Apple is advancing into the Gaming Arena. Rumor for now at least for the Apple Smart TV that Apple is creating, and Apple TV 2 on iOS 5 is actually used by Gaming Developer as an extension to Gaming. Isaacson states that, with the integrated television set from Apple users would no longer have to fiddle with complicated controls and that the product would have the “simplest user interface you could imagine”.
Apple TV with iOS 5, iPhone 4S and iPad 2 can already be use to play games on your TV as long as you have Apple TV 2nd Generation with iOS 5. Playing games via your Apple TV 2nd Generation only works if you have the iOS 5 on your iPad 2 as well and iPhone 4S. The reason why iPhone 4S or iPad 2 is because they of the A5 Chip and it is required to have at least the A5 chip to avoid any lag from the wireless signal from your iPhone 4S or iPad 2. The iPhone 4 can also be used for gaming to your Apple TV 2nd Generation via wireless mirroring, however, there will be lag, slow down, and sometimes it would crash.
Most of the games work with Apple TV 2nd Generation iOS 5 Mirroring Capability, such as Infinity Blade. The graphics on the iPhone 4S is really nice on the Retina Display. Mirroring it to your TV on the other hand is a different quality. It doesn’t affect the gaming experience if you decide to extend your game to your TV via mirroring to your Apple TV.
There is only one game that is optimized for the Apple TV 2nd Generation and that is the new updated Real Racing 2 HD. Firemint had just updated it’s Real Racing 2 HD to be compatible fully and bug fixes for iOS 5, for optimal gaming experience mirroring to Apple TV. Playing the game from your iPad 2, or if you prefer a smaller steering wheel, use your iPhone 4S, is totally different than any other racing game. The steering wheel on the iPhone 4S or iPad 2 displays the lap you are in, elapse time, position number, the map, and where you are on the track. While on TV, you would see the cockpit, the hood of the car (depends on the type of car your choose), and rear view mirror.
Firemint Real Racing 2 HD is not a universal game. Which means, you have to buy one for your iPad 2 and one for your iPhone 4S. I have both, and I prefer driving on my iPhone rather than on the iPad.
Another game you can consider is N.O.V.A 2 for the iPad 2 or any First Person Shooter game. However, not all games are made to mirror directly such as Real Racing 2 HD. Which means, if you mirror your game to your TV, what you see on your iPad is just a direct mirror of what you see on your iPad, that means you have two screens and since the iPad has to work twice as hard to mirror the game, some games would have some lag heavily at times or constant lag.
For now, I’m hoping that more games would have an update that if a mirror is enabled, it would only show the action on the TV and the controllers would still function on the iPhone or iPad.