As I wrote last week, the iPod Touch and its cousin the iPhone are terrific little handheld gaming rigs. I'm a bit of a latecomer to the platform, but I've been spending the last couple of weeks burning through game after game downloaded from the App Store. Here's a quick rundown of the best titles I've tried so far. (Thanks to readers Matthew Bin and S L, who steered me towards I Love Katamari and War Incorporated, a couple of titles I might otherwise have overlooked).
Rolando (ngmoco;), $9.99) Innovative in both play and visual design, Rolando uses the iPod Touch's motion-sensing capabilities to let players roll tiny, cartoon-faced spheres around the screen as though they were real balls subject to the laws of our world's gravity. The puzzle-based platform play is brilliant (recalling, to a degree, the PlayStation Portable's daring LocoRoco), and the bright and bold graphics are instantly adorable. It's my favourite game for Apple's handheld device.
Fieldrunners (Subatomic Studios, $4.99) If you've played PixelJunk Monsters, a downloadable title for the PlayStation Network, you'll have a good idea what to expect from Fieldrunners. A tower defence strategy game, players position turrets on the playing field to intercept approaching enemies. Money is earned with each fallen foe, and players spend that cash on more weapons and better defences. It's addictive, wonderfully accessible, and requires just the right amount of concentration to make it a perfect distraction for quick commutes.
Hero of Sparta (Gameloft, $9.99) Gameloft's brawler is an unabashed rip-off of Sony's God of War games, but that doesn't mean it isn't fun. Indeed, Hero of Sparta is proof that Apple's handhelds can do action games with aplomb. Using a virtual thumb-pad and action buttons located on the touch screen, players steer an ancient warrior through surprisingly lush three-dimensional worlds and use his bladed arsenal to slice and dice a wide variety of fantastical evildoers. Who would have thought we would one day be hacking and slashing our way through fully polygonal gorgons and centaurs on an iPod?
Tap Tap Dance (Tapulous, $4.99) To get a grip on Tap Tap Dance, just imagine Guitar Hero but with your fingers tapping a screen rather than plucking a plastic strummer and an emphasis on keyboards instead of axes (contributing artists include the likes of Daft Punk, Moby, and the Chemical Brothers). Tap Tap Dance is low on originality, to be sure, but scores high marks in terms of playability. If you want to try before you buy, download the slightly older Tap Tap Revenge, which is free and offers essentially the same play.
Warfare Incorporated (Spiffcode, $4.99) A classic real-time strategy game complete with resource collection and management, structure and unit building, and a surprisingly compelling story-driven campaign, Warfare Incorporated makes terrific use of the iPod Touch's touch screen for unit selection and menu commands and consequently demonstrates the surprising versatility of the device as a gaming system. Obviously, it lacks the sophistication and visual panache of the latest PC-based games in the genre, but as handheld RTS games go it's pretty much unbeatable. An ideal way for tactics junkies to get their strategy fixes on the way to work.
I Love Katamari (Namco Bandai, $7.99) The pleasantly bizarre Katamari franchise, which sees a robed, rainbow spewing Elvis look-alike known as the King of All Cosmos ordering players to roll everything in the universe up into a great big ball, was pretty much made for the iPod Touch. Just use the device's motion-sensitive capabilities to roll the ball around the screen like a big, sticky marble. Apple's hardware struggles a bit now and then with the dynamic, three-dimensional worlds, resulting staggered frames, but not enough to seriously detract from the fun.
The Plateau (Spoonjuice, $0.99) I'll admit right now that I don't completely get The Plateau, but that isn't stopping me from having a great time with this brain-breaking puzzler. It's like one of those remove-the-ring-from-the-metal-frame puzzles you get in your stocking at Christmas, only in two dimensions and without the rings. It's difficult to explain, and perhaps even more difficult to master, but, most importantly, it's fun. And super cheap. If the sub-dollar price doesn't do it for you, you can try it for free by downloading the demo version, The Plateau Lite.