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Pac-Man CE, more Namco iPhone games on sale
'Tis the season for crazy sales on iPhone games from major publishers. Namco Games has joined EA and Konami with a temporary price drop on a wide selection of touchscreen titles, including the new Pac-Man Championship Edition. While the price of all the DLC hasn't dropped, it's cheaper to try the game now, with a starting price of just .99. Strangely, regular Pac-Man dropped not to .99, but to $2.99. Another big Namco game, Ace Combat Xi, is available for its limited-time launch price of $4.99 once again, down from $7.99. See the list after the break, and just try not to freak out at the prospect of Mr. Driller for a dollar. %Gallery-80013% [Via App Advice]
Namco launches iPhone Ace Combat Xi, updates Garters & Ghouls with 3GS compass
click to take off into the galleryNamco announced two notable iPhone launches today. Garters & Ghouls, its 19th-century twin stick zombie shooter, has been updated with iPhone 3GS compass functionality -- the first game, Namco Networks claims, to make use of the feature. Now, physically moving and rotating the phone to face different directions will help locate powerups in the game. The update is free for those who already have the game, and will be included in new downloads of the $4.99 title. The other new release: Ace Combat Xi: Skies of Incursion, which brings the long-lived flight franchise to iPhone. We found that the controls worked just fine during our brief look at the game at TGS, but have yet to delve into the full game. It's featured at a $4.99 sale price for its first five days. Garters & Ghouls ($4.99) Ace Combat Xi ($4.99) %Gallery-79540%
TGS 2009: The Recap Post
Last week, the Tokyo Game Show brought in over 100 posts worth of news, previews, interviews, galleries, and videos. Clearly, a lot happened. If you're looking for a comprehensive list of all the goings-on during TGS 2009, Joystiq has you covered -- and organized! Click on a platform below to scan the highlights: (On the far right: that's "News" and "Culture" on the top and bottom, respectively)
TGS 2009: Hands-on: Ace Combat Xi
One of the few iPhone games I've seen at TGS is Namco Bandai's new Ace Combat Xi, which uses the iPhone's tilt controls to simulate flying a fighter jet. Of the two available control schemes, I went with the "easy" one, mostly so I wouldn't fail and embarrass myself in front of the nice people at the Banamco booth. I'm not sure what the more advanced mode adds. And it is easy to control! After a few seconds of severely oversteering (and severely approaching a big old mountain), I got the hang of gently tilting the iPhone to control my flight. A little icon on the left of the screen controls throttle -- oddly, requiring constant taps to increase speed, despite throttle not really working that way. Weapons are fired with icons on the right of the screen. The demo level I played was a simple enough matter of keeping enemy fighters (who were very far away and therefore tiny on the screen) in target lock until the icon turned red, then tapping the "missile" icon and watching them explode. For a bite-sized Ace Combat experience, that seems like enough. The graphical presentation is somewhere in the early PS2 era, which is to say very impressive for an iPhone experience. I went through about ten enemy planes before my brief three-minute demo elapsed. Ace Combat Xi should be in the App Store sometime this winter. [Image credit]
