Game Diary

A couple of months ago I reviewed the iPhone version of Virtual City, noting that my only real complaint was the lack of a sandbox mode. The game already took advantage of the high resolution Retina display, so my assumption was that there would be a minimal difference in the move to the iPad. Turns out I was right … and wrong. Read on to find out what I mean. The Hype: Build a city of your dream – a residential paradise or an industrial center. Build dwelling houses and industrial buildings. Produce goods and deliver them to the shopping…

A strange thing often happens with IOS games.  Sometimes a simple, seemingly boring game can become completely addicting bringing joy, frustration and waste lots of time.  I recently found Catapult Madness at the top of the games list and it was on sale for free so I thought I would give it a try.  I was mildly amused at first, but kept wanting to extend the distance I threw the peasants so I kept playing.  That mild amusement turned into straight addiction as I kept upgrading and getting further and further.  The addition of GameCenter compatibility has created more of…

BUT WHAT ABOUT VIDEO GAMES? So … where do iPhone games fall in regards to what you should do at a ‘dollar store’? That is always a tough call – $1 seems like so little, but pretty soon you find you’ve spent as much as a full-size game! And hopefully you have actually gotten many hours of gameplay from those dollar games, but just as likely you have played most for about five minutes and never touched them again. Anyway, for my next set of micro-reviews I am looking at four recently released $1 games – some are good, some…

If you look back to the first year following the release of the Nintendo DS, most of the games released were little more than GameBoy Advance games re-purposed to use the second screen with perhaps some touch controls thrown on for good measure. Similarly, in my first six months with the Apple iPad I have witnessed many iPad games that are little more than up-scaled iPhone games. I would definitely put Knights of the Phantom Castle in that category. That doesn’t make it a bad game, as you will see – it just tells you something about what to expect….

The game SimCity came out in 1989, but its presence is still felt in every corner of the gaming industry. From new incarnations on consoles and PDAs and phones to new versions for PC and other platforms to influenced games for a variety of platforms, it is clear that Will Wright had SOMETHING right! The iPhone and iPad have been home to a number of games in this style, and I have just found my new favorite – Virtual City from G5 Entertainment! The Hype: Build a city of your dream – a residential paradise or an industrial center. Build…