Category Archives: iPhone Apps and Games

Home Gene-Splicing Kit Review

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Home Gene-Splicing Kit Review is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

Developer: You-Betcha Interactive
Price: $1.99
Version Reviewed: 1.0

iPhone Integration Rating: 4.1 out of 5 stars
User Interface Rating: 2.75 out of 5 stars
Re-use / Replay Value Rating: 3.75 out of 5 stars

Overall Rating: 3.53 out of 5 stars

Scarred for life is an understatement here.

Remember the old Conan skit where he would take two people that were dating at the time and then mix their photos together to create their new children? Well this is what the Home Gene-Splicing Kit can do for you. It lets you isolate the head from the eyes, mouth, and nose to create a horrible, horrible creature.

The process is fairly simple and works well, although the menus are a bit slow and cumbersome. You simply take a picture of someone or something, resize the image to conform to where the app things all the parts of the head should be, and violá! From there, you go to the gene splicing lab where you can mix and match to your heart’s content with the photos that you take, along with the collection of people and animals that are already included in the app.

Want to see what you would look like if you were crossed with your dog? Or you, your significant other, and a sheep? By all means, give it a whirl.

To test the power (the awesome power) that the app holds, I decided to create a man-dog. Taking the picture of my head worked great, but the dog was a bit trickier. After taking the picture of the dog, the app wanted me to resize the dogs head to fit in an outline of a human head. Given the my dogs head, along with most dogs, is more of a box than an oval, I had to take a few pictures to be able to isolate the mouth from the rest of the head.

In the end, I was left with what looks like a superhero with a mask that looks like a dog. It’s frightening. Pick this one up at your own risk.

[ Home Gene-Splicing Kit Review is a post from 148Apps ]


Manga Rock MF Review

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Manga Rock MF Review is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

Developer: Not A Basement Studio
Price: FREE (Unlocks for $2.99)
Version Reviewed: 1.0

iPhone Integration Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
User Interface Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Re-use / Replay Value Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Overall Rating: 4.33 out of 5 stars

For manga lovers, this has been a turbulent summer. A number of publishers banded together and managed to force onemanga.com—the scanlation site beloved by so many—to stop offering free manga. Oh, noes!

Personally, I’d been using Manga Rock—a onemanga-based viewer app that also let you download an unlimited amount of manga to your iPhone (for a one-time unlock fee). However, Manga Rock has a few problems. For one, it now must use mangable.com, rather than onemanga; additionally, the app hasn’t scaled perfectly, and is sometimes slow or unresponsive.

In response to these problems, Not a Basement Studios has released Manga Rock MF, a brand-new, reworked version of Manga Rock that grabs its manga from Manga Fox rather than Mangable. While having two separate apps is a slightly strange decision, Manga Rock MF makes up for it with improved speed and an utterly massive library.



Manga Rock MF works much like Manga Rock. A catalog tab lets you browse manga; viewing manga is as simple as choosing a series and a chapter. (Landscape and portrait, along with orientation lock, are supported.) A one-time fee of $2.99 unlocks the ability to download an unlimited amount of manga, as well as keep tabs on your favorites to see when they’ve been updated. Just as with Manga Rock, reading manga with Manga Rock MF is more pleasant than using the web interface: your manga is portable, instantly available, and looks gorgeous.

The major differences, however, are significant. Manga Rock MF is now blazing fast and more stable. It also has an enormous library; 6,000 titles compared to Manga Rock’s 1,100. Eek! Because the two apps draw from different sources, Manga Rock sometimes has manga that Manga Rock MF lacks, and vice versa.

You won’t find everything in Manga Rock MF. Viz Media and Yen Press titles (Bleach, One Piece, etc) aren’t available due to ongoing legal concerns. But other hits, like Fairy Tale and Kaichou wa maid-sama!, are still present.

Reading manga with Manga Rock MF is a fantastic experience, as expected. Though the library isn’t perfect and I wish that two separate apps weren’t necessary, 6,000 titles is nothing to sneeze at. My advice is to download both Manga Rock and Manga Rock MF (they’re free) and then decide which version you’d like to “unlock” (or both). No matter which way you go, you’ll have awesome, instant access to manga, all comfortably located in your pocket. What more could you want?

(For reasoning behind the two-app approach, check out notabasement’s blog.)

[ Manga Rock MF Review is a post from 148Apps ]


Blind World Review

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Blind World Review is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

Developer: Dmitriy Kuzmenko
Price: $0.99
Version Reviewed: 1.0.0

Graphics / Sound Rating: 4.05 out of 5 stars
Game Controls Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Gameplay Rating: 4.1 out of 5 stars
Re-use / Replay Value Rating: 3.9 out of 5 stars

Overall Rating: 3.89 out of 5 stars

Blind World is one of those games that takes a while to sink in. The directions are all in a one page “Help” screen that makes no sense at all. In fact, it took a a couple of minutes to figure out what was going on. Once I got it down though, Blind World proved to be a fun, if slightly flawed, experience.

In the game, you are a ball that has to uncover an invisible shape. Either by moving the screen with your hand or by tilting the phone itself, you must roll the ball around the edges of the object to uncover it. The longer you go without a hard crash or a fall, the higher your score gets. The key is to go really slow, and to be good at guessing where the turns of the shape will be.

With 40 levels, there is a good amount of gameplay to be had, but it isn’t without its flaws.

Like Zen Bound, each level can be finished once you get to a certain score. After you hit the score, you can leave the level or choose to keep going in a quest for a high score, but the way the game lets you continue is poorly done. Instead of a passive system that lets you leave the level, the game throws out huge words during gameplay that are easily touched on accident, potentially ruining the level that you are in.

The other major issue for me was the placement of the static “Finish” button that is in the top right corner. Most of the turning that I do to control the game is done with my right hand, and it is constantly hitting the “Finish” button which instantly shoots you to the menu screen. I can’t even tell you how many levels I lost because of this button. In a predominantly right handed world, there has to be a better spot for this button.

Aside from those issues with the games aesthetics (which are definitely frustrating), I found that it was an otherwise solid game. If you are a fan of gravity based puzzle titles, you’ll certainly get a kick out of Blind World. And watch out, I have the #1 score for level 2. If you beat it I’ll personally send you a congratulations letter. (That’s a challenge, internets. Leave your score – and a screenshot – below in the comments — Ed.)

[ Blind World Review is a post from 148Apps ]


Steve Young Football! Review

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Steve Young Football! Review is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

Developer: Vaporware Labs
Price: $0.99
Version Reviewed: 1.0.2

Graphics / Sound Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars
Game Controls Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Gameplay Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Re-use / Replay Value Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars

Overall Rating: 4.13 out of 5 stars

Steve Young Football! is the most surprisingly bizarre game I’ve possibly ever played. I’ve seen some bizarre games in the App Store, but with the title “Steve Young Football!” I was expecting, you know, football.

Instead, SYF is a bizarre football-inspired experience. Basically, you are Steve Young, the famous quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers in their glory years, who has to score touchdowns in various strange circumstances. In some levels you’re trying to score against the undead, sometimes you’ve got angry turkeys, there are landmines — all sorts of weird stuff on the field.

As Steve, you can drag your player anywhere behind the line of scrimmage (that yellow line you see), and then you must flick him down the field into the endzone. For the touchdown to count though, you have to hit a star on the way, and that’s where the challenge is. All of the stars are guarded by the field obstacles (the turkeys and landmines from earlier), so you must flick extremely accurately to score your well deserved touchdown.

Aside from the single player mode, there is also a pretty amazing multiplayer mode that, at least on the iPad, can use two iPad screen as one playing field. Basically, both players have stars on their side of the field that they have to defend with the use of the bizarre obstacles. On the iPhone it’s a bit more sane, with just one screen and a hotseat mode, but the bizarre nature of the experience is still there.

Because of the strangeness of the game, I’m not sure what type of gamer Steve Young Football! appeals to. It is a fun game, but sports fans looking for a real football experience will probably sit for a while scratching their heads. Gamers of all types shouldn’t shy away from Steve Young Football! though, because it really is one of the oddest fun experiences that you’ll ever encounter.

Be sure to watch their promo videos for the game if you are on the fence. If they don’t get you to buy the game, nothing will.


[ Steve Young Football! Review is a post from 148Apps ]


Beyond Ynth Review

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Beyond Ynth Review is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

Developer: FDG Entertainment
Price: $3.99
Version Reviewed: 1.0

Graphics / Sound Rating: 4.9 out of 5 stars
Game Controls Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars
Gameplay Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars
Re-use / Replay Value Rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars

Overall Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Beyond Ynth is a puzzle game that just does things right. Too many puzzle games come out that have plenty of creativity, but lack the technical polish that Beyond Ynth delivers in spades.

The most memorable thing about Beyond Ynth though has nothing to do with the gameplay, it is the amazing job that FDG Entertainment did on the sound. All of the cut-scenes are read out by a real person, the game has an oh-so-awesome theme song (it’s amazing!) that was recorded in house, and the sound in the levels is very slick. I don’t usually comment on the sound of iPhone games, given the fact that I play so often with the sound off, but they really did an amazing job with this one.

The game itself is a fun puzzler that has you playing Kribl the bug on a quest to bring light back to your kingdom. The goal of each level, most of which take under 5 minutes, is to get to the end while gathering the few crystals on the map. To win, you have to carefully navigate through the levels, pushing and navigating through objects, all while being aware of your treacherous surroundings. Be sure to watch the gameplay video at the end to really grasp the concept.

One word of warning though is that the game is extremely difficult. Beating the levels on their own is tough enough, but going out of your way to get the crystals is brutal. Prepare to hit “restart level” about 800 times… ten times for all 80 levels in the game. Beyond Ynth isn’t for the weak minded or for people who just want to breeze through games, it’s a puzzle challenge that will really test your wits. If you like puzzle games, you’ll love Beyond Ynth.

[ Beyond Ynth Review is a post from 148Apps ]


MovieCat! review

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MovieCat! review is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

Developer: OtherWise Games
Price: $2.99
Version Reviewed: 1.0
Device Reviewed On: iPhone 4

Graphics / Sound Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Game Controls Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Gameplay Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Replay Value Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars

Overall Rating: 4.19 out of 5 stars

It might sound corny but I had trouble putting MovieCat! down. That’s how much it hooked me. It’s a movie trivia game, so of course if you don’t like movies, you won’t like this. If you’re a huge film buff like me, though, you will absolutely adore it.

MovieCat! comes from the makers of the Invisibles quizzes, a series of puzzles that have ably tapped into the trivia market. Who wants complicated quizzes after all? You just want to feel smug about what you do know. Nothing beats the satisfaction of completing an Invisibles quiz. MovieCat! continues to tap into this by offering 14 different puzzle categories, all equally as compelling, bar possibly one.

Some focus on certain genres such as action, horror, comedy or chick flicks. Others provide lines of dialogue and require you to guess what film is being quoted. All the puzzles offer multiple choice answers which is much more convenient than having to type the answer. All the puzzles offer a nice variety of trivia so you never feel stuck with the same puzzle type.

The only one that feels a little weaker than others is the DVD Chapters game whereby you figure out what film is being discussed through the names of its DVD chapters. Maybe it was just because I was terrible at it, but I just didn’t enjoy it as much as the others. It felt all too random to guess what the answer could be.

Each game is divided into five rounds of five puzzles each. Get an answer wrong and you lose one of your cat’s nine lives. On Medium or Hard, you lose more cats for each incorrect answer. At the end of the five rounds, you’re given a Cat Scene to complete. This is where the cat in the title makes the most sense. An image is displayed of a few colourful cats imitating a famous scene from a film. It’s charming and fun to be able to collect all the scenes. Some of them are harder than you’d think, too. Each game doesn’t take long to complete, which makes it ideal for a quick play during your daily commute, or simply because it’s so much fun.

I played MovieCat! for a good 5-6 hours before I noticed any repeated questions in the line up. Even then, it was only the odd question here or there, and there were still plenty of new questions to answer. When you do eventually run out of questions, there’s also an additional puzzle pack that can be purchased.

If you like movies, this really is an unmissable purchase. I haven’t had this much fun with a trivia game for a long time. The cutesy cats only help matters.

[ MovieCat! review is a post from 148Apps ]


Seed 2 – Vortex of War Review

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Seed 2 – Vortex of War Review is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

Developer: Chillingo
Price: $3.99
Version Reviewed: 1.0

Graphics / Sound Rating: 3.4 out of 5 stars
Game Controls Rating: 1.25 out of 5 stars
Gameplay Rating: 4.1 out of 5 stars
Re-use / Replay Value Rating: 4.1 out of 5 stars

Overall Rating: 3.21 out of 5 stars

It’s madness! Madness I tell you!

Here is the short tale of my go-around with Seed 2. I started the game early in the morning, thinking that I could get pretty far in a few hours. Since Seed 2 is a longer looking RPG, I blocked out a good portion of time for it.

The first thing I noticed upon launch (besides the muddy graphics), and this was almost a deal-breaker for me, was the awful control system. For the most part, I’ve gotten over my whole virtual joystick issue. I don’t love it, but in some instances I’ve learned to like it. Seed 2 is not one of those instances.

Technically, Seed 2 doesn’t have a virtual stick at all, and instead has a virtual D-Pad. But unlike most of the newer D-Pad’s I’ve used in games, this D-Pad gives you no leeway for your thumb. In the heat of a battle, you’d better be darn precise with your fingers, basically without looking, or you’re toast. I trudged on like a good reviewer, but this did become an issue later.

The game’s story is much like any RPG story. You know: you are a guy who basically has to save the world. There are factions fighting each other, some kind of civil war, and there is a super evil that might swoop down to torment everyone. Basically, if you often find yourself sucked in by RPG stories, this one will do the trick. The dialogue definitely wasn’t written by a Pulitzer Prize winner, but what RPG dialogue is?

So I went on a few quests, got a couple of level ups, and put on some cool items. I was mentally into the game, prepared to play it in its entirety. I finally got to the second town — or was it the third — and was given a quest to find a bunch of “pendants of dexterity.” So I head north and start clumsily killing things. I’m not typically a clumsy guy in video games, but these controls would bring the best to their knees.

I kill the first snake thing and get a pendant. Well, I tried to get the pendant. See, in Seed 2, to pick up an item you have to stand on top of it, like right on the very pixel that it stands, and then hit the fire button. In a fight though, enemies will get in your way, and if you aren’t directly on top of the item, you’ll just use your weapon instead. The hurdle that I couldn’t quite get over is that if you don’t pick up the item within maybe 10 seconds, it vanishes. More than once I found items after I’d killed every enemy and had it vanish before I could find the exact place that the game wanted me to stand on to pick it up.

Past my item debacle, I charged on like a mad cow as best I could (due to the awful controls) to try to get to a shiny thing. You see, I like shiny things in video games, so I didn’t just walk, I ran towards it. On the way, without knowing, I bumped into some trees and they came to life to kill me. I got pretty beat up, so I used a health pack real quick, but before I knew it I was surrounded and had no chance. I died, which is a pity, really.

I figured, “oh well, I’ll just load up my autosave.” Wait for it… there is no autosave.

“WTF!!! Was this game made in 1988!?!?!?!”

My iPhone has a built in 16GB hard drive that is instantly accessible by any game out there. Save files don’t have to save onto a cartridge a la Final Fantasy 1 on the NES, they just plop a tiny file onto the massive sea of hard drive space that I have. At no point does the game say, “Alert. This game was developed and brought to the future via time machine, so we don’t have an autosave. Please excuse our blunder.” No, it just lets you go on your merry way, only to lose all that you have played.

I’m pretty angry.

To sum it up, if you love, and by love I mean LOVE RPG’s, you’ll probably find yourself wrapped up in the world of Seed 2. If it were the only RPG on the iPhone, I would probably give it a slightly better review, but compared to the rest of the field it really takes a beating. The graphics, the controls, and the menu UI are all below average, and the lack of an autosave really makes my blood boil.

[ Seed 2 – Vortex of War Review is a post from 148Apps ]


Buganoids Review

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Buganoids Review is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

Developer: Backflip Studios
Price: Free, with $0.99 In-App Purchase to Remove Ads
Version Reviewed: 1.0
Device Reviewed On: iPhone 3G, iPad

Graphics / Sound Rating: 4.2 out of 5 stars
Game Controls Rating: 4.15 out of 5 stars
Gameplay Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars
Replay Value Rating: 4.1 out of 5 stars

Overall Rating: 4.18 out of 5 stars

Backflip Studios have taken this summer to experiment with the freemium model for their games – offering them for free download with $0.99 in-app purchases to remove banner ads. Their final summer release in this series of freemium games is Buganoids. The game is inspired, visually and gameplay-wise, by 1980s arcade games, by having you running around a circular planet shooting at bug enemies that spawn from the center of the planet. This means that you have to get used to running around the planet to get to where you can get a proper shot off, and to try to keep enemies from getting to the planet’s surface where they can charge at you and take you down.

Buganoids is quite fun, and nails the retro arcade experience perfectly. Maybe the best thing that can be said about Buganoids is how authentic it feels – if this game was released 25-30 years ago, there would be games we’d be playing today that were influenced by this. It nails all of the other conventions – powerups, bonus enemies, the 8-bit graphics. While Buganoids is not a universal app, the game does come in iPhone and iPad flavors, and syncs up your high scores between both versions via OpenFeint.

Buganoids suffers from the same problem that most games in a circular playing field do: aiming is a pain. Angles are difficult to figure out, and it can be a pain to figure out the aiming line on a moving enemy. It’s part of why games with circular playing fields never really took off – it’s hard to escape that awkward feeling of firing on a circular playing field. It’s part of why Galaga is much beloved to this day, and a game like Gyruss is far less remembered. Circular playing fields just aren’t as natural, and that awkwardness does permeate through Buganoids at times. As well, due to the game being split into two separate versions, you have to pay to remove ads on both your iPad and iPhone/iPod touch separately.

Buganoids, much like the other freemium Backflip releases this summer, is well worth a download, and it isn’t a huge fee to remove the ads. Pick up Buganoids if you like 80’s arcade games, and want to play something that feels like it was recently dug out of a box somewhere and ported to iOS.

FREE!

Buganoids HD

iPad Only App – Designed for the iPad
Released: 2010-09-16 :: Category: Games / Arcade

[ Buganoids Review is a post from 148Apps ]