Nerd News for Your Inner Geek
Here is some gameplay footage for Epic's new dungeon crawler set inside the Infinity Blade universe. I've been a big fan of this hack-and-slash series for iOS, and it looks like this game will satiate my appetite for dungeon crawling on the go.
The real icing on the cake would be if this game leverages iCloud and they release a desktop version for Mountain Lion. I'm really excited about the prospect of playing the same game on my desktop and on a portable device.
The classic Mac shareware game, Glider, has been released for iOS. I have many fond memories of my brother and I taking turns playing this on our family computer. The developer, John Calhoun, quit his day job at Apple to work on porting this to the iPad and iPhone as the new Glider Classic. The game is only $0.99, and I highly recommend you pick up this fun bit of nostalgic gaming history from the App Store.
Firemint, makers of the excellent Real Racing iOS series, created this new "Real Racing 2 Party Play" demo to show how the game can take advantage iOS 5's new AirPlay mirroring capabilities and the horsepower of the A5 processor.
I really think that AirPlay could be a disruptive force in gaming. With the Wii U, the console acts as the main engine, while the tablet acts as the thin-client. I think that Apple has it right with AirPlay, where the iOS device acts as the server, and can then be a console that routes the display through any Appple TV wirelessly. As iOS devices get increasingly powerful, I can see a world where more and more gamers use their iPads and iPhones to play games on a big screen. Clearly Firemint believes in this future as well.
Disney has released an intriguing toy line that blends actual toys with iOS apps. Unfortunately, they chose the rather unwieldy "AppMATes" name for this innovative experience where capacitive toys are used as the input device to control iOS apps. The video helps illustrate how the Cars app will work, and I think that having unique toys that come with special in-game powers will get kids excited. However, I'm not sure how many parents will want to sacrifice their iPads to the inevitable carnage that will be wrought on the screen.
The toys will be available on October 1st, and it will be interesting to see how this new venture fares this holiday season.
Logitech has announced their latest entrant in their "Harmony" line of universal remotes. I'm a big fan of the series, since they allow me to program macros for my fairly complex home theater setup that makes it easy for any novice to operate.
By making an iOS universal remote application, I can now reduce my coffee table clutter even more while also giving me a more pleasant and useful interface for dealing with my devices. The program guide element is also intriguing, and I'm curious whether they will offer any social TV features, similar to IntoNow, Miso, and TunerFish.
The Harmony Link will retail for $100 when it hits retail this October, and you can preorder one here.
