iPhone App Reviews

Retro Paddle

Jacob Jones | Apr 20, 2010 Games

User rating: (9 votes, average: 3.33 out of 5)

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You have to respect the classics.

Retro Paddle is Richard Fennema’s tribute to Pong for the iPhone! Although insanely simplistic in nature, Retro Paddle serves more to remind to the world how far the gaming world has come since Pong’s console release in 1974 (roughly three years before home computers were available to the public). This ridiculously simple concept was something the world had never seen before: at home console gaming! Pong, with sales totaling over $40,000,000 in it’s first year, was a massive hit and the public ate it up. This simple game sparked a series of innovations that led to cartridge based gaming and the decision to port classics like Space Invaders from the arcade to the TV screen.

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Tags: $.99, casual, classic, Games, Jacob Jones, simple

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.

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Tags: $.99, Doodle, Games, good for kids, Jacob Jones, simple

App Sale: TapTime

Michael (Admin) | Mar 10, 2010 App Sale Alert, Games

User rating: (3 votes, average: 2.33 out of 5)

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TapTime is on sale for free – normally $.99

The concept behind this game is nothing new and it’s not even all that interesting… tap on objects before they disappear from view, and don’t tap the one bad thing that will end your game instantly. The thing I love about this game, though, is the execution. The sound and graphics are both really well done and, overall, Andy Burke has put together a nice little time waster here.

TapTime is the kind of game that’s so basic a monkey could play it, but it’s also that very simplicity that will cause certain personality types to get hooked. The game also supports OpenFeint which is cool.

Grab this game while it’s free and give it a spin the next time you’re waiting at a bus stop, outside the principal’s office, or just completely bored out of your mind! It might surprise you.

iTunes Link – TapTime

Tags: simple

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.

iTunes link – slidR

Version 1.0.6

Reviewed on iPod Touch 3.1.2

Tags: $.99, $0.99, casual, Games, good for kids, simple

App Sale: Elf

Michael (Admin) | Dec 14, 2009 App Sale Alert, Games

User rating: (2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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Elf is on sale for free – normally $.99

This is one of those games where you really don’t need any instructions… just tap to make your elf jump, and then left and right to try to keep him flying higher and higher by grabbing all the colorful doodads that are floating around. Some items will earn point bonuses, others result in jumps of varying strength, and one of them you should avoid if at all possible.

Elf isn’t the greatest game ever but it’s not bad for some short-lived amusement, or maybe even hours and hours of amusement if you’re one of those people who refuses to quit until you’ve made it to the top of the global scoreboard. The graphics are nice, the elf has a gigantic mouth which is kind of funny, and it’s free so hey why not.

iTunes Link – Elf

Tags: $.99, Christmas, seasonal, simple

Q&F: Space Shooter

Michael (Admin) | Sep 8, 2009 Games, Quick & Free

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

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Invasion of the Upside Down Batteries!

Off to a slow start here after a long weekend so, while I’m finishing up a couple of other reviews, go and amuse yourself with Space Shooter!

If there was a contest for the simplest arcade shmup on the planet, this game by Dokimi would win hands down. Drag left and right across the bottom of the screen to move your “spaceship”, and tap aroud elsewhere to shoot the evil geometric shapes that mean to do you harm.

I had the entire thing beat  on my first try (yes, levels are limited) and it took all of 10 minutes! But whoop-dee-doo, who gives a bibble, gabba gabba hey! It’s free, give it a try. Oh, and extra credit to whoever can identify the quote I just threw down.

Space Shooter
Version 1.0
Reviewed on iPhone 3G OS3.0.1

Tags: arcade, free, shmup, simple

Card Ninja

Michael (Admin) | Jun 4, 2009 Games

User rating: (6 votes, average: 4.67 out of 5)

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Boogers. Paper footballs. More boogers. If boredom has taught us nothing else, it’s that flicking stuff is fun! And that’s the premise behind Card Ninja: flick stuff, in this case cards. The app itself includes just one line of instruction: “Flick to matching targets” and that’s basically it… you flick cards at matching targets and try to keep up with the game’s ever-increasing quota.

Flicking properly isn’t quite as easy as it sounds because sometimes you have to match the card color (flick green to green, blue to blue, etc.) and sometimes you have to match the card faces to the little target icons. Card Ninja doesn’t tell you which to do, so it’s on you to figure it out.

Pint Sized Mobile is off to a good start with this pick-up-n-play time waster, but there’s definitely room for improvement. Right now there’s no scoreboard to speak of, iPod music isn’t supported, and there are zero game options for controlling sound, starting over, or anything of the sort.

Card Ninja is good for some quick, mindless fun, and I think the $.99 price is about right… just be ready for an app that lacks the bells & whistles you’re used to seeing in other games.

The levels shown in this video are pretty advanced! I haven’t reached them yet cuz I’m bad at flicking

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Tags: $.99, simple

Bugz

Michael (Admin) | Dec 19, 2008 Games

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

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Bugz from Didev Studios is hilariously simple. In fact, it may even be the only game in the iTunes App Store that you don’t even need hands to play! You only need to tap the screen once per round, so you could use whatever body part you want… your toe, your elbow, your nipple, or some other appendage :mrgreen: …it’s really a refreshing change from the tap-til-your-finger-falls-off genre of mobile touch gaming.

In each level you have a goal, and you get one shot at tapping the screen at the right time to achieve that goal. When you tap, a bubble grows and then shrinks away, and any “bugz” that touch the bubble will pop and form their own bubble, and bugz that touch those bubbles will pop, and so on, and so on.

That’s pretty much all there is to it! Difficulty increases by requiring you to pop more and more bugz, popping specific bugz, and adding obstacles such as floating flowers that slow down bugz they collide with.

The first 17 levels are all pretty easy except for levels 15-17 where you need to pop all or nearly all of the bugz on the screen. Same goes for levels 18-34. After that, timing suddenly becomes something you have to really think about on a regular basis, and things only get harder from there.

Bugz is extremely cute and nicely done, and you can listen to iPod music during the game if you go to the iPhone settings screen to turn off the sound. It comes equipped with a global high score board and multiple players can create new “profiles” for storing scores and game progress.

I think it’s definitely worth a dollar, and like most new-ish games in the App Store it’s being offered at an “introductory price” although the non-intro price isn’t stated. If you’re looking for the casual-est of the casual games, Bugz is worth trying.

Tags: $.99, good for kids, simple

Singing Pumpkins

Michael (Admin) | Oct 28, 2008 Entertainment

User rating: (1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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Singing Pumpkins is probably the best Halloween app I’ve reviewed yet! It shows a collection of very cute cartoon pumpkins that you can tap to make your own melodies or sound effects.

Each pumpkin has its own way of singing a note and occasionally yells something out of character just for fun, and if you actually possess some musical talent you might be able to cobble together a tune.

If you’d prefer Halloween sound effects over music, tap the music note in the bottom left corner and the pumpkins will drop the singing and switch to making spooky noises and saying things like “I vant to bite your neeeck” in a thick Transylvanian accent.

If you have or know any children, get this free app right now! I guarantee they will enjoy the hell out of it and some single non-parental adults (like me) probably will, too. I’m even thinking about incorporating this app into my Halloween costume if I can figure out how to waterproof my iPhone from the inevitable beer spills it’ll have to endure.

RAMDreams, the maker of Singing Pumpkins, doesn’t appear to have any other apps in the App Store right now but I’m already looking forward to whatever they come up with next.

Tags: free, good for kids, halloween, simple

Pixel Pusher

Michael (Admin) | Oct 24, 2008 Games

User rating: (1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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Pixel Pusher is a funny little game. It’s really simple: use your finger to push a blue smiley-face “pixel” around and make him touch the other pixels flying all over the place. Touching a red one ends the game, but the black ones get you points and the yellow question marks are surprises that either make the game easier or harder.

My first impression of Pixel Pusher was omg this is stupid but after seeing the Top 100 global scoreboard I just had to get on it! This game has a way of growing on you and if you can get hooked on a game like PapiJump you can definitely get hooked on this one.

What makes Pixel Pusher fun is the yellow surprise pixels… they can do a variety of things like speed things up (bad), slow things down (good), make your blue pixel guy bigger (bad), make blue guy smaller (good), make your blue pixel invincible (very good), etc.

Another catch in the game is that your blue smiley pixel gets progressively bigger as you score more points, and the bigger you get the harder it is to avoid the bad red pixels.

There’s no sound in Pixel Pusher which is a little disappointing, but the more troubling issue is that the game seems to get kind of buggy at certain times. After submitting my high score on a couple of occasions the blue pixel’s movement became way too choppy to play the game and I had to restart it. I’m not 100% certain that it’s related to high-score submission, but it sure seemed that way.

My only other complaint is that the high-score submitter doesn’t remember my name so I have to keep on typing it in. If reduxsoft could fix this along with the choppy-movement bug, the game would be a lot easier to enjoy.

Overall I like Pixel Pusher and $.99 isn’t much to pay if you’re looking for a simple, mindless game to keep you amused.

Tags: $.99, arcade, simple

PapiPole

Michael (Admin) | Sep 24, 2008 Games

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

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It’s a well-known fact that Papi likes to jump, and here’s another bombshell: Papi also loves catching falling hamburgers with his red, bulbous head! He hates spikey orbs falling from the sky (don’t we all), but hambugers are just super.

Sunflat stuck Papi on a pole like a big red lollipop and your mission is to keep him from falling over or getting too abused by the spikey things raining down from above. Keeping Papi upright is easy in theory, and I think most people have, at some point, already done a similar balancing act in real life by trying to balance a baseball bat (or an umbrella, or a big stick) on your face. If it’s falling left, you move left, if it’s falling right, you move right.

If Papi takes too many hits or falls over, you’re dead and the hamburger party is over. Like PapiJump, PapiPole is incredibly simple and strangely addictive, partly thanks to the online leaderboard that provides the extra motivation to become a PapiMaster. And the big bonus is that Sunflat, having learned a few lessons in the recent past, and has put in a pause button and one-tap game re-play. It’s always nice when developers listen to feedback and remember to incorporate it in subsequent applications.

Final verdict? If you like PapiJump, chances are you’ll be a fan of PapiPole, too.

Tags: free, simple

Dactyl

Michael (Admin) | Sep 24, 2008 Games

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

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Dactyl, according to my quick Googling, is a fancy word for finger. It’s a really simple app and it’s kind of fun in an annoying way until your Dactyl’s tip goes totally numb from frantic tapping!

The object of the game is simple: when a bomb lights up, touch it to prevent it from exploding. Miss one and it’s Game Over. Your finger will inevitably get in the way of seeing where to tap next since the bombs light up at random all over the place, but I suppose that just comes with the territory.

There’s really not a lot to say here except that it’s a well-done iPhone app that, despite its short shelf-life, is worth trying out. You can turn the sound on/off with a single tap and you can also clear the scoreboard, both of which are nice features. Maybe Mauvila Software’s next version could have more bombs on the screen and let you type more than five letters on the high-score board, but I’m becoming increasingly loathe to criticize apps that are both free AND good, so we’ll just leave it at that. Try it out.

Tags: free, simple