WWDC: A Preview of Flying Dino's Upcoming 'iMech'
posted June 11th, 2009 8:25 PM EDT by Blake Patterson in $2.99, Shooter, Upcoming Games, iPhone games, iPod touch gamesToday at WWDC, Touch Arcade met with Henry Ho and Dave Vallejo of Flying Dino to preview their upcoming multiplayer 3D mech battle game iMech.
iMech is a 3D, over-the-shoulder style combat game that puts the player in control of one of three different mech vehicles to engage in online battles of up to eight players per game, across five different maps. At the players' disposal are five different weapons: machine gun, laser, flame thrower, missiles, and mines. Each player's mech features shields and a jetpack boost feature (to make quick jumps through the environment) that share energy — so boost sparingly.
Control is handled via dual on-screen sticks with a tap to switch out weapons. The game offers an in-game chat feature where users tap to select a positive, negative, or neutral comment, with a second tap to select from a short-list of quips from each category.
We engaged in a three-way online match, running through Flying Dino's local laptop server and were impressed with what we saw. (When the game goes live, there will be an East coast and a West coast server to handle community matches.) Gameplay was intense, with very nice effects and a smooth framerate, even on the original iPod touch.
Right now iMech is online multiplayer only, but a future update should bring a single-player Campaign mode as well as a Survival / Skirmish mode for quick, intense matches.
See our gameplay video of the multiplayer action.
3D mech battlers were huge a decade ago. Anyone who enjoys that sort of steel on steel crush should have a great time with this one. iMech should be submitted to the App Store towards the end of next week and will retail for $2.99.
As a robot, instant purchase for me.
Looks really cool and I would love to see more mech action
This looks like it could be a lot of fun. Mechs, now that I think about it are kinda perfect for the platform. You don't have to worry about moving your weapon along a vertical axis for example. Also, they're inherently kinda slow and aren't as nimble, so fast movements (like turning around quickly) aren't really necessary like they are in regular FPS's.
Awesome! An affordable price and quick timeframe for this game. Been following it for a while and good to see that the TA team approves of it. I wonder how rankings and leaderboards will be since it's a client-server based online game.
Looks nice. I can't tell–how do you fire weapons?
I've been looking for another reason to buy an iPhone. I think this game is the straw the broke the camel's back.
This game looks like it's going to be awesome. I saw the youtube video a while back, but I wasn't sure when I would be able to get my hands on it, but hopefully it will be in the next two weeks!
Looks awesome. Maybe a little more life so you don't die as fast. Will there be any team play or is it FFA? 4v4 tournaments and a ladder system would rock like WoW has for PvP and make this a definite buy.
@ Doshy
we have several other modes planned including team deathmatch but at launch it's only FFA. Already implemented is full registration system to allow stats tracking plus several community based features are already in the works but may not make it in the initial release. As always shoot me an email (randywen@flyingdino.com) or (support@flyingdino.com), we'd love hear from you and to shape the game based on user feedback/suggestions.
Looks great!
how about a capture the flag mode too?
Ditto what astrosaurus said, that's what came to my mind.
or a king of the hill mode and whoever controls the point for the longest amount of time…
This looks like fun. However, what's a Mech game without flight? Armored Core is a great example. Not everyone wants to build a tank.
This game looks god, but i want idracula online
When will this be out??????!!!!
Will it be available anywhere in the world?
It's out guys, and it's glorious. Really the best gaming you can do at work on your break.