Electronic Arts continues its offensive on the iPhone market today, announcing the impending launches of three major games for the device: Need for Speed Shift, Spore Creatures, and the Simpsons game.
All three titles could be called second-generation iPhone games. They reflect a lot of work that EA is putting into the iPhone platform, and the investment involved here suggests that the smaller titles from one-person shops are going to have a harder time competing in the AppStore as brand owners such as EA launch more titles for it. Already, the top ten paid iPhone games at any given time have multiple brands in the rankings.
The Need for Speed Shift game is a racing title that exploits the better graphics of the iPhone 3GS model that launched this summer. It also runs on the older iPhones. It looks better than EA’s earlier Need for Speed Undercover game that debuted earlier this year. (The game capitalizes on Open GL ES 2.0, which allows for better graphics like shadows and lighting effects). The Shift brand is more of a driving simulaltion, while the Undercover games play more like arcade games.
But this Shift game can be played by dummies. You control the car by tilting the iPhone, or tapping its screen for brakes. You can play it in multiple modes: rookie, pro or expert. I raced in rookie mode and it’s almost impossible to crash. You try to follow the green line on a street race map. Shifting is automatic, you get help braking around turns, and thus it’s more accessible to casual players. If you play at a higher level, you get less help. You can work your way through a career with 28 different races. And you can play multiplayer via Bluetooth or 3G networking.
The game has 20 cars licensed from real automakers. You can view the race from four different camera views. And you get bonus points for winning or racing with the most style. That allows you to unlock more features and buy customizations. It should be out soon on the AppStore, but pricing hasn’t been set. The game was developed for EA by Iron Monkey Studios, which also made the Underground game.
Spore Creatures appeals to a completely different audience. In Spore Origins, EA’s first Spore game for the iPhone, you played a single cell animal that tries to eat other cellular creatures, absorbs their DNA, and then evolves into something bigger. Spore Creatures works the same way, but now you are navigating on land.
First you create your creature using an editor that gives you so many options you can create a billion different life forms. You can progress through four different land zones and 30 levels. Each time you solve a level and beat the “boss” creature in it, you can unlock a new section of the world to explore. As you eat other creatures and get their DNA, you can evolve your creature into a higher level being. You can even add defensive or offensive skills.
But you don’t have to attack other creatures. You can also “socialize” them. You can communicate with them, find out what kind of goodies they want to eat, and then you can go and fetch it for them. They then become your allies. The game uses a top-down 2-D view, but there are some 3-D effects such as depth in a water pool. You have to avoid enemies like Venus fly traps and use your wits to defeat bigger creatures. The game has no multiplayer options. It will come out in January.
The last game is The Simpsons Arcade, a comical take on the TV show that lets you play as Homer Simpson. It’s essentially a fighting game in which Homer comes across a donut that has a secret hidden within it. Bad guys steal the donut and Homer spends the whole game trying to get it back. Along the way, he has to fight a bunch of the bad characters from the TV show and enlist the help of his family.
The game is slapstick, cartoon-style fighting. Homer can do butt slams or belly flops. Marge can attack with her vaccuum. Lisa can slam enemies with a jump rope. The voices and sounds are authentic. There are 25 levels in the game and six different environments, including Krusty Land, Channel 6, and Downtown Springfield — all places familiar to Simpsons fans. Homer has to battle bosses like Chief Wiggum to move to new levels. When Homer gets beaten, you have to slap him in the face by running your hand across the iPhone’s touchscreen. Basically, it’s a “beat ’em up” game.