Sessler's Soapbox: The iPhone - Not for Serious Gaming?

FFSamurai

First off, I'm a big fan of X-Play and all of your web shows. Even though your network has downgraded most of its content to tna to appeal to the preteen demographic your show still is a very good source for videogaming news right up there with EGM and 1UP. With that said, I wanted to say sorry. Here are a few games that prove why the iPhone is a valid gaming platform now. Keep in mind all of these were played on the iPhone 3GS.

Chaos Rings: It's a Japanese RPG that would fit right in with the likes of Final Fantasy and Wild Arms. It contains really nice refinements, like the ability to turn off random battles and a combat system that nicely balances strategy, fun, and innovation. Its storyline, a strange but very entertaining mix of a romance movie and SAW that was penned by the Character Designers and writers from Final Fantasy VII and Wild Arms, even makes revisiting old areas over and over again a blast to play.

Real Racing: Despite the generic name this game is one of the best racers I've played in a while. The graphics make you amazed such a small device can handle this kind of game, you can unlock over 40 cars by the time you get through everything, multiple modes of play, including Gran Turismo-inspired segments where you earn licenses, and four different control styles that accomodate both tilting and more traditional button pressing make this one really good racing game.

Street Fighter IV: Not only because it's almost exactly like on the console and, with the controller setup, actually improves over the archaic, button-memorizing fare of its source material but also because virtually every form of online and paper games journalism media has covered this game with very favorable reviews.

Battle for Wesnoth: Because this strategy series that once only worked on the PC can now be played, in its entirely, on the iPhone.

The Simpsons Game: Because, despite forcing you to play as Homer, it's virtually exactly the same experience as on the classic beat 'em up arcade game from the Mid-90's. Ignore the name, it's worth a download.

And yes, the game you mentioned ontop of Slay, Cubetrix3D, Cartoon Defense, Flood-It! 2, and a wealth of other games out there are all good pieces of evidence as to why this is now already a valid gaming platform. I'll give you this much though, I've yet to play a good FPS on this system yet virtually everything else yes but not that.