iPhone App Reviews

B-Day Giveaway: 21 Pro: Blackjack

Michael (Admin) | Jul 30, 2009 Games

User rating: (4 votes, average: 4.75 out of 5)

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If blackjack is your thing, get this app!! If there’s a more realistic Blackjack table on the iPhone I’d like to see it.

A few months after I reviewed this app last year in September, Huffington Post ran an article about how some complete jackasses were apparently using their iPhones to count cards at casinos. It’s true that 21 Pro: Blackjack includes a card counting option and a little info on it but puhhhhlease… trying to fire up an iPhone app at a blackjack table sounds about as intelligent as splitting face cards.

iTunes Link – 21 Pro: Blackjack
21 Pro: Blackjack website

Your iPhone blackjack dealer will screw you over whenever possible, just like in real life!

* Today is iPhone App Reviews.net’s birthday *

Tags: $4.99, casino, mature

B-Day Giveaway: Hooters Calendar Girls Crazy Eights, Part 2

Michael (Admin) | Jul 30, 2009 Games

User rating: (No Ratings Yet)

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Another second chance post. If you get into a fight with your girlfriend/wife/mom over this app, calm her down with some potions from iShot Machine!

iTunes Link – Hooters Calendar Girls Crazy Eights
Oasys Mobile website

* Today is iPhone App Reviews.net’s birthday *

Tags: $.99, card games, mature

B-Day Giveaway: Hooters Calendar Girls Crazy Eights, Part 1

Michael (Admin) | Jul 30, 2009 Games

User rating: (No Ratings Yet)

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You may have played Crazy Eights when you were a kid, but I bet you weren’t playing with THIS deck!!

If you like to pass the time with casual card games, and if you’re a fan of Hooters Girls (duh who isn’t), this game is right up your alley. I reviewed this app back in the spring and, like just about everything Oasys Mobile produces, it’s clean and polished and worth the asking price.

iTunes Link – Hooters Calendar Girls Crazy Eights
Oasys Mobile website

* Today is iPhone App Reviews.net’s birthday *

Tags: $.99, card games, mature

B-Day Giveaway: iShot Machine, Part 2

Michael (Admin) | Jul 30, 2009 Lifestyle

User rating: (3 votes, average: 3.33 out of 5)

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Ok boozers, here’s your second chance at a plethora of shot recipes!

iTunes Link – iShot Machine
Oasys Mobile website

* Today is iPhone App Reviews.net’s birthday *

Tags: $.99, mature

B-Day Giveaway: iShot Machine, Part 1

Michael (Admin) | Jul 30, 2009 Lifestyle

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

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If the bartender at your local watering hole knows you by name, chances are you’ll get a lot of mileage out of iShot Machine. Oasys Mobile put up a bunch of codes for it last month when I gave it half a review and they got snapped up quickly!

There are LOTS of shot recipes in this app, and some of them are just hilarious. If you miss out on this round of codes, round two will be coming shortly. If you miss out on those, just pay the buck! Consider it part of your booze budget which, let’s face it, is basically unlimited.

iTunes Link – iShot Machine
Oasys Mobile website

* Today is iPhone App Reviews.net’s birthday *

Tags: $.99, mature

iShot Machine

Michael (Admin) | Jun 26, 2009 Lifestyle

User rating: (4 votes, average: 2.50 out of 5)

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Ok drinkers, I’ve got a confession to make: I haven’t given this app a full run-through. I’m in the middle of moving and I’ve got a million things to do, but it’s Friday and if there was ever a time to give away an app like iShot Machine today’s the day! iShot Machine is a slot machine that can spit out a ton of shot recipes, so if you enjoy abusing your liver you should give this app a good look.

Oasys Mobile, makers of the legendary Hooters Calendar Girls Crazy Eights, had a bunch of codes they wanted to share with you guys and was I really gonna stand in the way of their generosity? Duh! Absolutely not, not in a million years.

In lieu of a full review, though, I will offer these first impressions:

• This app has a lot of crazy shots you’ve probably never heard of… or maybe I’m just too old to be shouting at bartenders “gimme a Well Greased Dwarf!”
• iShot Machine has some great functionality such as adding shots to a favs list, lots of browsing options and shot searches, the all-important random shots, and you can even specify certain types of booze & mixers to include or exclude
• This app claims to have over 3000 different shots to choose from and just by looking at the number of available tequila shots I totally believe it
• Oasys Mobile takes app development seriously even when they’re just trying to get you liquored up

Even though my trial of iShot Machine has been pretty short so far, I think I’d feel pretty comfortable recommending it to one of my alcoholic friends who hasn’t needed an intervention (yet). With several hundred apps under my iPhone belt I believe I know a good app when I see one, and if you happen to miss out on the codes Oasys has provided then just go buy it for $2. Trust me, if you’re a true barfly this app will come in handy!

Gotta love a developer with a sense of humor!

Tags: $1.99, mature

Hot Dog Down a Hallway

Michael (Admin) | May 14, 2009 Games

User rating: (34 votes, average: 3.09 out of 5)

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Ok… I have no idea what the developers at Metaversal Studios are smoking… but I WANT SOME!! Hot Dog Down a Hallway is a hilarious game that would totally be #1 if Obscure Sexual Innuendo were an App Store category. If you’re unfamiliar with the hotdog expression… ummmm… I think I’ll let Urban Dictionary do the explaining!

Getting back to Hot Dog, it’s a surprisingly fun game where your goal is to launch a hotdog as far down a hallway as possible. First you have to “poke a pig” (literally), preferably when the adjacent meat grinder is at maximum power, and after the pig leaps into the grinder a very happy-looking sausage comes flying out. How far down the hallway your weiner goes is, in my estimation, 90% luck and 10% skill, but it’s still a funny and addicting way to pass some time.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: $.99, funny, mature, weird

iShots – St. Patrick’s Day

Michael (Admin) | Mar 14, 2009 Lifestyle

User rating: (4 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)

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It’s the weekend before St. Patrick’s Day, so if you’re planning to go out and celebrate Irish culture by getting totally wasted then you might want to bring iShots along!

The idea here is nothing new… shake your iPhone to get a drink recipe or, in this case, a shot recipe… but I gotta say, the execution is really nice and you can tell that cgCraft put some sweat into what could have been a quick & dirty (& crappy) drinking app.

Each time you shake your iPhone, a very nice drink-specific coaster flies into view to accompany the shot recipe. The thing that has me so impressed with iShots is the quality of the coaster artwork and the way the coasters continually stack on top of each other, and it’s also half the fun of using this app because some of the art is pretty clever.

The other half of the fun is, of course, in the shots themselves. I shook and shook and shook until I could shake no more, and as near as I can tell there are a total of 20 shot recipes in iShots. Nearly all of them seem to involve either Bailey’s or Jameson, and many you won’t have heard of but some will probably ring a bell.

Ever had an Irish Orgasm? Yeah you have… but you probably called it by its more common name, the BJ, wink wink.

Another old favorite that I was pleased to see in the collection is the Irish Car Bomb. You wouldn’t think that dropping a shot of Bailey’s and Jameson into a pint of Guinness and chugging it in 20 seconds flat would be fun AND delicious but, trust me, it is! Just be sure to pace yourself because this Irish treat will mess you up worse than the IRA if you do too many.

There’s not much else to say about iShots except that it would benefit from some more shot recipes and, if it branches out to non-Irish shots, a little categorization would be helpful.

But like I said, this is already a quality app even despite the semi-limited shot selection. If you take your boozing seriously it’s probably worth $.99 just by virtue of looking cool enough to actually pull out at the bar while you’re trying to pick your poison.

Tags: $.99, mature, St. Patrick's Day

Hooters Calendar Girls Crazy Eights

Michael (Admin) | Mar 2, 2009 Games

User rating: (7 votes, average: 4.14 out of 5)

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I’m too old and too jaded to get all giddy over pics of girls in bikinis… don’t get me wrong, I definitely don’t mind them! …but when Oasys Mobile posted their demo video on iPhone App Index, I knew I had to give it a try. I’ve reviewed apps that fart, vomit, and pop zits, so there’s no way my inner adolescent would let me get away with NOT reviewing this one. :P

My memories of playing Crazy Eights when I was little are pretty vague so it was nice to see that this app comes with instructions on how the game is played. It’s not rocket science, but even with simple card games it’s always helpful to have some idea of what you’re supposed to do. The basic idea of the game is to get rid of your cards before other players do, and you get rid of them by laying down cards that match the rank or suit of whatever’s on top of the pile of cards in the middle, and of course eights are Crazy and can be laid down anytime. First one to dump all of his cards is awarded points equal to the total of the other players’ cards, and in traditional gameplay you keep going until someone hits 200.

Hooters Crazy Eights is easy to play… to drop a card in the middle, just swipe your finger upwards and the card flies onto the stack. Each card has a different Hooters Girl on it, and if you haven’t already committed each of the oiled-up, surgically-enhanced ladies to memory, you can tap the card in the middle to get a good, close look at her in all her near-naked glory. This can be done regardless of whether the last card was laid down by you or your computerized opponents.

If you’re short on time there are a couple of game variants called Quick Play and Time Attack to help move things along, and there’s also a card options screen where you can mix things up by changing a few of the rules.

Overall this is a pretty slick app and it’s clear that Oasys Mobile takes their craft seriously. The graphics and sound quality are both really good, card animation is smooth, and generally speaking Hooters is a complete package. And yes, the girls featured on the cards are mostly hot! The majority seem to be blonde cheerleader-types and nearly all of them look like they’re sporting plastic floatation devices where their boobs used to be, but if you’re like most guys and don’t give a crap then the models definitely won’t disappoint.

As usual, though, I do have a few minor grievances to air. For starters, the high score board is local only. I know Crazy Eights isn’t exactly the stuff that global competitions are made of, but I’ve come to believe that nearly every iPhone game should have a global scoreboard. Also, the in-game scoreboard… the one that tells you how many points each player has scored in between rounds… is a little hard to decipher, meaning that if you’re not paying close attention you may not know which score is yours and how far you are from being crowned Crazy Eights Champ.

Two-player or multi-player ability would also be nice to see, but if you’re playing solely for the purpose of enjoying the company of some Hooters Girls you probably won’t care about competing with other humans. The app also crashed on me twice during my three or four games… it was nice enough to let me resume where I left off, but the folks at Oasys might want to look into that.

So is $2.99 a fair asking price? Ehh… I’d say it’s pretty close. Apps that come with this kind of gloss usually don’t sell for a buck, and in most respects it really is a well-done card game. Aforementioned gripes aside, my other Big Idea for Oasys to consider is the release of a man-meat version for the ladies! See that, girls? I’m not just here to ogle. I’m looking out for you, too.

BTW… I know the YouTube videos overlap on the new javascript image galleries. Don’t worry, you can just scroll the video out of the way! The images will stay in place while the rest of the page moves.

Tags: $2.99, card games, mature, traditional

BarSlot

Michael (Admin) | Dec 9, 2008 Navigation

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

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The entire planet knows about Urbanspoon since Apple recently featured it in an iPhone commercial, but what if you’ve already eaten and just want to get wasted? Enter BarSlot… it’s Urbanspoon for boozers!

Just like its food-oriented counterpart, BarSlot lets you shake your iPhone to get a surprise watering hole suggestion. You can also browse local bars by distance or search by name, and most results will provide you with the establishment’s phone number, address, nearby public transit lines or intersections, and business hours. A quick tap will launch the iPhone’s default map application and there’s also tap-to-call.

I wish I could say there’s more to BarSlot, but right now that’s about it. No customer reviews, no sorting by category, and no way to confine your search to an area where you’re not physically located. Hopefully this will all change with some future updates, but for now this app is limited in a lot of ways.

On the plus side, BarSlot does have info on a LOT of places to get bombed. It doesn’t have absolutely everything… there’s a preppy sports bar down the street from me that isn’t listed (aww boohoo)… but thanks to BarSlot I’m just now realizing that there are tons of places within a mile of my apartment that I haven’t been kicked out of yet! If I were living in the suburbs I’m sure it would be a slightly different story, but I could see this app opening up new possibilities for city-dwelling drunks all over America.

Due to its limitations I’m not quite ready to dub BarSlot “the drinker’s best friend”, but right now I think it would qualify as a “good friend” if your plans include vomiting on a very nearby sidewalk (my signature move, btw), and in that sense it’s worth paying a buck to get. If Whatever Software could let us post our own reviews, give us ways to find crappy dive bars that don’t require shoes or class, and let us manipulate the location services, it would be a pretty complete app.

Tags: $.99, mature

Haunted

Michael (Admin) | Oct 27, 2008 Entertainment

User rating: (25 votes, average: 3.12 out of 5)

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Haunted is a short video with a scary ending. Do NOT show it to young children unless you want them to be in therapy for the next 20 years. Using it to scare the crap out of your coworkers, though, is totally acceptable!

RightSprite.com obviously put out this app as a little promo for their iPhone development house which also makes a free Sudoku game called Sudoku.MD, but there’s no harm in that. Haunted is free and should be good for some nervous laughter among grownups.

Tags: free, halloween, mature, seasonal

Pocket Cocktails

Michael (Admin) | Oct 24, 2008 Lifestyle

User rating: (6 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)

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If you’re tired of getting hammered on boring drinks like vodka tonic and Jack & Coke, Pocket Cocktails just might become your new best friend. It’s a pretty cool drink-mixing guide that includes nice big photos of every drink plus each drink’s ingredient list and recipe for putting the cocktails together.

Robert Maran and Deidra Jones, awesome boozers in their own right I’m sure, have organized Pocket Cocktails into eight categories:

• Martinis
• Summer
• Creamy
• Warmers
• Classics
• Tropical
• Shooters
• Mocktails

As you can see, there’s something for everyone from sorority girls to secret agents to fat, smelly winos.

If you’re at the bar (or behind it) and are feeling lucky, there’s a random drink function that will serve up a surprise drink – and a surprise sound clip – with a shake of the iPhone. The sound clip might be a shaker sound effect or, more likely, some chick saying things like “shake it don’t break it” or “wait ’til you taste this!”. Some will undoubtedly disagree with me here, but I’d love it if the girl could say something more interesting like “let’s go make out in the bathroom” or “you’re so charming and witty when you’re shitfaced!”. Robert and Deidra… how about it?? :cool:

I think Pocket Cocktails’ best feature, though, is Search. You can put in a name or an ingredient and your results are instant. You might be in the mood for gin but you’re sick of tonic, or maybe you remember wanting to try a certain drink with Kahlua in it but can’t remember the name. The ingredient search is key here, so I’m very glad the developers made it possible.

Chances are you’ll look for certain drinks that aren’t in Pocket Cocktails (yet), but it includes a lot of drinks you know and a ton that you’ve probably never heard of. It’s a very complete app, and if there’s one thing I’d add… aside from more drinks… it would be an in-app taxi search. The About screen asks you to “drink responsibly”, but if this app is actually going to be used in a bar it would seem logical and socially responsible to build in a taxi-finder.

If you’re a bartender you should definitely get this app, and it might even earn you some nice tips from drunk girls who can’t decide what kind of umbrella drink they’re in the mood for. If you’re a frequent pubcrawler… or you throw a lot of parties… or you’re just a guy looking for an excuse to talk to those drunk girls… you won’t miss $4.99, at least not after a few cocktails.

Bonus whether you buy Pocket Cocktails or not: Robert and Deidra have made a free online bartender’s guide available on their website. It’s like a 40-page bartender class in PDF format.

Tags: $4.99, mature