Angry Birds As An Eighties Home Game

I'm showing my age a bit here, but yeah, this is pretty much 100% true:

The Night Sky

The Night Sky

Seller: iCandi Apps

Price: Currently 75% off at .99 cents (there is a free Lite Version too)

Platforms: All iOS, Android, Mac

Link to app store.

Technically this is a reference app, and that’s how you might justify it to yourself if you’re looking at buying it, but that’s not really why The Night Sky exists. It exists for the moments where you’re outside on a clear night (or inside huddled by the fire on a cold one) and you want to add a little information and perspective to where you are.

That and it’s freaking awesome.

A GPS, compass and accelerometer app, Night Sky reads where you are in the world and then shows you via your screen what the night sky looks like from where you are. Even if it’s broad daylight.

On it’s app page, iCandi tells us that you can see what the night sky looks like even if there is heavy cloud cover. I think iCandi is selling themselves short here. You can see what the night sky looks like even if it’s obscured by concrete, steel or the Earth itself.

You can set the amount of information Night Sky gives you, getting it to show you a simple map of the stars or full constellations. If you’re into astrology, or simply curious about where the star signs came from Night Sky can show you by drawing the links in between the stars for you.

My best experiences with Night Sky have come from standing outside where I can see the stars and using the app to make sense of the things I’m seeing. It’s a truly humbling and oddly beautiful experience to see the galaxy laid out before you this way.

I never thought I’d be calling an app humbling, nor beautiful but there you go.

I used my iPad 2 to test this (although I’ve also used an iPhone) and it looks superb. The program is very stable even when running multiple apps.

I know that this isn’t something most people will use every day, but for the sheer awesomeness of the experience it can provide you, I think it’s a bargain at any price.

Highly recommended.           

Happy Easter

Hey everyone, no review today since its Good Friday where I am and my day needed more doing very little than a Friday normally would.

See you next week!

Blogger App

Developer: Google
Price: FREE

So, being that I run a Blogger account I thought I'd write a review of the iOS app on it and see how it went.

So, how is it?

It's OK, in all honesty it's only really a convenience rather than a big step up in functionality. It is good if you want to dash off a quick post from your iPhone, but if you're on iPad you might as well just log into Blogger through Google.

It's also far more geared to recreational Blogging than writing reviews, article or graphics heavy posts.

With that said if you're posting photos from your phone that element works brilliantly. There is no HD version yet but it does work fine from iPad. I think a few additions, or perhaps a pro version for 99 cents could go a long way towards making this a serious addition to Blogger users iOS devices.

It is amazingly stable. I couldn't make the sucker crash no matter what I tried.

In the end I got frustrated by not being able to add descriptions, tags or images that weren't photos and just moved to my main computer to finish this off.

Still it's free so value for money is absolutely unbeatable. If you'd like it just click on this link.

Plants vs. Zombies

Developer: PopCap Games

Price: $6.99 (HD) $2.99 (iPhone)

Hello Plants vs. Zombies. Goodbye several hours of my day.

Made by avatars of procrastination PopCap Geames (they made Bejewelled) Plants vs. Zombies is a simple, addictive and funny. Plants vs. Zombies is one of the best games I’ve played on the iOS system. I personally think it’s worth splashing out the extra cash for the HD version and playing it on iPad, but it looks, and runs, just fine on the iPhone.

Plants vs. Zombies is a tower defence game at heart, albeit a very very good one. The basic premise is that you are a cross between Doctor Frankenstein and an amateur gardening enthusiast and for some reason the corpses in the local cemetery have taken a dislike to you and your neighbour Crazy Dave.

As the moaning, rotting…er, sometimes sporty hordes descend upon your home you have to plant your way to safety. Sunflowers form the back bone of your defences, generating sunlight that you can use to put in the plant equivalent of fixed gun emplacements. You start out with pea shooters (literally) but quickly move up to everything from potato based land mines to carnivorous plants that chew zombies like bubblegum.

This image will soon make perfect sense to you.

The humor is key to the game, and a lot of Plants vs Zombies appeal is in the ever escalating levels of insanity that developer PopCap  Games is prepared to throw at you. Obviously this isn’t a gritty, real world based take on the zombie apocalypse; this is a game where you can go zombie bowling. This is a game where your back up anti-zombie plan is a lawnmower.

This is Crazy Dave’s world.

Mankind's last line of defense.

Plants vs. Zombies  has high replay value, unlockable zombie themed mini games.

The cartoon style of the game looks good on any screen, but it’s particularly good on a retina display (provided you get the HD version). I have had the game crash just the once in the entire time I’ve owned it.

There is a downside to the HD version in that it's not as complete as the normal version, however there seems to be something int he works to fix that with an update. At the moment the iPhone version will give you a Zen garden to relax in, and more enviroments to rip zombies up in. That said I found the iPhone version fiddly compared to the HD iteration. I think this may be one of those situations where personal preference comes into play.

This is one of the rare games you can try out for free online ahead of time and see if you like it. If you’d like to try it out before handing over your hard earned wampum then click this link to PopCap.

Then kiss your productivity goodbye.

Infinity Blade

Released by: Epic Games and Chair Entertainment
Price: 99 cents

Do you want to cut a dude?

If that's what you want then Infinity Blade  is your game. You will cut dudes. You will cut virtually every dude you see. In fact I am yet to find a dude in the game I have not at least attempted to cut.

Infinity Blade is a third person slasher with RPG elements, although it might be more accurate to say that it's a fighting game with RPG elements and nothin' but boss fights. While I don't mean that literally; there is plenty of mook progression on the way to the God King's throne. And then again on your way to the God King's throne.

And again.

And again.

Dammit.

Whether or not you love Infinity Blade is going to depend on your tolerance for repetition. That sounds like criticism but I really mean it. if you love grinding ala World of Warcraft then Infinity Blade  has a lot to offer the obsessive player. New swords, armor, combos and magic await players willing just to play like hell and on't mind fundamentally rehashing the same fights over and over at varying degrees of difficulty.

The whole game looks superb, especially on a retina display, and even on an old 3Gs it's still smooth and I have never once had the game crash on me. The world building is excellent and the story is compelling even if slightly puzzling. In fact Brandon Sanderson wrote a novella called Infinity Blade: Awakening that ties in with the game. By all reports it's pretty good. Although Brandon Sanderson wrote it so I'd be surprised if it wasn't.

Epic and Chair Entertainment are good about doing serious updates, and with each update the game world has expanded. The challenge modes (arena, survivor) are fun especially arena mode against another player which can get downright frenetic. A more recent update expanded heavily on the story and it's (somewhat) less puzzling, although still intriguing.

Combating the monstrous creatures in the game is simple, although that doesn't make it easy. By the time you've thrown the God King out on his ass a couple of times (did I mention he's immortal and just keeps on coming back) you'll find yourself strategising fights ahead of time rather than relying on frantic swipes with your fingers. The fights themselves are smooth and a decent mix of power and speed opponents with the Wood Jester's being my personal nemesis.

You tricksy little bastard (little is a relative measure). 

All in all a very good game let down by its repetitive nature. In the end I gave up on it because I was bored, but I did enjoy the hell out of it before that moment. Still, it's only 99 cents and that's still an amazing deal for several hours at least worth of entertainment.

There is a sequel out which expands on the storyline introduced. I'll have a review out on Infinity Blade 2 once I've spent some more time with it.

Scribblenaughts Remix

Released by: Warner Bros.

Developers: 5^th Cell and Iron Galaxy Studios

Price: 99 cents

If you’d like to know how my review process works, I can tell that it generally starts like this:

            “Can I summon Cthulhu Y/N”

Sadly most games fail this test and I move on with the rest of the review, trying to hide my disappointment.

But in Scribblenaughts you CAN summon Cthulhu. In fact you can summon almost anything you can think of just by tapping in the word on the screen. Desire a demon? An angel? An ice cream? Just type it in.

Once you’ve finished the inevitable hour or two’s worth of summoning things, turning them into zombies and then having them fight/eat each other there is an excellent game there for the taking. You can still solve a great many puzzles by summoning Cthulhu and having the elder god eat the offending object, barrier or person but played straight the puzzles are clever without being overly difficult.

Everything looks great on the iPad, although I haven’t had a chance to retest this on the new iPad, it all runs smooth as silk.

The game did crash on me a couple of times, but it wasn’t an ongoing issue. More of a problem is that I didn’t find there was a huge replay value to Scribblenaughts once I’d played through the main campaigns and done of the Cthulhuing my fragile mind could handle. To combat this 5^th Cell and Warner Bros. are still releasing new content for free with their updates. I think most payers would have been very happy with the game even if they hadn’t been releasing ongoing levels and themes but it’s nice to see a major company taking care of its clients.

This was originally a Nintendo DS game, and while using the iPad’s keyboard isn’t as intuitive as using the DS, it doesn’t interfere with the flow of the game at all.

All in all this is an excelelent, if older, game and it’s only a buck. What else can you ask for?

Scribblenaughts Remix at the app store

Angry Birds: Space

In space, no one can hear you tweet. Or warble.

The original Angry Birds was (if you’ll excuse the term) a black swan, a unforeseeable event where a very good if simple game went viral and became a worldwide phenomenon. Throwing Birds at pigs became an acceptable topic of conversation instead of the reason you’re being escorted off the premises.

A follow up from makers Rovio Entertainment was going to have to be something special, not just a bunch of new levels…

And it is.

By moving the franchise into the final frontier players now have to deal with new mechanics like gravity wells and wormhole generating eagles.

I found this more challenging than the original, although it’s still easy to get into and the new mechanics fit seamlessly with the setting. My only real problem with Angry Birds: Space is that it’s so easy to kill an afternoon with it. It’s just as easy to pick up as the original, and even if you’ve never launched a furious bird from a slingshot before you’ll find Angry Birds: Space is playable within thirty seconds of downloading it.

Everything ran smoothly and I had no glitches in graphics or gameplay. There isn’t much in the way of a story, but for a casual game about smashing pig fortresses with apoplectic avians, who cares?

I played this on the iPad and it looks awesome on the bigger screen,  everything is clear on the small iPhone screen but for the full experience I recommend getting the HD version for the iPad (if you have one).

Highly Recommended.          

Available for iOS, Mac, PC and Android.

Zombies, Run! for iPhone

I also posted this review on my writing site, which I don't normally do. Partly it's because Zombies, Run! has an excellent story penned by Naomi Alderman and partly because the whole thing is just plain awesome and deserves all the attention it’s getting.

I’m a huge geek, and I make no apologies for my general appreciation for zombies, Doctors, squid gods and anything involving Joss Whedon. Zombies were one of my first passions though, and when I was looking for more motivation when it came to running the Zombies, Run! app shambled into my day.

At its heart, Zombie’s, Run is an interactive audio story with role playing and resource management games thrown in. While you run in the real world your phone tracks your position via GPS and uses it to advance the story. You play runner #5, a government employee temporarily acting as a runner for a tiny base in the post apocalyptic wasteland. You dart in and out of the base, tracking down vital supplies and clues to the zombie apocalypse for the people back at the base. Once you’ve returned with your bounty you decide how and when to upgrade the base to attract more survivors and the bigger your town the further along the story can move.

The voice acting is superb, and a serious amount of time and focus has been spent on making the zombie effect sound just right and if you’re prepared to let yourself get lost in the experience you’ll almost be able to feel their fetid breath on the back of your neck.

Zombies, Run! Was a Kickstarter campaign that went spectacularly well and everyone who has contributed can rest assured that the money they put into it was well spent. At the moment Zombies, Run! is iOS only but there is a an Android version on its way.

If you’re looking into getting into running, or if you’re a runner already and looking for some geeky goodness to motivate you then Zombies, Run! is the shambling, rotting, groaning app for you. You can get it at the iOS app store, or at the Zombies, Run! website.