I was doing my daily web browsing and while looking for CES stuff, and stumbled upon this, a fake 2027 CES presentation from Omnicorp. Don’t recognize the name “Omnicorp”?! Shame on you, now go straight to Netflix and queue up Robocop. Ok, it’s not on Netflix streaming, so shame on them too. Well, find it and watch it for goodness sake, it’s a classic! Anyway, Omnicorp is a fictional corporation in the near future that buys the Detroit police force in the hopes of monetizing it. In order to save money, Omnicorp hopes to build its own robotic police force and lay off all the human ones.
This 1987 film by Paul Verhoeven takes a somewhat satirical and violent look at the crime scene of the future, with criminals often insanely more weaponized than the local law enforcement. Ok, so what does this have to do with the iPhone? No, Robocop doesn’t fight crime with one, although that would be cool. It just so happens that 2014 will see the release of a Robocop remake, which is more action movie than the original, but the multimedia ad campaign for the film is already up and running. If you head on over to OmniCorp.com, you find the usual in-universe “this is a real web site for a real company” that provides information on the story, characters, etc. and the obligatory game tie-in. In this case, it’s a lead-in for the iOS Robocop game which is free on the AppStore. On the web site however is a very simple game where you use an robotic arm to move some shapes around. A success awards you codes you can redeem within the iOS game. The keen part of this flash-based web game is that you can use your iPhone to control it. Simply go to the “calibration” page on your Mac or PC and begin the game. Once at the start, the game will ask if you want to play with your iPhone or your mouse/keyboard. If you choose your iPhone, you will open the calibration page in MobileSafari and enter the code you get from the web page on your Mac. Once “synchronized” you will then be able to control the on-screen arm by turning and tilting your iPhone and pressing the on-screen button to grab and release an object. Pretty cool eh? The movement is a little jumpy, and every time you want to play the game you have to reload the page on the iPhone and reenter the code, but it makes for an interesting demo of things to come in the world of gaming. Check it out and see what you think.