iPod Touch: A competitor for the consoles

[Mastermind]

Based on the OS X mobile version which animates the iPhone, the iPod Touch just like profits the telephone from Apple of the installation of third applications since version 2.0 of the system, and in particular of video games of an impressing quality suggested at very low prices. After having shaken the world of the music and that of mobile telephony, Apple could have well a place in the industry of the portable consoles, and in particular make shade with the PSP from Sony.

When Apple launched the iPod plays for first in 2006, the firm of Cupertino has caused some curiosity, but frankly did not shake the industry of the video game. The few titles available (PAC-Man, Tetris, Bejeweled) showed an enormous technological delay compared to the portable consoles of Sony and Nintendo and it was impossible to see a walkman to the tiny screen making shade with the DS or the PSP. The things changed radically with the exit of the iPhone, then of the iPod Touch, two apparatuses integrating a system definitely more complex and advanced enough components to carry out plays in 3D, using which is more innovating capacities of interaction (touch, accelerometer).

Nevertheless, if the play belongs to the assets proposed on the iPhone, the stroke of genius of Apple could be well to position the iPod Touch in an aggressive way on the ground of the portable consoles, thus attracting an audience larger than that of the iPhone which remains before a whole smartphone.The catalogue available is already consequent for a launched platform less than one year ago and the prices charged are largely lower than those of a play for DS or PSP.Even to download it plays directly on the apparatus, in Wi-fi. As many assets which push us to ask whether the iPod Touch can approach a good game console. For that, we compared the experiment user of the walkman with that of the PSP and the DS and foamed Application Store with the research of the best plays available, or in any case those which approach more the EC what one finds on a traditional console (knowing that those are naturally compatible with the iPhone).

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iPod Touch: A console without buttons


Just like the iPhone, iPod Touch present of the physical characteristics which could make an ideal portable console of it, but also characteristics which limit this use, at least in the traditional design of the video game. Let us start with the principal asset of the apparatus. The iPod Touch is definitely smaller than a PSP or even a DS, but has a sufficiently broad screen to allow a good experiment of play. Reduced dimensions of the apparatus also enable him to hold a hand for a comfortable use as in portrait mode as in landscape mode. We see that will be particularly effective for the musical plays or the puzzle ranges.The small size of the walkman can nevertheless present some disadvantages and in particular a precise point which recalls us that the iPod Touch, like the iPhone, was not conceived to be a game console at the base. The first version of the walkman did not comprise any exit its apart from the catch helmet. The last generation of iPod Touch proposes high speakers, but those are placed as on the iPhone on the lower part of the apparatus. But for the plays, many, in portrait mode, the catch in hand of the apparatus makes that one often covers the loudspeakers with the index. On PSP as on DS, the enclosures were consciously placed of share and others in frontage of the apparatus. Another awkward point: the catch helmet is it also placed in lower part of the iPod Touch: in the plays in landscape mode, it will thus be located on the left or on the right and will be able to obstruct the catch in hand, in particular for the plays using a virtual pad.

Let us come while maintaining to the basic difference between the iPod Touch and the PSP: the complete absence of pad, analogical stick or buttons, which means obviously that all the plays use exclusively the two modes of interaction of the iPod which are the tactile multipoint ones and the accelerometer. Opposite, the PSP proposes a traditional device: pad directional, analogical stick, buttons in frontage and triggers. This difference modifies considerably the type of plays which one will be able to find on the two apparatuses. On a side, the iPod Touch will be able to never accommodate certain types of plays requiring a high degree of accuracy and frank contacts with physical buttons, such as happy them all. On another side, the console of Sony is seen limited to the traditional interactions, and allows less innovations the level of the game play. The compromise between the two remainder finally the DS from Nintendo which has at the same time a pad and buttons for the traditional plays and of a touchscreen for more original concepts.

First is to exceed the absence of buttons by proposing such as the virtual pad with very the screen or the use of the accelerometer for certain movements. We will see in our selection of plays that is not always a success but according to the type of play, this solution can prove to be effective. The second attitude consists in transforming this weakness into force and to conceive plays which use the capacities of the multi-touch fully and of accelerometer.

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iPod touch: Technical details


To locate the iPod Touch compared to the PSP as regards performances is rather difficult. The walkman of Apple contains a given rhythm processor ARM with 532 MHz, a frequency appreciably higher than that of the iPhone (Edge and 3G) which reaches a maximum to 412 MHz. The graphics chip which equips the aircraft is the MBX Lite the PowerVR, a processor used in many mobile devices, and considered for its low fuel consumption in energy. The PSP embarks as for it two CPU MIPS32 with 333 MHz and a given rhythm graphics chip with 166 MHz and integrating 2 Mo of video memory. On the level of the memory, one will note an advantage for the iPod Touch which proposes 128 Mo of DRAM against 32 Mo for the PSP. Let us note finally an interesting detail: if the screen of the PSP appears higher than that of the iPhone/iPod Touch from dimensions of the console, it offers actually a lower resolution: 480x270 against 480x320!

In practice, one could say iPod Touch which it is technically located between the DS and the PSP: it proves clearly with the top of the console of Nintendo, by in particular integrating a smoothing of textures absent from the DS, but proposes plays with made appreciably lower than than one finds on PSP. More the good games available on iPod Touch/iPhone are nevertheless impressive graphically, and definitely higher than all that was seen up to now as regards mobile devices other than dedicated portable consoles.

Installation Support

If one leaves the principle that the iPod Touch can be qualified of game console, it is a console of a particular kind since it is completely stripped of memory support. The PSP is penalized by its reader UMD who, in addition to being greedy on the level of the battery, implies rather slow times of loading: it is bearable on a console of living room but definitely less for one mobile device where one wants to enter the sharp one of the subject immediately. Also the difficulty of the transport of the plays arises: a UMD is relatively bulky. On iPod Touch, all the plays are to be downloaded and transfer on the walkman. One could think that the absence of support reduces times of loading but it in is nothing: certain plays, and not inevitably those which one believes, can be penalized by excessive times of loading. With final, the most immediate support on this level remains the cartridge, but this one suffers from the same problem of arrangement.

The physical absence of support also involves a major difference in the mode of distribution of the plays: if the purchase of play in remote loading again does not have anything on PC (Steam) as on console. Playstation Store already makes it possible to download certain plays PSP previously left on support UMD, of the exclusive plays as of the plays PS1 for which the console proposes an emulator. DSi (news version of the DS) also proposes an online shop, copied on its chain Boutique Wii. Nevertheless, on these supports, the downloading services are rather lateral canals. That could change in the future being given the success of App Store: in a few months, the online shop of Apple, available via iTunes or directly on the iPod Touch, developed a catalogue impressing of plays, free or paying. Navigation in the shop remains imperfect, in particular on the level of the classification of the plays which leaves something to be desired. Nevertheless, the remote loading is one cannot simpler and, especially, the free updates of the plays (even paying) installed, make it possible to remain in the page in some clicks. Associated at prices almost always lower than 7,99 euros by play, this simplicity supports the impulsive purchase, which can be generating bad surprise, but also of discovered very interesting.

[Mastermind]

Games for iPod Touch

For a platform which does not even have a year (one refers here to the opening of the system to the third developers), OS X mobile already has a catalogue impressing of applications, and a great part of them are plays.The selection that we operated is not exhaustive. We tried to choose plays in varied kinds, and which seem to us to compete technically with the titles of the traditional consoles or to propose original concepts, fully the possibilities of interaction of the apparatus (multi touch, accelerometer).


Rolando: an air of LocoRoco?

In some plays (Topple, Mazefinger), Ngmoco knew to be essential like the editor emblematic of the platform iPhone/iPod Touch. Rolando is without any doubt the play which propelled them at the higher level, and several testers even qualified it better play for iPhone. This kind of distinction is exaggerated always a little but Rolando does not miss qualities. The play is a skillful mixture of set of platforms and reflexion in a universe recalling LocoRoco on PSP. The goal is simple: to forward a definite number of Rolandos, small characters as round as an CAP-Man, to the following level. Rolando is controlled with the accelerometer: it should be selected, then to lean your apparatus towards the left or the right-hand side to make it roll. To make it jump, it is enough to make slip your finger upwards. Very quickly, you will have to make work Rolandos in a collaborative way: a character will have for example to actuate a button to open a door or to activate an elevator, in order to make pass the others. Your heroes can be controls individually or collectively: you will be able to thus select a group of Rolandos by drawing a rectangular selection as you would do it with a pointer of mouse.

Rolando proposes a subtle and varied gameplay. In addition to the traditional levels where it is enough to direct your Rolandos towards the exit, levels will also require to convey large king Rolando, which has an annoying tendency to nap, or to direct a soldier Spiky, a more creature able to cling to the walls. Certain platforms or elevators can be handled only by the Large Finger (i.e. yours). The difficulty is in a progressive way and the levels propose increasingly complex challenges requiring a perfect timing, in particular when it is a of handling bombs to release certain passages. Technically, the play posts an assumed simplicity: ngmoco looked after the very simple graphic leg, containing flat tints of colors, and bandages it particularly its involving (the sounds emitted by Rolandos and their enemies are ). The catch in hand is immediate but one will make sometimes the Rolando when one wishes to make it jump. Let us stop by a small detail sympathetic nerve: the autosaving, baptized iSave, makes it possible to take again the play exactly where it had been left, accompanies even the icon by launching of the play of the number of Rolandos present in the level. Is Rolando the best play on iPhone? Difficult to say.But it is nevertheless an undeniable success!


Tap Tap Revenge 2

Another emblematic software of the platform iPhone/iPod Touch, Tap Tap Revenge is responsible for the drainage of many batteries. Declined in a free version and several special editions devoted to artists, the play of Tapulous is seen from now on continuation, entitled extremely precisely Tap Tap Revenge 2. At the base, nothing original: Tap Tap Revenge is a musical of most traditional in the line of Happy Handled or Guitar Hero. Nevertheless, the design of the play is particularly effective and is perfectly for the use of the apparatus in portrait mode. The principle is very simple: balls ravel at the rate/rhythm of a music on lines and they should be tapped when they cross the line with the bottom of the screen. The direct interaction with the makes that one is caught very quickly with the play, more especially as it is possible to play two by dividing a iPhone or iPod Touch!

Tap Revenge 2 brings a major innovation: online game. It is thus possible to be measured with human adversaries throughout the world by joining one of the gaming rooms, organized in levels of difficulty and style musical. Nevertheless, the interest is limited enough insofar as only a classification makes it possible to compare your performance with that of your adversaries. One could nevertheless be stimulated by the challenge to improve his classification. One also finds several improvements on the level of the gameplay. First of all, the play proposes from now on a visual return much more speaking to the moment about striking. It was one of the principal defects of the first opus: it was difficult to know if one had really typed a note in times. The play also obtains new interactions. With the image of Guitar Hero, you will have to hold certain notes by maintaining the finger on the screen. Another innovation: the double notes which you will have simultaneously to type on two lines. These additions spice the parts already quite charged between the traditional taps and the arrows requiring to shake your walkman to the top, the left or the right-hand side and it will be sometimes difficult to juggle between all these possibilities. The play with two on the same screen is of the part, but the two rails from now on are laid out in spiral, which is likely to complicate the things a little. Always with the row of the , the decoration east can be a little overloaded light effects. In spite of these small defects, Tap Tap Revenge 2 remains a true drug, more as as on the previous model, it allows the regular remote loading of new titles.

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Conclusion


The iPod Touch is it a good game console in addition to being wandering multi-media very good? The question is to know if it is, initially, a game console. The answer is complicated: the iPod Touch is before a whole iPod, i.e. a walkman audio and video. Nevertheless, if one could regard the plays of the precedents iPod as simple gadgets, the catalogue of the iPod Touch is already very rich and the quality of certain plays, as we could see it, does not have great a deal to envy so that one finds on DS or PSP. Nevertheless, the apparatus was not designed at the base like a console, and the first versions of its system did not even make it possible, moreover, to install third applications. In addition to the absence of pad and buttons, one notes several defects of ergonomics which harm the experiment user, in particular the placement of the high speakers and the catch helmet: some is the case of figure, one will be thus obstructed during the use of the apparatus in landscape mode. The absence of pad is a more complex problem: one will be able obviously to pretext that harms the development of certain types of plays. Besides one sees it in certain titles presented in our selection: if Real Football of Gameloft proves usable, the mode of control used, a virtual pad, lack of precision.


On another side, the public aimed by the plays for iPod Touch and iPhone are not that of the hardcore gamers, but rather that of the occasional players, for whom this level of precision will be sufficient. You nothing will be taught by recalling that the market of the casual gaming has the wheel in motion.It seems very premature to announce the death of the plays sold on physical but it is clear that this tendency is brought to take importance, especially when the physical support puts at evil the autonomy of the as it is the case with famous reader UMD of the PSP. Would Apple be the troublemaker of the market of the video games? It is too much to say it. Nevertheless, rich person of the 30 million iPod sold Touch and iPhone (of which 13 million walkmans), if the firm of Cupertino with miser also aggressively on the side comforts its apparatuses, there could be some surprises.