iPhone App Reviews

3D Fireworks 2

Michael (Admin) | Jul 2, 2009 Entertainment

User rating: (3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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Way back in November of last year I reviewed KDR Software’s original version of 3D Fireworks and it was pretty good! They’re back with this new version that incorporates a city skyline and a whole mess of settings to play with, one of the coolest being the ability to set the “auto-launch rate” which controls how often stuff explodes in the sky. You also get to choose what types of fireworks are shown and you can even throw in a UFO if multicolored explosions just aren’t enough for you.

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Tags: $.99, 3D

The Sims 3

Michael (Admin) | Jun 16, 2009 Games

User rating: (7 votes, average: 4.57 out of 5)

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If you’ve never played The Sims before, it’s a strangely addictive game where your job is to control the lives of little digital people. They’re not sitting ducks like the islanders in Pocket God… instead they live in houses, like normal people. They also have friends, enemies, personalities, jobs, stomachs to fill, and bladders to empty, and you’re responsible for ALL of it!

Veterans of The Sims game franchise know these responsibilities all too well, and if you’re one of those people you’ll be happy to know that Electronic Arts has done a pretty kickass job of translating the Sims world to the iPhone. There are lots of differences between PC Sims and iPhone Sims, the most noticeable change being that you only control one Sim on the iPhone as opposed to an entire family, but the core of the gameplay is definitely there. Your Sim can meet other Sims, talk with them, make out with them, slap them around, pee on the floor… you name it.

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Tags: $9.99, 3D, role-playing, simulation

Ballerina

Michael (Admin) | May 5, 2009 Entertainment

User rating: (4 votes, average: 4.25 out of 5)

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Ok, before you start making fun of me for reviewing an app called BALLERINA lemme just say that I got curious about the “holographic effect” this app promises. That’s it! I swear! Growing up to be a ballerina was not on my list of boyhood dreams… not that there’s anything wrong with that.

So has Raptured Line successfully created an iPhone hologram? There’s a video at the end of this review, so you be the judge! Or you can grab one of the many promo codes that Raptured has generously contributed to this review, and if you miss out then you can just buy the app.

Getting back to the question of whether this app is a worthy hologram simulation, my verdict is: kind of.

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Tags: $.99, 3D, good for kids

PrimeTime Quiz Show

Michael (Admin) | Apr 23, 2009 Games

User rating: (2 votes, average: 3.50 out of 5)

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I often claim to be a complete moron – which I totally am! – but I still love quiz games. Answering trivia questions is how I reassure myself that I’m not THE dumbest person on the planet, so naturally PrimeTime Quiz Show grabbed my attention.

As soon as you launch the app it’s apparent that PixelLive poured some considerable sweat into building a real alternative for the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire crowd. Aside from the obvious App Store icon similarity, PrimeTime Quiz comes complete with a virtual gameshow host, multiple choice questions, “life lines”, and a question ladder that stretches from $100 to $1,000,000.

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Tags: $.99, 3D, trivia

iToy

Michael (Admin) | Apr 22, 2009 Lifestyle

User rating: (3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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iToy is one of those apps that doesn’t really warrant a lot of commentary unless you’re a diaper-pooping toddler, and from the looks of it I’d say that’s who this odd little app was designed for.

It’s basically a 3D doll thing that looks like a cross between a Teletubby and a Weeble Wobble, and you can mess with it in various ways… shake it and it makes a little cowbell noise, spin it with a swipe of the finger, press and hold to get up close and personal with iToy, and view it from any angle you want by holding your iPhone over your head or under your nose or turn it this way and that.

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Tags: $.99, 3D, good for kids

3D Me

Mike Lightman | Apr 19, 2009 Photo & Video

User rating: (3 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)

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Does anyone else remember the days when your cellphone didn’t have a camera? I certainly do. Having that tiny lens was quite the attraction back in the day. Today, every thing I own takes pictures – even the litter box can upload snapshots to Flickr. The iPhone is no different. Sure, we may scoff at it’s puny capabilities, but the App Store is ready to step in and provide some much needed muscle.

On their site, the developers tell us we can:

Create and share stereoscopic 3D-effect pictures with 3D Me. Just a few clicks with a steady hand and you’ll begin to create an album of 3D pics. No 3D glasses needed. 

You basically take a picture, move your shot just a smidge and then take a 2nd shot. Align the two and 3D Me creates a very cool composite. There’s a small learning curve, but once you get the hang of it, 3D Me takes a perfectly serviceable camera and turns it into an exciting new toy. And by toy, I mean killer new gadget that you can’t help but show your friends and play with non-stop!

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Tags: $1.99, 3D, Photo & Video

LightBike

Michael (Admin) | Apr 17, 2009 Games

User rating: (2 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)

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LightBike is on sale for $.99 until the next update which will include an internet-based multiplayer mode

Anyone who’s seen the classic sci-fi geek movie Tron already knows about “lightcycles” and how unbelievably cool they are. For the uninitiated, the most memorable scene in Tron was where the good guys… one of whom was a very young Jeff Bridges… were battling the bad guys on these crazy motorcycles that would leave trails of light behind them. Run into someone’s light trail and your ass is toast, and if you can manage to steer your bike around the other guys in just the right way they’ll eventually be trapped and have no choice but to eat it.

LightBike is a pretty sweet game that does a surprisingly good job of reproducing the look and speed of the lightcycle battle in Tron. In single player mode, it’s you vs. three computer-controlled bikes and you get to choose from three difficulty levels. There’s also an options panel where you can control the size of the racing grid and several other factors that affect gameplay.

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Tags: $.99, 3D, racing

Make My 3d

Swain Valasek | Feb 17, 2009 Photo & Video

User rating: (2 votes, average: 2.00 out of 5)

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One of the most unique apps I’ve seen to date is Make my 3d from iKKooN (Fred Courtielle).  The core function of the app is to map a person’s photograph onto a 3D model of a human head then grant you comic license to make it look as silly as possible.  The tertiary function is to then have fun with your creation and why not, it’s an amazing thing to render heads using nothing but your iPhone!

This app very impressively whittles a complicated process down to an interface easy enough for anyone to use.  Basically you’ll need 2 photos of your victim, er subject: front-facing and right side (a traditional mug shot) and as neutrally lighted as possible (the less shadows the better).  You can take the photos from within the app or pull from your camera roll.  Once you’ve selected your photos you tell the app about the relative dimensions of the head and locations of the eyes, ears, nose and mouth using stylized onscreen markers.  The app then forms (well deforms I guess) the head mesh and applies your photos as textures and voila, instant 3D head.  You can just stop there if you were trying for a realistic representation but you’re encouraged to go on and just be silly.  You can select from several bizarre head deformations, crazy coiffures, goofy hats, piercings and shades.  You can also set the color for skin, background and all accessories plus choose a light source.  When done (and the app renders surprisingly fast) you can have fun zooming and rotating, take screenshots and of course save the project to show it off later.  Quick note, the website linked above containts some excellent (and necessary) tutorial videos.  Worth noting is the app can’t render the original person’s hair in 3D so they end up bald out of the gate but you can get the color and a general texture map of it by playing with the head dimensions a bit.  At any rate, if you’re trying for an accurate render (and I found this more interesting than the comic stuff but that’s just me), it would be ideal to find a bald subject to begin with (or a baby perhaps).

No app is above gripes and here’s mine (some big ones this time).  The included hair choices are fine for simple effect but don’t cover many styles and there are no feminine options.  Second, a painstakingly long intro plays every time you load the app.  I’ve got no problem with self-promotion but after we’ve sat through it once, we really should have the option to disable it.  Third, it can be quite difficult and frustrating to select the tiny little markers for eyes, nose, face, etc so I’d love to see this improved somehow, perhaps with a menu to select them instead.  Finally and incredibly unfortunately is that the app simply crashed a lot, often causing much lost effort.  The crashes mostly occurred while using the fullscreen 3D preview, even after a fresh reboot (note to developer I’m on 2.2.1 firmware if that makes any difference).  The preview mode itself was a bit buggy, often extremely laggy to input and becoming ‘jittery’ where the model just flickered back and forth uncontrollably.  This is really bad as it’s the primary way you’d ever show this off to someone since to my knowledge there’s no way to export your creations to a common 3D format.  I also had some crashes when trying to save which is very frustrating.  Matter of fact it crashed so much I wasn’t able to explore much of the comic features so the pictures below were as good as I could do before the risk of throwing my phone against the wall set in.

So in summary, this is a wildly creative and an absolutely bizarre use of the iPhone and…I really dig it.  It has niche appeal, the creation process is genuinely fun and the price was reduced from $6.99 to $3.99 in the time I spent reviewing it, sweet!  However, I cannot possibly recommend it until a new version comes out with some stability fixes at the very least.  To the developer, I’d be glad to post an update if you let us know when a new major version is released as I would really like to see the app succeed.

I will say this and mark my words if this prediction comes true; if the author polishes this up and adds meshes for dogs and cats this app will go freakin’ gangbusters.

Version reviewed – 1.0

Tags: $3.99, 3D, make my 3d, Photo & Video, Swain Valasek

Q&F: Tank

Michael (Admin) | Feb 6, 2009 Games, Quick & Free

User rating: (3 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)

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I want a tank and I want one now! My 1996 Subaru’s a tough little bastard but it doesn’t have a rotating turret and I can’t use it to blow stuff up. Awwww who am I kidding… even *I* know that my dream of cruising for chicks in an armored death machine is probably never gonna happen, so I have to get my jollies in other ways.

Cyril Cambien’s Tank is a super simple 3D shooter that provides jollies aplenty: just roll your mobile cannon around a farm and shoot everything in sight! Sorry, there’s no livestock to slaughter (which is a shame), but there are plenty of other tanks to hunt down, and if you’re feeling especially destructive you can also blow up just about anything else you come across including the random ammo crates that are scattered about. It’s probably better to pick up the ammo rather than destroy it, but hey, do what you wanna do.

You can move your tank’s turret left and right, you control the tank’s speed and direction by tapping the onscreen D-pad, and the center of the D-pad is your Kill button for firing shells at other tanks. Don’t confuse this with the missile button… that’s for shooting down helicopters that will occasionally show up to harass you.

This game lacks the polish of fancier apps that cost money (no global scoreboard! awww dammit) but remember that it doesn’t cost a penny and it isn’t ad-supported either. The graphics are decent, the sound can be muted with the iPhone’s “silent” switch, and radar is provided so you don’t spend all day rumbling around Green Acres looking for other tanks to beat up on. Tank is just a fun, free download that’s worth a look.

Get off my farm you commie bastards!!

Tags: 3D, free

AirFight

Michael (Admin) | Jan 13, 2009 Games

User rating: (35 votes, average: 2.97 out of 5)

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Do you force everyone you know to address you as “Maverick”? Is “Highway to the Danger Zone” your favorite song of all time? Do you frequently find yourself hopelessly lost in homoerotic volleyball fantasies?

If so, AirFight was MADE for you!

Ok ok, even if you’ve never seen Top Gun it’s still a pretty decent, albeit difficult, game.

AirFight puts you in the cockpit of a badass fighter jet and your mission is to cruise around and shoot down the bad guys. Your view of the unfriendly skies is decorated with an altimeter on the right side of the iPhone screen, an orientation-thing in the center that tells you how much you’re tilting, and sliding your thumb along the left edge controls your speed. The two circles near your right thumb are for launching missiles at a reasonable pace and firing an unlimited supply of machine gun ammo. Also included in the package is the handiest tool of all: a map that shows where your targets are.

The graphics in AirFight, particularly the plain-jane fighter jets, are nothing to get excited about, but overall this is a pretty good game if you’re into this kind of thing. Even on the easy level it’s pretty hard to lock your missiles onto a target, but it’s doable if you can figure out how and when to control your speed. Naturally, every gamer’s first instinct is to haul ass and go full throttle at all times, but with AirFight it’s generally better to be smart than fast.

Ocko AB built some nice features into this game and I have to confess that I haven’t tried the most intriguing one which is two-player mode. Apparently you can do some dogfighting with a friend which I think is awesome, but of course I’m a pathetic loser and I can’t seem to get out of the house to fire missiles at the few iPhone geeks I know.

Aside from the mediocre airplanes, my only real complaint in AirFight is that it would be way more fun if it were easier! The map totally helps, but I think the gameplay would improve drastically if there was a better way to (a) spot your targets which can be pretty hard to find in the vast airspace, and (b) lock onto them so you can blow them out of the sky. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a pretty fun game, but more killing and less chasing is what the casual gamer in me really wants. Oh yeah, and some explosions wouldn’t hurt either! Or at least a splash when an enemy plane hits the water below. Killing is always more satisfying when the enemy’s death is visually confirmed.

$7.99 feels a little steep for this app in its current form, but I like what AirFight has so far and the two-player deal looks pretty sweet for people who, unlike me, have iPhone friends. With some better graphics and more engaging gameplay this could be a pretty awesome game so I hope Ocko keeps working to improve it.

Tags: $7.99, 3D, arcade

Q&F: New Years Resolutions

Michael (Admin) | Dec 30, 2008 Entertainment, Quick & Free

User rating: (4 votes, average: 2.00 out of 5)

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New Years Resolutions, aka the New Years Resolution Generator, wants to be a hilarious party joke but the reality is that it’s just kind of weird. Pretty much all you do with this thing is shake it to get a random “resolution”, and it might be entertaining if the resolutions were funny… or at least made a tiny bit of sense.

Here’s a quick sampling of the resolutions I get from five quick shakes of the iPhone:

I resolve to…

• Seldom be tapdancing.
• Seldom be tastelessly stealing.
• Stop jazzercising.
• Stop blowing snot bubbles.
• Stop mouth-breathing too irritably.

Naturally I like the snot bubble joke, but don’t the rest of these one-liners sound like they could have been written by your dead grandmother?

Well, the jokes may suck the big the one but at least Left Brain Games was kind enough to build in some nice scenery to serve as the backdrop for this comedy trainwreck. Take away the ridiculously bad “resolutions” and you’ve got yourself a pretty decent 3D snowglobe that would definitely rival any of the free ones I reviewed in my Christmas Snowglobe Roundup. Unfortunately, the resolutions are a permanent fixture in this app! Awwwww dammit.

"STOP, YOU'RE KILLING ME"

Tags: 3D, free, New Year's Eve

Santa Wings: Rudolph’s Christmas Flight

Michael (Admin) | Dec 13, 2008 Games

User rating: (3 votes, average: 4.33 out of 5)

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Gotta hand it to Bottle Rocket… they know how to build a quality iPhone app. Santa Wings: Rudolph’s Christmas Flight puts you in the driver’s seat of Santa’s sleigh on a midnight joyride through a snowy moonlit mountain range.

The 3D rendering of the landscape is great, but it’s the little things that make this a pretty kickass holiday iPhone experience. While you’re flying around with your team of reindeer you can listen to four different Christmas tunes, fly with reindeer or without, and switch between “flying” (more responsive movement) and “floating” (less responsive).

The slider on the right of the screen adjusts flying speed, and the little Christmas tree air freshener at the top of the screen tells you how much you’re tilting since it’s easy to get disoriented if you’re hotdogging it on the accelerometer controls. If the air freshener is completely gone from view that means you’re flying upside down! Crashing into the mountains will splatter snowflakes around your field of vision and it also pisses off Santa who registers his displeasure with some unintelligible grunts if it happens too often.

Bottle Rocket even took the time to build an angle adjustment into the iPhone’s settings menu so that you can fly your sleigh from any posture, and if you feel like rockin’ the iPod during flight there’s a toggle switch for shutting off Santa Wings’ built-in music.

There’s no “end game” in Santa Wings… it’s built to fly, not land. With that said, grownups may be briefly mesmerized by this Christmas flight simulator but not for very long. Children, on the other hand, would likely get a lot more out of this app and I kind of get the feeling it was built with them in mind anyway.

Is Santa Wings: Rudolph’s Christmas Flight worth a dollar? Well, that depends. Would you pay a buck to get your kids to leave you alone for 10 minutes? Hell yeah you would! You really can’t put a pricetag on peace and quiet and goodwill towards Mommy and Daddy.

Bottle Rocket also makes a non-themed version of this app, Wings 2: Flight Simulator Experience.

Edit: Tap on Rudolph for a little surprise. Plus, there’s a secret North Pole to be found! I didn’t know this until reading some App Store reviews, but I found it. Can you?

Tags: $.99, 3D, Christmas, good for kids