Let's Try It Out!

Since I don't personally own an iPhone, I've only used one myself a few times. This prompted me to take a trip to my local Apple Store, where I had the freedom to explore the iPhone 4's functions as I wished. I started by playing 'Plants vs. Zombies', since I'd previously played that game a lot on PC. I was intrigued to find out how PopCap had managed to fit such a big game onto this tiny device, so I played through a few levels to get the general idea of how it differed to it's bigger PC counterpart. When I first saw the game screen I had a feeling that everything would be far to fiddly because of the iPhone's small screen, but I was destroying Zombies with comfort and ease after mere seconds. The touch screen picked up everything I was trying to do, and the graphics and sound never slowed down for an instant. The only thing that needed getting used to was the layout of the game's HUD, as it differed slightly from the version I'd previously played, but this set-up felt a lot better on the touch screen than I imagine the PC version's HUD would.

Plants vs. Zombies is an excellent port of the original game.

The next game I played was another one familiar to me. Very familiar, actually. It was Sonic the Hedgehog 2, my favourite game of all-time. I went in thinking I'd be able to blast through the first few levels with ease as normal, but then it hit me. Everything in the game is controlled by an on-screen D-Pad and A-Button, but this is a lot harder than you might first think. The D-Pad feels far too small for the precision that is required for games like Sonic, and he usually ends up going either the wrong way or nowhere at all. Another problem was the screen itself, as the virtual buttons were on top of the screen, which caused my thumbs to get in the way of the gameplay itself. There was an option to scale the game screen down and have the buttons on a background, but this made the part of the screen dedicated to gameplay a tad too small. Other than these problems, the graphics and sound were transferred over just fine from the original version, so it wasn't all bad. I will be taking this into account with my game, as I now believe that platforming games of this caliber will not work on the iPhone. 

Games like Sonic 2 need a real D-Pad to play.

On a quick side note, I also tried the newly-released Sonic the Hedgehog 4. This was essentially the same as Sonic 2 in the way it controlled, except you had the option to use the device's accelerometer to move Sonic. This, to me, didn't feel very right at all and only furthered my belief that games similar to this would not work on the iPhone very well. I did, however, love the graphics of the game, the iPhone made them feel nostalgic, yet fresh at the same time. 

Sonic the Hedgehog 4: a beautiful, yet flawed game.

After playing these three familiar games, I thought it was time to try something new. I asked an Apple employee about a good game that would showcase the power of the iPhone and was recommended a Demo called 'Epic Citadel'. Made by Epic Games, they created this beautiful piece of software using their famous Unreal Engine 3. The App consists of exploring the grounds of a Citadel, including the outer landscapes. The graphics are the main focus here, and they are absolutely stunning. They look more polished and crisp from graphics seen in most PS2 games and that in itself should be a feat for such a tiny handheld device. The controls of the game are quite intuitive too, with the choice to either tap the screen where you wanted to go to, or using two virtual analogue sticks, one for movement of the player and one for changing the view. 

Epic Citadel is a beautifully-crafted game and proves the iPhone is a very powerful gadget.

The likes of PvZ and Epic Citadel have showed me that there are very little limitations to the iPhone, as long as you keep in mind it's a portable game. Since I know the style of my game already, this will help me when creating my characters as I know that I won't have any limitations on what I can create.