Your emotions will soar and tumble around as you crank up Top Gun for a gaming session, fuelled by memories of the 1980’s film. You’ll soar with anticipation as the music starts, as you kick off the first, training level, with the absolutely stunning 3D-modelled aircraft carrier video sequence, but I’m afraid it’s mainly downhill from then on, with Top Gun at best a fast-paced arcade reaction-fest and at worst a travesty of the flight sim genre.

There are so many things wrong with Top Gun that it’s hard to know where to start. Let’s start with the factual inaccuracy of having F-22 Raptors on an aircraft carrier (the Raptor isn’t a naval jet) - why on earth couldn’t models of the film’s F-14 Tomcats have been used? It’s not as if there’s any detailed flight modelling going on, after all. In fact, there’s isn’t ANY flight modelling - you can’t crash, do aerobatics or even, staggeringly, fly in a particular direction. This is strictly a game on rails - which isn’t a compliment for a flying title!

After some cutscenes using characters from the film, you’re thrust into flying action, with the main aim being to swerve the jet up and down, left and right in order to avoid ‘danger zones’ (remember that song fragment from the film?) popped up on a 3×3 grid on-screen. This arcade element might work OK if it wasn’t for the fact that the controls are reversed from every other aircraft game you’ve played in your life. To roll the F-22 left, you have to tilt your iPhone right. To roll right, you have to tilt the device left. See where I’m going with this? The developers would argue that this behaviour is because of the way tilting left makes the on-screen plane graphic move to the left in the camera view, but everything about it just screams ‘wrong’.

In addition to dodging ‘danger zones’, you get to shoot bad guys of course. This being Top Gun, you’d expect screaming fast turns and trying to outwit the opposition through sheer flying ability. Sorry. All that happens here is that bad guys queue up (literally) to appear in front of your gunsight in order to give you something to shoot at. There is no element of dogfighting WHATSOEVER. Oh yes, and you have unlimited ammunition, so you can fire and fire and fire…..

All the efforts of the visuals team (carrier, gunships, landscape, sky effects, explosions and more) are unfortunately all reduced to the level of a simple dodge left/right/up/down arcade game. And even here Top Gun manages to mess up, moving from the trivial training mission to a slightly harder ‘mission 2′ to a ‘throw danger zones and bad guys to shoot at you faster than you can blink’ mission number three. When a game becomes so frantic that you, essentially give up, with seven of the ten missions not even glimpsed, then something’s wrong with the balance of the gameplay.

By all means buy Top Gun for the super stereo music soundtrack, by all means buy it for the nice visuals, by all means buy it for a little frenetic arcade action. But don’t be fooled into thinking it’s a flying game, let alone a flight simulation.

Via iPhone Apllication List

Macworld.com has posted a new review, Ferrari GT Evolution.

The game tests your skill handling the massive horsepower of purebred Ferrari sports cars — 33 different models in all, everything from classics like the Testarossa and the 250 GTO to newer models like the California and the F430. It’s more than just a cosmetic difference — each car handles a bit differently, with different acceleration and handling around corners.

The game’s Career mode puts you in the role of an up-and-coming racer on a street racing circuit. You can engage in races for money; the higher you place and the better you do, more races will be available to you. You can also use your income to grow your garage with new Ferrari models. If you’re impatient to take the most expensive machines for a drive, you can do that in a test drive mode, though you won’t be rewarded for it. 

Ferrari GT Evolution features three different control modes — you can steer with your finger using an on-screen wheel; tap in the direction you want the car to move, or turn the iPhone or iPod touch using the accelerometer. Auto acceleration will automatically control your vehicle’s speed (you can turn this off if you want to work the gas pedal yourself) and there are options for adaptive steering, electronic stability, anti-lock brakes, ceramic brakes and traction control.

Forget about manual transmission action, though — there just isn’t enough room on the screen. For that matter, doing just about anything but braking is an exercise in frustration — the screen simply isn’t large enough for you to effectively manage a lot of the car’s control. I even found driving with the wheel or using the tapping method to be more frustrating than challenging. It took more time than it should have to get the controls to my liking.

When you’ve got the car configured the way you want and you’re happy with the control scheme, Ferrari GT Evolution offers you a great deal of challenge. It marks your best line on the road, and will also warn you of upcoming hazards like hairpin turns, or show you your opponents almost before you can see them. A variety of camera modes lets you either go inside the car or behind it at varying lengths, and sound effects really immerse you in the action. Static loading screens show you glamorous close-ups of Ferrari automobiles and quotes from Ferrari luminaries about the lifestyle and concept behind their expensive products.

The game also tracks your statistics, showing you how much you’ve raced, races won and lost, best lap times and more. You even have a trophy room to show you the achievements in the game you’ve unlocked.

Ferrari GT Evolution also has a multiplayer mode, though as of the version that I reviewed (1.2.2), it was limited to iPhones or iPod touches working off the same Wi-Fi network. Gameloft promises to deliver an online multiplayer mode that will let Ferrari GT Evolution gamers from around the world to compete with one another.

Graphics are quite crisp for an iPhone game; the texture-mapped buildings reveal lots of pixelation when you’re close up, but as you’re speeding down the road you don’t notice all that much. There are also dynamic weather conditions; virtual rain will even bead up on the iPhone’s screen.

Gameloft has created a very ambitious racing game with Ferrari GT Evolution. While it sometimes feels more like an advertisement for Ferrari products than a game, there’s a lot to recommend it. But the ambition of the game sometimes exceeds the platform’s ability to deliver. Much like Ferrari cars themselves, there’s almost too much under the hood here for most people to be able to enjoy.

Ferrari GT Evolution is compatible with any iPhone or iPod touch running the iPhone 2.2 software update.

This is a painting program written by Lim Ding Wen, a 9 year old iPhone developer living in Singapore. This program is designed specially for his sisters and all the kids in the world.

The application has been downloaded more than 100,000 times since its release on Feb. 14.

While many kids his age are content to simply play games on the iPhone or PSP, Ding Wen is all about programming in ActionScript and JavaScript. He also understands five other programming languages and is already hard at work on his next app, a game called “Invader Wars.”

Doodle Kids is initially written by Ding Wen for the Apple IIGS computer, and is ported to iPhone with the original Super Hires color palette.

About Lim Ding Wen and his software

About Doodle Kids