Pricing: Subscription based. $20 for 6 months, $35 for 1 year, $45 for lifetime subscription.
The developers of Kate (formerly Caterpillar) describe it as being “a commercial package of tools and toys to extend your iPhone”. While offering an all in one approach and slick settings management, Kate doesn’t really bring much to the table that can’t be gained from using multiple free packages.
Admittedly though, there is a certain appeal to only having to install one program to do a bunch of things.
I am Iron Man. Those could be the lyrics of a certain Black Sabbath song, or maybe a little quip from Tony Stark. Or maybe both. You’ll have to go see the movie to find out for sure I guess.
And that’s exactly what I did last night. In a bit of a hasty decision, I ended up going to see the movie and honestly, had mixed expectations. It looked like it could be good, but I wasn’t expecting TOO much (if you’ve ever heard me talk about the upcoming Dark Knight movie, you know I’ll probably be disappointed by the movie because the expectations are simply through the roof). Comic Book movies are usually good to go into with lower expectations, because as good as some of them have been, some have been downright painful.
But which did Iron Man end up being? Find out after the jump
Ever since the days of playing Tetris on my old black and white Gameboy I’ve held a special place in my heart for blocks falling from the sky. And interestedly enough, I haven’t seen anyone make improvements to that D-Pad and A and B buttons I used all those years ago. I can honestly say that I didn’t expect to see a good Tetris port on the iPhone/Touch. Not that I didn’t expect to see Tetris, but I thought they would try to overlay buttons on the screen (a’la Yeti3D) and things would just get awkward. Thankfully, they didn’t. Full review after the jump.
Pros:The pretty colors and shapes make it into this port of the indie classic.
Cons:Nearly impossible to play anything but the easiest levels. Lacks the music and polish of the actual game.
Developer: Original game: Kenta Cho. Ported by: Lazrhog.
Version Reviewed: 1.0
Platform: iPod Touch and iPhone
Noiz2sa is a Kenta Cho game. If this means nothing to you, you’re not alone. Kenta Cho isn’t exactly a household name for most people. He is a, and prehaps the, premier indie shooter developer. A quick look at his website reveals an extensive library of his games (mostly vertical shooters). From a design standpoint, I like his games. He captures that colorfully eclectic style that seems to be all the rage in Japan, and keeps the gameplay simple and fun.
Why then did I give it a 2 out of 5? Because either by design or by mistake in Lazrhog’s translation this game is impossibly hard to play. No amount of finger sliding can keep me alive for longer then 30 seconds. But I’m getting ahead of myself here.
Gameplay in Noiz2sa revolves around shooting brightly colored squares that revolve around bigger squares over a vector graphic cityscape. Shooting them causes them to explode, releasing a small spinning blocks of four grey squares. Collecting these segmented blocks is how you score points and how you stay alive. For every block you collect you get a certain number of points and +10 to your shield to a maximum of 1000. Theoretically, if you could continue to collect blocks faster then you’re getting hit. This theory gets blown to bits almost as fast as you do in this game. Projectiles seem to hit for anywhere between 200-800 points, and in the harder stages its just flat out impossible to stay alive.
Accepted design philosophy would dictate that you should create a game that people want to keep playing. After a few minutes of watching “Game Over” pop up every 30 seconds I was ready to quit and go back to playing Pool.
I had a pretty good time playing level 1. I could dodge the projectiles and keep my shields up while enjoying the cool landscape I was flying over. By level 5 it was a lost cause. On the ‘Endless Hard’, ‘Endless Extreme’, ‘Endless Insane’ stages I’m lucky to stay alive 20 seconds.
Out of curiosity I downloaded the actual game from Kenta Cho’s website and played that for the purpose of comparison. I’m glad I did, because it’s definitely not the same game. For one thing, the music is fantastic and adds a lot to the experience (no music in this port). It’s still not easy, but it makes me feel like I’m playing a game and not some LSD junkie’s fantasy gone horribly wrong. I say that to make one thing clear: Noiz2sa is a great indie shooter. This port to the iPhone and the Touch is not.
Feeds is the third RSS app I’ve ever used for the iPhone, and easily the best so far. It may not have the fancy effects that smartRSS has, but it makes up for it with a much better cleaner layout. Perhaps one of it’s greatest advantages is also a sizable drawback, it’s based on the Google Reader API, meaning if you don’t use Google Reader you’re out of luck.
Pool is a game dating back to the middle ages. Originally it was played almost exclusively by nobility, but by the 1800s it was a premier past time in taverns and saloons across the world. So, how does a 500 year old game translate to the touch screen? Turns out, pretty dang well. Full review and screens after the jump.
Pros: Good concept, one of the first true 3D games for the platform.
Cons: May ruin your childhood memories of Pac-Man. Also, the onscreen control interface is less than reliable.
Joining the masses as yet another Pac-Man clone, comes iPac3D. Based off the Yeti3D engine by Derek John Evans, this latest reincarnation barely resembles the Pac-Man you grew up with. It is however a fairly polished and stable game, it does have a few quirks of course, but it is free after all.
Pros: Hands down one of the best apps for the iPhone. Period. First to bring native Skype support for Wi-Fi calling. Replaces the need for running three or four chat apps.
Cons: Leaving it running in the background does shorten battery life. Doesn’t play nice with your tunes.
I was fairly impressed with iChabber, which was the first app to bring working GoogleTalk support to the platform, but I have to say Fring makes iChabber look like a toy. Both in terms of ease of use and available features.
Pros: The weird looks your friends give you when you talk about what you’re doing in the game without telling them its just a game.
Cons: Buggy interface and no re-playability. Nothing cool to buy with our ill-begotten gains.
iDope is a port of the classic turn based strategy game, Dope Wars. Originally a high school project, in 1984 John Dell created a DOS based buying and selling stimulater based on drug trading. Almost twenty-five years later his concept has seen countless reiterations (including the wildly popular Facebook application–wildly popular because I swear I get ten invites for it every time I log on.) the latest of which comes to the iPod Touch and iPhone. Full review and screen shots after the jump.
