iPad apps: games that stand out

Now that we've had a couple days with the iPad, some apps are rising to the top and monopolizing our lounging time. We'll have some more roundups for you in just a little bit, but we thought we'd start off with one of the iPad's most natural talents: gaming. The large screen and hardy processor offer a wild in-between space, much more immersive and "stunning" than a PSP, DS, or iPhone game, but hardly on par with modern laptop or desktop graphics. We haven't leapfrogged any platforms here, it's just an evolution, but it's a pretty fun evolution, complete with multitouch gestures, accelerometer tilts, and cheesy soundtracks pumped out over the iPads surprisingly loud speaker. Of course, these games aren't cheap anymore -- most clock in at $9.99, often with the threat of "introductory pricing" -- so we thought we'd wade through the masses and pluck out some of our favorites as well as a few titles to be wary of. Follow along after the break.

N.O.V.A. ($9.99)

The quintessential Halo-esque shooter for the iPhone has received an "HD" upgrade, but probably could've used some more time in the oven. The jumbo-sized graphics look alright on the iPad, but it's certainly not the best 3D we've seen on the machine so far, and the textures are very low resolution -- almost like the game has just been directly scaled up for the iPad (like it has). The game runs pretty smoothly, and loads rapidly, but unfortunately the gameplay UI hasn't been scaled up well. In theory all the controls should be accessible with just your thumbs, but in reality you have to do a lot of moving your hands to reach the gun reload / swap control at the top of the screen, or to pull off the slightly gimmicky two finger grenade launch swipe. At least the oversized "analog" d-pad on the left is a pleasure to use. All in all, N.O.V.A. should be an iPhone + iPad app (that is, a free download for people who've already bought it for iPhone), not a $10 standalone product.

Mirror's Edge ($12.99)

EA has experimented with side-scrolling Mirror's Edge before in an excellent Flash incarnation, but for the iPad they really blew out the concept. With gorgeous full screen 3D graphics and a very intuitive swipe interface (you'll feel like an expert before you're even done with the tutorial levels), this is one of our favorite iPad games so far. It's a steep price, but with 14 multi-part levels to play through, it should keep you busy for a little while. Add in speed runs and some really excellent split-screen multiplayer and we'd say it's actually one of the few iPad games worth the price.

Touchgrind HD ($7.99)

We'll make this simple: we loved Touchgrind for the iPhone, despite its steep learning curve, and it's a blast to play on the iPad with all this screen real estate, but the addition of larger views (it's the same graphics with just a wider viewpoint) and split screen multiplayer hardly justifies the separate purchase or $3 premium over the iPad app. Or maybe we're just feeling cheap today.

We confess, we haven't played Real Racing on the iPhone, but we can attest to the fact that it's both real, and racing. Real Racing HD bumps up the graphics and doubles the price for the iPad. Of course, Real Racing was perhaps a bit of a steal at $5, with a very in-depth career mode, plus plenty of tracks and cars to choose from. We understand that developers have to make a living, and at least Real Racing really does have some truly stunning graphics, and controls beautifully on the iPad, but as an overall trend we're not sure we like spending double the price just for the extra pixels. We suppose the open market will settle this in time.

Scrabble ($9.99)

Check out our previous post on Scrabble for the full write-up, but here's the gist: this game is a blast to play on the iPad, particularly if you bring a couple of iPhones into the fold, but it's also a little rough around the edges right now, and we hope EA patches some of the foibles in short order. With all the expanded functionality, it's a little tougher to gripe about the price, but we're still not so into the idea of $9.99 being the new norm.

Flight Control HD ($4.99) - With some beautiful large-screen menus and great multiplayer implementation, Flight Control HD is pretty easy to recommend if you liked it for iPhone. Sure, you feel pretty dumb sharing an iPad with a friend or loved one, aiming airplanes into their territory, but we'd like to think of it as a good kind of dumb. We also played this in iPad vs. iPad mode, and while it was easy to set up and start games, a bit of the shared iPad magic was lost.

AirCoaster XL ($1.99) - A 3D roller coaster simulation that makes fantastic use of the iPad's large, multitouch panel, AirCoaster XL is great fun at a very reasonable $2 price. Graphically, the game's a little bland, with rough untextured models for both the cars and track, but it's functionally filled with fun ways to interact with the iPad, first in building insane rail systems in the game's responsive 3D engine with minimal effort, and then in taking those coasters for a dizzying first-person ride.

Minigore HD ($4.99) - We're big fans of the Robotron (or Smash TV) style games for the iPhone. We've been playing iDracula and Minigore for quite awhile, so imagine our delight when we spied Minigore HD for the iPad. Before we even downloaded the game, however, our Spidey-sense went off a little bit. The iPhone version is $.99, while the iPad iteration is $4.99 -- a pretty steep increase for the title. But hey, this is higher def, right? So we figured we'd take a gamble. To our shock and surprise, the game actually does seem like just a higher res version of the iPhone title -- not necessarily a bad thing, but not super awesome either, considering the price bump. Still, it's a wildly enjoyable title to play, and the graphics do look really great (in their highly stylized form). We did find our right hand (the shooting / aiming hand) getting a little lost and sliding towards the bezel once in awhile, but it wasn't hugely detrimental to gameplay. Overall it's a fun title, but if you've got the iPhone version you might want to see how playing it in 2x mode feels -- you may find discover that another $5 out of your pocket isn't required.

Asphalt 5 ($6.99) - Now we know everyone is making a stink about racing games on the iPad -- and Asphalt 5 proves that there's actually a good reason for this. This game is just amazingly fun, and the controls are surprisingly nuanced. The iPad really shows off its accelerometer prowess here, letting you bank tight turns and helping to keep things stable when you frantically tap the nitro button on straightaways. The game offers solo play and head-to-head racing, either locally over Bluetooth and WiFi, or you can game with someone online. If you're planning on challenging strangers, however, you've got to sign up for a Gameloft Live account. One minor drawback is that we couldn't get the overly-complicated music controls to play from our library -- hopefully that process will be streamlined with an update. Overall, it's not the most original or engaging game we've ever played, but it's well executed and thoughtfully designed. If you're a racing enthusiast (or just looking to show off what the iPad can do to friends), you probably won't regret the small investment.

Diner Dash Grilling Green ($4.99) - Diner Dash is part of a whole host of games developed for the iPhone which involve time management (like Sally's Salon and Suzie's Sushi House), and getting a bunch of tasks done quickly. In Diner Dash for the iPhone, you have to wait tables in a diner -- take orders, serve drinks, clean up dirty dishes and so on -- fast enough to satisfy your customers. Simple, stressful, and also pretty addictive. The iPad version of the game takes an already successful game and cranks it up a notch. These games aren't about amazing graphics -- and while the graphics are definitely better on the iPad game than they are on the iPhone -- they're still nothing to shout about. That's really beside the point, though -- the iPad version of the game (though we haven't progressed very far through it) is much better than the iPhone version. The size of the iPad and the gaming area means that you're less likely to make mistakes by moving things to the wrong location -- something that can be pretty annoying on the iPhone version. These games are fun because they're predictable -- they almost all work in exactly the same way -- and Diner Dash for iPad is no revolution. There are some additions, however -- like the option to help the cook (this time your Granny) move a little faster by chopping ingredients and stirring pots for her in a stress-filled "mini game." Regardless, if you're already addicted to this kind of game, the iPad version of Diner Dash is probably right up your alley.

iPass? The best present and future alternatives to the Apple iPad

When Steve Jobs introduced the iPad he was quick to shake his finger in the nose of the other devices out there attempting to fill the gap between cell phone and full-sized laptop, and in particular those market-dominating netbooks. In Apple's opinion, the iPad may be the gadget for surfing the web, watching movies, reading books and running apps, but it's surely not the only game in town. And if you aren't sold on the iPad, but happen to be someone who's looking to buy a secondary computing device to use while traveling or while simply lying on the couch, your choices at the moment come down to netbooks and... well, more netbooks. And that's not such a bad thing, especially if you need a feature Apple's tablet can't offer, like multitasking, a keyboard, or Flash support. So, before you get up on Saturday morning and run off to purchase that iPad, you may want to peruse the best current (as well as coming) alternatives we've rounded up after the break.

THE RIGHT NOW ALTERNATIVES

$499: either a 16GB, WiFi iPad or....

Toshiba Mini NB305 ($399)

It's quite hard to pick a single netbook for under $499, especially considering you could nab at least two of them for the price of an entry level iPad. However, the $399 10.1-inch Toshiba Mini NB305 continues to be our pick as the best all-around netbook. For $100 less than the entry-level iPad you get a device with 15 times the storage space, and a full fledged Windows 7 that lets you write an e-mail while simultaneously listening to Pandora and checking the weather. Oh, and did we mention the VGA webcam for making Skype calls?

$629: either a 16GB, WiFi + 3G iPad or...

Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3t ($549)
Why choose between a tablet and a netbook? The $549 Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3t and other netvertibles don't force you to. With a swivel-capacitive touchscreen the S10-3t morphs into a tablet with its very own NaturalTouch software interface, and with Kindle for PC loaded up you've got a color e-reader with 250GB of storage space. Yes, we were bothered by the viewing angles of the display and the tablet experience needs some love, but when it's in normal clamshell mode you can easily fire off e-mails without having to pick up a $70 peripheral keyboard. And Lenovo isn't the only one in the netvertible game – we have high hopes for ASUS's $499 Eee PC T101MT that will be available starting next week.

$829: either a 64GB, WiFi + 3G iPad or...

HP Mini 311 ($199 Verizon, $399 HP)

If you're spending $800, you should think about a higher end netbook, like an Ion-equipped Mini 311, or Intel ULV ultraportable. The 11.6-inch Mini 311's NVIDIA Ion GPU certainly has what it takes for mainstream gaming and full HD playback, and like the others it can handle multiple applications, play Hulu vids from your browser and store more than 64GB of your data. Like the iPad, you can opt for more than just WiFi with 3G from Verizon. We did the math and while it turns out to total $919 for the year with a $60 per month data plan, the 64GB iPad costs $1,189 over the same period of time.

THE FUTURE / VAPORWARE ALTERNATIVES

So netbooks may be the best alternatives around right now, but the tablets are a comin' -- or at least that's what we've been told by a number of major companies. Unfortunately, most of these aren't shipping or even priced -- and the most promising member of this group hasn't ever been officially announced. But if you're the type to hold out hope, each of these is bound to present an interesting alternative to the iPad if and when they arrive.

HP Slate

Truth is we don't know much about the much-hyped HP Slate, but we can firmly say it has USB connectivity, runs Windows 7 and supports Flash out of the box. The questions surround the software, and given the fact that Windows 7 wasn't created to be a slate OS, we're crossing our fingers that HP is coming up with something awesome to put on top of it. Regardless, the quite svelte looking 10-inch, multitouch tablet is rumored to be priced around $549, but it looks like we will be waiting until early this summer to swipe our fingers all over it.

Notion Ink Adam
Talk about baking in tons of cutting-edge technology into one device: the Notion Ink Adam has both the latest Tegra processor, and a 10-inch touchscreen made by PixelQi, which means you can turn the backlight on and off for saving battery life. No doubt we're intrigued with what we have seen from Notion Ink, but with no word yet on pricing or availability of this one and now rumors of Tegra 2 issues, we're skeptical of its real viability.

Fusion Garage JooJoo
When you set aside all of the Fusion Garage / TechCrunch hubbub, the $499 JooJoo is actually quite a compelling tablet. With a larger screen than the iPad, the 12-inch, Intel Atom / NVIDIA Ion powered tablet promises full Flash HD playback and has a pretty nice looking interface from what we've seen so far. We're worried about the battery life given our issues with Ion netbooks, but it shouldn't be too long before we've got our full review up.

Dell Mini 5
While the Dell Mini 5 is a bit smaller than most of these tablets and its five-inch form factor is closer to a phone than anything else it could just hit the sweet spot of portability. We've been impressed with what we've seen so far from the Snapdragon-powered Android device, and the prototype we've been toying around with is both snappy and responsive. However, as AT&T managed to totally ruin Android on the Dell Aero, we're more than nervous that all of that potential will be washed down the drain when it's finally announced.

Microsoft Courier
We figured we'd save the best for (almost) last -- and by best, we mean the product we're most intrigued by, yet know the least about. We can't even tell you if the Courier is a real product or just a collection of ideas mocked-up as an exercise, but the bits and pieces we've seen have us hoping Microsoft is hard at work on this dualscreen gadget. We've heard rumblings of a launch later this year, but honestly, for all we know, it could all be a Microsoft backed prank.

Chrome OS Tablets... and unicorns
We have no idea what Google's Chrome OS is actually going to be like, and we have even less information on if it'll make it onto tablets. But more than a few companies have hinted at such devices, and now that the iPad's 10-year run atop the rumor charts is over, we've got a feeling those whispers are just going to get louder. There's no doubt that waiting on some of these tablets could be on par with waiting on Petco to sell unicorns, but why do that when you've already got dozens of great choices -- yes, including the iPad -- that you can buy right now?

Apple confirms Best Buy iPads at launch, what time you'll need to be there

We're nearly there. The mystical, magical iPad experience starts this Saturday, April 3, and if you haven't already pre-ordered your only way to get one for the weekend is going to be to fight the rush at retail. Apple has confirmed that all 221 of its Apple Stores will have the wunder-tablets on sale, and has also confirmed the Best Buy rumors, indicating that "most" of the big-box retailer's locations will have them. Stores are set to open at 9:00am, so we figure you can probably roll on over there at 8:45 or so and get a good spot in line.

iPad Camera Connection Kit finally surfaces for pre-order, still absurdly overpriced

If you'll recall, Apple had no qualms revealing the iPad Camera Connection Kit at its 'Latest Creation' event back in January, but the solution seemingly dropped from the face of the Earth shortly thereafter. Even as cases, keyboards and all sorts of other iPad accessories surfaced for pre-order, the camera kit remained nowhere to be found. Over the weekend, the $29 adapter bundle finally found a home at the outfit's website (with a "late April" ship date), offering users a pair of dongles to support USB and SD cards. Of course, one could easily argue that the iPad should have native support for both of these widely used formats without forcing users to lug around two extra peripherals, but if that were the case, this thing just wouldn't be an Apple, now would it?