His previous time working on Xbox materials are likely to phase into new ideas involved with the App Store in general and with its games. This comes at a time when the App Store and Apple’s products are hitting a new height in popularity. Their new products have been successful for years, but the dropping prices in refurbished iPhone- and iPad-models have brought the older versions of their products into even more homes.

Apple Turning Up its Game

Apple has seemingly started an influx of new talent with a strong background in gaming. They’ve already brought on gaming veteran Robert Saunders, who once worked a public relations manager for Nintendo. He’ll be taking the reins on promoting different applications for iPhones, iPods and iPads. This is on top of a similar adding for Apple with the move of former PR rep from EA, Activision and Xbox Nick Grange. He’ll take on the project of hardware for game apps, as they’ve aimed to really begun to focus their attention on the gaming market.

Throughout the gaming industry, Apple’s iOS devices have continued to gain steam and popularity in the recent years. Last year the smart phone market really took a strong hold on the gaming market, as nearly 58 percent of gaming software revenue recorded was traced back to iPhone and Android developers. This comes at the same time that handheld devices have started to experience real difficulties. The PlayStation Vita has been under much criticism ahead of its North American release this year, as it’s already debuted to underwhelming numbers overseas.

Third of Gaming Revenue Pie Going to Apple

Gaming has also continued to be a fair share of Apple’s revenue in the App Store. Last year, they took in close to a third of the total revenue for the store. Considering that smart phone software has grown over 30 percent in the revenue share for the gaming market, the same could soon be true for the total share in the application stores. Regardless, it seems as if Apple has taken a vested focus of improving games in 2012, not only with more resources into their PR and development, but also in attracting veteran gaming experts to join their team.

There are a variety of maps – from an industrial estate to sandy beaches and city skylines; all with fun obstacles and jumps. The way you control the bike is actually quite intuitive. Illusion Labs AB have ditched the usual technique of tilting the phone and have gone for an entirely different approach. You have to put one finger on the saddle to pedal, and one on the handlebars to steer. To perform tricks you have to move your fingers in a certain way – for example, to perform a “tailwhip” (where the tail of the bike spins around and the handlebars remain stationary), you flick the finger on the saddle and then release it. To stop the tailwhip for landing you simply place your finger back on the saddle. You do the same thing but with your other finger to perform a “barspin”. It’s quite difficult to explain but it makes sense when you actually play it.

For each trick you perform you gain points, but by doing this alone you cannot progress to the next stages. You have to earn something called “adrenaline points” by completing different challenges on each map. One example of a challenge is: “Ride the entire course at full speed without crashing”. You need a certain number of adrenaline points to continue. This game is far from easy however and will keep you trying for hours.

There are a couple of minor downsides to this game. Inevitably with such high graphics, this game is a real battery-drainer so make sure you have a charger handy if you are playing this on the move. It’s also £2.99 which is quite expensive as far as iPhone games go, although I think the price is worth it because the game play is so fun. The only thing missing from this game is a free roam option. If they release this in a future update then this game would be no doubt worthy of 5/5. For the moment though, I will give it a 4/5, although it definitely ranks high up in my favourite iPhone games and will certainly be staying in my games folder.

iPwnGamers Score: 4/5

The creativity behind this game is truly inspirational. Where do people think of such great ideas like this? It’s such a good concept and I wish I had thought of it first… but credit is given where it’s due to Launching Pad Games for an exciting and more importantly FUN game, which is how games on the iPhone should be.

So you are a fish who has accepted the offer to go on a “suspiciously cheap round-the-world holiday”. There are lots of hidden dangers along the way and it is our job to make sure he picks up all the coins and doesn’t get eaten by a penguin or impaled by spikes. The screen is divided; half is water and the other half is the sky. To make the fish dive, you tap the screen. For him to come back up again, you stop touching the screen. If he has enough momentum, he will jump out of the water and into the sky. This is often necessary to collect all of the coins on offer. A great feature on this game is the combo pointing – if you collect a certain number of coins in a row, your score increases faster. I love this because it gives you the drive to do better.

Don’t forget about the hidden dangers though. There are crabs, seagulls, jellyfish and many other obstacles you will have to manoeuvre to pass each level. Don’t be disheartened. You can always visit Sal’s Discount Souvenirs and change your fish’s costume (a very nice touch).

This game has now become my new favourite and I honestly can’t fault it. The sounds are top notch and the whole interface is very intuitive. Hands down, I couldn’t recommend this any higher. It is guaranteed to give you hours of fun and I promise you won’t get bored of it quickly. Go out and buy it – now!

iPwnGamers score: 5/5 (should be a 6!)

Ahhh, Reversi; it’s such a simple concept, yet has become so popular. And with Reversi Reloaded, you can now play this classic game on the move with your iPhone or iPad. Before I installed the game, my first concern for it was space – the iPhone does not have a lot to offer in terms of screen space, and when I started my first Reversi game, the squares were indeed quite small. Despite this, however, I had absolutely no trouble selecting the correct boxes… so kudos to Mobivention for making this typical board game work with the iPhone’s limiting factors.

So for those of you who do not understand how Reversi works – it is a strategic game and to win you must have the most coloured pieces showing your colour by the end. It works by placing a new piece in an empty square and turning over all of your opponent’s pieces in a diagonal, vertical and horizontal direction. It’s quite difficult to describe but once you start playing it doesn’t take long at all to get used to, and can actually be surprisingly addictive.

One feature I love on Reversi Reloaded is the ability to change the computer’s difficulty. By default, it is on easy, but you also have the options of medium and hard. Easy is relatively straightforward and you shouldn’t have any trouble beating the computer here. Medium is where it gets more difficult, but hard is where it gets serious. The Othello computer runs a program which can beat anybody at Reversi – it’s simply not possible to beat it. It’s defeated all of the world champions. Luckily, I think Mobivention have been slightly kinder here and I’m sure it is possible to win this game. I’ve been at it for a good 2 hours and haven’t cracked it yet, but I just randomly tap and guess the best places to go. The pros have established techniques and strategies, so it really is up to you whether you simply do this for fun on easy/medium or develop and enhance your reversi skills on hard.

Best of all though: this game is FREE! You can pay to remove the ads, but I don’t see the point because they are quite unobtrusive. You also have the option of paying for more board designs, and at 59p, why not?! But I think the one feature this game is missing is a statistics panel or profile page. It would be really cool to store all of your reversi scores and results and look back at them. An even better idea would be for these to be uploaded to a website where you can compare your stats with other Reversi players. I hope this sort of functionality is looked into, but for now, this game is a great time-passer and actually makes you sit and think.

iPwnGamers Score: 4/5

A lot of developers were complaining about the review policy of the App Store, and today Apple has finally made a big improvement. Since today you can only review an App when you’ve actually purchased it. It’s no longer possible to go to an App and just review it even though you haven’t used it. Developers were seeing negative reviews of people who hadn’t even played an App. TUAW has more info on the new review policy:

The frequent result is as you might expect: 100 reviews kvetching about price by people who never even purchased the application. That isn’t fair to developers, and it isn’t fair to potential buyers.

iPwnGames is off course the number 1 place to find out what new games are available in the App Store, but now there’s also an App that lets you know what new games are available in the App Store. GotApps allows you to create email alerts for certain keywords and categories, so you can simply create an alert for the games category and get an alert whenever a new game is out.

“That’s a substantial business,” says Simon Jeffery, president of Sega’s U.S. division. “It gives iPhone a justifiable claim to being a viable gaming platform.”

SEGA seems to be very happy with the sales of their popular Super Monkey Ball game for the iPhone so they will certainly develop more games for the iPhone in the future.

Source

Source: Gamebabl