Sonic the Hedgehog was something of a revolution for the games industry when he first hit the scene, taking the traditional platformer model and turning it into a furious, breakneck ride to the goal. It also kicked off the start of Sega’s new philosophy to fight rival Nintendo in the 16 bit console wars, by catering to slightly older gamers. Sonic after all was a character with some attitude and spunk, a complete contrast to the kid friendly persona Nintendo exemplified.

Years later, Sonic is still a major franchise with multiple entries each year, though nowhere near the system selling franchise it once was. While there are multiple Sonic games that could’ve made the transition to the iPhone (I personally would’ve loved to see Sonic CD get this treatment), Sega decided to go back to the beginning with the original adventure. Sega showed with Super Monkey Ball that they can effectively make use of the iPhone platform which boded well for this release. Unfortunately it didn’t quite turn out as well as one could’ve hoped for.

Sonic is a 2D platformer, and a game quite unique on the iPhone, despite its growing and diversifying library. Sonic blazes through the 20+ levels while collecting coins, negotiating numerous loops and jumps, and spinning into enemies. There are also plenty of bonus levels for him to speed through, and secrets to find.

While I’m not a big fan of the accelerometer, I thought this would be a perfect game to make use of it in some way, yet Sega ignored both the accelerometer and the touch screen in favour of a virtual d-pad. You control Sonic’s movement and spin attack with the up, left, down, and right arrows, while jumping with the A button off to the right. I have no problem with this control method, except in this instance the controls feel somewhat clunky and slow to react. Whether this is actually the fault of the controls or the often lagging framerate is debatable, but whatever the case, things are not nearly as tight or as enjoyable as they should be for such a classic game.

Yes, Sonic suffers from some Sonic-sized slowdown, which is a shame and somewhat puzzling given the wealth of more graphically intensive games we’ve seen on the platform. Yes Sonic moves quickly which puts strain on the hardware, but I have a hard time believing that the iPhone couldn’t have perfectly handled this 18 year old game with some extra tweaking by Sega.

Despite its age Sonic still looks good for a 2D game, with bright and pleasing visuals, and excellent animation. The music also makes the transition well. I was always a fan of Sonic’s music, and it’s just as enjoyable here, save for the occasions when the music noticeably slows down alongside the gameplay.

For those who missed Sonic oh-so-many years ago, or those looking to relive his first adventure, Sonic’s iPhone adventure is a decent pickup, though not without issues. The core gameplay though is as enjoyable as ever, and something wholly unique from anything else on the system. With some refinement this could’ve been a real winner. Let’s hope Sega gets it right with their next Sonic iPhone adventure, if indeed there is another.

Pros:

• Graphics still stand up well to other 2D games
• Excellent soundtrack
• Full featured game with plenty of levels and bonuses

Cons:

• Some severe slowdown
• Awkward controls
• No save feature

Score: 6.5/10

Price: $5.99

Sonic The Hedgehog on iTunes

For those gamers who don’t have a PC capable of running the newest iteration of The Sims, or are simply looking for a cheaper (and mobile) alternative, The Sims 3 for iPhone is a great option to have. It does not have quite the level of depth as the PC game, but comes pretty darn close, and stands as one of the most immersive games to date on the iPhone.

For those who’ve been sleeping under the proverbial rock for the past few years, The Sims is one of gaming’s biggest franchises, placing you in control of a Sim whom you must look after and guide throughout his/her life. This includes looking after all of their personal needs such as hygiene, work, play, and love.

You begin by creating your Sim with a fully featured character creator. You have access to plenty of different models, hairstyles, colours, clothing, accessories, and more, to make your Sim wildly unique, or as close to your real life image as possible. In addition to their looks you can also set their persona by giving them traits that will dictate how they act and react to the things and people around them. You could easily create completely different characters multiple times, giving the game some great replay value.

As always, The Sims is largely what you make of it. The game is most easily categorized as a sandbox game, meaning you can pretty much do what you want, when you want. There are a set of pre-defined goals you can fulfill, and doing so can lead to some nice rewards like unlocking an additional character trait, but the goals can be completely ignored if you want. For many, earning money and building up your homestead will be the prime motivating factor, while others will be more interested in cultivating relationships with other Sims. The Sims 3 also features plenty of other diversions in the form of minigames like cooking and fishing, all of which make good use of the iPhone’s controls.

The big new feature of The Sims 3 (both PC and iPhone) is the ability to travel around your virtual neighbourhood, interacting with neighbours and exploring to really make the world come alive. The Sims used to feel rather disjointed, as most of the action took place entirely within your house. Now it truly feels like you’re a member of a living, breathing community. That said, the iPhone is somewhat lacking in this department, as the neighbourhoods are somewhat devoid of people in comparison to the PC version. Your Sim is also depicted with a little placeholder figurine, which also lessens the immersion factor.

The game is controlled both with the touch screen and accelerometer. The menus and many different objects can all be interacted with via the touch screen, and the camera is controlled with the touch screen as well, allowing you to zoom in or out, and pan around the unfolding action, whatever it may be.

The graphics are outstanding with large and detailed models, sharp and vibrant textures, and good animation. Menus are bright and clear, large enough to easily hit without being overly obtrusive. The music is also great, soothing and relaxing much of the time, while shifting gears at the appropriate time depending on the situation. The classic Simlish language (basically a form of gibberish) also makes its appearance on the iPhone in all its nonsensical glory.

The game is not without some occasional hiccups though, which aren’t entirely unexpected. There are occasional graphical glitches and problems with the game crashing, but these are nowhere near as prevalent as they were in the iPhone SimCity.

If you’re looking for an immersive, time-consuming game to eat up your iPhone’s battery life, you’ve found it with The Sims 3. I know there’s plenty of angst about these $10 games sprouting up on the iPhone, but this is a fully developed game that can be enjoyed for hours and hours. Don’t let the number of free and $.99 games scare you away from this gem just because they’re cheaper. The Sims 3 is worth every penny and then some.

Pros:

• Incredible amount of depth
• Vast character creation options
• Outstanding graphics and music

Cons:

• Some technical issues

Score: 9.5/10

Price: $9.99

The Sims 3 on iTunes

My Brute is apparently a port of a web-based fighting/RPG that is quite popular. It’s another of these social simulation style games, where connecting with other players helps you grow stronger. Personally I’ve never had an interest in games like these. Maybe it’s just me, but spamming the web address of your created creature around the internet to recruit trainers, pupils, etc. is not my idea of interesting gameplay (and the internet has more than enough spam as it is). Games should be self-contained and not dependant on gimmicky external factors like self-marketing. Is it any wonder these games become ‘viral hits’ when people are spamming the praises of their creatures across the breadth of the internet for all to see, in an attempt to build up their character, providing the developer with free marketing?

While I may not care for the premise, is My Brute actually worth investing any time in? The iPhone version is a standalone version from the PC version, meaning the My Brutes from one version can’t compete or interact with those from the PC version. This limits the scope of the iPhone version, especially as this version runs gamers $5, while the PC version is free. The small number of players at present really limits the appeal of the game (which as stated is largely based on its Master and Pupil social networking system, and the ability to indulge in tournaments against other players).

You begin by naming and creating your brute. You can choose from a number of different styles and colors, though not nearly enough to create anything that would be unique from the creations of other players. Your creation will gain experience by completing tasks and defeating other fighters, which helps them develop their skills and increase their stats. The RPG elements help disguise what is otherwise a fairly shallow game.

Instead of actually getting to fight your opponents in challenges, which would’ve made the game immensely more interesting, the fights play out entirely with computer A.I, and are decided based on skills, stats, and weapons (which are also randomly gained by beating challenges, you have no say in what skills or equipment you acquire). You can also acquire pets, and unlock other things like different arenas, but it’s all rather unexciting given the nature of the game. To top it all off, you can only fight 5 opponents per day which amounts to only a few minutes worth of play time.

If the fighting was real-time, or at least involved some level of strategy, such as allowing you to choose between different fighting styles, it may have been half decent. Even allowing you to simply choose what weapons or skills you get when you complete tasks would’ve helped somewhat. Instead the game is nothing more than a completely non-interactive and random waste of time.

The graphics are fairly nice, with decent designs and animation, and the backdrops fit the style well. The music wasn’t quite as compelling and grows tiresome quickly, despite the short bursts of play time.

Considering the shallow and completely non-interactive gameplay, there’s no way I can recommend My Brute for purchase on the iPhone, especially considering it’s free on the PC and has a much larger fanbase there. It may be fun to kill a few minutes a day with on PC, but that’s not worth $5 on the iPhone. Pass on this effort and play the PC version instead if you must.

Pros:

• Nice graphics
• Plenty of things to unlock and use

Cons:

• Small number of players
• Gimmicky Master and Pupil system
• Items and skills are acquired randomly
• Completely non-interactive, choose to fight or train, that’s about it

Score: 4/10

Price: $4.99

My Brute on iTunes

Crystal Defenders was Square-Enix’s first foray onto the iPhone (originally a mobile phone game, it also later appeared as downloadable content for the 360 and Wii, with a PS3 version forthcoming), and was a solid, though unspectacular tower defense game. Their follow-up effort is Vanguard Storm, a game that is far more unique, and ultimately far better than its predecessor. It’s been developed for the iPhone from the ground up, and is currently an iPhone exclusive, at least at the moment.

Where the original was a standard tower defense game seen dozens of times, Vanguard Storm is a completely fresh take on the genre, combining tower defense with a grid-based strategy game akin to Square’s Final Fantasy Tactics series. To keep things fast and furious though, Vanguard Storm runs in real time, forcing you to make quick tactical decisions based on the layout of the approaching hordes and the forces available for your use.

Unlike the typical tower defense game which has a defined path that enemies use to wend their way through the level, with your troops scattered along its route, Vanguard Storm is a grid based game, taking place on an 8X4 playing field. The right half of the field contains your troops, and you cannot advance them beyond the half way point. The enemies advance from the left side of the screen 1 row at a time, with the goal of breaking through your defences and reaching the far right side of the screen (naturally they CAN pass the half way point), in which case you fail the mission.

The grid based setup and play mechanics reminded me very much of the Mega Man Battle Network games on the GBA, which had a similar grid based setup. Each of your troop types, of which there are 8, have varying attack ranges and excel against certain types of enemies while proving ineffective against others. So not only do you have to set your troops up in the correct formation to take advantage of their attack ranges, you also have to ensure they’re attacking the proper enemies.

The touch screen is used to move your troops around, and their attack ranges are shown at all times, making the task of quickly positioning your troops in real-time much easier. A timer counts down on-screen as you carry out your turn, and if it runs out, your troops will be stuck in their current position.

The graphics haven’t seen much of an upgrade from the original, which is somewhat disappointing given it was designed from the ground up for the iPhone, but it does include plenty of snazzy special effects and explosions for attacks, and the characters and enemies animate more than they did in the original.

The music is outstanding and lives up to the high standards that many Square-Enix fans have for the company’s soundtracks. Many of the tracks are remixes from the Final Fantasy Tactics Advance games, and perfectly complement the setting and pace of the game.

Fans of tower defense and strategy are in for a real treat with Vanguard Storm. The game mechanics are superb, and the only thing missing is more. More troops, more enemies, and more maps and missions will only help elevate this game even further. As it is though, this is a challenging and fun game that shouldn’t be missed.

Pros:

• New gameplay mechanics give a much needed boost to the series
• Exceptional music

Cons:

• Could use a little more of everything

Score: 9/10

Price - $4.99

Crystal Defenders - Vanguard Storm on iTunes

Fishing Frenzy for the iPhone should not be confused with Rapala’s Fishing Frenzy, as the two games are completely different, both literally and figuratively. Whereas Rapala’s was a fairly realistic attempt at a fishing simulation, the iPhone’s Fishing Frenzy is a strict arcade style fishing game, and a very limited one at that.

Fishing Frenzy is controlled entirely via the tilting action of the iPhone. You move the phone left and right to move your boat around atop the water, and jerk it up and down to raise and lower your line in the water.

Fishing Frenzy’s biggest problem is that it ignores the most interesting aspect of fishing games (and real life fishing for that matter) by eliminating the battle once the fish is hooked. Instead of intense battles that could’ve been controlled in a number of creative ways, the fish simply flies out of the water the second you hook it, at which point you must manoeuvre the boat around so the fish lands inside the boat.

This gameplay mechanic also has the effect of making the game zip by far too quickly. Without prolonged battles for fish in place, the game instead uses a timer and a points system to determine success, and levels are extremely short, with the early levels clocking in at under a minute to beat. With only twelve levels, you can surely guess that there isn’t much gameplay to be had. The game could easily be beaten in less than half an hour.

The only real variety to the basic gameplay is the inclusion of a few obstacles that you need to avoid, in the form of electric eels and swordfish, and the fact that different fish award varying amounts of points. Other than that you simply move your hook around to the fish and then your boat around to catch them.

The graphics are adequate, but not much more than that. Most of the fish are nice and colourful, but the background and character art is very uninspiring. It doesn’t help that the same background is used throughout the entire game.

The developer has touted the fact that their game is currently free for a limited time, which is hard to imagine given the game’s current state. How they could realistically expect to charge money for it at present is beyond me. Even as a free game I can’t really recommend it to anyone. Sure, some people may enjoy what little gameplay there is, but that could be said for thousands of free games on the iPhone and PC.

Until the gameplay is more diverse and interesting, there’s more variety in backgrounds and levels, and more levels themselves, this game is nothing more than a waste of time, albeit a small amount of time.

Pros:

• Cute fish

Cons:

• Ignores the meat of fishing, the battles
• Far too short
• No variety

Score: 3/10

Price: Free

Fishing Frenzy on iTunes