Some games seem destined for certain platforms. It feels as if the Iphone has been awaiting the arrival of Star Defense since its inception and together they’ve merged to form a marriage made in the heavens. Ngmoco has created a game that turns tower defense on its head without getting you dizzy while maintaining the playability, depth and clarity of the genre’s finest.

If you ever play or simply witness Quake 2 running at full particle-sparking glory on a Nokia N95 you’ll be blown away by the capabilities residing in today’s modern cell phones. The powerful Iphone would seem ready to deliver some high-quality first person shooters to our pockets after demonstrating it’s chops on recently released 3^rd person standouts like Terminator Salvation and Resident Evil. Now arriving on the mobile killing fields is Prey Invasion for the Iphone by the storied 3D Realms.

When launching a flight simulator you have to know going in that it’s virtually impossible to satisfy everyone. A developer has to decide which wildly divergent audience they’re targeting: arcade (Top Gun), hardcore (Xplane), or somewhere in between. Red Bull Air Race World Championship by Artificial Life aims for the arcade side of center and for the most part lands on the runway.

3D mobile gaming is expanding by leaps and bounds thanks to the Iphone and its open SDK. The only problem with this is that some fine games from smaller developers may get buried in the avalanche of apps being released in the app store. Hopefully this won’t happen to TowerMadness from Limbic as this is a refreshing and innovative slant on the tower defense genre.

Top Gun was released in 1986 and such was its impact that 23 years later, without the benefit of a sequel, it is still spinning out salutes to Maverick, Goose, Iceman and Viper.

The latest is Top Gun for the Iphone by Paramount which provides an opportunity to step back into a time when few would of ever imagined we’d be flying jets on cell phones. 

Some games are ported over to the Iphone virtually intact and simply fitted with new controls (Resident Evil Regeneration) while others come with slight tune-ups and updates

(Galaxy on Fire 2). Then there are some like Need for Speed Undercover by EA that are given major overhauls, virtually rebuilt to race the Iphone track. The end result, in this case, is a game that is bigger, bolder and many times better than it’s Java origins could of ever suggested.

My low regard for games with movie tie-in’s has been Terminated. Gameloft has taken the built in man ‘vs.’ machine appeal from the long-standing Terminator franchise and created a monster game for the Iphone in Terminator Salvation. With their cinematic flair and attention to detail, perhaps no other developer is better suited to bring John Conner to your Iphone than Gameloft.

Tiger is back on the prowl and looking to conquer the Iphone in the absorbing Tiger Woods PGA Tour by EA. Is he returning with his familiar “A” game or is there some rust in the swing? The competition has improved, so once again Tiger must elevate his game to assert his dominance over a new generation of mobile golfers.

 

From the swing mechanics to the hushed and reverent tone of the announcers who comment on every shot, this is a “serious” golf simulation and, like real golf, requires a learning curve. Discarding the 3-tap circular swing method, Tiger has once again reconstructed his swing in favor of a down-then-up swipe along a swing path on the right side of the screen. This gives you the ability to draw or fade the ball by curving your swipe to the inside edge or outside edge of the swing path or if you prefer swipe straight down for a straighter shot. 

I’m not sure if hang gliding is as laid back and relaxing as Glyder by Glu would seem to suggest. After all, your life is on the line. Yet everything in this casual flying game is focused on creating a dreamy almost mystical quality where the only real danger is that some gamers may find themselves falling into a deep slumber.

Hot on the bumper of the Fast & Furious Pink Slip, Firemint and I-Play have fired up Fast & Furious 3D for the Iphone and Java to coincide with the movie release. While games that are released to capitalize on movies have a generally rotten egg smell to them perhaps Firemint, who delivered a nice ride in Pink Slip, can buck the trend. Still, this makes for some heavy traffic with fast and furious street racers crowding all the mobile lanes to await the green light.