The 3G iPhone's going on sale this week, y'know. You'd think someone would have mentioned it...
Okay, so there's been enough hype around Apple's second-generation handset that even Osama Bin Laden is perched in his cave wondering whether he can bag a place at the front of the queue at the Tora-Bora branch of Carphone Warehouse this Friday.
Games are a key part of that, with the iPhone App Store due to launch this week too - possibly as early as tomorrow evening (Thursday). We're pretty excited, and you should be too, so we've gathered 20 YouTube videos that should whet your appetite for iPhone gaming.
Read on...
1. The games bit from Apple's WWDC 2008 keynote: seven minutes of gaming goodness from publishers both large and small, all explaining how they created 178 levels in less than three minutes with the iPhone SDK.
2. EA Mobile's initial demo of
Spore on the iPhone, with motion-sensing and touchscreen customisation. Nice.
3.
Bomberman Touch, from Hudsonsoft's official YouTube channel. This game hasn't been high-profile in the run-up to the App Store launch, but we think it could be one of the early hits.
4. IUGO's
Re-Volt was shown off at this year's BREW 2008 conference, with footage captured in blurrovision by yours truly. It's an innovative first-person shooter that uses motion-sensing for movement, and touchscreen taps to shoot.
5. Okay, this isn't actually
Guitar Hero III - it appears to be a mod of an unofficial iPhone rhythm game made to look like
Guitar Hero III. But it shows how fun a real version would be...
6. Developer Polarbit is working on the advanced versions of Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart, and recently linked to this YouTube vid of the iPhone version on its blog. So it must be real.
7. We recently wrote about
Rolando, which is a cool action title with distinct shades of LocoRoco and SolaRola. And ace music.
8. More on
Cro-Mag Rally, which was also shown off in the first video in this roundup. It's looking like the racer to beat, certainly at the launch of the App Store. Would be nice to have less bloke talking, and more gameplay footage mind.
9. This is another probably unofficial iPhone game - three-player
Pong with the ball travelling between handsets. Heaven knows how it works, if it's some kind of chicanery, and whether it'll ever go on sale. But it's very cool.
10.
CyberSaurus is a 3D action-adventure with on-screen buttons, rather than motion-sensing controls. There's a disappointing lack of enormous robotic dinosaurs in this clip, sadly.
11. More
Super Monkey Ball, this time from the original iPhone SDK launch. We're buying this straight away if it's available at launch...
12.
Mahjong Solitaire might not sound like the most exciting iPhone game, but judging by this video it's a pretty zen experience, touching tiles and listening to pretty music.
13. More puzzle action, with
Chain 3, a game that's being released on Day One. It's a match-three puzzler where you can drag coloured pieces anywhere on the screen, with the aim of making chains of matches. And it's got robotspeak, which earns it a bonus point in any ensuing Pocket Gamer review... (not really)
14. We're not sure whether to call
Aqua Forest a game, or an ambient forest-based drawing thingy. But given we don't have a website called Pocket Ambient Forest-Based Drawing Thingies, we'll call it a game for now. Pretty innit?
15. So hang on, there's an 'erotic' iPhone game called
Shake, and you play it by shaking your iPhone in a vaguely masturbatory motion in order to make women's clothes fall off? Hmm, can't see Apple letting that one through. But you never know.
16.
Trism was first unveiled at the GDC show this year, and it's a neat puzzler with triangles instead of squares, blocks or balls - which is a nice change. It makes innovative use of motion and touch to play.
17. We're not sure if this port of Raging Thunder is official, or just something someone knocked up for fun. Either way, it looks pretty good, albeit in need of some tweaking to the motion control sensitivity.
18. There are lots of indie developers working on iPhone games, and in theory they'll be able to get onto the App Store alongside the bigger publishers' wares.
Kingdom Lores is an interesting fantasy action title that we hope does just that.
19.
Kroll is the first iPhone game from Digital Legends, the Spanish developer responsible for
ONE on N-Gage. It looks absolutely stunning.
20. We love speculating about
World of Warcraft going mobile as much as the next man (assuming the next man also works for Pocket Gamer), so check this video out. It shows
WoW running on an iPhone, using a technology called
Telekinesis to stream it from a nearby laptop. Crumbs.
