iPhone gaming, redux

OK, so I finally got an iPhone, and last night while doing laundry at my parents' house (we don't have washer/dryer hookups in our 50 year old house) I messed around with it for about five hours. Of course, the games were the main attraction.

I'm pretty impressed by the quality of the games overall. Graphically, it's better than DS on a lot of counts. You can tell though that there's a level of depth and range that the DS completely trumps it on though- even after downloading like 9 games I still went back to CASTLEVANIA: PORTRAIT OF RUIN for my pre-bed gaming.

But then, some of these games were a dollar. I like a dollar game more than I like a $30 game. 

Here's what I got and what I thought about 'em.

ZENBOUND is the top game I've played so far. It's brilliant. It's a puzzle game where you paint these wooden figures with a string. You can twist, turn, and manuever the figure or tilt the phone to move the string. It's a completely new way to play a video game, and it's as arty as it is compelling.

SPIDER: (something or other about)BRYCE MANOR just came out yesterday and it's up there too. You're a spider. Move around, jump, and weave webs to catch bugs. Simple, but again,it feels completely innovative and compelling. Great-looking too.

SPACE INVADERS: INFINITY GENE is awesome. The first couple of levels are more traditional SI, but eventually you 'evolve' into more gameplay and the game turns into a full-on bullet hell shmup. Controls are great, the look is amazing, and the soundtrack is probably even better than SI:EXTREME. You can play with  levels generated by the music you have on the iPod as well. I tried it with Black Flag and Husker Du. Pretty interesting.

CIVILIZATION: REVOLUTION just showed up yesterday too. Haven't played any of the other editions of it, but so far I think it's pretty good. A little clunky, but apparently it's pretty much the whole game, which is impressive. And it was five bucks.

iDRACULA. Like I'm not going to get that. ROBOTRON:2084 meets CASTLEVANIA.

ZENONIA is an old-school action JRPG. It looks pretty detailed, reviews are comparing it to LINK TO THE PAST. I doubt that, but it should still be a good one.  Haven't really started it, there's a lot of story to go through to get to the gameplay.

HERO OF SPARTA was a dollar. I figured why not. Seems kinda dumb, but hack-and-slashy dumb can be fun. Sound seems really bad.

KNIGHTS ONRUSH is a goofy game...torture knights attacking a castle by hanging them on a pole, dumping them into a fire pit, and throwing things at them. Fun and silly. Pretty hard too. Another dollar game.

STAR DEFENSE is like the bastard child of SUPER MARIO GALAXY and tower defense. The planetoids are straight out of SMG. Played this one for about an hour, it's pretty addictive.

Didn't get any of those Knizia games or ZOOLORETTO. I hate ZOOLORETTO. I wonder whatever happened to CITADELS, though?