TUAW's Daily iPad App: Battleship for iPad

Electronic Arts recently released an official version of Battleship for the iPad. EA kept the gameplay of the classic board game, but updated the graphics for the larger screen of the iPad. The iPad game has the look and feel of the electronic version of the game with several modes including classic, salvo, super weapons and multi-player. The multi-player mode lets you play against another iPad, iPod touch or iPhone via WiFi or Bluetooth.

The gameplay of each mode is classic Battleship. There's a simple grid that you use to arrange your ships and fire on your enemy ships. You don't have to keep track of the grid (no, E5 or A8 required), you just double tap to fire (or tap and hit the fire button) and the game fills in your hits and misses. Each time you or your opponent fires, there is an entertaining cut scene that shows the missile launching and landing on its target. This back and forth cut scene does slow down gameplay a bit, but you can turn it off if you don't like it. A small set of sound effects add to the gameplay and is not overbearingly loud.

The two-player player mode is one of the best features and it works great. The gameplay with two players is almost the same as single-player, but you get to beat your friend instead of the game's AI. The connection doesn't drop and it's as close as your going to get to the real thing without actually buying the original board game. Best of all, there are no game pegs or game boards to find and put away each time you play.

Overall, the gameplay on Battleship for the iPad is smooth and responsive. It never crashed and the multi-player connection only dropped once in all my trials. The Battleship for iPad game is available now for US$2.99 in the iTunes app store.