I remember the first time I saw Scribblenauts for the Nintendo DS. I had heard it was interesting on a few podcasts, so when I found out it was going to be at PAX, I made a point to check it out. Apparently it had a “write whatever object you want and it will appear” mechanic that was blowing everyone’s minds. At the con, there was always a huge swarm around the WB Games booth, and I only got to play around with it for a few minutes.

Sadly, reviews of the retail release indicated that things didn’t come together in the way gamers were anticipating. Or maybe they were just anticipating something that the developers weren’t attempting to create. That is a debate for another day.

Both the original and its sequel Super Scribblenauts got lost in the avalanche of games that we call a modern release cycle, and I never got around to trying out the final retail builds of either. When Wesley informed me that there was now a version for the iPhone that I could grab for a mere $4.99, I figured it was finally time to dip my feet into the Scribblenauts pond.

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It takes a certain special something to get me to play most iPhone games for more than a few minutes. I’m not saying that to be antagonistic, I just don’t find enough meat on most of them to hold my interest.

But sometimes in even the simplest of games, all the elements come together in a magical way that initially captures your attention, then progresses into a soul eating hell-beast of gaming addiction that just won’t let go no matter how hard you struggle. This was the case with Jetpack Joyride.

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Earlier this week, I discussed how the Monster Hunter series could be taken to the next level. Well… we’ll still have to wait to see how that goes. In the meantime, Capcom has announced Monster Hunter Dynamic Hunting, an iOS addition to the series that looks to take things in the exact opposite direction.

Dynamic Hunting appears to take a page from the Infinity Blade book (which had already taken a page from the Punch-Out!! book), boiling down the experience to simplified 1-on-1 battles. It’s strange to see such a deep game like Monster Hunter streamlined down to such a basic concept. Even the highly detailed behavioral tells have been scrapped in favor of a standard health bar. Still, we should all try to remember that this is a spinoff, not the next iteration. Who knows? Maybe it will be a gateway drug to ease in newcomers.
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Much like the increase in digital distribution over physical media, the injection of smartphones into the portable gaming ecosystem has quickly caused many to declare dedicated portable game systems officially dead. But is that really so?

I believe that each platform has its strengths and weaknesses. They can… no, they SHOULD coexist. To get rid of dedicated portable game systems in favor of touch screen phones would be to force an unnecessary limitation on ourselves.

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With over 1.3 million downloads and nearly 5 million registered accounts, Minecraft has gone beyond hit status and is officially a phenomenon. Gamasutra reports that Mojang, the developer of Minecraft, is poised to destroy productivity across the world.

Minecraft is being ported to iPhone, iPad, and Android phones. Expect the game to launch sometime this summer for the iPhone, followed in later 2011 with the Android release. The move to the iPhone and Android opens up the game to a whole new group of people and allows you to go nuts with blocks while you pretend to listen to your boss at the morning staff meeting. (more…)

As a device, the iPhone’s touch screen lends itself well to many games that would normally use mouse clicks for interaction. It is sort of a no-brainer that many adventure games are being brought over to the device. Largely, these are ports of older, “classic” games in the genre.

While it’s nice to be able to whip out The Secret of Monkey Island whenever you want, I was curious when we were finally going to see some new games in the genre show up on the iDevices.

Launching Pad Games thought the same thing, which leads us to a completely original iPhone Adventure Game, specifically designed for iPhone, Scarlett and the Spark of Life: Episode 1.

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“Friday Old Games” is a series of articles in which we review a game from the older generations of consoles, share why we picked it, and whether or not it holds up with time.

Back in 1992, id Software set the world (of PC gaming nerds) on fire by making the first in a new genre called “First Person Shooters”. The best part: Wolfenstein 3D was shareware, so it was not only legal, but encouraged that you give the first episode of the game to your friends.

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Following on the heals of my other bird related puzzle game review, I picked up what is currently the most popular app on the iTunes store, Angry Birds.

Angry Birds is about a group of pigs who grew tired of eating grass and have turned to eating the eggs of their neighboring birds. As you can imagine, the birds did not take kindly to this.

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Mention Plants vs. Zombies to someone who hasn’t played it and they’ll look at you like you’re a little crazy. Like maybe you need to up your Lithium dosage a couple milligrams.

Mention Plants vs. Zombies to someone that has played it and they’ll look up at you with a big smile. They’ll then spend the next five minutes gushing about the game and how much they enjoyed it.

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Sometimes a game will catch your eye for no other reason than an interesting piece of cover art. In the case of Toki Tori, it was the high adorability factor that drew me in.

Toki Tori was originally developed for the Game Boy Color by Two Tribes B.V. and released by Capcom. They have since done versions for the iPhone, Windows Mobile, WiiWare, and PC. The GBC version was itself an update of Eggbert for the MSX 2.

I saw it on one of the many Steam sales last year and picked it up on the cheap. I had heard it was a cross between Lemmings and a platformer. They had me at Lemmings.

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