iPad: The Missing Manual, 5th Edition

Chapter 10. Play Games

You’ll learn to:

• Browse for and buy games

• Compete against players worldwide

• Compare your performance on a global leaderboard

• Add Facebook pals to your Game Center friends

• Beam games to the big screen

WITH DIGITAL MUSIC, VIDEOS, and books tucked inside your iPad’s slim glass-and-metal form, you have plenty choices for entertainment. But if you want to play instead of just sitting back and pushing Play, your tablet makes a nice high-def game console as well. You can zap zombies, thwart governments, and channel your inner Dale Earnhardt, Jr. You can also relive your glory days at the arcade, but instead of facing a machine the size of a phone booth, your fate lies in your hands—literally.

iPad games aren’t simply iPhone games blown up to tablet proportions, either. Savvy game-makers have taken popular titles back into the shop to super-size them for the bigger screens of the iPad family. As a result, you get richer graphics (especially on the latest iPad’s Retina display) and more precise gameplay, with plenty of room to move around. That bigger screen makes it easy for two people to play against each other, too. And thanks to Apple’s online Game Center network, you don’t even need to be in the same room as your fellow joystick jockeys.

The iPad can handle everything from basic low-speed card games like euchre all the way up to high-speed shooters with detailed 3D avatars ...