iPhone and iPod Touch Games Round-up

I Love Katamari

Developer: Namco Bandai
Price (as reviewed): £4.99 / $7.99 from the AppStore

Although almost everything about Katamari Damacy - the name, the graphics, the idea, the characters – was weird, wonky and original. What it shared with other great games was that its control system just felt spot on. When Katamari’s control scheme isn’t right, such as with the PSP version, the game’s whimsical approach feels as robust as an origami crane. First reviews of the surprisingly timely iPhone version derided it as ‘unplayable’, but it’s now on version 1.0.2 and Namco has definitely improved I Love Katamari to the point that it’s worth considering.

The core idea is the same as in previous Katamari games – you play the little prince and your dad, the King of All Cosmos, sends you to earth to roll a ball (the Katamari of the title) around, collecting objects and growing in size. As the King is crazier than a barrel of time-travelling monkeys and fruitier than the average carton of Tropicana, he gives you odd objectives such as rolling up a light minivan and sets time limits on your activities.


The controls are well suited to the iPhone’s abilities – you tilt to roll the Katamari, tap the screen rapidly to speed up, and tap the edge of the screen to turn 180 degrees. What doesn’t seem to suit the iPhone are the graphics. They’re fully 3D, and look great, similar in quality to the PSP version of the game, but they don’t move as fluidly as the PlayStation versions of the game. It’s not so sludgy as to be unplayable, though, and the game’s appeal survives the transition to iPhone well. There are five levels which need to be unlocked by progressing through the story mode, in which the King sets you bizarre, time limited challenges. After that, you can then replay them in Time Attack mode, Exact Size Challenge mode and Eternal mode, which all work well in five to ten minute bites.

Verdict: I Love Katamari lacks the sparkle of the original two games – level design isn’t fantastic, and the King just seems to be trying too hard – but the core, anarchic charm of rolling a big ball of destruction around still remains and is still wonderful.

Galcon

Developer: Galcon.com
Price (as reviewed): £1.19 / $1.99 from the AppStore

Galcon has been around as a game for Windows, OS X and Linux for several years, but it plays so well on the iPhone that it could have been designed entirely around the device’s hardware.

The aim is to dominate all the planets in the galaxy, and to invade a planet, you simply tap the world from which you’re going to send your forces, and the world they’re off to take over. Each planet is defended by a number of spaceships, indicated by a number, and these all need to be defeated before you can take over. Planets produce new spaceships for you to use to conquer the next set of worlds, and the larger the planet, the faster it builds new hardware. To simplify matters, there’s nothing left to chance in combat – it’s a simple matter of maths, so with more ships you will prevail.

The problem is that there’s another one (or more) power in the galaxy, and it’s moving against you. Fast. Rounds of Galcon are rapid, the AI is aggressive and there’s a pitch perfect balance of elements to consider – planet size, defence forces, distance – to make it easy to engage with but complex enough to make your brain work.

The graphics are colourful, the brilliantly bleepy music does its bit to up the tempo of the game, and it’s quick to load. There are multiple levels of AI difficulty, and a selection of game modes with varied time limited and specific objectives. In addition, Galcon is one of the few iPhone games to support multiplayer via WiFi, both locally and with players from all over the web. It’s a bit fiddly to set up – you need to create an account on the Galcon site, configure it in the iPhone’s main settings screen – but once done, it’s very effective. Scroll through the list of games (for between two and four players) and you’re off. There’s no chat lobby, and of course you run up against a lot of great players online, but it’s a fantastic demonstration of how far iPhone gaming can go and makes Galcon great value.

Verdict: A perfectly pitched rapid strategy game with online multiplayer, it’s great value at its full price (£2.99), and an absolute must when on sale.