Midway Arcade (iOS)
Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2012 6:18 am
Bought (stole) this for the iPad earlier this week. I'm still going through it all, but here are some of my initial comments.
Like several retro compilations, the layout of Midway Arcade is of that of a virtual arcade. So to play games, you swipe your finger around and move from machine to machine. The rendering of the machines and the arcade is pretty sweet.
The arcade games vailable to play (for free) are Defender, Rampage, Spy Hunter, and Joust. Tapper, and Arch Rivals. The app is only 99 cents so it's tough to complain too much, although I'm about to.
Imagine, for a moment, playing Spy Hunter using only 2 thumbs. Well, there's that review.
Almost all of the games suffer from the use of a virtual joystick. I hate games that do this, although when converting a game that uses a joystick to a game running on a touch screen tablet, that's usually what you end up with. Also, I read three other reviews that said, "the emulation is spot on." Whoever wrote those reviews never played a real Joust machine. This one runs at about 80% the speed of a real machine. When you have time to stop and reason with the pterodactyl, it's not running at 100%.
As you wander around the virtual arcade you will find machines that have to be unlocked or bought. Those include NARC, Total Carnage, APB, Wizard of Wor, Gauntlet I, and Gauntlet II. I believe these games can also be unlocked by winning tickets on the virtual redemption games. I played skeeball and won 125 tickets. Unlocking Gauntlet costs 160,000 tickets. The six DLC games are split into 2 DLC packs costing 99 cents each, so you would have to be pretty broke to insist on buying one with tickets.
Also included in the arcade are a couple of coin redemption games. Since these were so laughably horrible I thought they deserved mention.
Billiards: There's a pool table set up, ready to play 9 ball on. After breaking, my cue ball flew up to the ceiling and never came down. I could continue to play and shoot, but it was like the ball was stuck on top of an invisible table which was fastened to the roof. I'm not saying the game is buggy, but on my first shot, the game broke.
Air Hockey: Then I moved to the air hockey table. The first thing you will notice is that the paddles are giant. They are so big that if you just set yours n front of your goal, your opponent can never score on you. I beat the computer 10-0 by just not playing and watching the AI score on itself over and over. Also, the puck sometimes slows down and speeds up when just going in a straight line, and the paddles seem to have some sort of gravitational affect on the puck. Sometimes when it goes near your paddle the puck will swerve. It's as interesting as it is annoying -- I'd love to see the code behind this anomaly.
There's also a basketball shooting game which worked well, and I believe you can unlock a crane at some point, at which point you can fish virtual plush toys out of a virtual crane game.
Like several retro compilations, the layout of Midway Arcade is of that of a virtual arcade. So to play games, you swipe your finger around and move from machine to machine. The rendering of the machines and the arcade is pretty sweet.
The arcade games vailable to play (for free) are Defender, Rampage, Spy Hunter, and Joust. Tapper, and Arch Rivals. The app is only 99 cents so it's tough to complain too much, although I'm about to.
Imagine, for a moment, playing Spy Hunter using only 2 thumbs. Well, there's that review.
Almost all of the games suffer from the use of a virtual joystick. I hate games that do this, although when converting a game that uses a joystick to a game running on a touch screen tablet, that's usually what you end up with. Also, I read three other reviews that said, "the emulation is spot on." Whoever wrote those reviews never played a real Joust machine. This one runs at about 80% the speed of a real machine. When you have time to stop and reason with the pterodactyl, it's not running at 100%.
As you wander around the virtual arcade you will find machines that have to be unlocked or bought. Those include NARC, Total Carnage, APB, Wizard of Wor, Gauntlet I, and Gauntlet II. I believe these games can also be unlocked by winning tickets on the virtual redemption games. I played skeeball and won 125 tickets. Unlocking Gauntlet costs 160,000 tickets. The six DLC games are split into 2 DLC packs costing 99 cents each, so you would have to be pretty broke to insist on buying one with tickets.
Also included in the arcade are a couple of coin redemption games. Since these were so laughably horrible I thought they deserved mention.
Billiards: There's a pool table set up, ready to play 9 ball on. After breaking, my cue ball flew up to the ceiling and never came down. I could continue to play and shoot, but it was like the ball was stuck on top of an invisible table which was fastened to the roof. I'm not saying the game is buggy, but on my first shot, the game broke.
Air Hockey: Then I moved to the air hockey table. The first thing you will notice is that the paddles are giant. They are so big that if you just set yours n front of your goal, your opponent can never score on you. I beat the computer 10-0 by just not playing and watching the AI score on itself over and over. Also, the puck sometimes slows down and speeds up when just going in a straight line, and the paddles seem to have some sort of gravitational affect on the puck. Sometimes when it goes near your paddle the puck will swerve. It's as interesting as it is annoying -- I'd love to see the code behind this anomaly.
There's also a basketball shooting game which worked well, and I believe you can unlock a crane at some point, at which point you can fish virtual plush toys out of a virtual crane game.