Hatchi
Tony Mei | Jan 14, 2012 Games
User rating: 
(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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Hatchi ($0.99) by Portable Pixels
Available on iPhone & iPod Touch
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.
Tags: $.99, Games, good for kids, Hatchi, Tony Mei
Me Red: The Ultimate Adventure
Tony Mei | Jan 13, 2012 Games
User rating: (5 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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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 $0.99 rehashes of tired concepts before I throw my iPhone into a lake and start beating people with a large ax. By all accounts, I should hate Me Red. For some reason, I don’t. So what makes Me Red unique and why am I hopelessly addicted?
Me Red: The Ultimate Adventure is a runner or platform jumping game. You control an endlessly running red blob. Jump with your left thumb, attack with your right. Watch out for enemies. If you die, too bad, start over. There are dozens of games like this languishing in the dark recesses of the app store, each with varying levels of suck.
But Me Red stands out. Start up the app and you’re thrown into a cute, quirky introduction. The graphics and soundtrack are bright, colorful, and happy- perfect contrast to my dark New England winter. Controls are responsive; animation is smooth. Everything is structured and polished. For a game by an indie developer, Me Red is seriously impressive. It’s looks are on par, if not better than, some of the top action games in the Apple app store.
Some award-winning plot development right here
Video Star
Clint | Nov 15, 2011 Photo & Video
User rating: 
(No Ratings Yet)
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Video Star ($.99) by Frontier Design
Available on iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad
Move over Rebecca Black cause there is a new star in town! Video Star is an amazingly simple app that allows users to create their very own fan-made music videos filled with special effects, editing tools and a streamlined utility to upload the finished video to YouTube, an email account or to your iTunes account.
I have to admit, I was pretty skeptical of Video Star before I tried it out, but when I finally found time to play around with it, my kids and I ended up having a blast. In fact, I shot a music video of Radiohead’s epic song “Creep” which I planned to share with my readers, but I regrettably deleted the video by mistake. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: $.99, good for kids, Utilities, Video Editing
Doodle Cannon War
Jacob Jones | Apr 19, 2010 Games
User rating: (14 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)
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Doodle Cannon Wars! Now with more vitamin D!
I’m going to start this review right off the bat by saying that I absolutely love Doodle Cannon War! I haven’t been this in engrossed in an iPhone game since I purchased Doodle Jump (a different game from a different developer) a couple months back. Anyone who’s ever played a video game can sense when a game just feels right when they play it. Doodle Cannon War has that tangible feel only a few games I’ve played on the iPhone have. The guys and gals at infiworks have truly created a game so fun and challenging that if it weren’t for the game crippling glitch in level nine, chances are, I probably would have bought it! I’ll tell you more about that later in the review.
Tags: $.99, Doodle, Games, good for kids, Jacob Jones, simple
Perfetto
Jacob Jones | Apr 17, 2010 Education, Games
User rating: (7 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)
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Exercise your brain and raise your stress levels at the same time!!
Welcome to Perfetto! Chances are you’ve probably played this game in your childhood as it is a direct copy of the legendary game Perfection by Milton Bradley. The object of this game is to place all the yellow pieces into their respective slots before the red timer runs out. As a kid, playing perfection was five times more scary than it was fun. I’d always freak out and jump when the timer ran out and the pieces all flew out. After a week of messing around with it I shoved into my closet and never touched the thing again until I was in middle school. Luckily, when your minute runs out it doesn’t pop up into your face like the original game did. Instead, the pieces float up magically and the board resets itself.
Tags: $.99, Games, good for kids, Jacob Jones, puzzle, traditional
How To Train Your Dragon- Kids Book
Brad H | Mar 28, 2010 Books
User rating: 
(6 votes, average: 3.67 out of 5)
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When I was growing up my Dad would always read me stories at night before bed. I believe this played a major role in my love for reading even to this day. Now that I have two boys of my own I have made it a point to read to them every night before bed. We have a decent sized collection of books to read but it seams like I just rotate reading the same five books. This is where FrogDogMedia LLC comes in with their iStory Time line of children’s books.
I was able to review the “How To Train Your Dragon” book. The book is based off the movie with the same name. The story follows the viking teenager Hiccup as he tries to make it in the world of brawn and muscle. Being a small lad he uses his brain power to invent tools to help him in the ways of dragon fighting. This puts him face to face with a dragon whom he befriends. Let the drama ensue. I wont go into any more of the story but be warned this book goes through the whole movie so if your worried about spoilers you might want to wait.
Tags: $.99, Entertainment, good for kids
Q&F: Kideos
Brad H | Jan 7, 2010 Entertainment, Quick & Free
User rating: (3 votes, average: 1.00 out of 5)
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If you have little ones like I do then Kideos might be for you. Earlier Media brings the aggregation of kid videos to your device.
I don’t have the time to comb through YouTube for kid videos so I was hopeful for this app. The app does do just that, it just does it in a very poor way. The videos are supposed to be organized by age groups but every video seemed to have the tag for 0-2 and not every video was geared for a kid of that age. The categories tab has a large yet redundant list to choose from , and the Wiggles section has zero videos. So why have that as an option? To top it off I can’t ever seem to get through more than 3 videos without the app crashing.
Great concept, bad execution. I’ll keep the app until the next update in hope of some major bug fixes.
Version 1.0
Reviewed on iPhone 3G OS 3.1.2
Tags: free, good for kids
SlidR
Tony Mei | Jan 1, 2010 Games
User rating: (2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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A take on a ‘sliding’ puzzle game, SlidR takes a photo, divides into square segments, and forces it upon you, the mighty adventurer, to slide the photo to correctness before the evil dragon* destroys your village and the helpless peasants.
The app has a slick, clean interface and a variety of high quality pics to choose from. An especially clever feature was the option to provide your own photos from your album or camera roll, as some pictures make a substantially more interesting puzzle than others.
For a dollar, this app is a worthy investment for those searching for a casual puzzler, something to idly whittle away battery life on your iPhone or iPod Touch. As an added bonus, a couple of codes were graciously provided by the dev, Critical Fever, so a few lucky ones can save a dollar and spent on something less epic.
*Dramatization. There is no dragon, evilness, villages or peasants. However, you are still a mighty adventurer. And you still get a picture of an elephant’s rear end, so that kind of makes up for it. I guess.
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- Vikings, attack!
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- Enough to stump the most hardened slidR veteran.
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- Our consolation prize. I named him Henry.
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- We may be an ultra-powerful app review site, but we still have no idea on how to get rid of this from our gallery.
Version 1.0.6
Reviewed on iPod Touch 3.1.2
Where’s Waldo? The Fantastic Journey
Sara | Jan 1, 2010 Games
User rating: (1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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Imagine a game with pictures straight out of your favorite childhood picture finding book. Now combine that with the technology of an iPhone and the great game play from Ludia. Add some cute music, bundle it all together and you get Where’s Waldo? The Fantastic Journey.
This app is a Where’s Waldo book with some extras. The game is set up as an adventure game where you follow Waldo, Whitebeard the Wizard, Wendy, and other characters through a journey to collect the 12 mystical scrolls. When you collect all 12 scrolls, Whitebeard the Wizard will reveal to Waldo an important secret that Waldo has been searching for. At the start you can choose normal game play or kids. The kids version is noticeably easier as it will make sure the item/person you are looking for is always in the area it brings you (in other words, you don’t have to move the screen view around).
Tags: $2.99, fun, game, good for kids, sale
Save The Planet
Michael (Admin) | Nov 23, 2009 Games
User rating: (1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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Save The Planet is way more colorful and somewhat more entertaining than its App Store icon suggests… no, this isn’t a list of things you can do to be “green”, it’s a game where trash is falling from the sky and you’re sorting it into three different recycling bins. According to iPhoneSmartApps.org, “your mission is to save the planet from trash!” but personally I prefer to think of this as a role-playing game where I’m putting in community service hours at a recycling center because I’m 16 years old and I was a bad boy who got busted by the cops in the middle of the school day for terrorizing a certain someone who came to a party at my house and stole my walkman out of my bedroom! Not that that actually happened, of course…
But I digress! First time in my life using that phrase, btw, hope I did it justice. So uh, where was I… oh yeah… this game is all about sorting trash. Milk cartons and books go in the paper bin, wine glasses and bottles go in the glass bin, and things like boots and road cones go in the plastics bin. That’s just for example, of course, as there are all kinds of trashy recyclables raining down from above. Each time you screw up, misplaced items pile up in the background and when that pile gets too high the planet dies! Just kidding, the planet doesn’t die, but it is Game Over.
Tags: $.99, good for kids
App Sale: Yumsters 2
Michael (Admin) | Nov 19, 2009 App Sale Alert, Games
User rating: (No Ratings Yet)
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Yumsters! 2 is on sale for free – normally $.99-$1.99
Yumsters are crazy about fruit and music! Yeah, who isn’t. Yumsters! 2 is one of those match 3 games that’s won awards and has apparently gained a big following in its PC incarnation. There’s a whole story about how these cute Yoshi-looking creatures won some kind of singing contest and are now traveling the world, but all you really need to know is that they hang out in holes and eat fruit and they have really long necks.
To play, you just stretch the Yumsters’ super long necks across fruit of the same color. Eating just one fruit is ok, but to get the points and clear the levels you need to stretch them across multiple fruits which is a lot more efficient. There are powerups to grab along the way and, of course, things get pretty hairy after you clear the first few of the 64 levels that take you around the world to places like Hawaii, Rome, and Japan. I guess this game isn’t truly a match 3, but it kind of fits the genre.
G5 Entertainment definitely put a lot of elbow grease into this app which is easily worth the $1-$2 asking price it normally commands, but for the next few days it’s free! Sweet deal.
Tags: 3D, good for kids, match 3, puzzle
App Sale: Styx Halloween
Michael (Admin) | Oct 29, 2009 Games
User rating: (No Ratings Yet)
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Styx Halloween is was on sale for free – apparently the price has gone back up to $2.99
The further you go, the more different kinds of Halloween faces you have to contend with
Styx Halloween is one of those match 3 games where you run your finger across matching units that are either touching or diagonal from each other. I guess that technically makes it a “match as many as you can” game and the combination of great graphics and tons of powerups makes this a pretty fun Halloween diversion!
The game comes with three modes: Chains, Time Trial, and Puzzle. Chains and Time Trial are both very similar in that your goal is to find as many chains as possible, and Puzzle forces you to figure out how to eliminate groups of Halloween icons in the right order so that no individual pieces are leftover.
EMV Software built in a global scoreboard and made Styx Halloween iPod-friendly, so I’d advise you to go get this app while it’s still free! The App Store page says this game is on sale for 2 days only, and the price went down 2 days ago, so it may go back to its original $2.99 price any minute now.
iTunes Link – Styx Halloween
Version 1.4
iPhone 3G OS3.1.2
Tags: $2.99, good for kids, halloween, match 3, puzzle, seasonal
