The iPad Review Compendium

For now, touching the iPad screen produces a novel pleasure. It's like, this is the future. We're interacting with touch screens. If ever there were a genre made for this sort of interactivity, that'd be Real-Time Strategies. The promise made by chess long ago, controlling militaries with your fingertips, would become real, or close to the real thing without nuking a small nation. Command and Conquer: Red Alert, a favorite of the genre, should have been the first of many great games. Instead, it's a rushed port of the iPhone version of the game, hardly taking advantage of the perks that come with the iPad's bigger multi-touch screen. The future is here, but not in CC. Not this CC at least. Pass.

It’s the best football game on the iPad and that’s the best we can say. Still trying to find its way with touch screen controls, the football genre feels out of place on the iPad. Polished graphics and licensed teams are enough for fans, and I was happy to take another step on the gridiron in the post-season, but if you can wait until next year’s update, you probably should. Pass.

Minigore is one of our go-to iPhone games.  It'll remain just that so long as twin-stick controls on the iPad prove insufferable.  Stick with the iPhone version if you can and hold out for either a.) a re-thought control scheme b.) an improved version of this one or c.) wait for Mini-Chore, a living room management system that may or may not be real.  Pass.  For now.

See NFL 2010. Sports games, more so than any genre, are still the redheaded stepchild of touch screen gaming. Real Football 2010, for all its good looks and impressive animation, isn’t much fun for those of us who are “soccer challenged.” Pass.