Note that this is an update to the all-in-one Multiplayer bible published a month ago; see http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=34037 . There is a LOT to report on - with Christmas approaching, a lot of decent titles have been released or updated to support wireless multiplayer. 1.) The following major titles have received true wireless support: Worms by Team17 and COMMAND & CONQUER™ RED ALERT™ by Electronic Arts; both excellent titles. 2.) Need for Speed Shift by Electronic Arts has been released; a very nice racing game with local multiplayer. Not very fast on the iPhone 3G, though. Other notable releases: 3.) Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. by Gameloft: a really cool dogfighting title of about the same (or even better?) quality than the previous king of the genre, F.A.S.T. 4.) N.O.V.A. – Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance by Gameloft: an excellent first person shooter. I myself consider it better than Eliminate Pro (opinions surely differ). 5.) Modern Combat: Sandstorm by Gameloft is also a brand new release – as with N.O.V.A., with support to all the three major connection types (Lounge, Wi-Fi, BT). It’s too an FPS; however, on previous-generation hardware, it isn’t as nice as, say, the brand new N.O.V.A. – Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance by the same company. 6.) Red Conquest! by John Kooistra: an excellent real-time strategy. I haven’t really had the time to thoroughly learn its philosophy so I cannot comment on whether it’s indeed better than, say, COMMAND & CONQUER™ RED ALERT™ by Electronic Arts. Some say so. 7.) Super Monkey Ball 2 by SEGA: if you liked the first part and don’t mind the high price tag, you may like this one too. 8.) Two excellent golf games have received wireless multiplayer support: Let's Golf! by Gameloft and Tiger Woods PGA TOUR® by EA SPORTS. Of the two, I much prefer the latter (commentary etc.). If you come from Windows Mobile, you may even have read my article on golf games for the platform published four years ago in the paper-based Pocket PC Magazine. On that platform, Tiger Woods PGA TOUR was also superior to all (non-minigolf) titles. On the iPhone, this advantage seem to have remained – at least for serious players. (For girls, I recommend Let's Golf! Instead – they may find it “cuter”.) 9.) If you’ve used IBM PC’s in the late eighties / early nineties, you may remember the (for multiplayer) excellent game Arcade Volleyball: Now, a decent wireless clone has arrived: Slime Ball by Pinger, Inc. 10.) Some other classic game genres have also received some very strong contenders; for example, there is an excellent Battleship title released by EA (named Battleship), which I consider to be at least as good as the previous “best buy” of the genre, Sea Battle Classic by A. Kurulenko. They’ve also released a Connect 4 implementation – while some state it crashes a lot (and it did in my BT tests!), it’s pretty much better than some of the previous Connect 4 titles. Finally, if you loved International Karate on the Commodore 64, you’ll certainly welcome ZANSHIN by e4c Solutions, LLC. Its only drawbacks are the somewhat clumsy default control (you may want to change it to, say, swipes in Options) and the lack of in-game music / the lack of iPod background playback support. Unfortunately, you can’t run any kind of music player in the background to play, say, the original SID tune of International Karate. 11.) Lovers of rhythm games may welcome AeroGuitar Samurai Rock by Five Any Inc. I’m not a fan of the genre so I don’t want to decide whether it’s better than the previous titles; for example, Tap Tap Revenge 3 by Tapulous, which even supports remote (lounge-based) multiplay and always has a LOT of people to play. And there still are some other, newly released or updated (to support wireless multiplayer) titles – I’ve added no less than 28(!) brand new or just-updated-with-wireless games to the chart, most with demo videos. Please scroll down to the bottom of it (again, it’s HERE) to see all the new titles with links to my YouTube demo videos, TouchArcade discussion threads and a thorough elaboration of other features of each and every title.
