Japanese game company Data East appears to be poised for a comeback on the iPhone platform — or at least their intellectual property is.
Data East Corporation actually went bankrupt in 2003, but most of its intellectual property was acquired by G-Mode. This includes the rights to classic titles such as Burger Time, Heavy Barrel, Karate Champ and more. Now we don’t know if they are planning on bringing any of these titles to the iPhone, but G-Mode has already released one and are working with developer Revolutionary Concepts to publish another.
Magical Drop Touch
Magical Drop Touch [$2.99] for the iPhone became available just last week. This port of the classic arcade title has been revised with swipe controls.
Overall the game was ported well to the iPhone platform, but the swipe controls just don’t keep up to the original joystick controls. The control speed was the one nagging issue to an otherwise well done port. For this reason, we’ve been unable to recommend it. Note that similar gameplay, but with better controls can be found in StormBASIC’s DynoQuest [$1.99].
While we can hope for a control update on Magical Drop Touch, this entry does raise a number of interesting possibilities. And, tonight, we heard about the next Data East title coming to the iPhone.
Cobra Command
Revolutionary Concepts has announced that Data East’s 1984 arcade game Cobra Command is also coming to the iPhone.
Originally released in 1984 by acclaimed Japanese arcade games company Data East ‘Cobra Command’ combined the use of hollywood-quality full motion video and surround sound, (the then leading-edge) Laser Disc technology, and overlaid computer generated graphics, to create a first of it’s kind interactive experience which saw you the player flying a state of the art futuristic combat helicopter across ten wide-ranging action-packed levels.
In conjunction with G-Mode, this new iPhone title will feature a number of iPhone specific features including:
- Full motion widescreen video, fully restored and presented in H.264 running at 60 frames per second.
- Vastly superior graphics and effects to match the on-screen action. Including an all new Cockpit, guns, missiles, and sound effects.
- Redesigned precision multi-touch controls.
- Accelerometer-based tilt steering! You really are in command of the worlds most awesome combat machine.
- Instantaneous seek time, providing a seamless experience where on on-screen action unfolds uninterrupted in real time.
- Unlockable Bonuses. Including Arcade Classic, and Expert Modes.
The game has been updated with enhanced graphics as shown here alongside the original graphics:
A video of the original game can be seen on YouTube. Cobra Command for iPhone is currently in play-testing and on track for release this October.
