Category Archives: Action

Xtreme Xrunch Kart

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Xtreme Xrunch Kart is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

Prepare to crunch your face off. The world’s most extreme snack in the universe — baby carrots — is now bringing you the world’s most extreme game in the universe: XTREME XRUNCH KART.

XXK is a constant motion side-scrolling game for iPhone and iPod Touch that utilizes advanced Crunchonics Technology to detect the crunch of real baby carrots. Those crunches help players advance through the game.

Maneuver your rocket-powered shopping kart by tilting your phone to avoid killer obstacles. Crunch actual baby carrots in to your microphone to activate speed bursts and hit ramps and stick radical aerial tricks.

You’ll need all the jaw muscles you can wrangle to navigate your way through a tricky urban jungle, clear massive pothole abysses with gravity-defying jumps, and skip from rooftop to rooftop as extreme pterodactyls soar overhead.

Oh, and there are explosions. Lots of and lots of explosions.


‘Gangstar: Miami Vindication’ Review – Better Than the First, But Still Room for Improvement

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‘Gangstar: Miami Vindication’ Review – Better Than the First, But Still Room for Improvement is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

A little more than a month ago, iPhone giant Gameloft first announced a sequel to Gangstar: West Coast Hustle [$4.99 / Free / HD], an open-world crime game which we liked quite a bit in our review despite a few disappointments. Gangstar: Miami Vindication [$6.99] was released this evening, and while several of our annoyances from the first have been tweaked or massaged to be less problematic, there's still a few things keeping Miami Vindication from being our favorite thug simulator.

Much like the original, Gangstar: Miami Vindication features a full city to explore, a wide variety of vehicles to steal, weapons ranging from baseball bats to flame throwers, and a heap of missions to complete. (75 to be exact.) The game plays exactly how you'd expect it to play if you've ever played a Grand Theft Auto or similar type of open world crime game. You can play through the series of missions which vary wildly from something as simple to going to a particular point in the city to stealing a specific car or even racing. Alternatively, you can just disregard the missions entirely and instead just drive around the city, stealing cars, running from the police, or really doing whatever you feel like doing.

While there isn't a whole lot of innovation to be found in Miami Vindication, it has been improved in some ways over the original. For instance, the game is fully voiced over and the voice acting actually seems to be a little better than your typical Gameloft game– at least for major characters. Gameloft also has been boasting the fact that the game was written in part by one of the writers from the TV show The Wire. This story consists of dabbling in the various sectors of the Miami criminal underground on the hunt for your missing brother. I don't see it winning any awards, but by and large the dialog in Miami Hustle is substantially less cringeworthy than West Coast Hustle.

Controls seem to be a lot tighter than the original, offering three different options: Tilt, a virtual steering wheel, and a slider which I've found myself preferring. When on a motorcycle, tilting your device back and forth executes wheelies and stoppies although riding a wheelie for any length of time usually seems to result in a spectacular crash. Lighting is improved as well, resulting in some fairly spectacular views during sunset and sunrise as the entire city is bathed in warm sunlight.

Unfortunately, even though the lighting is better, Miami Vindication is home to some heinously low polygon models. Cars look decent, but character models look absolutely dreadful. Animations are extremely limited, faces lack depth, there are no fingers to be found anywhere, and no lips move when anyone speaks. Instead, they just flail their arms about and bop their heads back and forth. With how much of the game is spent watching two characters talk to each other, this soon becomes incredibly distracting.

The draw distance is decent, but pop-in is considerable. You can see buildings and terrain from far away, but trees and other small details all appear incredibly close to your character. Much like the original Gangstar, the city of Miami in Miami Vindication is terribly barren. Only a few cars will ever appear on screen at once, and pedestrians are rare as can be. Everything feels entirely too clean and empty. Gameloft did implement some varied areas to the city instead of being totally metropolitan, but all the subareas all feel equally lonely and empty.

If you can get past the relatively sparse graphical environment, there really isn't anything else like Miami Vindication on the App Store. Riding around on motorcycles and boats is a lot of fun, and if you can find a helicopter, flying around the city is really pretty cool. I still prefer Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars [$9.99 / Free / HD], but if you don't like the top-down view and want a full 3D experience, Gangstar: Miami Vindication is worth exploring.


Review: Monster Dash

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Review: Monster Dash is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

Has the market become saturated with Canabalt clones? If so, it’s too bad, because despite coming out in the wake of several other successful takes on the Canabalt format, Monster Dash still manages to be great fun, and one of the most polished iPhone games around.

If you aren’t familiar with the run-right-forever format, we’re basically talking about a game with minimalist controls that involves running to the right, dodging obstacles, and jumping over gaps in the path. The game slowly speeds up, increasing the difficulty until the inevitable happens. Afterward, you’ll feel compelled to try again for a high score.

Monster Dash adds enemies to the formula, as well as a variety of weapons, a vehicle, and multiple settings. Yet the controls boil down to “jump” and “shoot” — two fat and hard-to-miss virtual buttons that keep things simple. If you’ve played Canabalt or Robot Unicorn Attack (and I’m sure there are others), Monster Dash will seem very familiar, but its additional features keep it fresh.

Unlike others before it, Monster Dash features four different environments, each with a fresh look and a unique baddie suited to the locale. There are mummies in Egypt, vampires in Transylvania…you get the idea.

Every 1,000 meters, Barry Steakfries (yes, that is the name of your hero) is transported to a new location. Each one plays slightly differently, based on the enemies and the shape of the terrain pieces. The random order of the environments, coupled with the random spawns of weapons and restorative hearts, makes every game feel fresh and unpredictable.

Developed by Halfbrick Studios, it should come as no surprise that what really sets Monster Dash apart is polish. With a nine-year track record of developing for portable platforms from the Game Boy Advance to the iPhone, Halfbrick has mastered the art of presentation, and it really shows here in the little touches.

For example, Barry Steakfries whips past a little sign marking the spot when you pass your previous record for distance. Every time you die, Barry offers a short, consoling quip.

Best of all, the game is jammed with stats and both in-game and OpenFeint achievements. The game tracks how many monsters you’ve killed and how you’ve killed them, and even counts the number of consecutive kills by hopping on monsters’ heads. Almost every score bracket possible includes a label, as well as labels for killing a certain number of baddies. The list goes on.

If there was any criticism to level at Monster Dash, it would be that the formula has been done well already — how much is there really left to add? But while Monster Dash changes very little about how the run-right-forever genre plays, the variety, personality, and stats here make it a worthy buy, even for someone who worries that they might have seen it all before.


New ‘Gangstar: Miami Vindication’ Trailer Released

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New ‘Gangstar: Miami Vindication’ Trailer Released is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

Open world crime games have been incredibly popular for years now, so it wasn't much of a surprise to see Gameloft release Gangstar: West Coast Hustle [$4.99 / Free / HD] which we liked quite a bit in our review. Following the success of Gangstar, Rockstar threw its hat in to the ring with Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars [$9.99 / Free / HD] which really upped the ante with a real Grand Theft Auto experience with all the depth and complexity that players have come to expect of the series. It's going to be interesting to see what Gameloft includes in the Gangstar sequel to one-up Rockstar, but the good news is we won't have to wait much longer as Miami Vindication is set to be released on the 23rd.

If you're like us and are looking forward to stealing virtual cars on the streets of Gameloft's version of Miami, check out this new trailer:

Something that immediately pops out is how low polygon count everything is, but it remains to be seen how noticeable this is when you're actually playing the game. Thankfully, we don't have much longer to wait, and we should have a review available as soon as Gangstar: Miami Vindication hits the App Store late tomorrow night.