This evening we got tipped off on a strange video that appeared on YouTube showing a test build of a pretty convincing basic clone of Portal built in Unity running on an iPhone 3G:

It's unclear what the future of this project holds. Normally I would say producing something like this is the quickest way to get a cease and desist letter, but Valve has had rather unexpected reactions in the past to spin-off projects.

For instance, from the blog fan-made Portal prequel, Portal Prelude:

Yesterday, we got our first contact with the french community manager of Valve. Yes, Valve. The marvellous company that brought Portal and so much more to us for years. Don't take me wrong, I'm not trying to seduce anyone, but believe me, it was huge. I was so happy and so scared at the same time. For your information, they don't seem to bother about us doing a prequel for Portal. They're even sending us their congratulations and they seem to enjoy what we're doing.

Will this demonstration of a Portal-like game running on the iPhone receive the same blessing from Valve, or is the project legally doomed? We anxiously await Valve's response.

Glu is hosting a iPhone Games Day today showing off several of their titles all of which have slowly being revealed via their Facebook page. Details are scarce at best currently, but the three games shown in this array of screenshots are Alley Gator, Family Guy: Uncensored, and Super KO Boxing 2.

We spoke with Glu at E3 about their upcoming Family Guy iPhone game. The game already exists for Android phones and the iPhone port was said to be originally due in September. There are 5 playable characters that can be played across a series of mini-games including memorable scenes such as peter fighting a huge chicken and robo-stewie (a homage to megaman). Glu said they were working closely with the TV show team to make it authentic to the show.

Fans of retro arcade games and modern 3D titles alike may find interest in Silver Machine Games' soon-to-be-released iPhone space combat flight-sim Metal Sun, which is basically a remake of the 1980 arcade title Defender -- but in 3D.

The objective of the game is to fly your accelerometer-controlled fighter jet across a varied landscape, with 360-degrees of freedom, defending a small group of people (blue orbs) from abduction by a sky-full of alien craft.  The game features ship customization, upgrades, and a trading mechanic.

The developer indicates that, while the initial release is single-player only, multiplayer support will come in a future update, as well as a "pocket MMO" of sorts, involving destructable cities, giant alien walkers, and various enhancements that take advantage of the iPhone 3.0 SDK.

They've got big plans for the iPhone 3GS as well:

The 3GS graphics capabilities are amazing and we're currently in the process of a major upgrade to the VIVID rendering system (our internal engine) to support it. Some of the stuff we've currently got in alpha test look better than some PS3 games I've seen - particularly when it comes to destructibility; we've got an entire city on one 3GS device that comes apart down almost to the individual brick level. Smoke, debris, flames and pieces of skyscrapers falling down so realistic it looks more like a movie than a game. The 3GS is just that powerful!

For this first release though Metal Sun was designed to run and look good on a standard iPhone - indeed, until things start exploding it actually runs at 50 FPS on a 2G touch! For the next release though it'll detect if a 3GS is present and if so will enhance the display considerably! And then some.

Those who have spent time with a preview build of the game have had positive things to say.  Metal Sun has been submitted to the App Store and should appear any day now, at a price of $1.99.

See the developer's gameplay video for a look at the action.

Coast Guard [App Store] is yet another fun nautical-themed game with controls similar to the other games in the Flight Control [App Store] spin-off genre. (Is that really a genre now?)

The goal of the game is to move your ship by drawing lines on the screen, and sink the enemies that are attacking incoming supply ships. Tapping on hostile ships fires at them, and as every friendly ship successfully docks, one of several power ups appear nearby. Rinse and repeat until your ship sustains enough damage to sink, hopefully beat your high score, and try again.

AppBank posted a gameplay video:

There's no indication as to how long the price drop will last, but at the current price of free, there's no reason to not download Coast Guard.

App Store Link: Coast Guard, Free

Update: The price may not have dropped to Free in all stores just yet. Be sure to look before you click Buy. If not, try again later.

At E3 we got a look at Gamevil's upcoming game in where fighting and special moves take precedence over the RPG storytelling elements found in Zenonia [App Store]. Like all Gamevil games, Hybrid: Eternal Whisper is a port of a popular Korean game that they're localizing to English and customizing for the iPhone interface.

From our preview of Hybrid: Eternal Whisper:

The game is structured around 150 levels where you must fight off a number of combatants on each level. Backgrounds and environments differ across levels and different skills and actions are both learned and earned over the game. The game does carry over some RPG elements including equipment purchases and earning abilities. There are various control combinations and swipe controls that invoke different attacks. Mastering these controls may become essential in progressing through the battles. While no official gameplay estimate has been provide, it seems like this could easily provide many hours of gameplay.

Produced and designed by the same team responsible for Zenonia, Hybrid: Eternal Whisper is scheduled for release this fall. Gamevil is very active on our forums, so for more information, or if you have any questions to ask, stop by this thread.

A few months ago, Capcom released Resident Evil: Degeneration [App Store] for the iPhone. Originally for the Nokia N-Gage, Resident Evil: Degeneration is based on the computer animated movie of the same name.

From our first look at the game following its release:

The game features an impressive 3d engine and a combination of virtual d-pad and on-screen buttons to control the action. Movement is controlled through the virtual d-pad and a quick flick down on the pad causes you to turn around 180 degrees. An action button appears when something can be done (pick up an item, open a door, climb a ladder) and a targeting button transitions you into shooting mode. In shooting mode, you have a laser sight to target the zombies and you can use the d-pad to aim up/down/left/right.

The game includes a pretty heavy storyline and in-game cut scenes which direct you to your goals. The cut scenes actually work out quite well to tie the action together. In my early experience, the controls seem to work well enough when you take into account the slow deliberate movement of the zombies. Being unable to shoot and move at the same time, however, made for some awkward early fights.

[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]

Impressions on our forums were positive, and Resident Evil: Degeneration provides a decent Resident Evil experience once players got used to the controls. With the arrival of Resident Evil: Degeneration Lite [App Store] now available for players to try for free, there's not much reason to not give it a shot.

App Store Link: Resident Evil: Degeneration, $6.99 - Resident Evil: Degeneration Lite, Free

Com2US's Baseball Slugger [App Store] is on sale for 99¢ today. Baseball Slugger is amazingly fun, for both sports and non-sports fans.

From our review of the game when it came out last month:

The game is structured as a home run derby. You must hit as many home runs as possible before a designated number of outs is achieved. Simple goal, but Baseball Slugger shines in 3 different areas that make it a great game: 1) gameplay mechanic 2) online realtime multiplayer 3) upgradables.

The gameplay is simple enough for children to play (my girlfriend's 7 year old nephew is better than I am) but with the vast array of items that can be purchased with gold balls combined with an online ranking system, Baseball Slugger has depth that even hardcore gamers can appreciate.

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At the current sale price of 99¢, you really owe it to yourself to pick this up even if you are only remotely interested in baseball. The realtime multiplayer (Shown at ~1:30 in the above video.) is extremely fun, and the near-instant matchmaking is a shining example of what pick up and play muliplayer on the iPhone should be like.

App Store Link: Baseball Slugger, 99¢

It seems like only yesterday that Enviro-Bear 2010 [App Store] first appeared on our forums, met with skepticism and confusion.

Several brave forum members decided to take the plunge and experience what it feels like playing as a bear, driving a car, desperately searching for food to survive through the winter. Since then, Enviro-Bear-mania has been spreading across the Internet at an alarming rate between iPhone blogs and near constant Twitter chatter.

Reviews on iTunes have been overwhelmingly positive, and as of this evening, Enviro-Bear 2010 is sitting at a solid 4.5 star rating, with 92 players reporting in at 5 stars, and 14 confused people who must have meant to hit 5 but accidentally hit some other number when submitting a review.

(more...)

Part of the plan behind Sony's somewhat puzzling announcement of the $250 PSP Go at E3 this year came in to focus today with the unveiling of Subatomic Studios' plans to bring Fieldrunners [App Store] to the Playstation Network library of downloadable games.

Fieldrunners, of course, is an original tower defense game that made its debut as an iPhone app late last year. Fieldrunners has been a huge success on the iPhone platform and this seems to represent the first time an original iPhone title is making its way to another platform.

While Sony's PSP SDK is nowhere near as open as Apple's, there are over 50 developers currently working on producing content for the PSP Go. Ash Monif, COO of Subatomic Studios comments on Sony's plans:

“This initiative is about bringing the lighter, lower barrier content to the PSP that has been so successful in other categories. You don’t see this happening at Microsoft and you even don’t see it happening at Nintendo yet. Part of that ‘snackability’ of the content is because you can deliver the content over WiFi super-fast. We’re making games that are just 20MB each, that’s less than a minute to download – instant gratification, snackable content. This is an opportunity for the premier indie developers – and I hope we represent that group – to come in and offer content that will fit the PSP.”

Various "snackable" games like Fieldrunners have been runaway hits on the App Store, but is the gameplay strong enough to stand alone without the intuitive touch interface of Fieldrunners for the iPhone?

App Store Link: Fieldrunners, $2.99

If you ask someone for a list of the best platformers of the 8-bit era, or really, best platformers of all time, Mega Man II [App Store] will undoubtedly be on that list somewhere and likely near the top. Mega Man II had it all-- Highly refined controls, an excellent difficulty curve, and a significant improvement on the then-revolutionary system seen in the first Mega Man that allowed players to harness the abilities of bosses.

The original release of the Mega Man II port for the iPhone was plagued with controls that made the game nearly unplayable. Also instead of porting the original NES game, Capcom ported the version that had been retuned for cell phones, making the game significantly easier.

After hearing the cries of countless disappointed gamers, Capcom revisited Mega Man II and released the significant 1.5 update. The first improvement made is the inclusion of "Classic Mode". Once enabled, Mega Man II plays much more similar to the original version of the game, but sadly, most of the control problems still persist.

In addition to the terrible portrait mode virtual joystick controls seen in the original, Capcom added an optional landscape control method that can be toggled by turning your iPhone to the side, or by locking the game in to landscape mode in the options. This secondary control method is significantly better than the first, but still due to the limitations of virtual buttons on the touch screen it is extremely difficult to jump and shoot at the same time.

However, the addition of this new control method at least elevates Mega Man II in to the realm of playability. It's now possible to make it through a few of the easier levels, but I still have no idea how given the current control scheme of the game you would ever make it through Dr. Wiley's castle.

Thankfully, Capcom recently released Mega Man II Lite [App Store] which will allow fellow nostalgic gamers the ability to sample the control schemes before deciding to shell out the $4.99 for the full game.

Until Capcom can figure out how to further improve the controls, I would still recommend sticking with any of the other Mega Man II ports that exist on nearly every other platform. In the meantime, if you're looking to take care of some Mega Man nostalgia, there is a ton of great fan-made Mega Man-inspired music on YouTube between The Protomen and Brentalfloss as well as a huge catalog of remixes on Overclocked Remix.

App Store Link: Mega Man II, $4.99 - Mega Man II Lite, Free

Brian Robbins of Fuel Games sent out a notice that their upcoming Lifeboat game was nearing release and that it would be submitted in the next few days. This reminded us that we had some footage of the game from WWDC that we never posted.

The game is a tilt-based casual title that requires you to save people off a sinking ship by sliding them into the lifeboats. It comes with a campaign mode in which you progress across different boats with slightly different layouts and shorter time limits. Money earned can then be used to buy upgrades such as dynamic ballasts, water pumps, swimming lessons, and lifeboat grace areas.

Some people are going to fall into the water, and you can save them by tapping them. Wait too long and they may drown or get eaten by a shark.

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Of all the different ways I have of letting off a little steam during the workday, one of my favorites is getting involved in a quick, online match of XPilot (installed via Fink) on my Mac.  XPilot, which likely many readers have not heard of, is a free X-Windows-based online, multiplayer space game in the spirit of Asteroids and various cave-flyers, that offers several modes of gameplay, such as deathmatch, capture the flag, base defense, and racing.  It features minimal graphics and a server browser to choose from on-going games from all over the world.  It's quite a lot of fun for those that don't require photorealistic graphics and surround sound and has a bit of a cult following in the *NIX gaming communities.

And thanks to 7b5 Labs' just-released iPhone port of XPilot [App Store], it's a game that can now be enjoyed just about anywhere.  And not just over WiFi, but also over 3G and even Edge.

XPilot for the iPhone feels pretty much like the desktop version, but with a smaller play screen.  It works, though.  And just like the original, there's a chat feature, so you can talk smack to those you are schooling.  (In fact, when I mentioned I was on an iPhone, three of the players in the match ran off to download it, allowing me to repeatedly destroy them -- mwahaahaa!  I suggest this tactic to iPhone players everywhere...)

The iPhone version can be played in portrait or landscape mode, depending on the device's orientation.  Control is handled via touch; a ring surrounds your ship, allowing for orientation control, with thrust kicking in the further you drag away from the center of the ship.  Weapons and power-ups are controlled via tap.  Controls work well, but are not quite up to the keyboard + mouse experience of the desktop original.

Features listed by the developer:

• Pilot your ship through a world based on uniquely authentic 2D spaceflight physics: thrust, momentum, and acceleration are as vital to your survival as lasers and cloaking devices.
• Navigate through an array of wild and devious spacescapes and arenas teeming with gravity wells, transporters, and automated cannons.
• Collect items to build up your ship's capabilities.
• Fire heat-seeking missiles, switch on tractor beams at just the right moment to throw your competitors off their game, remotely detonate proximity mines.
• Team up to steal your opponents' treasure or simply indulge in random acts of chaos.

Those wanting to get a feel for the game before dropping $2.99 on the iPhone version can download free desktop versions from a variety of sources on the net.  This is an automatic buy for seasoned XPilot fans, and a great chance for those unfamiliar with the game to get on board.

XPilot for the iPhone is based on the advanced XPilot-ng code branch, offering various enhancements over the original.

App Store Link: XPilot, $2.99

The graphics in SurrounDEAD [App Store] aren't amazing, and the simple tap to shoot gameplay isn't anything we haven't seen before, but if you are lucky enough to be playing on an iPhone 3GS you are in for a treat.

SurrounDEAD is one of the first games available that not only has the standard tilt controls for previous-generation devices, but also utilizes the compass on the 3GS as a control method. Standing up and spinning in circles as you pan the area for zombies feels just as strange as the Amiga 3000-based 1000CS virtual reality machines that often served as the crown jewels of arcades of the early 90's.

Facing different directions in real life to face those directions in games adds an extremely odd level of immersion to such a simple game. In its current state, it's little more than a tech demo for 3GS owners to show off the fancy features of their phone. In the iTunes description it mentions updates coming soon to add more zombies, zombie AI, a shotgun upgrade, and some kind of level structure. However, as it stands, you just tap to shoot zombies until you get overrun and eventually die.

If you own a 3GS, SurrounDEAD is worth throwing down a buck at because the compass control method is really cool, but other than that, there's not much to this game.

App Store Link: SurrounDEAD, 99¢

Oylaji Games' Mecho Wars [App Store] 1.0.1 went live today, bringing a short list of much needed changes to the game. One of the complaints in my review was the lack of detailed information, both about your own units as well as enemy units. 1.0.1 features a major UI update, giving players detailed statistics on their own forces, as well as seeing the movement and attack ranges of the enemy units.

Also included is an entire second campaign where you can play as the Landians, greatly expanding the somewhat limited single player campaign in the initial offering of Mecho Wars. Several new Challenge mode maps were also added.

For the current sale price of 99¢ with the new additions found in the 1.0.1 update, Mecho Wars recommended for all turn-based strategy fans.

App Store Link: Mecho Wars, 99¢

Japanese iPhone site AppBank managed to snag a copy and video of Resident Evil 4 mobile edition which was released into the Japanese iTunes Store briefly. The app has since been pulled for unclear reasons, but not before they managed to get some screenshots and the embedded video below.

The game appears to use a version of Capcom's 3rd person 3D that was also used in Resident Evil: Degeneration.

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So, no idea when the game will return to the Japanese store and if/when it will arrive in the U.S. and other international stores, but something to look forward to.