Section 81. Play iPod Games


81. Play iPod Games

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

46 Find and Play Music on the iPod


SEE ALSO

82 Customize the iPod's Main Menu

92 Enhance Your iPod's Battery Capacity


Nobody will ever mistake the iPod for a Sony PSP or a Nintendo DS, nor will it ever take the place of one of those devicesbut Apple has not left us high and dry when it comes to frivolous ways we can pass the time when we're accompanied by nothing but our iPods. Listening to music is great, and arguably nothing does it better than the iPod except that music without something visual to focus on isn't effective as a way to keep entertained. If you don't have an iPod photo for browsing pictures, or you don't want to spend your time paging through your contacts or text notes, you can always turn to the array of simple video games packaged with the iPod.

These games are all designed to work with the iPod's interfacethey work using the rotary wheel and the middle button, just like some of the best classic games from the days of joysticks and sub-8-bit graphics. Some of the games (such as the Music Quiz) specifically take advantage of the iPod's nature as a music organizer and database storing everything in your iTunes Library .

81. Play iPod Games


NOTE

In the Brick and Parachute games, you must press the Select button to begin playing. For all games except Music Quiz , it's possible to have your iPod playing music in the background as you while away the time.


1.
Navigate to the Games Menu

From the Main Menu, select Extras , then Games . You'll see the selection of four standard iPod games: Brick, Music Quiz, Parachute , and Solitaire . Play any of these games by scrolling to it and pressing Select ; end a game by pressing Menu to return to the Games screen.

2.
Play the Brick Game

Brick , originally the only game on the iPod and available only through a hidden, secret command, is a variation on the old "Breakout" arcade game programmed in 1976 by none other than Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. The concept is simple: Use the wheel to move the paddle back and forth and deflect the bouncing "ball" back up to the top of the screen, where it strikes a wall of bricks and breaks each one it touches, earning you points. You lose a "life" if the ball gets past your paddle. Keep the ball moving as long as you can and break all the bricks to advance to the next level, where the ball moves faster, the paddle is smaller, and the brick wall is thicker.

TIP

On 1G and 2G iPods, access the Brick game by navigating into the About screen (in the Settings menu) and holding down the Select button for several seconds.

3.
Play the Music Quiz Game

Music Quiz is a game unique to the iPod in which you're presented with five song titles in a list. The iPod plays a randomly selected clip of music (about 10 seconds long) from the middle of a song whose title is somewhere in the list. You must identify the song as quickly as possible, highlight the correct title, and press Select . You earn points for each correct answer, and score higher the faster you respond. (You can use the Play/Pause button to pause the game at any time.)

NOTE

Because the iPod must access its disk to select five new random titles for each round, the Music Quiz game is one of the most disk- intensive activities possible on the iPodand one of the fastest ways to run down the battery.

4.
Play the Parachute Game

Parachute lets you engage your itchy trigger finger by putting you behind a defender's gun while helicopters drop paratroopers on you. Aim the gun using the wheel, and fire using the Select button. Shooting a paratrooper before he reaches the safety of the ground is worth one point, and shooting a helicopter is worth two. Each shot you take costs you one point, though, so simply filling the air with lead won't get you anywhere .

5.
Play the Solitaire Game

Solitaire is mostly a game of patience. You use the wheel to browse back and forth through the displayed cards, and press Select to draw cards from the deck or pick up cards to move them from one pile to another. The game only allows you to draw three cards at a time (rather than a single card), meaning that it's easy to find yourself in an unsolvable game; if you do, just press Menu and then reenter the game to reset the cards.

NOTE

The games on the iPod photo are in full color , giving them that extra bit of "kick" beyond their counterparts on the regular iPod; other than that, though, they're the same.




iPod + iTunes for Windows and Mac in a Snap
iPod + iTunes for Windows and Mac in a Snap (2nd Edition)
ISBN: 0672328992
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2005
Pages: 152
Authors: Brian Tiemann

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