Archive for Apps

Epic Citadel shows the bright promise of iOS gaming’s future

// September 3rd, 2010 // No Comments » // Apps, Mac OS



Epic Games, creator of the Unreal 3 game engine, has been working on getting Unreal Engine 3 running in iOS for a while now. They showed off some of their efforts with a demo of “Project Sword” at Apple’s iPod event, and Mike Capps of Epic Games talked about the direction he saw gaming on iOS devices taking in the future.

The fact that the Unreal 3 engine now runs seamlessly on iOS devices is a huge deal. This is the same game engine that’s responsible for many high-quality titles on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, so having it run games on a device that fits in the palm of your hand is pretty mind-blowing. You can get a taste of Epic Games’ Unreal 3 in iOS efforts with Epic Citadel, available on the App Store — but because of the demanding graphical requirements, it’s only compatible with the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad, and 3rd and 4th generation iPod touches. If you don’t have one of those devices, the demo likely won’t run at all.

A demo is really all Epic Citadel is; it’s not a game as such, since there’s really nothing for you to do except wander around and gape at the environment. And gape you will, because this is console-quality graphics on a 3.5 inch screen. While wandering through the castle grounds, I exclaimed several times, “I can’t believe this is running on a freaking cell phone.” The graphics in Epic Citadel easily surpass anything I’ve seen on the iPhone before, and they put the Nintendo DS to shame. Even the Wii doesn’t put out graphics with this level of detail. To my eyes, only the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC games are competitive with the graphical richness I’m seeing in Epic Citadel on the iPhone.

Don’t just take my word for it, though. Either download the demo yourself ,or if you can’t run it on your device, check out our coverage in the video above. The game engine is truly amazing on the iPhone 4, especially with the Retina Display. And if this is the future of gaming in iOS, … Nintendo and Sony had better step up their game.

TUAWEpic Citadel shows the bright promise of iOS gaming’s future originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iTunes 101: Using the Album Art widget

// September 3rd, 2010 // No Comments » // Apps, Mac OS

Here’s a cool new feature in iTunes 10 that we haven’t mentioned yet: when listening to any song in your library, you can double click on the album art window in the lower left hand corner to detach it from the main window and see it full size. That’s not new — you could get a closer look at the art in previous versions of iTunes. But what is new is that when you mouse over that detached art, you now get full QuickTime-style controls for your tracks. You can then minimize the main window (using those weirdly-aligned buttons, of course), and then just control the music directly from that square widget (which can also be resized any way you want).

Pretty neat, and somewhat hard to find if you don’t usually zoom in to see your album art full size. This replicates some (not all) of the functionality provided by CoverSutra and a number of other “iTunes controllers,” so it looks like Apple has (yet again) decided to make a popular function in third-party apps part of the official thing.

TUAWiTunes 101: Using the Album Art widget originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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TUAW’s Daily App: Mirror’s Edge

// September 3rd, 2010 // No Comments » // Apps, Mac OS

Usually, we like to use this space to highlight developers and apps that could use a little more exposure, not call out big-budget titles from developers like Electronic Arts. But this one’s worth it — Mirror’s Edge is a pretty terrific, completely original translation of the plaforming game that arrived on consoles last year. It was out on the iPad at launch earlier this year, and now the game has made its way to the iPhone, bringing Retina Display graphics and the same well done gameplay.

Out of all of the “major” game publishers, EA has shown Apple quite a bit of love in the past, and this is probably the company’s best original (in mechanics, if not actually name or premise) title for the iOS platform. It’s a real shame that it took so long for this one to make it around to the handheld, but now that it’s here, it is worth the $4.99 purchase price for those looking for a premium iPhone experience.

And heck, if that’s too much, just be patient another eight months or so and you’ll probably see the game on sale. If you’re interested in this gameplay at all — basically a complicated Canabalt, with heroine Faith running, sliding and shooting her way across rooftops — definitely give it a look.

TUAWTUAW’s Daily App: Mirror’s Edge originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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