iLounge

By Jeremy Horwitz

Editor-in-Chief, iLounge
Published: Thursday, March 6, 2008
News Category: iPhone Applications

Having previously released titles for the iPod, Electronic Arts and Sega today showed demonstrations of advanced games running on the iPhone platform. The first demonstration, Electronic Arts’ Spore, was based on a Will Wright title previously announced for current-generation game consoles, computers, and handhelds. Spore places you in control of an evolving spore-like creature that can be customized to grow stronger and bigger as it defeats enemies, eventually evolving into a multi-cellular creature capable of leaving the planet. Unique iPhone features of the game include touchscreen and tilt sensor-based controls. Spore has been announced for a late 2008 release on other platforms; Electronic Arts says that the game will be available to “play” on iPhone in September. No price has been announced.

Sega’s demonstration of Super Monkey Ball has not yet been confirmed as a full-fledged iPhone game, but is highly likely to become one based on comments from the company at Apple’s iPhone Software Roadmap event. Based upon the Nintendo GameCube game and subsequent releases, Super Monkey Ball places you in control of a monkey inside of a ball, who traverses grid-like mazes in 3-D. Control is achieved by tilting the iPhone, rather than using an on-screen controller; the game looked slightly below PSP quality in the demonstration form, but still impressive by handheld game or cell phone standards. No release date or pricing has been provided.