In the Electronic Arts booth here at E3, nestled in among the raucous noises of various first-person shooters, is a completely white room with a few cell phones on tables. This is the EA Mobile space, and it was here that we got to play Spore Origins, the iPhone version of Will Wright's sure-to-be masterpiece.
Like the EA Mobile space, Spore Origins is pretty simple and clean, and stands out as a fairly calm experience among the racket of a lot of other iPhone games. Spore takes you through a civilization from ameoba to space travel, but Spore Origins sticks with just the ameoba stage. You play a creature of your own creation and float through the microbial ether, eating things that are smaller than you, and running away from things that are larger.
Read on for TUAW's impressions of one of the most anticipated iPhone games, and why it might not be all we had hoped.
Now that the App Store has launched various developers are talking about the iPhone's capabilities as a gaming machine. Gizmodo paraphrases a developer from EA as saying: "On a scale of the three, it's in between the DS and the PSP, but sliding more towards the PSP." Over at Kotaku they have SEGA of America president Simon Jeffery saying that the iPhone is about on a par with the old Sega Dreamcast.
On the downside, control remains a bit of an issue. The EA developer compared the iPhone's accelerometer to "a loose analog stick" with lots of "random data" that has to be smoothed out. In any case, I think it is impressive to hear developers talk about how powerful the iPhone really is. This naturally gives good reason to hope for even more impressive games as developers get more comfortable with the device and its capabilities.
I'm at E3 in Los Angeles all week for TUAW's sister site Joystiq, and this afternoon we got to see the Electronic Arts press conference at the Orpheum Theater. Among bigger EA games like Spore and Dead Space, Travis Boatman (who has graced these pages before talking about mobile games on the iPhone) of EA's mobile games division came out on stage to talk about iPhone gaming. He said that obviously there is "a lot of interest" around mobile gaming lately, especially around the iPhone, and that EA is committed to capitalizing on that interest.
They premiered three games in the App Store at launch (Sudoku, Tetris, and Scrabble), and Boatman pointed out that they've tried to innovate in all three -- Tetris features a unique piece-drawing system, and Spore (full name: Spore Origins, a mini version of the bacteria stage of the game, complete with a creature creator) will use the accelerometer to control its creatures. Additionally, EA wants WiFi to be a big part of their games on the iPhone -- they're planning on releasing a patch to the Scrabble game that will allow people to play together online.
Finally, Boatman hinted that they were aiming to do a lot more with the iPhone's processing power -- they plan ports of Tiger Woods and Need for Speed on the iPhone. As Mac gaming fans, EA isn't exactly our favorite game developer, but getting big developers behind real innovation on the iPhone will help lift the tides of the software in the App Store.
id software's CEO Todd Hollenshead met up with Kikizo for an interview recently, and the conversation turned, as often seems to do with id nowadays, to gaming on the Mac. Hollenshead was confronted with what his peers Gabe Newell (of Valve), and id's John Carmack had previously said about Apple, and he agreed that while "the Apple guys would probably frown to hear me" say so, it's true: Apple has stepped up on gaming before, and never "followed through" with their support.
He doesn't paint an extremely dark picture -- he says that Apple did send engineers this time to promise their support for the future, and that developing on Intel architecture makes things much easier than dealing with the "weird PowerPC" setup. And in Apple's defense, we've seen more support for gaming out of them, both on the Mac and on the iPhone and iPod, than ever before.
But so far, it's all talk on Apple's part, and we have yet to see indie games on the App Store and working day 0 releases from id and EA. Hopefully, Apple's following through this time, and those things are right around the corner.
Our good friends over at WoW Insider (disclaimer: I'm a lead over there) have unlocked one of the first secrets about 10.5.2 (which dropped today in Software Update): it'll make World of Warcraft play faster.
After hearing that the patch made reader Jason's Mac play faster, WoW Insider's Adam Holisky saw his FPS jump from 30 to 50 on his first-gen Intel iMac (he also has 2gb of RAM, and installed the graphics update with 10.5.2). The picture on the upper right was a test under 10.5.1, and on the lower right was after the update.
Pretty slick. I'd imagine that this would probably affect most 3D games (although who knows how EA's games will work on the Mac at any given moment). The only note that might document this in the update itself is just a "general stability" fix for "third-party applications,' but if you see your 3D go faster after 10.5.2 let us know. Azeroth has never looked so good.
Posted Jan 16th 2008 12:00PM by Mat Lu Filed under: Gaming
The eagerly awaited game Spore from Will Wright (of Simcity and Sims fame) is coming to the Mac later this year. CNET broke the news earlier in the day, and EA confirmed it in a press release later. Like the releases promised (but not delivered) last year, the Mac version of Spore will rely on TransGaming's Cider technology and is set to be released simultaneously with the PC version. Nonetheless, they're hoping to do better this time and even Wright himself expressed confidence, saying: "We couldn't be happier to bring Spore to the Mac at the same time as the PC version. Spore is a highly creative game and I look forward to seeing what the players come up with to fill the universe they design."
Here's hoping that Wright's right, because Spore has been looking like the hotness itself for quite some time now.
Mac | Life wasn't content to just read about Madden 08 on the Mac-- they tried to actually run it. And for all of us Mac gamers out there, I'm sorry to say the experience didn't go well.
Now, we already knew that neither Madden nor Tiger Woods would run on any Mac with the GMA950 graphics processors in it, so the Mac mini and the MacBook were already out of the question. The screenshot above came from an iMac, though. Clearly the text is bungled up beyond readability. The same problem appeared in the menus for the game, and even during play-- the scoreboard had overlapping graphics problems as well. Unbelievable. Did they (or Transgaming, whose Cider technology was supposed to be how EA ported these games) have their QA team play this thing even once on a Mac? This is what Apple was showing off at WWDC?
For their part, EA blames Apple's drivers, and says a driver update is coming "later this month" (M|L wisely suggests that means Leopard). Poor form, EA. Not that we expected much (EA games are often plagued with release problems, on any platform), but this is not how you bring gaming back to the Mac.
Battlefield 2142 is already on the Apple Store, along with all the other games EA has released on the Mac, but we haven't heard anything official about Battlefield 3 yet, for any platform. That's why DigitalBattles was so surprised to find a list of Battlefield 3 features in a document meant for investors. And the most interesting "feature" on the list was this: "Windows Vista and OS X." That's right, if the leaked document is true, it appears EA wants to release Battlefield 3 simultaneously on OS X and Vista. And not on XP. That's what I'm talking about!
Of course, EA wasn't real happy with all the speculation, but they didn't actually deny anything. And as DB points out, the investor document didn't say that XP wouldn't be supported, it only specified Vista and OS X.
But still, if you told me earlier this year that Battlefield 3 would be released on OS X and not XP, I would have laughed in your face. If EA really is planning to bring out a top tier, anticipated title like this simultaneously on OS X, they might be able to redeem themselves to Mac gamers yet. Sure, I'm still angry at them for buying out BioWare, but brand new games on the Mac is good for everyone.
Macworld has a quick chat with Bungie after this morning's big announcement that the company is "evolving" away from Microsoft a bit, and the good news is that a new Mac release from our favorite game developer (before they were bought out by the Evil Empire, that is) is not out of the question.
Spokeman Brian Jarrard plays pretty loose with the announcement, and says that while Bungie and Microsoft are going to retain their developer and publisher relationship, his company won't "rule out anything going forward." He says the move will let Bungie "[control] our destiny, and that puts us in a position where we could put ourselves back on the [Mac] platform definitively again."
We can only hope. EA and id games made a big appearance at this years' WWDC, and I think I speak for many, many Mac gamers when I say we'd love to see Bungie announcing a brand new game at Macworld in a few months.
And now EA has told Apple Insider that Mac faithful shouldn't have held their breath on those promises-- Madden 08 was the big release on Tuesday, but while it did appear on PC, the Mac version has been officially delayed until "September or October" (which means late December, in videogame-release-speak). Additionally, even EA doesn't know what's going on with its own games-- they claim that Battlefield 2142, Command and Conquer 3, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and Need for Speed Carbon are all in stores, but when asked which stores they were actually in, EA didn't have an answer.
I can't say I'm surprised-- for all the talk at WWDC, the Mac isn't quite the platform of choice for most game makers, and who knows who would have actually bought any of those games on Mac if they had been released (I wouldn't have). But the fact is that EA stood on stage at WWDC, and got lauded for it. Don't talk the talk if you can't walk the walk, Electronic Arts.
EA hasn't quite held up on their end of the Mac gaming bargain, but id has moved a step closer. At QuakeCon over the weekend, they announced that the first game to use their id Tech 5 engine (shown off at WWDC) will be called "Rage," featuring driving in expansive, outdoor environments. id's John Carmack apparently told QuakeCon that he wanted to break with the claustrophobic hallways of Doom and Quake 4, and so Rage will feature lots of "...bright, sunny outdoors."
No date yet, of course (isn't that the way it always works?), but Rage is scheduled for a simultaneous release on all platforms, including our favorite, the Mac.
Remember back at WWDC when EA announced they were coming back to the Mac in a big way? Well several of our readers did, and have written in to point out that it's the end of July and EA on the Mac is nowhere to be seen. Back in June Macworld reported that EA would be bringing four popular franchises to the Mac starting in July, and that these would be released simultaneously with their PC counterparts thanks the the Cider technology. Well Peter Cohen at Macworld recently noticed that Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is shipping for the PC, but the Mac version is nowhere to be found (it's not even listed among the options on platforms page). This sets a very bad precedent for the return of EA to the Mac. And so Mac gamers are forced to ask: oh Electronic Arts, where art thou? Thanks to everyone who wrote in!
Apple is releasing games for the iPod. EA and id show up at the WWDC keynote. And the rumors say Nintendo may team with Apple for the iPhone. All signs point to an Apple that seriously wants to reenter the gaming market, an arena that has been dominated by PCs and consoles for quite some time. But exactly how can they do it?
They're doing some of the right things already, and we can expect them to do more in the future. But here's five suggestions (or predictions, if you will) about what Apple can do to attract gamers back to the Cult of Mac.
1) Put (even more) games on iTunes.Steam is a nice digital distribution system, and Xbox Live Arcade is a better one. But no one has done digital distribution like Apple has with iTunes-- first music, and now movies and television shows. What they need to do is add games to the software, and even go so far as to create a kind of "iTunes Arcade," where you can buy games for your iPod, your iPhone, your Mac or MacBook, and even your Apple TV. And I'm not talking dinky downloads like Lost-- I'm talking EA's Madden, Need for Speed, and even Battlefield 2142. Run patches and updates through there as well (EA's Link might not like that, but it hasn't been successful enough that they wouldn't consider joining iTunes if asked), use CoverFlow as a cool browsing and launching interface, and you've got the key not only to a solid revenue system, but also a promotion and distribution channel.
id went so far as to announce and show a new game engine called "id tech 5" (usually engines are named after games, but apparently we're in uncharted territory here), and EA came on stage to say it was going to start selling its most popular franchises, including Need for Speed Carbon, which has never been seen on the Mac before. Apple Insider points out that this isn't necessarily what we were hoping for (that is, games running natively and uber fast in OS X)-- instead, the EA games will be wrapped in Transgaming's Cider engine, which means the games will have to run on Intel-only Macs.
Tuncer Deniz, who's been covering Mac gaming for a long time at Inside Mac Games, says this is both good... and bad (figures, right?). It's good because EA using Cider means we'll see Mac versions come out faster. But it's bad because whatever EA expects to sell of these games, it's probably not as much as they want to. Still, id's engine looks pretty-- if gaming is going to make a comeback on the machine we love, this is as good a chance as it'll ever have.
LC Angell over at iLounge has discovered that EA plans to release four new iPod games this year. He links to this SeekingAlpha transcript of EA's recent Q4 07 Financials conference call.
In the transcript, EA's Warren C Jenson actually mentions five games intended for cellular handsets including one, Sims Bowling, specifically for the iPod--perhaps he meant iPhone? The other four for cellular handsets are ESPN Fishing, Harry Potter, Sims Bowling, and Bejeweled Multiplayer.
As of now you can buy EA's Sudoku, Tetris, Mini Golf, Mahjong, and Royal Solitaire at the iTunes store for five bucks each. These games work on the 5G and 5.5G video iPods.
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