iPhone App Reviews

Q&F: Cube

Michael (Admin) | Nov 24, 2008 Games, Quick & Free

User rating: (2 votes, average: 2.50 out of 5)

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There’s a reason Cube has only 2½ stars after 5000+ reviews: it’s practically unplayable! You have to admire fernLightning for attempting to put Quake on the iPhone, but this first-person-shooter isn’t even close to being ready for primetime.

When the graphics are running smoothly (usually when there’s nothing to shoot at) control is super difficult… accelerometer movement is way too sensitive and will probably make you hurl if you’re prone to motion sickness. Throw in some bad guys and you can expect the framerate to slow down to an excruciating crawl, and even if the game doesn’t go all laggy on you it’s still pretty much impossible to aim at anything.

Cube would be an impressive game if it weren’t such a pain in the ass to play. Until the movement and lag see some massive improvements, I’ll have to file this under “waste of time”.

This game looks cool in screenshots but trying to play it is pure torture

Tags: 3D, free

Q&F: BiiBall 3D Lite

Michael (Admin) | Nov 13, 2008 Games, Quick & Free

User rating: (2 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)

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BiiBall 3D Lite is the free version of a pretty kickass 3D game. The object is to navigate your BiiBall through an obstacle course without touching the walls or hitting any obstacles. Movement is controlled entirely by tilting your iPhone this way and that, and you can also tap the screen to shoot obstacles out of the way.

This game is pretty hard, and if you’re as uncoordinated as I am it’s nearly impossible! But the graphics are great, the glowing stars make nice piano sounds when your BiiBall rolls through them, and overall you can tell that bootant.com poured a lot of sweat into developing a quality game.

If you can’t get enough of BiiBall Lite, the full version is currently on sale for $.99.

BiiBall 3D is best played when sober

Tags: 3D, free, lite version

Cubes Lite

Michael (Admin) | Aug 8, 2008 Games

User rating: (31 votes, average: 3.10 out of 5)

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Cubes Lite is the free version of Manta Research’s kickass Cubes game. It’s a 3D puzzle that looks like a giant Rubik’s Cube and you can swipe in all directions to turn the cube any way you want as you double-tap your way to achieving the target score set for each level. Tap once to select blocks, tap again to get rid of them. You must tap groups of at least two adjacent or stacked cubes of the same color, and when you tap them out of existence gravity will let the cubes above fall into place.

This game is really amazing. The gameplay is a little like JawBreaker except JawBreaker is boring and Cubes is fun and addictive. Novices will be tempted to tap any combination of two or three like-colored cubes, but well-seasoned pros know that the fun (and big scores) comes in hitting major combos where you’re tapping a large number of cubes all at once.

In the drawbacks department, the cube can be a little hard to move in the direction you want it to, but I think that’s just a matter of practice. Even if it rotates up when you wanted it to rotate left, you can still get there in your own sweet time – you’re not being timed or anything.

Cubes Lite includes three levels where the full version of the game costs $.99 and includes unlimited levels and increasing difficulty plus a Quick Play mode. As with any game, if there’s a free trial version you should definitely play it to (a) make sure it lives up to your expectations and (b) show app developers that offering “lite” versions for free is a good practice that you support. Once you conquer the three levels provided in Cubes Lite, though, you’re gonna want more.

The App Store page for the full version of Cubes states that $.99 is “limited time promotional pricing”. Whether or not that’s actually true (and I have a feeling it is), $.99 is a very small price to pay for an awesome puzzle game like this one.

Tags: 3D, free, lite version, puzzle

Cube Runner

Michael (Admin) | Aug 3, 2008 Games

User rating: (4 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)

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Cube Runner is an incredibly simple game: tilt your iPhone left and right while you try to keep your arrow from smashing into blocks. That’s it! The graphics are nothing to get excited about unless you have a thing for 1980s-era 3D renderings, but the game is nice and responsive to your physical movements and there are three difficulty levels to get you started, plus you can play in landscape mode if you want (tap on the (i) icon in the corner for options). As of right now there are no sound effects or music, but word is that’ll be changing in a future Cube Runner update.

Andy Qua very cleverly built in a way to expand the playability with “level packs”, and if you blow through the default levels that come with the game you can find more (and create your own) at cuberun.org. It’s kind of impossible to know what a level pack will look like until you play it, so I guess you’ll just have to try a few out and see if you like them. To get a new level pack, tap Select Level Pack, tap Add Level Pack, and then enter the URL from cuberun.org or wherever you’re getting the customized level.

Cube Runner isn’t for everyone… people who naturally gravitate towards bright shiny objects will probably not be impressed with this game. If you’re able to appreciate a free game that foregoes gloss for smooth and simple gameplay then go ahead and give this thing a try.

Tags: 3D, free, Games