iPhone App Reviews

Stock Command

Michael (Admin) | Aug 19, 2008 Games

User rating: (1 votes, average: 2.00 out of 5)

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If you spent any time in video game arcades in the early 80s, chances are you pumped more than a few quarters into a game called Missile Command. It’s a pretty cool game and has somehow managed to survive long enough that John Connor played it in the movie Terminator 2 and it was even released on XBox sometime last year! Stock Command is the iPhone rendition of Missile Command and, even though it looks really similar and plays kind of the same, it still has a ways to go before it’ll even come close to being as fun as the original.

Just like in Missile Command, your objective in Stock Command is to protect your bases, except on the iPhone you’re protecting cash and corporate headquarters instead of cities and missile batteries. Lanpol Computer Consulting got creative with the concept and themed the game around being financially screwed where your job is to “make trades” (fire missiles) to take out the “falling stocks” (incoming missiles) before they obliterate all of your assets on the ground. The theme really manifests itself as the falling stocks form lines in the sky that look like they were taken directly from Enron’s stock chart right before everyone got hauled off to the slammer.

I’ll give Stock Command some points for creativity, but for me the gameplay is just kind of ok. It’s fun for a little while, but eventually you’ll realize that the motion of the incoming missiles is so choppy that it’s possible for them to “skip” right over spots where they should have been destroyed, and that leads to the inevitable groans of “omg” and “wtf”. I also think the missile explosions could stand to be bigger… yes, this would make the game easier, and I don’t want the whole game to become too easy… but the early stages of any game should be easy because it’s a lot more fun to play to level 15 than to die at level 5. Good luck getting to level 15 here! Probably not gonna happen.

Another issue I have with Stock Command is the absence of any kind of in-game reset or menu button. When you run out of ammo you have two options: wait for what feels like an excruciatingly long time before your final base is destroyed by the not-so-smart incoming missiles, or quit the game and restart.

Note to developer: in-game menu/reset button is desperately needed!  Well “desperately” might be stretching it, but it would really help.

On the plus side, the app seems very stable as I don’t recall it ever quitting on me. It’s also nice that you can resume your game if you get interrupted… just make sure you press Continue instead of instinctively hitting New Game which is directly above it.

In-game graphics are passable but nothing to get excited about, and the game’s music sounds like it was lifted directly from an Atari 2600 cartridge. Eh, I suppose that could be justified as nostalgia!

So is Stock Command worth $1.99? Well… not for me it isn’t, but I’m old and jaded. For the rest of the planet I’d call it 50/50. I don’t think it’ll wow anyone with its technical execution, but the original Missile Command was huge because of the unique gameplay and Stock Command will probably appeal to hardcore iPhone gamers for exactly the same reason.

Tags: $1.99, arcade, classic

Light Show

Michael (Admin) | Aug 18, 2008 Entertainment

User rating: (4 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)

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Even if you don’t recognize the name, you know what a Lite-Brite is… hundreds of colored translucent pegs that you stick onto a grid that somehow makes them glow. On the TV commercials they showed kids creating these magnificent works of glowing art, and when you finally got your hands on it you felt like a huge loser because all you could manage was a smiley face, and a crappy one at that.

Light Show is the iPhone’s Lite-Brite equivalent but without so many pegs. Tap a color, tap an empty spot on the grid, and pretty soon you’re reliving your childhood failures as an artist! Ahhh nostalgia. The app is a fairly faithful reproduction of the toy but in playing with it I ran into a few issues, one of them extremely annoying.

The first of the less-annoying issues is the inability to save or export your masterpiece, except by taking a screenshot of the application which includes the master pegs and the “delete” peg which lets you take a peg off the board. Of course you can crop the master pegs out, but not everyone knows how to do that. The other issue is that I found one spot on the grid where it was nearly impossible to place a peg. Tap tap tap tap, nothing. If you’ve experienced the same thing, check the screenshots to see if your dead peg is in the same place.

The extremely annoying issue, a deal-breaker in my opinion, is that when Light Show crashes (and it crashed on me several times over) you’re back at Peg One. Everything is gone! Groan. I can’t say that the app crashes all the time because it’s stayed open and problem-free for some good stretches, but if the crash happens after you lay down 50 pegs you’re gonna be steamed.

Light Show is a very simple app with a very simple purpose, and I like the idea but right now I wouldn’t pay $.99 for it. If it would remember my work after a hopefully-infrequent crash, or at least something close to it, and if it would give me a way to save my work then I think it would be worth paying a buck for. It would be even better if the pegs looked a little more translucent, kind of like miniature JawBreaker/reMovem balls. I’m sure a lot of people would like to have a mobile Lite-Brite, but so far this execution doesn’t do it for me.

The Art of Light Contest

I may not like this app in its current form, but you might. 1026 Development is running a contest where you can win an iTunes gift certificate if your Light Show art kicks ass, so if you’re going to submit something you might want to look at the contest details.

Tags: $.99, classic, good for kids

Tetravex

Michael (Admin) | Aug 14, 2008 Games

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

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I am a complete moron, and I’m reminded of this every time I start playing this very slick and very challenging puzzle game! Tetravex is like something out of an IQ test… it could very well be, I don’t know… and if you’re like me and have the IQ of a doorknob it can be pretty tough depending on the difficulty level you’re tackling.

The object of Tetravex is to arrange a set of tiles so that each colored side of a tile is touching a like-colored side of another tile. Don’t try to get cute and put unmatching colors next to each other – your attempt will be met with a red X in your intended landing spot. Likewise, the game is also nice enough to display a welcoming green square when you’re in the process of making a legal move.

The very first time I played Tetravex I thought I was man enough to tackle the medium (4×4) level right away and, to put it mildly, I wasn’t! After staring blankly at all the pretty colors for a while, I messed around with the Simple and Easy levels (2×2, 3×3) to get a feel for how the puzzles are solved. After that little warmup, figuring out the 4×4 puzzle was still hard but it was also fun and addictive enough that I played for almost two hours straight. I even attempted the 5×5 but it made me cry and I don’t want to talk about it.

I tapped around every corner of Tetravex and the only issue that I ran into was some occasional difficulty in getting the tiles to cooperate, especially when moving them into the top row of the puzzle near the edge of the iPhone screen. This didn’t happen a lot and it certainly isn’t enough to disrupt the game, but hopefully it can be addressed in a future update. As long as you can see the green square that signals “yes, you can put that tile here” you should be fine.

Overall this game is impressive, not just in the gameplay and varying levels of difficulty but also in all the little details that are so telling of polished, high-quality game development. When you select your play level by swiping through a thumbnail carousel of each puzzle instead of just pushing a button, you know you’re playing a game created by professionals who don’t mess around and Futrell Software is clearly in that class.

The individual hi-score boards for each level, the cascading tile transitions, the cool little fireworks display when you win a game… it’s all top-notch and for just $3.99 I think Tetravex is worth buying, especially if you’re puzzle-crazy and need a new challenge for that big brain of yours.

edit: Something I forgot to address in this review is sound. Tetravex has none! Hopefully some sound effects will be added in a future update – still a great game though even if it’s silent.

Tags: $3.99, classic, puzzle