Mirror's Edge on iPad

EA's iPad Game -Mirror's Edge-

What's dated, expensive, and launching with Apple's iPad this Saturday? If you guessed EA's late 2008 dystopian action-parkour adventure Mirror's Edge, ding-ding-ding, take a bow.
It seems EA plans to charge a whopping $15 via Apple's App Store for the iPhone version of the game (a side-scroller, unlike the first-person original) with a few extra multiplayer maps. Let's run that again in EA-speak: "All-new multiplayer features made just for the iPad."
Here's what I can't figure out. Was it supposed to be $10 originally? Was it always planned at $15? Will it still be available for the iPhone and iPod Touch? Or is it now iPad-exclusive?
It's not the first EA game to raise the traditional $10 App Store maximum price ceiling by 33 percent. Command & Conquer: Red Alert--also an iPhone app--will carry a $15 price tag as well.
Yes, that's still less expensive than the PC version, which currently retails (discounted) for $20, or the console versions that originally sold for $60 a pop. But it's still an effort to raise established an price range commensurate with the iPad's marketing position as a device that sits somewhere between a mobile phone and a laptop.
Is $15 too much for an iPad game? Cheap apps, utilities, and games arguably made the App Store what it is today, a distribution platform with some 150,000 third party apps and over 3 billion downloads. Raising the price risks stymieing that growth, though it's also arguably a toe in the water to see where the ceiling really is.


Matt Peckham

iPad Guided Tours

Why buy modified games for the iPad?

With the iPad designed to allow you to play games straight from your iPhone app library, why would you want to purchase the same games re brought out for iPad? Read on to find out…

The iPad comes standard with a nine and a half inch wide screen whilst flaunting a 1 GHz Apple A4 (chip) cpu and flash memory of 16, 32, or 64 GB. From a purely gaming view point, this brings a World of opportunity for game devs to dive into.

Canabalt’s Adam ‘Atomic’ Saltsman is particularly excited about the whole concept and new capabilites of the iPad, commenting very optimistically on the “big multitouch space”. This opens up the market for the more average gamer, by interceding the fat finger, tiny screen situation.

Republic of Fun president Mike Rasmussen is more exited about the “additional resolution and horsepower of the device”.  Interested to start “understanding the 3D performance of the A4 [chip].”  Speaking purely from a gaming viewpoint, this is brilliant news as we can now start to expect some modifications to their gaming apps, in order to utilise the new brilliant gaming capabilities of the iPad.

Apple chose EA Video games, the no 1 worldwide publisher for mobile games and Gameloft to present two of their modified iPad games at the iPad launch.

Travis Boatman for EA Video Games presented their modified version of Need For Speed Shift. They have modified the iPhone game to suit the new components of the iPad. They wanted to focus on the performance of the iPad game and were particularly impressed with the 3D graphics, as well as it being “like a hd television” held right to your face.  With the game play being so fast, the iPad’s light weight frame makes it easy to manouver and makes the gameplay a lot more smooth. This can only really be taken advantage of fully, when the games operates from the iPad’s engine, rather than the iPhone games’ old engine.

NFS:Shift on the iPad

Gameloft presented their FPS N.O.V.A at the iPad games launch. Gameloft focused mainly on the multiple touch feature, developing a “mulitple target acquisition”, which allows you to shoot multiple targets at the same time. The improved graphics and smooth gameplay allows for a much better performance on the iPad game that the iPhone games will not be able to utilise.

N.O.V.A gameplay at the launch

So apart from the new improved features; wider screen, incredibly fast CPU, upto 64GHZ flash memory and 3d compatability, there really isn’t much point in buying the new games. Oh and also if you don’t like to be at the cutting edge of the gaming industry’s newest technology, then the new iPad games aren’t for you.

A Possible Glimpse of Gaming On The iPad

Okay, this isn’t the iPad, it’s the iTable created by PQLabs. It’s a big screen with multi-touch support and this chap right here is playing Warcraft 3. I’m not a huge fan of Warcraft but I know most people take a liking to these Strategy type games. Nonetheless the game looks absolutely fantastic played on the multitouch screen. At some points he is kind of pounding the screen with his fist, I’m not sure if the iPad can take that kind of abuse though. Either way, the dramatic music makes me anticipate the iPad even more.

Looks interesting – I wonder if we’ll see improvements to games like Assassins Creed, additions to the market like W.O.W and more Strategy and role playing games hitting the market now they can be more enjoyable on the iPads bigger screen.

A phone without an Accelerometer now is just not a phone. Nowadays it’s a must have and most future touchscreen smart phones with an eye for gaming and landscape texting will definitely need to have one installed. With new products come a whole new line of accessories and the iPad is no different. The iDrift is pretty much a steering wheel attachment to the iPad which allows you to play racing games a bit more realistically..Don’t get too carried away though.

It could be useful but you’d only find the hardcore gamers using this. I’m quite happy just tilting my iPhone. What do you think about the iTable? Could the iPad compete gaming wise? Would you use the iDrift?