Really? I think all of those games would be a LOT BETTER with a real D-Pad which doesn't obscure parts of the screen and most importantly which give a physical feedback to the user that the D-Pad (and the button) input was registered. I have alerady bought some of the games above but I cannot stand playing them due to the sub-par input method. The iPhone has some unrivaled input methods like Multi-Touch and the Accelerometer which makes some games possible which can't be ported to any other handheld console so far (try to port 'Flight Control' to the PSP or Nintendo DS - it's not possible. Even with a mouse input, the game will not be the same). BUT, regarding exact directional input using a D-Pad, the iPhone pales in comparison to other devices. Sure, you can make a Fighter game with 'different' controls as the standard Fighters (using touch buttons on the screen or tilt etc.) but it will not be the same as the original Fighters we all know. Face it. Regarding the other discussion about developer acceptance of such a device: It's difficult, indeed. Of course, nobody will produce a game which is solely controllable with this device. But it won't be rocket science to write a D-Pad library which either uses a virtual D-Pad on the iPhone or the Gamepad device as input. The question for the developers will be: a. Will it be easy to incorporate such a library? b. Are there enough users of the Gamepad device to even care about?
Instead of trying to revert back to d-pad games, why don't people just accept that the iphone doesn't have buttons, and make games accordingly? Instead of trying to make it like another platform, take advantage of the possibilities it has and use those. Zen bound, sway, touchgrind, rolando (though i do wish the horizon moved with you in this game its still good), really any tower defense game especially geodefense, fieldrunners, and star defense, eliss. These are developers who realize that the iphone doesn't have a d-pad, accept it, and use the multi touch/accelerometer abilities the iphone has to make great games.
