SGN launches Skies of Glory and other iPhone games — showcasing new features

skies of glorySGN, a company that is pushing the envelope on special effects for games on the iPhone, has launched three new iPhone games, including its flagship title Skies of Glory.

The Skies of Glory game is an aerial combat game set in World War II, and uses great 3-D graphics, much like the F.A.S.T. jet fighter game SGN released earlier this year. In Skies of Glory, however, SGN has built a new base platform for the game, and allows you to do things like buy better planes (we previewed Skies of Glory here).

SGN, based in Palo Alto, Calif., has also released two other games on the iPhone that allows users to connect with friends on Facebook, and in the case of (fluff)Friends, to continue playing the game on that platform. More in a sec.

First, Skies of Glory lets you fly airplanes by tilting the iPhone in various directions, utilizing the iPhone’s accelerometer control. You can also tap on the touch screen to fire weapons. You can fly through the skies in a full 3-D space, dodging enemies and shooting them down in furious dog fights.

I’ve always found it hard to control these flying games, but F.A.S.T. was a bestseller.

If you concentrate enough, you can get pretty good at it and shoot planes down. But you do look a little silly doing it as you move your hands around and try to evade enemies. We’ll see if Skies of Glory can recapture that old glory. Electronic Arts is investing in similar games with high fidelity graphics.

These games, afterall, aren’t that cheap to make. They have a lot of depth and players can engage in eight-player multiplayer battles.

SGN also released a free iBowl Deluxe game where you can play live bowling with up to eight other people at the same time. The game lets you challenge your friends using Facebook Connect.

It also launched (fluff)Friends on the AppStore. It’s a new update to one of the company’s most popular games on both the iPhone and Facebook. Now iPhone or iPod Touch players can view their (fluff) animal characters through the (fluff)Friends app on Facebook. The game is also available on MySpace, and SGN is thus strenthening the ties between its iPhone games and social networks.

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.