Hello, and happy SOPA/PIPA Internet Blackout Day! Despite the billions of Facebook statuses about it I just took the time to learn (like 10 minutes ago) what SOPA and PIPA are. If you’re like me and too damn lazy to go find out why this is such a hot issue, I’ll explain it right here, right now!
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) are two bills that are supposed to stop the pirating of media, you know, the kind of stuff you would download through torrent sites or P2P sharing.
That’s great ‘cuz stealing music and movies is against the law… but the language in these bills is universally considered to be so broad that these new laws would make practically every website on the internet a target for one-sided, no-questions-asked censorship. The U.S. government would be able to tell your ISP to *BLOCK YOU* from visiting websites that they believe are in violation of these vague and poorly defined laws. They could also do the same to search engines like Google.
After downloading apps that promise to teach something and finding their formats neither fun nor particularly memorable, I thought I’d had it with anything containing “educational” in the description. But, it’s 2012. Why not get crazy? There have been 2 or 3 instances in the last month where a friend and I were strolling outdoors and wondered what kind of bird we were looking at. So when I saw Five Ravens’ app up for review, I figured it was a sign.
Hello, and happy SOPA/PIPA Internet Blackout Day! Despite the billions of Facebook statuses about it I just took the time to learn (like 10 minutes ago) what SOPA and PIPA are. If you’re like me and too damn lazy to go find out why this is such a hot issue, I’ll explain it right here, right now!
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) are two bills that are supposed to stop the pirating of media, you know, the kind of stuff you would download through torrent sites or P2P sharing.
That’s great ‘cuz stealing music and movies is against the law… but the language in these bills is universally considered to be so broad that these new laws would make practically every website on the internet a target for one-sided, no-questions-asked censorship. The U.S. government would be able to tell your ISP to *BLOCK YOU* from visiting websites that they believe are in violation of these vague and poorly defined laws. They could also do the same to search engines like Google.
Since On5′s first iteration a year ago with We Doodle and Charadium, I’ve been a loyal fan of their game and could absolutely not wait for its successor, Charadium 2. Charadium 2 is a fun Pictionary based game to showcase your artistic drawing ability. Pictionary has always been a fun game to play growing up and now you’re able to relive your childhood on your very own iOS device. The idea itself is amazing and so is the gameplay, especially trying to guess what your friends are able to draw. I cannot begin to explain how many times I’ve broke out laughing from sheer joy and embarrassment from my own pathetic drawings.
Gamania offers this app for free for two more days so I wanted to get the word out in time! From the looks and tutorial of Subcat, you would think this game that has you wiping away fog to find and catch sea creatures is a walk in the park – or the ocean floor. However, this game is not as it seems. A training sea is followed by four more levels. Each challenge has you catching a certain number and / or combination of types of fish and although completing the challenge has you move on to the next, the faster you accomplish the task at hand, the more stars out of three you receive.
CamCard (business card reader) ($6.99) by Intsig Information Co., Ltd.
Available on iPhone only
When I am not writing reviews for IAR, on a completely voluntary and uncompensated basis mind you, I am in my office, or in court, or meeting clients in my daily struggle to keep the bills paid, my kids expensive private-school tuition up to date, and my wife happy. As a practicing attorney I am handed hundreds of business cards every year and I never know what to do with them. Herein lies the benefit of CamCard!
CamCard is a business card reader for the iPhone that allows you to take all those pesky paper business cards and convert them to digital form. According to Intsig Information Co., Ltd., CamCard is able to capture business card images with your iPhone-based camera, recognize the card image content, and then automatically organize and extract the person’s first name, last name, company name, work phone number, email address, physical address and company/contact website url. If only it were truly that easy!
What’s in a name? A tower defense game by any other name would be just as fun to play. Well, UFOlocaust is not the best of the bunch, but it’s not the most boring either. Your mission: protect the anxious, humanoid masses from alien abduction. Seems easy enough, and in some cases it is. The graphics are pretty cool, as are the visual themes. You are started off with the basics which consist of plasma-collecting machinery and offensive weapons. The more points you gather, the more weapons you can buy in the Laboratory. But there are a few facets where the game is lacking.
Countdown™ is a new app that … counts down to things. Why confuse prospective consumers with punny names that do nothing more than mislead and force a reading of the app description? It’s great that the developer mentioned further features are in the woodworks for next month. As for now, Countdown is a fairly adequate 1.0, but perhaps not yet worth the 99 cents.
After downloading the app, you open Countdown to find a streamlined UI consisting of two buttons and a blank space where countdowns will eventually end up. The “+” button adds countdowns and selecting “Edit” updates preexisting ones. The best feature includes the ability to add a photo to the countdown item – either extracted from the internet as you input text or uploaded from the device. Once the photo-customized item is created the option of sharing on Facebook appears, which is great. However, there is no option for Twitter, Tumblr or any other social media application. Interactive features such as photo customization and sharing online show potential that will hopefully be actualized for Countdown’s next version.
Somewhere in the deep recesses of this thing I call a brain, I like to imagine a world where I’m surrounded by adoring women who ooooh and aaaah as I wow them with amazing magic tricks peppered with bits of irresistable charisma… and then I wake up and realize that I’m about as charismatic as a canker sore.. but for whatever reason I still want to learn how to do magic!
Magic101 is a collection of videos that teach you how to pull off 12 beginner-level magic tricks. Each trick comes with a written explanation, a video that shows the trick being performed, and another video that explains how the trick is done. More magic tricks can be bought through the “magic store” where most tricks cost $.99.
Wopple bills itself as the merging of “America’s most popular TV game show” with “the most popular mobile word game”. I’m taking that to mean it’s a cross between Wheel of Fortune and Scrabble or, as most people know it these days, Words with Friends. Wopple is definitely modeled after Wheel of Fortune and not much else, so if you’re looking for a kinder and much gentler version of Wheel then you’re in the right place. As far as similarities to the “popular mobile word game”… uh, sorry guys, not seeing it!
So like I said, this is like Wheel of Fortune but it’s waaayyyyy easier and not nearly as exciting, partially due to the fact that the computer is dumb as dirt. Your mission is to solve word puzzles that come from categories like Food or Celebrities, and in typical Wheel fashion you can buy vowels and guess at consonants. There’s no wheel to speak of, just some randomized cards that determine how much “bamboney” you’ll earn if you guess a letter correctly, and unless you’ve got the IQ of a doorknob you’re pretty much guaranteed to win every time.
Tamagochi were cheap, electronic toys popular in the 90′s. It’s basically a battery-powered keychain pet game. To prevent your little pixel based buddy from dying, you have to feed, bathe, and play with the thing constantly.
If you know what I’m talking about, you’re probably feeling nostalgic and/or bitter right now. I know I was obsessed with my little critter. Once, I forgot to take him on vacation and cried the entire car ride (RIP Flippy). Tamagochi is some serious stuff.
Hatchi bills itself as the app store’s first Tamagochi emulator. That’s right- you can relive the joys and pains of your childhood for only $0.99. The artwork is the same retro black pixels. Everything is done by pushing a button. You can only ‘lose’ if you don’t check on your creature frequently. The app can send notifications, in case I feel like being woken up at 3AM being told Henry is bored or hungry or smelly. In that way, it’s like owning your own pet.
Me Red: The Ultimate Adventure ($0.99) by Playcompass Entertainment
Available on iPhone & iPod Touch
iOS action games are a dime a dozen. I can only take so many $0.99 rehashes of tired concepts before I throw my iPhone into a lake and start beating people with a large ax. By all accounts, I should hate Me Red. For some reason, I don’t. So what makes Me Red unique and why am I hopelessly addicted?
Me Red: The Ultimate Adventure is a runner or platform jumping game. You control an endlessly running red blob. Jump with your left thumb, attack with your right. Watch out for enemies. If you die, too bad, start over. There are dozens of games like this languishing in the dark recesses of the app store, each with varying levels of suck.
But Me Red stands out. Start up the app and you’re thrown into a cute, quirky introduction. The graphics and soundtrack are bright, colorful, and happy- perfect contrast to my dark New England winter. Controls are responsive; animation is smooth. Everything is structured and polished. For a game by an indie developer, Me Red is seriously impressive. It’s looks are on par, if not better than, some of the top action games in the Apple app store.
Solve puzzles! Battle monsters! Solve more puzzles! I hope you like solving puzzles, because there’s a lot of them. A clever mix of a puzzler and an action/adventure game, iSoKingdom makes some advances in uncharted territory.
iSoKingdom is based around the concept of an isometric puzzle. You get a complex 3D shape and must deduce the 2D images of different sides. It requires a fair amount of spatial reasoning and patience, and is something you’d expect to find on IQ tests and brain teaser books.
Since I have the reasoning skills of a plant, I didn’t plan on doing so hot. Thankfully, the app foresaw my incompetence, and provided a thorough tutorial. Needless to say, after completing a few puzzles, I was hooked. After a few hours, I wouldn’t be surprised if my IQ doubled.
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