The iCade is here. It started as an April Fools joke and became a reality. We got ours this evening and wanted to share a few unboxing photos. Its Bluetooth controls work right out of the box with all 100 games in Atari's Greatest Hits [App Store] and so far it's been a blast to play with.

We'll post our full review of the system tomorrow. Stay tuned.

I have no idea if the Guinness Book of World Records is anywhere near among kids these days as it was when I was younger but back in my day, that was prime Christmas or birthday gift material. I totally missed the memo for this, but I guess they've even dropped the "Book of" from their title and now they're just "Guinness World Records". There have been a number of other changes over the years chronicled by Wikipedia, beginning with the pub argument that spawned the book all the way back in 1951 to recent TV shows, and video games. Guinness World Records: Gamers Edition Arcade [99¢] is one of those games, and might just be your one way ticket into the record books.

Included are 5 mediocre mini-games. Hoover's Hot-Air Escape puts you in charge of piloting a hot air balloon and tilting your device to avoid obstacles. In Mental Gears you need to swipe to rotate gears into proper alignment. Rupee Roulette is a tilt-based reaction game where you sort gems in to appropriately colored chests. Chest of Destruction is a simple tap-based bomb diffusing game and Monkey Country is a basic whack-a-mole type game.

(more...)

TouchArcade Rating:

After spending hours in line today, I managed to get my greasy sausage fingers on a brand new iPad 2. I'll be doing a first impressions post shortly, but the insane differences between Infinity Blade [$5.99] running on the original iPad when compared to the iPad 2 seemed too substantial to not immediately write about. Some things to look for in these screen shots include how smooth the edges are on the iPad 2, as well as how high resolution the textures are in comparison. We have this kind of image quality, while everything runs at a much higher frame rate.

The best way to view these comparisons is to click on one to load up the light box image viewer, then click through the screenshots one by one, going back and forth to compare them. The differences are obvious.

iPad 2 on left, iPad on right:

If this is what the iPad 2 can do with existing games that got a quick update to take advantage of the new horsepower, I can't wait to see what games are going to look like that are built from the ground up for the device.

Oh, let’s not beat around the bush. Apple is poised to announce the iPad 2 on March 2nd, 2011. The tech giant’s marketing department has been firing off invitations to select outlets, including our very own, for an event scheduled for 10:00 AM at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. As you’ll see in the promotional art blasted our way, Apple is making it plain that it is indeed announcing a second-generation iPad on the heels of numerous rumors indicating that it would.

Not too subtle, eh? That’s why I’m biting the bullet here and avoiding “safe words” like probably, presumably, and all that jazz.

One thing we’re definitely not sure of is what will be included in the new iPad. An on-board camera and a potentially even a SD slot seem like a safe bet, but there’s a lot of speculation over the processor, screen, and potential mystery ports. Some people are suggesting it’ll boast a Retina Display and a beastly dual-core SGX543 GPU, but we won ‘t know for sure until March 2nd. We’ll be there, of course, and we hope you’ll join us for a week of insane coverage both at GDC and now at this Apple event.

It’s not hard to get excited about the second generation PSP or the “Next Generation Portable,” as Sony calls it, especially if you do most of your gaming on the go. On top of a familiar button and doodad layout with an added stick for his comfort, the publisher is tacking on a kitchen sink’s worth of tech, including tilt and touch, as well as two different cameras and 3G support. It’s just about everything you’d want from a next generation portable device.

Men wiser than I have told me, though, that the specifications for the NGP that were revealed last night for the first time are good indications of the direction Apple will be going with its second generation iPad and 5th generation touch devices if rumors are to be believed. Manufacturers tend to pull from the same hardware shelf and then tweak components like brand new CPUs and GPUs so they cater to their own devices, meaning we might see comparable stuff from Apple whenever it reveals its next gen platforms.

Do note the NGP is using an ARM Cortex A9 which has been rumored as the potential foundation for the Apple A5 chip, the successor to the A4 found in current devices. It's also using a similar GPU to the one most people in the Apple rumors community expects to see in upcoming iOS devices as well.

So, what will the next round of Apple devices have in them? Only really, really special people (think: dudes who work for Apple) know for sure, so this is all speculation on our part. But what’s so exciting about this -- aside from being able to fill out some slots in our Apple press conference BINGO cards a little earlier this year -- is that the NGP looks capable of rendering native PS3 games. If Apple were to actually put all this junk into its next handheld, we’ll be fiddling with incredible machines with the power to output visuals and tech on the same level as current consoles. WILD, right? Oh, how those budgets will soar!

And speaking of wallets, Sony isn't talking price at the moment. But if the PS3 was any indication... well, you might have to get a second or third job. For more information on the NGP, swing over to Engadget.

Before I get started with this, please take everything in this post with a grain of salt. The accuracy of the Apple rumors community historically has varied widely between spot on, and, well, about as good as the ancient art of Tyromancy. That being said, because of how secretive Apple as a company is, following these rumors sure is a lot of fun-- Regardless of whether or not they turn out to be true.

First off, since we learned about the Retina Display of the iPhone 4, the Internet has been rumbling with the potential of a similar "Retina" display in the successor to the iPad. According to Mac Rumors, this might not be as far fetched as originally thought. Apparently, version 1.1 of Apple's iBooks [Free] "accidentally" included some graphical resources that are twice the size of the ones currently in use on the iPad.

Now, depending on how you read these virtual tea leaves, this could mean one of two things: Someone at Apple knows that rumor hounds will dig through absolutely everything they can for any kind of hint, or the screen resolution of the iPad 2 will be double that of the current iPad. This would put the screen resolution at 2048x1536, sporting 260 DPI. It's not quite the pixel density of the iPhone 4's Retina Display, but you typically hold the iPad much farther away from your eyes. This means that even at a lower DPI this screen could potentially provide a similar "Retina" effect. (I suppose there's a third alternative that this means neither of these things, but how much fun is that?)

Things get even more interesting though when you consider that Global Direct Parts, the guys who had the "iPhone 5" parts video (which actually turned out to be the CDMA Verizon iPhone), also have their hands on a screen that fits the previously mentioned description. The price of this part? $218.19, compared to the original $144.99 the original iPad screen cost at launch from the same site.

But what does the higher price of the components have to do with anything? Well, as appleguy123 points out on the Mac Rumors forums, according to Apple's 2010 Annual Report:

The Company expects its gross margin percentage to decrease in future periods compared to levels achieved during 2010 and anticipates gross margin levels of about 36% in the first quarter of 2011. This expected decline is largely due to a higher mix of new and innovative products that have higher cost structures and deliver greater value to customers, and expected and potential future component cost and other cost increases.

Whether this refers specifically to the increased cost of the components in the iPad 2, or something else entirely is anyone's guess, but it is a curious coincidence. If the screen does turn out to be 2048x1536, there's an entirely new issue to be addressed: The sheer number of pixels the iPad GPU is going to have to push. For the sake of comparison, the resolution of a 30" LCD is only barely higher, at 2560x1600. Gaming at that resolution is a formidable task for even dedicated gaming PC's, much less a mobile device. That's higher resolution than what we consider "HD" these days as well, which only weighs in at a paltry 1920x1080 in comparison.

Mac Rumors has an answer to this too, courtesy of Apple Insider. If these rumors turn out to be true, both the iPad 2 and iPhone 5 will use a dual-core SGX543 GPU from Imagination Technologies. What makes this rumor hold more water than your typical bean spillage by an "industry insider" is the fact that the iOS 4.3 beta already includes drivers for this GPU. Odd coincidence, eh? What's even cooler is that not only do these GPUs boast some incredible performance figures, they also support anywhere between two and sixteen cores handled entirely by hardware, without a single change to any software required to scale performance.

Again, I'm not entirely sure how true these rumors are, but there is something strange afoot. It would make the most sense to double the iPad screen resolution, as it would allow graceful upscaling via pixel doubling much like running a non-Retina Display app on the Retina Display of the iPhone 4. If Global Direct Parts' pricing can be trusted, the component cost of the screen doesn't seem that far out of line. On top of all that, it's really hard to deny the coincidence between the GPU rumors and Apple actually including the drivers for that very GPU inside of their own operating system.

We'll have to wait and see what Apple reveals as the inevitable iPad 2, but if the Apple rumors scene is to be believed, it has potential to be an insane gaming machine.

Strapping my iPad into a faux arcade cabinet is the last thing I want to do with my tablet. Oh, I can get behind PAC-MAN and Space Invader ports, for sure, but the device has become much more than a toy for me over the last year -- it’s become a browser, an e-reader, and a respectable game machine capable of offering some compelling modern experiences.

But for those of you who do actually want to relive those coin-op days, know this: Ion and Atari are teaming up to put out the “iCade,” an arcade cabinet for the iPad this Spring ($99).

The cabinet, as you can see from the following Engadget video from CES, features a full-sized joystick and eight arcade-style buttons. The apparatus itself is gleefully decorated in a retro style, though it’s missing the scratches and smoke damage that we’ve started to associate arcade cabinets with.

According to Ion, the iCade “ensures safe loading and unloading of your iPad,” as well as a secure fit. It also positions the iPad at a decent viewing angle for arcade play. The stick and buttons, by the way, will operate via Bluetooth.

The kicker here is that Ion’s business partner, Atari, will be publishing “a huge suite” of classic games to market with the device. In the press release, the only game name-dropped is Asteroids, but I’d imagine that we’ll also see ports of Centipede, Tempest, Missile Command, Crystal Castles, Super Breakout, and Gravitar at the very least. Curiously enough, some of these games have already been released by Atari, but were pulled early last year. We'll have to wait and see how different these re-released games turn out being.

OK, so maybe I do kinda want to strap my iPad into an arcade machine. Anyone with me?

[via Engadget]

Back at E3 we got a look at the OnLive client running on the iPad, and were surprised by how well it worked. If this is the first you've heard of it, OnLive is a game streaming service that is trying to do to video games what NetFlix streaming has done to movies. There are a variety of different payment options, but it comes down to this: If you've got a solid internet connection (the connectivity requirements are stringent) you can play next-generation video games on any device capable of running the OnLive client, including a micro console they're selling that hooks up to TV's.

Unfortunately, the OnLive client for the iPad is only a viewer, and you can't actually play any games currently. Fortunately, the viewer aspect of OnLive is really cool, and totally worth checking out. Utilizing the iPad client (or any OnLive client) you can view any game that's currently being played by any player connected to OnLive. If you've never seen Assassin's Creed, all you need to do is scroll to someone playing it, and you're instantly watching them. The down side of all this is that much like playing games using OnLive, watching them also requires a considerable amount of bandwidth. Viewing games is much more forgiving, but you'll still need a substantial chunk of downstream to not see any video artifacts.

OnLive Viewer for the iPad is a free download, and currently is available in New Zealand. Much like the Wednesday night game releases, it will slowly become available to other regions throughout the day before finally making its appearance on the US App Store at 11:00 PM EST.

App Store Link: OnLive Viewer, Free

BREAKING: Kids like expensive electronics. ALSO BREAKING: Kids under the age of 13 want an iPad or an iPod Touch more than any other electronic this season, so says the survey masters over at Nielsen (a research company).

Within the next six months, 31 percent of the respondents (parents) of a recent Nielsen survey say they have an "interest" in picking up a iPad this season. The next highest item are computers and the iPod Touch at 29 percent.

The list that follows includes the Nintendo DS, the PS3, Microsoft's hands-free controller, Kinect, and several other consoles, including other electronic items like TVs and E-readers.

Don't just take it from me; gander at this pretty blue list:

There's a billion ways to analyze this bit of data. We could, right now, scream from our podium that iOS gaming is more attractive to kids than the Nintendo DS or the other "core" platforms. The data certainly looks like it supports that.

Or we could say that parents, who obviously answered the questionnaire that Nielsen blasted out, really want iPads and iPod Touches and wouldn't mind using their really young kids as an excuse to buy one.

Or we could say that Apple has won the platform wars and will now forever since it has become, theoretically, the top dog among kids. These guys'll grow up and evangelize and establish the norm, you know?

Or we could just look at this data and see that, at the very least, iOS is becoming a recognizable platform -- one that kids under 13 are certainly excited about. Wait, that's too rational. Forget it. Apple is winning the war against the old guard, guys! Nintendo? Who is that? A coffee maker manufacturer? Pfft!

But seriously, if you're interested in this kind of stuff, swing over to the Nielson site and take a look at the second graph Nielsen has up. This one, for kids over the age of 13, looks more like a solid representation of electronic desires. According to it, teens are more interested in buying a computer or TV than an iPad or iPhone, though both Apple devices are still rather high on the list. Interesting stuff, for sure.

Big Bucket Software's The Incident [$1.99, Lite] is a pixel-art powered junk climbing game that we enjoyed quite a bit in our review. And while Big Bucket could just ride out the wave of sales and positive response and then start full-on developing a sequel, it appears to be doing quite the opposite: putting more into The Incident. In fact, the team is readying a crazy update for the game that will make it possible to play via a TV. No, for real.

A recent post on Big Bucket's blog teases this cross-compatibility, which requires an iPad and an iPhone. According to the post, this update (which will be 1.3 if you're keeping score at home) will allow you to plug your iPad running The Incident into a TV as if it were an input device. Then, with a game-connected iPhone, you'll be able to control the action in the game as if the phone were an Xbox 360 controller.

The best part about all of this? Big Bucket has fiddled with the game's visuals to make sure they'll accommodate widescreen on our huge and ridiculous HDTVs. It's the future, guys. The future.

As the blog post notes, you'll have to own an iPad Dock Connector to VGA to make this work, or if testing goes well, an Apple component AV Cable. Also, note that this setup doesn't require you to touch your iPad beyond plugging it into your TV -- this is all controller, babe. Like I said, the future. Keep it up, Big Bucket!

Flight Control HD [$4.99] won't be the only Firemint joint to receive a multiplayer update when iOS 4.2 hits the iPad. Real Racing HD [$9.99] will get its own as well, the studio has revealed this morning.

Specifically, this update will usher in four-person competitive races via Game Center across an unspecified number of levels. Currently, as Firemint reminds us in the press release, the game supports up to six-dude local multiplayer via Wi-Fi or head-to-head play via Bluetooth.

Game Center will give Real Racing HD online some structure -- once the update hits, you'll be able to get into games via random matchmaking or join up with friends who've bothered to sign up for Game Center and dig Real Racing HD.

iOS 4.2 is slated to hit whenever Apple feels like releasing it later this month, potentially as early as Friday if recent rumors are true. There's been some new talk since our post yesterday indicating that network AirPrint has been removed from the update, but nothing has been confirmed.

If Apple packaged and sold a sneeze, you better believe Firemint would figure out a way to support it with Flight Control -- and fast, as the studio is often on the bleeding edge of all things Apple with its hallmark game. With this in mind, you might not be so surprised to learn today's bit of news: Firemint plans to release a free update to Flight Control HD [$4.99] that will add Game Center multiplayer support day and date with the release of the iOS 4.2.

This update, specifically, will add a brand new "exclusive" versus map to the game, as well as co-op support to the five original maps. Game Center, as we've seen in the past, will play the role as a service: when the update hits, you'll be able to invite friends or enter into random matchmaking for these modes, as well as earn achievements. This update will also support multi-tasking, which means you'll be able to drop into a game as you please and drop out whenever mom sends that e-mail. No worries, ma!

iOS 4.2, which is slated to hit this November, in addition to adding multi-tasking support, will also add Folders, AirPrint, "enhanced enterprise support," a unified e-mail inbox, dictionary enhancements, and AirPlay. Sounds hot, right? Oh! And Flight Control HD is pretty good. You should probably check it out.

There's an odd social disconnect in most "social" games. You can't rate each other's work. In life we wither or thrive under the scrutiny of peers, and whether this pressure is good or bad, it informs what we do and how we approach a given task or problem. This is what drew me to Haiku Wind Pro HD [$.99] for the iPad, oddly enough.

Haiku Wind Pro is a social-focused joint that encourages people to write and then rate anonymous haikus. The rating process is streamlined; a simple thumbs up and thumbs down indicator appears above each finished haiku. You need only click on one or the other to bring down righteous judgment.

The game launched last night, so the audience pool is shallow, but you can already see how others' successes are informing or influencing new works. For example, my creative haiku based on the popular song "The Thong Song" is currently sitting at a -1 rating, while other more original, much more flowery haikus are receiving praise from others. The fledgling audience expects deeper, more garnish-laced poems and, as a result, that's the majority of the content.

Imagine if Farmville [free] allowed you to rate each other's crop placement or Bejeweled Blitz let you suggest the next move. Now, imagine that this rater or suggester was just a dude on the 'net. You might think twice about how you play, right? This is what's happening in Haiku Wind Pro and it's neat to watch unfold, though its admittedly, very limited action at the moment.

Another factor that majorly weighs into you producing the best, perhaps most popular works (as, perhaps, influenced by prior works) is the game's persistent leveling system. As your poems are received well by others and you rate, you'll gain levels. Haiku Wind Pro, in this way, is like an RPG where the experience points have been replaced by some sort of shared social currency.

The streamlined UI in Haiku Wind Pro also does its part in making it easier to rate and produce; it's very, very simple. To the left, you'll always see the latest haikus in a swipe-down, Twitter-style menu. To the right, you'll see your current haiku and what level you're at, denoted by a style of mask.

There's not much more to Haiku Wind Pro; it's a barebones game with a clever idea. But I think it's a fascinating app in that illustrates a missing piece in our increasingly connected digital existence -- actually connecting with people with what we've done or created. Also, it's a neat study in how we inform each other in a confined space.

Imangi Studios' Harbor Master HD has seen a number of additions since its original iPad launch in April. The base game includes a single map and can be downloaded for free, but they've since added four new maps for $0.99 each as in-app purchases. The map above is called the Bermuda Triangle and includes pirates, monsters and cyclones to make your line-drawing life a bit more difficult.

But with the latest updates, they've also added a clever rewind feature that lets you restart the game right before that last fatal mistake:

We've also added a really cool feature - rewinds. With rewinds, after you crash, you can choose to rewind (or undo) the crash, and continue playing where you left off. You can only use ONE rewind in a game, and you get a limited number of rewinds total. When we launched the update, we gave people 5 rewinds, and then they could earn 1 rewind for each 1000 pieces of cargo they ship. So they more you play, the more rewinds you earn, and therefore you can use a rewind more often.

You start off with 5 rewinds and can use one in any particular game. Rewinds are then earned for longer play time or can be purchased via in-app purchase ($0.99 for $2.99 for 20, $4.99 for 40).

Balancing in-app purchases is always a challenging problem for a developer. On the one hand, in app purchases need to offer a legitimate value in a consumable product. But that product can't be one that gamers feel is a necessary component of the game. I feel like the rewinds fill this sort of niche well, and I'd expect we'll see it more often in the future. As an added bonus, I've always thought the compelling feature of these chaos management games is the "oh no!" last second regret when death comes suddenly. Now you get a second chance.

Back in June, we reviewed the follow up release to last years successful Battle Bears: Zombies! [99¢], titled Battle Bears -1 [99¢]. While this new prequel to the original game contained the same humor and silly antics that we love about the series, it fell short in a few areas, which kept it from being an entirely enjoyable gaming experience. It was still a fair amount of fun, but the awkward control scheme, repetitive levels, and overall difficulty and brevity of the main campaign ultimately sucked a lot of the joy out of Battle Bears -1.

Now, nearly two months since release and two updates later, pretty much all of these issues have been addressed and then some, and Battle Bears -1 has evolved into a much more competent game than it started out as. For starters, the game is now universal and contains higher quality graphics for the iPad, iPhone 3Gs, and iPhone 4. Both of the campaigns (the included Oliver campaign and the 99¢ IAP Riggs campaign) have been doubled in length, and where you would originally fight the final boss of the game you now receive a new weapon for each character before continuing on.

Oliver's new weapon is a deadly katana, and Riggs gets a huggable head-powered laser gun. The katana is especially fun as it delivers one hit kills to any huggable that gets in the way of Oliver's wild swinging. In addition, the game now allows you to switch weapons at will by tapping an icon in the upper corner (or a button by the right analog stick on the iPad), and carry up to three clips of ammo for each one. The 1.1 update that came out early July let you aim by swiping the screen, allowing you to look around without wasting any ammo, as well as a slider to adjust sensitivity. These changes have really done away with the control issues that plagued the initial version of Battle Bears -1.

The added campaigns for each character take place in different settings as well, alleviating the repetitiveness of the scenery from version 1.0. New cutscenes and voice samples were also added into the game with this new update, and the game has been optimized to run smoother on older devices. And the updates won't stop here either, as developer SkyVu is already planning on adding more weapons, new bosses and enemies, multiplayer support, more cutscenes, and a new downloadable third character with their own unique storyline and campaign.

I'm already much more satisfied with Battle Bears -1 after these last two updates, and it's really become one of my favorite games to play. Further additions can only make it even better, but if any of these previous issues held you back from checking out the game, now is a good time to give it a second look.