Swinging, Clinging & Frustrating.

We were all young once, so i guess everybody that reads this review can relate to the following:
You were walking down the street, minding your own business, when suddenly something catched your eye; it was a beautiful, shiny, filled-to-the-rim-with-goodies Toy vending machine! Aww the excitement!  In my case there was only one thing to be done: secretly taking a quarter from my mom’s wallet (in the future they would end up calling this “Stealing”), inserting the 25ct into the machine….rotating the lever….wait for it to click and then….what could it be? A delicious gumball, toys, maybe even a real tattoo?
Even the thought of these days makes you wonder: why isn’t there a game about it?
And thus, with these thoughts in mind, the creative team of IUGO Mobile Entertainment created Toy Bot Diaries: Entry 1; an iPhone/iPod Touch game that’s all about a little Toy Robot that has lost its memory. It’s up to the player to guide Toy Bot through a number of levels while solving puzzles and collecting Memory-chips to recover your memories.
Toy Bot is equipped with Magnetic Boots so he can cling to any metallic object he sees fit, and can use his Electric Grappling Hook to activate switches or move objects, or just to pull a “Spiderman” and swing about.
Toy Bot Diaries: Entry 1 is the first chapter in a series, and this game features 3 levels and one Boss Battle. So this isn’t a complete game you ask? True, but that’s a bit justified by its price (€2.39/$3.99), although it remains to be seen if this first part is even worth the low price, so let’s break it down and see where we end up!

Sound:

As i first started playing this game, i was actually impressed by the crisp sound coming out of my iPhone. Unfortunately, the music in Toy Bot Diaries is very repetitive and boring, and can really get under your skin if you let it. It’s just the same beats over and over again, and although each level has different music, this really spoils your fun-gaming experience.
There are some good things to mention though; Toy Bot actually does a very cute “Yippee” everytime he comes across a checkpoint, and the effects such as the sound of your Electric Grappling Hook really sound convincing.

Graphics:

The graphics in Toy Bot Diaries are good, nothing special though, just good.
The menus look good, same goes for in-game action, but there’s just nothing that really comes through as “wow”.

As you regain your memory, you unlock illustrations that tell you a little bit about what has happened to poor Toy Bot, these do look cool by the way.

All in all, Toy Bot Diaries looks fine, but there’s plenty of room for improvement in a future enstallment.

Gameplay:

Toy Bot Diaries was specifically made for iPhone and Ipod Touch, and so is the control scheme. You can make Toy Bot walk by tilting your iPhone (when playing you always hold your iPhone sideways) in the direction you want him to go. You can use your Grappling hook by tapping any metallic object on your screen and by tapping Toy Bot himself, you can activate his Magnetic Boots.

It is your task to maneuver Toy Bot through any of the levels by walking or swinging your way through, while solving how to get past the many obstacles that get in your way. In addition, you must collect all 50 memory-chips so you can finally get to know what has happened to you in the first place.
When it comes to controls, Toy Bot Diaries is a bit of a mix-up, sometimes the controls work really wel, you can swing your way through some parts of the levels with ease, only to get stuck on parts of the level where the controls suddenly don’t seem to work. In some cases you can tap all you want but the Magnetic Boots won’t do a thing. Sometimes Toy Bot just doesn’t walk, even when you tilt the iPhone all the way to the left or right. These flaws are a real setback in a game that so far seemed to be quite okay.
In some parts of the level you drop down and can’t get back up, so if you missed a memory-chip and want to collect them all, you must retry the entire level or sector, depending on any checkpoints you’ve found. Some say this adds replay value, but i disagree. Speaking of replay value; it’s very limited. When you’ve found every chip in the game, there’s not much left to do but to wait for Toy Bot Diaries: Entry 2.

Round-up:

Toy Bot Diaries: Entry 1 is a good example of a game that could be great, but simply isn’t.
Sure, the level-design is good (some obstacles really need some thought before you get past them), but it’s the glitchy controls and repetitive music that prevent this game from being a classic. On the other hand, this is only part 1 in what may become a work-in-progress game-series where every new part contains improvements over its predecessor. If Toy Bot Diaries Entry 2 features the same fun as Entry 1, manages to fix the glitches and offer some variety in music, it might just be the game you want to keep an eye out for!

Verdict:

Graphics:               7/10
Sound:                    6/10
Gameplay:             7/10
Replay Value:       4/10
Score:                    6/10

Go check it out at Griffin’s website 

Gaming on the iPhone is just great. The screen makes the games look great. The games run fast, and more importantly; without any glitches. The gameplay has become a lot more interesting because of the accelerometer inside the iPhone. And perhaps the best thing is that you don’t have to go out to a store and buy games, but you can just buy games from the iTunes App store…anywhere you like, whenever you like. There are a lot of free games available and some great premium games that sell under $10.

I won’t describe myself as a hardcore gamer. I am more the casual type of gamer, I hardly ever game. The only gaming I have done in the past year were on a Nintendo DS and Nintendo Wii. Now that I have an iPhone, its much easier to see what titles are available and try a game every now an then. Because the iPhone is my phone, I carry it everywhere, so whenever there is a dull moment and I feel like gaming, I just grab my iPhone and a few seconds later I am happily gaming. So I am still a very casual gamer, but I do game a lot more then I used to.

But is this it? 

No.

I mean, considering gameplay, if I’d have to choose between an oldskool Gameboy and an iPhone, the Gameboy would still win, hands-down. For me, touching, swiping and tilting  can’t beat the D-pad

For a long time now Nintendo has had a real winner in the product line up for mobile gaming, which is the Nintendo DS. The DS combines a D-pad style of gaming with touch based gaming…

iPhone D-pad accessory 

So to me it would make perfect sense if someone would bring out an accessory for the iPod that would add physical D-pad controls to the iPhone. This would make the iPhone and the iPod a serious competitor for the Nintendo DS, and not to forget, the PSP.

Well, some guys are cracking away at this already. What started being just a proof of concept: 

is gradually moving forward to becoming a real product. Here are some product renderings for the iControlPad, a D-pad accessory for the iPhone: 

And here are some (pre) production samples for the iControlPad’s housing: 

 So they’re really getting along well. Exiting!

The design looks allright. What’s more important is that it looks like this will be a viable solution that will increase the gaming experience a lot! It will be interesting to see if it will remain necessary to have a jailbroken iPhone or that this accessory will carry the ‘Made for Iphone’ logo, which right now seems not to be the case. This is a shame since there are a lot of people who don’t want to jailbreak their iPhone, but do want to be able to have D pad controls in their games. We’ll see how it all pans out. 

iPhonenilla will keep you updated on the progress iControlPad makes. 

Go over to the iControlPad website for more information and to sign up for their newsletter. 

What about the Apple + Nintendo rumor? 

My take on this is that Apple and Nintendo already have something in the works. Apple and Nintendo together could design a great D-pad accessory. Nintendo can port their most popular Gameboy/DS/NES  games to the iPhone,  and become the all time nr. 1 game seller in the App store. It could hurt their DS sales, but I think it would be a wise move, both for Apple and Nintendo. 

And this would be another strategic partnership for Apple, something along the lines of what they’re doing with Nike. I could see it happening. It would be sad for the folks of iControlPad, but in the end it would be better for the consumers. They will then have access to quality Nintendo games, and hardware that is 100% compatible with the iPhone.

The guys over at Crave have had a chance to get their hands on the iRiver Spinn. They really seem to like it. Especially the screen, its one of the best screens they’ve seen in a mobile device so far. Not everyone at Crave was keen on the Spinn wheel, but most of them liked it or were OK with it. Head over to Crave and check out the pictures and read the whole first look review. 

From [Crave] via [Engadget]

Go over to Ismashphone to check out the list and see how many you already knew. 

Via [iPhoneMatters]

As you can see the biggest chunk went to the USA (600.000 units). Followed by Japan, France, Germany (around 70.000 units each). Spain was good for the fifth place (59.000 units). The rest of the countries sold far less. Because of low availability? Or because of low demand?? More graphs available on the Medialets website. 

From [Medialets] via [Tweakers]

Via [toucharcade] via [Macrumors]

Link to the App in the iTunes store (be sure not to accidentally buy it, because it almost equals the value of a Macbook) 

Via [Gizmodo]

[UPDATE] App pulled from the App store! Good one Apple!

But Apple wouldn’t be Apple if it wasn’t started in Silicon Valley. The atmosphere there is just different. People think different. There’s a whole tech start-up ecosystem, with many, many start-up companies, venture capitalist, lawyers, experts and so on so on. People from all over the USA and the rest of the world move to the San Francisco area to start their (tech) businesses. So I think, to a certain extent, Silicon Valley’s business/tech/creative atmosphere helps Apple to stay on top. Its happening in the Bay area. 

Watch the vid, its interesting, and will give you more insight in the way new apples come to fruition in the Bay area.  

Via [core77]

It seems September is going to be an interesting month for those who are interested in Apple products, at least, if we have to believe all the stories that go round in the rumor mill. Below is an interesting excerpt of a rumor that depicts Apple will plug their entire Mac line with dedicated H.264 video encoding/decoding chips. Which will mean that all Macs will be able to play the 720P or even 1080P HD movies even if they don’t really have that much muscle processor wise (or a large enough screen to view them :P). It makes sense to me, since Apple is more and more becoming a media company, selling music, movies and games. With this move they might even be skipping the next gen dvd format (blu-ray, hd dvd) entirely, by implementing their own standard and hooking it up to the iTunes movie store. The article which speculates on this also notes that there might be an exclusive contract for the encoding chip for a year, giving Apple a head start on the competition. 

“What really excites me as a content creator is the amazing potential of real-time HD. Video and games are by far the greatest consumers of cycles on modern PCs. By embracing a dedicated H.264 chip THAT IT MAY WELL HAVE EXCLUSIVELY FOR A YEAR OR MORE, Apple is taking an out-of-the-box approach that will frustrate its competitors in both software and hardware. While the H.264 chips are expensive, they’ll enable Apple to save money elsewhere by having slower computers that run faster video. Though it is doubtful that many will use it, you can be sure Apple will trumpet the ability to support 720p video in iChat.”

From [thepulpit] via [Macbytes]  ]]> http://iphonenilla.com/2008/08/06/hardware-video-encoding-in-upcoming-macs/feed/