Do a search for iPad and you’ll be swarmed with coverage surrounding Apple’s recently announced device. The news is out, and the endless banter is in. Whether they were expecting the all-in-one answer to their every need or just hoping for a simple camera to be on-board, peoples overwhelming response seems to be that of disappointment. And we’re not saying we weren’t expecting a little more to come out from behind closed Cupertino doors.
That being said, the iPad does stand to be a pretty cool addition to the App Store world. So we put on our optimism caps and set out to ponder the apps that get us excited about the iPad all over again. We’ve come up with a few. But rather than simply theorizing or talking about them, we wanted to actually show them running on the upcoming tablet. So here are the apps and why we are dying to use them on the iPad.
Godzilab's iBlast Moki will only get better on the big screen
When Godzilab released iBlast Moki in the App Store, we called it “one of the greatest iPhone games thus far.” And the iPad will only make this title better. Pinching to zoom works well on the iPhone screen, but we can’t wait to plan out our board solutions on the 9.7 inch screen without adjusting our view. This will be especially useful in the built-in level editor.
Glow Hockey by Natenai Ariyatrakool is a recent surprise hit in this flooded genre
The air hockey genre was a early hit in the App Store initial months. Recently Glow Hockey has rekindled some of our flickering love for the iSport. However, we may just be reinstalling all of our air hockey apps once the iPad is in our hands. The larger playing field will no doubt spark a new excitement for quick matches and owner gloating.
MouthOff has been a huge hit for maker ustwo and there's potential for extra hugeness on the iPad
If you’re looking to insult someone, quit your job, or make a great first impression, there is no better way to do it than with ustwo’s MouthOff. With the iPad, we can only imagine these moments to be more common. With 45 sound-reactive mouths available, its hard to imagine an occasion that this isn’t appropriate for!
Radial50's rounded approach to brick breaking grabbed our attention in July
Back in July, Roundthird Interactive brought us Radial 50. The gameplay works super smooth on the iPhone and iPod touch. We initially had a problem seeing the ball with all the glittering eye-candy floating around the smaller screen. The developers quickly addressed this in an update. Blown up on the iPad, Radial 50 is going to rock, especially when we imagine scrubbing the turn-table-like controls with four fingers rather than our thumb. The blistering sound track will be swirling in our heads as we get to play the DJ this time on the tablet surface.
Origin8 gave us beautiful visuals in Space Station: Frontier that are difficult to appreciate on the small screen
Space Station: Frontier is a great game with a ton of nice detail that is completely lost by the need to stay zoomed out. We’d love to see how great that one looks on the iPad.
If you haven’t had any history with digital pets, iQuarium on the iPad might be the place to start
When we heard Apple mention the iPad’s usefulness as digital photo frame, we scoffed saying no one really wanted that. However, we love the idea of showing off our digital pets while entertaining. iQuarium will be the perfect app for that. We loved it in our initial review and think it will be adorning many mantles in the coming months.
Besides the examples in our photos above, there are tons of apps that will experience awakened interest on Apples new tablet. Side-scrollers like Inkvaders and dual-stick shooters like Minigore could be improved by the larger screen, as you could see enemies coming from farther away a bit sooner than on the iDevices. Games like Hook Champ that are speedy lateral-movement games could also give you a better sense of what’s coming up on the iPad, allowing you ample time to play your next move. Stone Wars required a lot of panning from side to side or zooming out to see the big picture so you’d know where to aim. The iPad would allow for less of this annoyance. RTS games with huge maps, like Rogue Planet or Command & Conquer, could allow you to see a great deal of the map without requiring you to zoom out all of the time.
The other category is games that require a lot of zooming or games where our finger tends to obscure our view. Crosswords could allow us to see more of the puzzle at once than we currently see on the iDevice. Games like PicGrid and Mr. Mahjong Touch cause us to tap the wrong squares or tiles because they are so small. The iPad could allow us a better look at the items and more screen space to avoid mis-taps. We’ve never been big fans of Implode’s auto-zoom to show you where you are placing the dynamite, so the iPad could greatly reduce our need for that.
We also think that there are some board games and sports titles that could benefit. Scrabble has lots of tiny squares that auto-zoom when you start placing tiles. The iPad could eliminate the need to auto-zoom and give you a better general look at the board. There are many sports games that really don’t need a bigger screen, due to mainly localized action. Baseball game take place between pitcher and batter, so we don’t need much more than what we have. Even golf is fine as is. Football games, like Madden and NFL2010, are good for the most part, but better visibility of your wide receivers would be a welcome change. Soccer games, like FIFA, Real Soccer, or X2, could probably benefit the most, as the action is pretty widespread and we often feel that we’re passing to an area and hoping that a player is there to receive. The iPad would give us the ability to see if there is anyone open downfield to pass to rather than hoping there is someone and needlessly turning the ball over when we discover that our teammates are nowhere to be found.
These are just a few of the titles we’re looking forward to playing on the iPad. We know you have yours in mind, so let us know in the comments below.
