As forum readers began to notice last night, Manomio's Commodore 64 emulator for the iPhone, which finally landed in the App Store a few days back after a long and rocky road, has been pulled by Apple.

Before letting the emulator into the App Store, Apple required that Manomio remove the BASIC interpreter from the application.  Apparently the developer disabled BASIC rather than actually removing it.  Many iPhone users found a way to activate the interpreter and, after catching wind of this, Apple pulled the app from the store.

Manomio indicates it has since submitted an updated version of the emulator that addresses the issue at hand.  Let's hope this one gets the stamp of approval from Apple and lives a long life in the App Store.

Sure, you might still have your full tier 1 set in your bank from Molten Core, and you may be lucky enough to wield [Val'anyr, Hammer of Ancient Kings] but in leaving the comfort of your basement, all of your phat loot and sick achievements are left behind. Or rather, they were left behind, before Blizzard released the World of Warcraft Mobile Armory [App Store] for the iPhone.

That's right citizens of the Horde and defenders of the Alliance, Blizzard's recently released app allows you to keep track of all your World of Warcraft characters, along with their stats, equipment, achievements and more. You can access your guild's stats and calendar, as well as other informational and planning tools. Experiment with talent trees or search for items, the World of Warcraft Mobile Armory can do it all.

Blizzard released this fairly impressive trailer walking users through the various functions of the app:

The World of Warcraft Mobile Armory is available as a free download, but requires a World of Warcraft or Battle.net account to use.

App Store Link: World of Warcraft Mobile Armory, Free

For many of you out there, the iPhone is not your only gaming console.  Those among you who also spend time on Xbox Live may find interest in Nicholas Pike's recent App Store release iXboxLive [App Store].

In short, iXboxLive is your Xbox Live "buddy list" on your iPhone.  iXboxLive allows you to

• View your buddy list as you've defined it
• See what your buddies are currently playing
• See your buddies' gamer pic, gamer score, gamer reputation, and location
• See your buddies' list of recent games including scores and last-played dates

The major shortcoming of this app is that you must manually enter the gamertag of each buddy you would like to track.  The author explains that this is due to restrictions in the Microsoft Xbox Community Developer SDK and that, unfortunately, the load-time of iXboxLive will increase significantly for each gamertag added to the list.

iXboxLive retails for $0.99 on the iTunes App Store.  Despite its shortcomings, diehard Xbox Live gamers may find it of use.

[ via Kotaku ]

Konami recently released Frogger [App Store] for the iPhone through the iTunes App Store.

Frogger for the iPhone is an adaptation of Konami's 1981 arcade original featuring updated graphics, an updated soundtrack, and a choice of touchscreen or accelerometer controls–or both combined.

Like the original, the goal of the game is to direct five frogs, one by one, from the starting point at the bottom of the screen to their homes at the top before the timer runs out.  It's a treaturous journey.  The lower half of the screen consists of a busy roadway with five lanes of speeding traffic.  The upper half contains a rushing river filled with logs, turtles, alligators and other such hazards.  The challenge is getting the frog home safely without getting flattened, drowned (this was always puzzling…), or eaten.  It sounds simple, but can be rather frustrating challenging.

The iPhone version offers both accelerometer and two types of touchscreen controls.  Moving your frog with the accelerometer involves "jerking" the iPhone in the intended direction of travel.  Touchscreen control works with either a tap in the intended direction relative to the frog's current position or a swipe (anywhere on the screen) in the desired direction, akin to the "swipe" control mode of Ms. PAC-MAN for the iPhone.  Both control systems are active simultaneously by default, but either can be turned off in the game options.  After spending time with all control methods, the swipe technique seems the most precise.  The iPhone's vibrate feature is also utilized by the game.

Frogger for the iPhone is…well…Frogger–not much more, not much less.  If you're a Frogger fan, then you'll enjoy this outing. If not, you may find a better value in some of the other $9.99 games.

As Pocket Gamer reports, Konami is enthusiastic about the iPhone as a gaming platform and will be bringing more content in the near future.

"We see the iPhone platform as an opportunity to showcase the legendary Konami brands in a truly unique fashion," he says. "We look forward to releasing more of our popular titles for the iPhone soon."

One thing to note: The official line from Konami is that right now Frogger is iPhone-only (not iPod touch compatible), despite iLounge reporting that they successfully installed it on an iPod touch.  Konami indicates it will be releasing a verison compatible with the iPod touch soon.  (Thanks chrisb3)

With little fanfare renowned game studio THQ has released the iPhone version of de Blob [App Store].  Scheduled for September release on the Nintendo Wii and DS, the iPhone version of this rather unique title comes as a bit of a surprise.

THQ (Toy Headquarters) is a massive worldwide game developer with a library of hundreds of titles and over $1 billion in revenue in 2007. Until now, they had made no announcements of iPhone support. THQ publishes games for multiple platforms including the Playstation 3, Nintendo Wii and Xbox 360.

(more…)

Too fond of your jailbroken iPhone or iPod touch to go "iPhone 2.0" on the 11th?  Not looking forward to your friends with updated iPhones waving Super Monkey Ball in your face?  Well, beat them to the punch–right now–with Neverball for the jailbroken iPhone and iPod touch.

Developer Lazrhog who brought us the port of Kenta Cho's excellent Noiz2sa has been busy porting the Super Monkey Ball-inspired Neverball to the iPod touch.  He recently released v1.0 to the public; it can be accessed from Installer.app.

From Wikipedia:

The main gameplay of Neverball is based on moving a ball using gravity by tilting the game world, not directly controlling the ball (it is somewhat similar to the game Labyrinth without the holes in the middle). The mouse (or a similar pointing device), keyboard, or joystick tilt the level to help guide the ball to a goal, via an obstacle course, with a set time limit. Moving platforms and other crazy objects get in the way, making levels progressively harder. To unlock the goal on each level, the player must collect a required amount of coins. Coins come in three different colors: yellow, red and blue. Yellow coins are worth 1, red are worth 5 and blue are worth 10 coins or points. Collecting 100 coins gains an extra life.

Neverball is free software under the GNU General Public License and is also avaialble for Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, and the Sega Dreamcast.

Neverball is not currently slated for release through the iTunes App Store because the developer does not own a Macintosh and, as such, cannot utilize the iPhone SDK for development.  He is currently trying to raise enough money through donations on his product pages to secure a Mac and release his titles for iPhone 2.0 devices.  Looking at the quality of his ports, we hope Lazrhog reaches his goal, and fast!

It's not a particularly new jailbreak iPhone game, but it's the one that's been driving me crazy (in the good way) on my daily commute of late.  The title I speak of is Block Puzzle from Soneso.

Block Puzzle is, as one might expect, a puzzle game in which the player must slide a large red block through the exit by sliding it and other blocks of various colors and sizes around the playfield. There are 10 levels, each with a different combination of block sizes.  A gameplay timer effects the score, and as incentive to get times as low as possible, the game is tied to an online, web-based hi-score page allowing players around the world to see how they rank.  A nice touch.

It sounds like a rather basic game–and it is, but somehow it seems to just "get it right." If you've got a jailbroken iPhone, you won't want to miss it.

Block Puzzle and Soneso's other iPhone games and apps can be acquired through their Installer.app repository: http://www.soneso.com/iphone.

Darxun Games has recently released their first iPhone game, a port of their 3D mobile Mech-style shooter, Cybersaurus.

Cyber-Dinosaurs!
Our planet was their home for millions of years. Now they want it back!
The ultimate mix between a 3D shooter and an adventure game.
Explore 6 stunning planets (11 maps fully 3D) with outstanding backgrounds!
Navigate through the solar systems using the interactive 3D map and destroy the robosaurs!

Features:

• 11 full 3D levels, 6 different planets and environments
• 3D engine with "astonishing" lighting system
• 3D audio engine
• Full 3D animations
• Different characters–every enemy has different AI
• Adventure gameplay style

The game features a combination of accelerometer and on-screen button controls for negotiating the landscape, selecting weapons, and firing.  While movement in the 3D world is currently fluid, Darxun points out that an update due in approximately two weeks will utilize the iPhone's 3D hardware acceleration and improve the game's framerate and render quality. (Cybersaurus is currently using a software-based rendering engine.)

Cybersaurus can be installed on any jailbroken iPhone or iPod touch via Installer.app and can be found at Darxun's repository: http://iphone3dgames.com. Users can try out the game in demo form with the option to unlock the full title for $9.99 USD.

We're all anxiously awaiting the launch of the iTunes App Store in early July.  That said, there're plenty of great jailbreak iPhone games out there.  The one I've been most enjoying of late is Passionfools' title CubicMan (video link).  A remake of the Flash game Bloxorz, CubicMan presents the user with an isometric game grid and the challenge of manipulating a rectangular object in such a way as to stand it up on a designated grid square, thereby moving to the next level.

The game is great fun and makes good use of the iPhone's accelerometer for screen orientation and multitouch display for pinch-and-zoom playfield manipulation.

CubicMan can be had via Installer.app from the ModMyiFone repository for users of a jailbroken iPhone or iPod touch.  We hope to see this available through the iTunes App Store at launch.

One of the more interesting Jailbroken applications that appeared for the iPhone and iPod Touch has been Moo Cow Music's instrument apps which turn your iPhone or iPod Touch into a Piano, Drum, Guitar or a full Band. Youtube movie:

It appears the developer is reworking the applications for official SDK release in the future, but the most interesting discovery is that the iPhone is capable of 5-point multitouch. The video above shows 4 point multi-touch, but the developer's site indicates that up to 5 distinct points can be detected simultaneously.

From a gaming perspective, this means that complex controls can be implemented with up to 5 points of contact. While its hard to imagine a situation where 5 points of contact would come in handy (maybe the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique?), it's nice to know the number of detectible presses will not be an issue.