Rock, Paper, Shotgun

This is outside of our usual mandate, but fuck it. Tiger Style – who comprise of Ion Storm veterans Randy Smith (Lead on Thief: Deadly Shadows, co-designer of the Cradle, designer of Return to the Haunted Cathedral, that guy) and David Kalina (Thief: Deadly Shadows and – er – other malarkies) have released their first game for the Macintosh Individual Phone – or, Iphone. It’s called the Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor and is an adventurey-thing where you play a spider, bouncing around and making webs. And similar. Reviews so far are absolute fountains and it looks mechanically pretty novel. You can get it from here or watch the video below…
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Behind the scenes, in the gelatinous chamber where the RPS Hivemind’s life-sustaining anti-plankton is grown, Jim and I had a brief debate. “We should have a weekly iPhone post”, quoth he. “But so many people will be angered by such a thing”, quoth I. We both then stared at our own iPhones with a mixture of pride and shame, and we wondered. How would the goodly, but sometimes distressingly irate, readers of the Rock, the Paper and the Shotgun feel about such a thing? While we continue to wonder, we can at least justify this: John Carmack, the Great Brain of id Software, talking about the trials and tribulations behind the upcoming iPhone port of Doom, and the issues inherent in visually tweaking (or not) a true-blue PC classic.
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…was playing World Of Goo using my iPhone as a virtual mouse:

I am geek, hear me make weird, smug nasal noises. (Also, I apologise for my face.)
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Is the iPhone 3G actually the portable PC? I know far too many people who’ve said ‘that’s it, I’m getting an iPhone’ come yesterday’s announcement of genuinely affordable new model, so I get the feeling it’s about to become a frighteningly ubiquitous device. Not iPod ubiquitous, probably, but, well, Nokia must be bricking it. What really interests me about it is that the new version is accompanied by long-awaited support for third-party applications – including games.
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Is this PC-related? Yeah, I reckon so. It’s about PC games, and about a piece of hardware that works with the PC. I’m sure someone will be kind enough to inform me in unbiased, restrained terms should they disagree, however.

Anyway, despite being a hopeless gadget junkie, I’ve resisted an iPhone. Frankly, If I had a viable form of the internet wherever I went, what precious little social aptitude I have would disappear completely. But a touch-screen phone with which I can pretend Sam & Max Hit The Road is still as funny as I thought it was ten years ago? Ooh.

And yes, I know I could already do this on a horrible Windows Mobile Smartphone, but those are, as I say, horrible. A DS with a flashcart, on the other hand… Ye Olde Pointe’n'clicke Emulatore ScummVM is a wonderful piece of software, and I’m cheered whenever I hear it’s been ported to yet another new platform. I hope that, one day, all-purpose DOS emulator DOSBox will make similar headway, as I want to play Fury of the Furries on the back of my digital camera.