I can play GAMES on my IPOD???

iPod: the undernourished platform.

So, the iPod has taken over another facet of my life–one that I’d been trying desperately to leave behind in the States: Gaming. Aside from some stints of emulation gaming (FFI, II, III, and V were finally taken care of) and tower defense, I had left the majority of my gaming life behind in the US. This is good, because games like World of Warcraft had threatened to take over my life prior to leaving for Singapore.

However, in the last few months (really as soon as I got my iPod) I have discovered a number very captivating games that are available for download/purchase for the iPod. So, here I will discuss a few of the better ones.

Solitaire – You really can’t go wrong with Solitaire. It’s basic, it’s entertaining, it’s challenging, it takes very little battery power… This is probably my second most played game behind Phase (see below).

Phase – This is a really cool game done by the same team behind Guitar Hero. It allows you to upload your own songs into a special ‘Phase’ playlist and then when you sync up your iPod, you can play these songs as if you were playing something akin to Guitar Hero (with only 3 buttons though). This game eats up battery power like crazy, so don’t expect to play this much on your 10 hour bus trip from Vientiane to Louang Phabang. I’ve yet to get through a marathon on the ‘Insane’ level.

Song Summoner – A Tactical RPG put out for the iPod by… SQUARE/ENIX! As soon as I saw what this was, I clicked the download button. However, it’s been a little bit of a let down. You create units for your army through your songs… but that’s the extent that the game uses your music. The scroll wheel can be a little annoying to use as a cursor (c’mon give me a d-pad iPod!). The graphics are pretty great for an iPod game, and as a result, the game is VERY battery-draining. Don’t play this unless you’re going to plug it in soon. Furthermore, the troops are very disposable. One of things that I’ve always liked about Tactical RPGs is the customization of your troops, and this game doesn’t really have that at all.

I haven’t played it enough to give a good longitudinal review, but these are some issues that I have with it.

Pinball – This game is a lot of fun if you like pinball. I LOVE pinball. Graphics are pretty good, so the battery goes down pretty quickly, but the game is very enjoyable and translates well to the iPod’s controls.

Bomberman – I was pretty excited to learn that I could play Bomberman on my iPod. However, it turns out that the controls are really frustrating to use, so I haven’t played this one much. Having a d-pad would make this so much more enjoyable.

There are a few games that I haven’t reviewed because I haven’t gotten around to playing them (Scrabble), they don’t allow you play your own music over the game (automatic disqualification), or the controls would be way too hard for the game (Sonic).

If anybody else has any reviews or recommendations–please let me know and I’ll check ‘em out.

I’ll leave you with a video preview of ‘Phase’: