katamari: the camera. On several occasions, the camera would be caught on something like a corner and then stick there while I tilted the iPhone around to free it. This is very irritating when you are closing in on the time limit. Because the camera fails to offer consistently good (or even decent) views of the katamari, you often find yourself rolling over things without actually picking them up. The ball has to touch the item to pick it up, and from where I stood, I must have been missing objects by mere pixels. Sometimes things worked great. Other times I wasted precious seconds rolling back over a bottle multiple times before it stuck.
Finally, the entire game chugs when you reach a diameter threshold. You have to hit certain diameters in order to pick up larger and larger objects. When you cross the needed diameter, a little chime plays and a visual flourish shows the ball growing (and the prince shrinking in comparison). During this animation, the game cannot keep up. The whole thing slows to a crawl that takes 15-20 seconds to recover from -- if at all. You're left to ask if this game fully tested?
At least the game shares the winning look and soundtrack of the rest of the series. Through headphones, the goofy music sounds great (and not bad through the on-board speakers either). The visuals are straight out of the PS2/PSP games, full of bright colors and all sorts of silly flair. Really, get a load of the King. He's just bizarre.
It's too bad technical issues -- controls, speed, camera, framerate -- are so catastrophic, because Katamari is a perfect fit for the iPhone. Tilting the device seems like the best replacement for losing the twin stick controls found in the PS2 and Xbox 360 versions of the game. But it just never comes together. The game desperately needs an update before the App Store just passes it by. (Especially with Rolando on the way.)
source:
http://wireless.ign.com
Monday, December 22, 2008
Sim City for the iPhone
This game works really well on the iPhone. I did have some lag on my jailbroken 3G but after rebooting my iPhone it was fine. The controls are set up very nice and if you are a former Sim City fan, you’ll love it. If you’re new to Sim City, make sure to check out the help on the main menu before you get started so you can get to know how the game works.