Gaming on Mac vs iOS

[doh123]

Originally Posted by Huntn

Sim City Deluxe for iPad is on sale for $.99 for the holidays. I believe normally it's about $6. I had to buy it. I've looked at about 6 city simulation games available for iPad and this is by far the best.

Anyone playing?

It is not as full featured as the desktop version of Sim City and I have noticed a few issues, but it's still good especially for the sale price.

Issues:
* Can't build bridges or terraform after game starts. On a recent map a river cut down through the middle of the map and as far as I can see there is no way to connect one side of the city to the other side of the river?
* It appears to be difficult/impossible to build an economy with a substantial "commercial" component. I've tried half a dozen cities and "industrial" seems to be always in demand while commercial is always stagnant. As I recall, to avoid heavy reliance on industrial is to only use light industrial, and choose "green" ordinance, but every town I've developed, "commercial" is always weak.
* With my meager city management skills, it has been really hard to get a stable economy going. After a number of years, I am usually offered a Casino, which I jump on and get a real infusion of cash. What the heck are the real money makers? I've played several of the desktop versions and don't remember this issue persisting as it does in the iPad version.


Notes, not real issues:
* Before game starts, can add water or land areas, but can't build mountains.
* City loans can be found and originated under the "Budget" area.
* Water pumping stations only work on areas of fresh water. Rivers may or may not work as a source of fresh water.

I grabbed it for 99 cents... it runs very nicely on my iPad mini except it sort of "lags" now and then for a second... but hardly an issue.

You need flat land to flat land set right to build a bridge... keep moving your road around to find a good spot on a river where it lets you build a bridge... I think its a little too picky, but I've been able to get some built.

I've built a city with commercial overshadowing industrial... but it took a long time. Make sure you get tourism up... ordinances as well as tons of stuff for people to do if they come visit... then commercial will love being there, and make your commercial taxes very very low... I was running like 2% taxes on them at the time, but with the a third of the map covered with high density commercial, it was still a ton of money coming in. Industrial is definitely much easier.

They need to add terraforming tools... raising and lowering land and such...

Also, the water system seems weird.. I always get int he ticker at the same time about not enough water, but also that I boast a fantastic water system... and I always have over and above with everything covered, yet it still complains half the time about no water.

[Huntn]

Originally Posted by doh123

I grabbed it for 99 cents... it runs very nicely on my iPad mini except it sort of "lags" now and then for a second... but hardly an issue.

You need flat land to flat land set right to build a bridge... keep moving your road around to find a good spot on a river where it lets you build a bridge... I think its a little too picky, but I've been able to get some built.

I've built a city with commercial overshadowing industrial... but it took a long time. Make sure you get tourism up... ordinances as well as tons of stuff for people to do if they come visit... then commercial will love being there, and make your commercial taxes very very low... I was running like 2% taxes on them at the time, but with the a third of the map covered with high density commercial, it was still a ton of money coming in. Industrial is definitely much easier.

They need to add terraforming tools... raising and lowering land and such...

Also, the water system seems weird.. I always get int he ticker at the same time about not enough water, but also that I boast a fantastic water system... and I always have over and above with everything covered, yet it still complains half the time about no water.

Thanks for replying! So to confirm for a bridge, you just try to drag a road across the river? I'm going to have to see what attractions I can add that will up tourism. I did add one of those landmark buildings and my casino, well, lots of people go there. I can tell by how much income it adds to the city coffers. It just seem imbalanced to me. Whether there are attractions or not, all cities need a commercial district.

[doh123]

Originally Posted by Huntn

Thanks for replying! So to confirm for a bridge, you just try to drag a road across the river? I'm going to have to see what attractions I can add that will up tourism. I did add one of those landmark buildings and my casino, well, lots of people go there. I can tell by how much income it adds to the city coffers. It just seem imbalanced to me. Whether there are attractions or not, all cities need a commercial district.

Just make a long road then move it around over a river until you find a spot with no red squares.

[TallManNY]

I played the excellent and free "Dead Trigger" yesterday. It is a zombie FPS. As with all FPSs on the iPad, I constantly get the frustrating feeling that I could own this game if I could just use decent controls. Maybe I could get better at this, but I'd have to put in owners of play and I'm sure I'd still be only 10% as good as I would be if I had Xbox controller or mouse and keyboard.

I wonder if anyone has set up a multiplayer experience in these games and had virtual controllers try to play against someone with physical controllers. I bet it is total carnage.

[Huntn]

Originally Posted by doh123

Just make a long road then move it around over a river until you find a spot with no red squares.

I'll try it!

Originally Posted by TallManNY

I played the excellent and free "Dead Trigger" yesterday. It is a zombie FPS. As with all FPSs on the iPad, I constantly get the frustrating feeling that I could own this game if I could just use decent controls. Maybe I could get better at this, but I'd have to put in owners of play and I'm sure I'd still be only 10% as good as I would be if I had Xbox controller or mouse and keyboard.

I wonder if anyone has set up a multiplayer experience in these games and had virtual controllers try to play against someone with physical controllers. I bet it is total carnage.

Gosh, it's free. I'll try it out.

As far as ranking iPad games, right now I see.:

1. Plants vs zombies
2. Sim City Deluxe
3. Plague Inc

[AndiS.]

Originally Posted by Huntn

I've looked at several upscale IOS games- Infinity Blade, and Zombie Infestation and the controls just don't cut it for any kind of serious gaming. The ipad is fine for very casual games like Plants vs Zombies or Angry Birds, but I don't see being drawn to anything serious as compared to my MBP.

I think Infinity Blade 1 + 2 are pretty good games, but iOS games target a different market, as many here already said.

For "serious" mobile gaming you'd probably have to get a PSP or a DS (I never tried any of those), as they have full console titles.

A controller for the iPad, as you mentioned, would be a nice idea, but the majority of tablet owners would probably not be interested enough to justify the development of something good. Personally, I don't care about sitting in front of a 10 inch screen with a controller either. Not to speak of a mouse and keyboard. Imagine how far away you would be from the display, and depending on additional peripherals would also take away from mobility.

[Huntn]

Originally Posted by AndiS.

I think Infinity Blade 1 + 2 are pretty good games, but iOS games target a different market, as many here already said.

For "serious" mobile gaming you'd probably have to get a PSP or a DS (I never tried any of those), as they have full console titles.

A controller for the iPad, as you mentioned, would be a nice idea, but the majority of tablet owners would probably not be interested enough to justify the development of something good. Personally, I don't care about sitting in front of a 10 inch screen with a controller either. Not to speak of a mouse and keyboard. Imagine how far away you would be from the display, and depending on additional peripherals would also take away from mobility.

Because of it's nature, I believe the iPad and tablets in general are relegated to casual gaming.

[Huntn]

Somehow I got awarded a free copy of the Sims3 for iOS. It brings back those old memories of tell a joke, push a complement, confide, be friendly, be romantic all in the quest for not so satisfying "woohoo". Today it strikes me as a lot of busy work to keep your Sim going.

[Hackfix21]

I'm really hoping Legend of Grimrock will come out for iOS. Apparently they're working on it, fingers crossed.

I think that'll be the ideal "serious" game for the iPad. First person perspective, so not a problem that the screen size is smaller than on the Mac (with topdown games like SimCity it can get a little fiddly to try and control them with your finger). And the critical difference compared to FPSs is that you can only move from one square to the next, which should be much easier to control on the iPad than trying to do the kind of precise moving and aiming you need for FPSs.

[doh123]

Originally Posted by Hackfix21

I'm really hoping Legend of Grimrock will come out for iOS. Apparently they're working on it, fingers crossed.

I think that'll be the ideal "serious" game for the iPad. First person perspective, so not a problem that the screen size is smaller than on the Mac (with topdown games like SimCity it can get a little fiddly to try and control them with your finger). And the critical difference compared to FPSs is that you can only move from one square to the next, which should be much easier to control on the iPad than trying to do the kind of precise moving and aiming you need for FPSs.

It would be awesome on my iPad mini... Already having fun with Baldurs gate on it.

[Huntn]

Originally Posted by doh123

It would be awesome on my iPad mini... Already having fun with Baldurs gate on it.

Is Baldurs Gate a big been there, done that or is it like playing a new game?

How do you control attacks- virtual buttons?

Here is a somewhat negative IGN review of Baldurs Gate Enhanced Edition. Curious how those who have played the game feel about the fairness of this review?

[Paulyboy]

Originally Posted by Huntn

Is Baldurs Gate a big been there, done that or is it like playing a new game?

How do you control attacks- virtual buttons?

Here is a somewhat negative IGN review of Baldurs Gate Enhanced Edition. Curious how those who have played the game feel about the fairness of this review?

It should be noted that they just released a massive update for the iPad version that fixes a lot of problems and provides some substantial interface improvements. At least that's what I heard anyways. I don't know if the update has gone live in the App Store yet though.

I have played the iPad version on a friends iPad but I don't have it on my iPad yet. This probably won't change either because I don't really use my iPad for these types of things. And while it was really cool playing such an epic game on the iPad it's just kind of awkward to me. I'd really much rather play it on a computer. In my case that would be a Mac whenever that version finally gets released.

There are no virtual buttons per se. You select one of your characters, select an action, then tap on an enemy to execute that action. You can do this all while paused as well and queue up actions for several characters in the process.

Unfortunately there's no demo but maybe you could find some videos on YouTube of people playing it? Even though it's dated there's nothing else RPG-wise in the app store that's currently even remotely in the same league as this game. When it comes to true RPG's it's about as good as it gets (although the sequel is better).

If you played it before the experience is really not that much difference although I suppose you could play it through as an entirely different character with different motives and so forth. I played the original all the way through only once so I plan to play through it again using an entirely different class and entirely different alignment. For example, I always play "good" characters so this time I'm going to play it through as a truly evil character to see what happens.

-PN

[Huntn]

Originally Posted by Paulyboy

It should be noted that they just released a massive update for the iPad version that fixes a lot of problems and provides some substantial interface improvements. At least that's what I heard anyways. I don't know if the update has gone live in the App Store yet though.

I have played the iPad version on a friends iPad but I don't have it on my iPad yet. This probably won't change either because I don't really use my iPad for these types of things. And while it was really cool playing such an epic game on the iPad it's just kind of awkward to me. I'd really much rather play it on a computer. In my case that would be a Mac whenever that version finally gets released.

There are no virtual buttons per se. You select one of your characters, select an action, then tap on an enemy to execute that action. You can do this all while paused as well and queue up actions for several characters in the process.

Unfortunately there's no demo but maybe you could find some videos on YouTube of people playing it? Even though it's dated there's nothing else RPG-wise in the app store that's currently even remotely in the same league as this game. When it comes to true RPG's it's about as good as it gets (although the sequel is better).

If you played it before the experience is really not that much difference although I suppose you could play it through as an entirely different character with different motives and so forth. I played the original all the way through only once so I plan to play through it again using an entirely different class and entirely different alignment. For example, I always play "good" characters so this time I'm going to play it through as a truly evil character to see what happens.

-PN

Thanks for the info! I'll check YouTube and see what's there.

[doh123]

Originally Posted by Huntn

Is Baldurs Gate a big been there, done that or is it like playing a new game?

How do you control attacks- virtual buttons?

Here is a somewhat negative IGN review of Baldurs Gate Enhanced Edition. Curious how those who have played the game feel about the fairness of this review?

I've played the game through many times over the years, and its still the same game. Just like the desktop version which is all point and click interface, this is all tap and click 99% identical. It was always designed to be able to use 100% by mouse which makes it easy to go to touch.