App Review: Everlands
Tony Mei | Jul 4, 2010 Games
User rating: 
(12 votes, average: 3.42 out of 5)
(12 votes, average: 3.42 out of 5)
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Turn-based strategy games are quite popular on the App Store, beloved due to their addictive and thought-provoking qualities. But every now and again, there comes along a genre-shaking game that just blows me away. Everlands, developed by Hexage.net, is one example.
Everlands’s basic plot revolves around the evil spirits taking control of animals, and the brave plethora of creatures that must come together to stop the evil and cleanse their possessed brethren. While this more juvenile, lighthearted storyline seems out of place in a genre filled with macho heroes, futuristic weaponry and vehicular combat, it blends nicely into the game and serves as a much welcomed change of pace. Read the rest of this entry »
Pix Maze
Brad H | Jun 15, 2010 Games
User rating: (23 votes, average: 2.65 out of 5)
(23 votes, average: 2.65 out of 5) Loading ...
Budcat and Activision have teamed up to bring you Pix Maze. The object of this game is to complete different mazes and as you go a picture is revealed.
There are small mazes, medium mazes and large mazes for you to concour. With over seventy mazes for you to complete this game offers a lot of play time.
When you start up a maze your character is a bug that goes through the maze stepping on little color blocks that leave said color behind you to create the picture. In the top left corner there is a screen that shows your progress on the picture so the further into the maze you get the more detailed your picture becomes.
The controls are really simple and not intrusive. In the bottom right corner there are four arrows that you push to go in the direction you wish.
In the options you can set hints to be on or off. If you have the hints on and you wait at a fork in the road the right way will be show to you as a blinking color tab and if you wait even longer or find yourself off the main path arrows will show up to lead you back.
You can also set a playlist of songs to play from the option menu.
If this wasnt enough there is a custom maze creator. All you have to do is draw up the picture and a maze will be created for you automatically. Way cool.
I had a fun time testing this game out, cool graphics, cool pictures but the one and only thing I didn’t like was the character. Im not sure why they chose a bug as your character but I would have preferred something more appealing.
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- Main Menu
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- Options
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- Ready Set GO!
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- Hmm What could it be?
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- Starting to see something
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- OMG Its a mermaid
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- Time to be creative
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- My iPhone Maze
Version 1.0.0
Reviewed on iPhone 3G OS 3.1.3
LilRacerz
Tony Mei | May 23, 2010 Games
User rating: (14 votes, average: 2.50 out of 5)
(14 votes, average: 2.50 out of 5) Loading ...
LilRacerz , an inaugural app by developers Blast One, is by definition an arcade ‘micro racer’ style game. However, so much energy, polish and life is infused into this game that it transcends its genre, making you forgot you’re playing a top-down 2D racer that only cost two dollars.
The game play revolves around nine different tournament cups for you to win, each consisting of several unique races. At the end of each race you receive gold coins to spruce up your ride and at the conclusion of each cup (if you scored first or second cumulatively) you unlock a brand new car for the new tourney. It’s a simple and effective no-frills formula that kept me hooked right from the start.
Racing itself is made very easy by efficient and simple controls. You have your acceleration and brake pedals, two steering buttons for maneuvering left and right, and the ubiquitous ‘nitro’ key to give a little jolt to the engine. Controls were generally responsive, and I appreciated how the dev ingeniously placed the nitro right above the acceleration pedal, allowing you to activate it without taking your thumb off the acceleration. All the races consists of two to three laps with four AI opponents, usually making for a frenzied jockeying for position that makes this game a whole lot of pulse-pounding entertainment.
Pen Pals
Jacob Jones | May 10, 2010 Entertainment, Social Networking
User rating: (24 votes, average: 3.08 out of 5)
(24 votes, average: 3.08 out of 5) Loading ...
Dos Hombres introduces a relatively unique concept to the iPhone with the release of their app named Pen Pals. Like the name suggests, Pen Pals hooks you up with a complete stranger from another part of the world (more than likely you’ll be paired up with someone from the USA) so you can converse awkwardly about life in your part of the world. I say awkwardly because the majority of the messages I recieved were from guys looking to score and underage girls who were incapable of holding an intelligent conversation. A few messages I got read: “a/s/l” and “hi…!!!!!!11!!”. A massive turn off if you’re the kind of person who wants to meet an interesting person and hold a decent conversation with said interesting person. I don’t blame the app though; just the people who use this app for stupid reasons.
Tags: $1.99, Entertainment, Jacob Jones
(10+2)x5 Procrastination Hack
Tony Mei | Apr 28, 2010 Productivity
User rating: (17 votes, average: 2.47 out of 5)
(17 votes, average: 2.47 out of 5) Loading ...
As far as working effectively goes, I am a black belt in procrastinating. In fact, I’m procrastinating at the moment from writing a research paper in order to review this app, which, ironically, is supposed to help end my procrastination. But at least it’s an incremental step.
(10+2)x5 Procrastination Hack by EBratton revolves around the idea that if you commit 10 minutes to working on a task and then take a 2 minute break afterward, you will be able to ‘hack your procrastination to oblivion’ if you rinse and repeat the cycle 5 times. The app is essentially a single screen with a set of buttons and a timer that clocks how long you’ve been working, and when you deserve your scheduled 2 minute break ration.
For such a simplistic and bare-bones app, it gets the concept across pretty nicely. I find it much easier to work on a project when there is timer tracking my progress and keeping me motivated. While I found the app successful, these kinds of unique productivity apps will obviously have wildly different success rates from person to person.
Tags: $1.99, procrastination, Productivity
NukeZen
Michael E. | Apr 22, 2010 Games
User rating: (6 votes, average: 2.83 out of 5)
(6 votes, average: 2.83 out of 5) Loading ...
Nuke Zen, from Bo Multimedia, is probably the most challenging puzzle game I’ve ever encountered in iTunes. I don’t fully understand it, but does that stop me from playing? Absolutely not!
Here’s the premise: you are Professor Zen, an Albert Einstein-like bloke with an impossibly high IQ. This is a good thing because you’re also a nuclear engineer tasked with stabilizing a series of nuclear reactors on the brink of going Three Mile Island. The fate of the world rests in your highly-skilled hands and not even Jack Bauer can do what you do.
Tags: $1.99
Postal Mayhem
Brad H | Apr 16, 2010 Games
User rating: (8 votes, average: 3.38 out of 5)
(8 votes, average: 3.38 out of 5) Loading ...
About five years ago I came across a simple flash game on the web and would play it at work when I had any down time. I eventually forgot about the game until I got my iPhone. I was thinking
about games that I would like to play with the touch interface and remembered that great flash game. Well now my dreams have come true thanks to Stamp3d3 and their game Postal Mayhem.
The game takes place at a distribution center. Different types of packages come down the conveyer belt and you must make sure the packages go out to the right delivery vehicle. Next to the vehicles is a picture of the package and the number of said packages needed to leave.
Throughout the conveyer belts are arrow’s that can be used to redirect which direction the package will travel. Each level has a set amount of packages that need to be delivered and a set time limit to do it in.
Starship Shooter HD
Tony Mei | Apr 14, 2010 Games
User rating: (12 votes, average: 3.33 out of 5)
(12 votes, average: 3.33 out of 5) Loading ...
Starship Shooter HD takes an established space action shooter formula and executes it right on. While the game does not stray too far from the ordinary and already established, it brings a refreshing, classic action-y space shooter chock filled with evil aliens, asteroids, frantic game play and a well executed upgrading system.
Game play involves flying your ship around the edge of the screen, forcing you to repeatedly strafe the dodge the on-coming fire and attempt to get a few shots in of your own. Enemies spawn in increasing waves, forcing you to constantly shift your strategy when different flavors of bad guys appear. Your ship is ‘locked’ to the edge of the screen, which seemed strange and awkward at first, turned out to be one of the major aspects of the game at sets it apart from the crowd. The two controls options: steering with a hand and firing with another, or steering by tilting and firing with both your opposable thumbs are both reliable and prove intuitive to the pace and style of game play.
Tags: $1.99, Games, shooter, space shooter
Warlords: Call to Arms
Tony Mei | Apr 11, 2010 Games
User rating: (8 votes, average: 3.50 out of 5)
(8 votes, average: 3.50 out of 5) Loading ...
The app store is filled with strategic warfare games by talented developers, the now obscure but once insanely popular game Cartoon Wars comes to mind, but it’s rare to finding such an exceptional and enjoyable game that is Warlords: Call To Arms by Greyhound Games. In short, everything about the app screams iPhone and iTouch gaming perfection, from the strategic and fast paced game play to the slick and pleasant graphics and sounds.
TEDD
Brad H | Mar 30, 2010 Games
User rating: (5 votes, average: 3.40 out of 5)
(5 votes, average: 3.40 out of 5) Loading ...
Sweet Studio brings us this platform style side scrolling fighting game. You take on the role of Tedd, the older brother of Kara, who seems to have lost her necklace. You must track down the necklace by fighting your way through a ton of street thugs that stand in your way.
When I downloaded this game the english translation was really bad in a good way. It brought me back to the days of “ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!!” This didn’t bother me at all since this is a fighting game and not an RPG. The story line was like an amusing brain twist in between boss fights. To my dismay an update was put out that fixed a lot of the text. It defiantly isn’t perfect now but you can actually follow the story line. All my screen shots are going to be before the update as an homage to bad translation so I advise you to click on them and see for your self.
TopJam
Michael E. | Mar 20, 2010 Music
User rating: (4 votes, average: 3.50 out of 5)
(4 votes, average: 3.50 out of 5) Loading ...
TopJam, from Ole Gammelgaard Poulsen, is one of those apps that make you wonder why no one thought of creating it before now. It’s not a revolutionary concept and certainly won’t change the world as we know it, but it’s still pretty neat. What exactly does TopJam do? Its primary function is to pull up the 100 top US iTunes music videos from YouTube so that you can watch them on your iPod Touch or iPhone.
Cool, huh?
Tags: $1.99
Newton’s Balls: Kinetic Physics Newton’s Cradle Simulator
Michael E. | Mar 5, 2010 Games
User rating: (19 votes, average: 2.58 out of 5)
(19 votes, average: 2.58 out of 5) Loading ...
You know the look. You know the sound.
Some things you hear and never forget them. The ‘chung-chung’ sound of a Law & Order episode. The sound of the Bionic Woman or the $6 Million Dollar Man running. The sound the moving red eye of a Cylon from the original Battlestar Galactica.
Chances are, you’ve seen a Newton’s Cradle before. In science or physics class, the teacher would break out one of those bad boys to illustrate the principle of Conservation of Momentum, or maybe the difference between potential and kinetic energy. And, yeah, the Cradle might have taught you about science, but in truth, it was just fun to watch and play with.
Now, through Logic Consulting, LLC, you can have your very own simulated Newton’s Cradle on your iPhone or iPod Touch.
Tags: $1.99
