Best Iphone Apps Review

Fantasy Monster Pro Review is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

People ask each other all the time what time of year they like best. Some people say autumn, some say Christmas time, but I say fantasy football season. The months of August to December are, by far, the best months of the year because I get to destroy my fellow football friends in fantasy football.

Being a real gridiron guru is a demanding job with freak injuries and breakout performances happening at any given moment. We are often able to jump to our computers quickly to make a snap change, but sometimes we are out of the house (the horror!).

Fortunately, we have iPhones.

There are a handful of fantasy apps out there, but none that are quite as comprehensive as Fantasy Monster. Instead of being stuck on one service or another, FanMo supports Yahoo! and ESPN fantasy leagues (the two largest and in my opinion, best) at once. If you buy FanMo Pro instead of the football only version, you can pile up your fantasy baseball, basketball, and hockey teams too!

There’s really not much to the interface, as it is as straightforward as it gets. With the app, you can edit lineups, make trades, pick up free agents, use the league message boards, and check out your current game scores. Everything is set up with big buttons, and while it isn’t the prettiest thing in the world, it gets the job done.

If you are really lazy on any given week, the app will even auto set all of your lineups at once, or for any specific team you want. So don’t be that lazy manager who plays guys on bye weeks, pick up FanMo and win a league for a change.

[ Fantasy Monster Pro Review is a post from 148Apps ]

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‘2K Sports NHL 2K11′ Review – Finally a Great iOS Hockey Game is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

One of the most underrepresented sports on the App Store is ice hockey, which is perplexing as even if you aren't really a fan of the sport itself, hockey has historically made for a fun video game. Back in early April we finally got an attempt at a real ice hockey game for the iPhone, Hockey Nations 2010 [$3.99/Lite]. While it looked and controlled fairly decently, it was missing that intangible aspect that made it a fun game to play. In what was somewhat of a surprise release, seasoned sports game developer 2K Sports has brought NHL 2K11 [$1.99/Lite] to the iPhone. While not the prettiest game around, it's an absolute blast to play and features a full season mode, official NHL teams and players, and more options than you could ever possibly need in a portable hockey game.

NHL 2K11 controls similarly to Hockey Nations with an analog stick for player movement and three virtual buttons for performing actions. There are separate buttons for passing and shooting on offense, with the power of each determined by how long you hold the button down. On defense these same buttons serve to change players and perform checks. The third button gives your player a speed boost on offense or defense. Your actions can differ based on where you are in relation to other players allowing for simple poke checks or full blown body checks. Passing also works really well, letting you bounce the puck off the boards to a teammate or set up for a one-timer. The controls are really uncomplicated but still allow for depth and strategy.

What is really impressive about NHL 2K11 is the absurd amount of options at your disposal. There's typical game settings like difficulty, toggling penalties, choosing NHL or international style time and icing rules, and more. You can set line changes to automatic, manual, or turn them off completely. A ton of different camera angles and zoom options are available including locking the camera in place. A season mode lets you choose a team and play through an entire season in pursuit of the Stanley Cup. Rosters can be altered, saved, and loaded with or without a trade deadline and salary cap. What's in NHL 2K11 is comparable to what you would find in a full console sports title, and caters well whether you're looking for a casual hockey experience or something in-depth.

Even with all of the great features in NHL 2K11 it does have some shortcomings. Players are blocky and comprised of low resolution textures, which is pronounced when the game zooms in during replays. This isn't as noticeable with the default overhead camera in the game, but the tiny players are still pretty jagged, especially on the iPhone 4. While the visuals are not the best, they don't distract from the game too much as you can still tell what is going on, but they could stand to be better. The game description warns NHL 2K11 isn't compatible with first gen devices, but players in our forums have been able to run the game, just with a lowered framerate. You can always try the lite to see how it performs if you have an older device. Additionally, the AI in the game doesn't always make the smartest choices, and the audio portions of the game are lacking. Overall, NHL 2K11 has some “rough around the edges” spots, but overall none of these issues really diminish the fun of playing the game.

It wouldn't be hard for NHL 2K11 to claim the title of best ice hockey game on the iPhone, since the competition is sorely lacking. But it surprisingly goes above and beyond and offers a truly full-fledged NHL experience on a mobile platform. Even with such a robust experience, the game supports fast app switching and saving during season play which makes it well suited for on-the-go gaming. And on top of everything else, it's just incredibly fun to play. EA's NHL offerings have typically been favored over the 2K series on consoles, and it will be interesting to see if EA decides to throw their hat into the iPhone hockey arena. Until that time, however, 2K Sports NHL 2K11 is the clear cut choice for hockey on the iPhone.

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Gameloft Reveals ‘Real Golf 2011′ Trailer is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

The curious thing about the App Store is that while some areas are completely overloaded (I'm looking at you, puzzle section.) others are surprisingly barren. Aside from Tiger Woods PGA Tour [$4.99], Let's Golf [$4.99 / Free / HD] its sequel Let's Golf 2 [$4.99 / HD] and various mini golf games like Mini Golf Wacky Worlds [Free] or Tiki Golf 3D [99¢] there isn't a whole lot of really great golf games.

We don't know much about Real Golf 2011 yet, but according to Gameloft it will feature golfers such as Sergio Garcia, Natalie Gulbis and Anthony Kim along with "prestigious courses" from around the world. The following trailer was released today which shows a surprising amount of gameplay video compared to Gameloft's previous trailers:

Real Golf 2011 is scheduled for release in September, and as someone who enjoyed both Let's Golf and Let's Golf 2 quite a bit, I'm excited to give it a try.

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TrackBot is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

TrackBot is great app for recording your workouts. Wether you are running , skating or cycling, TrackBot will track your workouts.
TrackBot is IOS4 ready ,which means that it supports running in background, local notifications,etc.

Key features:

* Use your built-in GPS to track your workout!
* TrackBot runs in background so you can play your music, answer your phone and many more things that you couldn’t do before!
* Local notification will notify you if it runs for selected period of time in background, and if you covered certain distance.
* View your stats , like max speed , avg speed , workout time, and distance covered.
* View your workout history grouped by week.
* View interactive visualisation of you workout, where you can select points or sections of your workout!
* View your workout route on map, and selected parts of your workout.

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‘Madden NFL 11′ Review – GameFlow, Where Have You Been All My Life? is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

The Madden series hardly needs an introduction, as football player turned coach turned commentator John Madden has had his name on football games for the better part of 20 years now. On home consoles, it has become tradition for EA to release a new Madden game each year with updated rosters, a few new features, and other various tweaks. As of tonight, the second yearly installment of the Madden series has arrived for the iPhone.

Last year we took a close look at Madden NFL 10 and thought it was a really great football game for the iPhone. Madden '10 came loaded with all the licensed players, stadiums, logos, and everything else you'd expect of a Madden game along with game modes ranging from single exhibition games to full seasons. The two hip new features of Madden NFL 10 for the iPhone were hot routes allowing players to draw on the screen to control players, and "action control time" which switched the game to slow motion mode allowing for precise maneuvers with the virtual controls.

There wasn't much to complain about with last year's Madden, which really left me wondering what EA was going to include in this year's release to up the ante. The preview we got revealed substantial graphical upgrades including Retina Display support, but it wasn't until I got to spend more time with the game today that I realized just how much more fun the other new features made playing Madden NFL 11.

In the interest of full disclosure, I'm not a sports person by any means. I don't remember the last time I watched anything more than the Super Bowl on TV, and the only sporting events I've attended have been the result of friends with extra tickets. I play sports games, but generally gravitate towards arcade style sports games like Homerun Battle 3D [$4.99 / Free], or sports games that have RPG elements such as Baseball Superstars 2010 [$4.99 / Free].

I mention this because I generally never really got into a Madden game, or really any full football game. The weak link for me always came in choosing from an endless array of both offensive and defensive plays, with each yearly iteration of football game boasting even more plays to choose from. I don't know enough about the strategy of football plays to have ever felt like I was making a wise decision, and when it got down to it, play selection just always seemed like a needless interruption every few seconds while playing the game.

GameFlow changes all of this, and I really can't overstate how awesome a feature it actually is. Using some new AI algorithm likely designed by a team of people who know way more about football than I ever care to, Madden 11's GameFlow will intelligently chooses plays for you. It is absolutely insane how much this changes both the feel and the pace of the game. Using GameFlow, endless submenus of plays are a thing of the past. Instead, you just play football. The plays it selects work fairly well too, or at least, much better than my typical choice of plays which usually alternate between the hail mary and the fake field goal kick– both favorites of mine.

What's also shocking is how much this actually speeds up playing the game. You can tap the screen to skip through the extra animations, victory dances, and other junk and play through a whole football game in what barely seems like any time at all. Of course, if you are the kind of person who knows exactly what every play does, all you have to do is flip GameFlow to off and you have complete control of each and every play.

The hot routes functionality from last year has been expanded, and at any point during the game you can pause the action and draw paths for your players. If you're playing offense and do this, you can save those routes as an audible, or if you're playing defense you can just send your players wherever you want. The whole system works very well, and by drawing lines you can send dispatch players to man to man duty, follow the ball, or really anything else. This really makes defense a lot more fun because you can now actually sensibly direct your team around instead of just tabbing in between players and chasing after whoever has the ball. Check out my top secret LOL offense:

As mentioned already, the graphics of Madden NFL 11 look fantastic. The stadium crowd has actual depth now, and they even wave around signs for the home team. The included weather effects look good, and overall it seems like all the player models and animations are more detailed. Every texture in game also seems to have been substantially improved, making going back and forth between 10 and 11 seem fairly drastic.

Madden 11 also is host to some other noticeable tweaks over last year's as well such as controls that feel a little better and a spruced up interface. There's an in-game store which currently is home to a free roster update, but seems like it might be used for future DLC . Finally, Madden NFL 11 behaves beautifully as an iPhone game, gracefully saving your game and resuming quickly when you load it again.

Like last year, the inevitable comparison between Gameloft's NFL 11 [$6.99] and Madden NFL 11 will likely take place in our forums for months to come, but in my opinion, Madden wins by a landslide. Gameloft's offering seems to run at a higher frame rate, but Madden looks better overall– rspecially when it comes to how the crowd and stadiums are rendered. Madden NFL 11 has local bluetooth multiplayer while NFL 11 is single player only, and the commentary in Madden seems less repetitive than Gameloft's. Where Madden really wins though is in the extra features. With how much I've fallen in love with GameFlow I can hardly bring myself to deal with NFL 11's play selection, and Madden's total defensive control makes playing defense in NFL 11 flat out boring in comparison.

At the end of the day, people who like Madden games likely don't need this review, or anything more than the iTunes link to download the game for that matter. Who I really expect to sway into checking out Madden NFL 11 are the casual sports fans, or people like me, who are vaguely interested in sports games but found the various technicalities of football games to generally be annoying. GameFlow fixes all this, and I can hardly believe that I spent the majority of my day today playing Madden 11 on my iPhone– not because I was trying to power through it to write a review, but because I was actually really enjoying a football game for the first time since Mutant League Football on the Sega Genesis.

The iPad and iPhone versions are essentially the same aside from the price difference and UI tweaks to make the controls more comfortable for playing on the iPad. The iPhone version is workable with pixel doubling, and the only thing you're really going to be missing out on is the upcoming "Vintage Voltage Football" mode which is basically just Super Shock Football [$1.99 / Free] with Madden graphics.

International App Store Link: Madden NFL 11

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iPhone App Review: GolfMoolah is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

Acey Deucey. Bingo, Bango, Bongo. The Snake. If any of these phrases mean something to you (with the caveat that it has something to do with golf), then you may be in need of GolfMoolah.

GolfMoolah takes golf scoring apps deeper into your pocketbook by tracking not just the strokes, but also the results of any number of different side games you may have going on the round. Suffice it to say that none of this makes any sense then this may not be the app for you.

Features

Pros

The app is designed well, leading you from the first screen step by step through the necessary details to create a round of golf. You can start off by simply creating a new round, then select a course, then add players. You are finally presented with the standard golf scorecard, at which point  you can select the side games you would like to play.

Keeping score is accomplished by simply tapping on the hole and entering the score for each player, just as easy as you would expect. The app tracks the information given and applies it to each game as appropriate, taking the bookkeeping out of your hands so you can focus on the game.

One nice feature I noticed is that you can even have different player and team configurations within the same round of golf. For instance, in Bingo Bango Bongo you are all playing solo, but in Las Vegas you play on teams of two. You can then even have a game of Skins in which only two of the foursome participate. I can only imagine what a nightmare that would be to keep track of with pencil and paper or a standard scoring app, but GolfMoolah handles it with ease.

The scorecard also has a nice option to view the holes by score or by money, letting you see at a glance who is ahead in the score that really counts.

Cons

Overall

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Gameloft Beats This Year’s Madden to the App Store with NFL 2011 is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

After being the first publisher to launch an NFL-licensed football sim in the App Store last year, Gameloft has upgraded its flagship sports franchise in advance of any updated offerings from rival EA Sports.

NFL 2011 ($6.99) features over 2,000 players from all 32 official NFL teams, and boasts an improved graphics engine with motion-captured player animations.

Gameloft has additionally beefed up the AI, ensuring tougher opponents and smarter decisions among computer-controlled teammates. Accelerometer-controlled speed boosts have also been added to this year’s game, and the included playbook has been expanded with more than 200 plays and a new play editor.

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Real Tennis HD Review is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

Gameloft’s Real Tennis HD for the iPad proves the adage that good looks aren’t enough to make a game a satisfying experience. Presenting itself as an arcade style tennis game, Real Tennis HD looks and sounds great and has plenty of options and game modes, but fails miserably when it comes to gameplay.

If you’ve ever played a tennis game on a console system (other than the unique experience of the Wii, of course), you’ll see many familiar elements in Real Tennis HD. The game looks similar to Sega’s Virtua Tennis or Microsoft’s Top Spin, though not nearly as refined or polished. All of the modes are nearly identical to its console kin: exhibition, instant play, championship, tournament and even online multiplayer. From a features standpoint, there’s no arguing that Real Tennis is competitive with much more expensive games.

Where the game fails, however, is in its controls – the one feature that a tennis game really needs to nail. After all, even tennis games on graphically crude systems like the Atari 2600 could thrive because of decent controls. While I’ve often railed that the virtual control pad many developers use on iPad and iPhone games is a poor design choice, here it is purely disastrous. Serving is no issue – merely move your player using the virtual control pad, then tap the serve button once to toss the ball in the air, and once to serve it. Everything after the serve, however, is an exercise in futility.

When your opponent returns your serve, you are given a small “x” on the court to denote where the ball will hit, but moving your player to the exact spot where he/she can effectively return the ball is next to impossible. Thus, you will spend most of your time while playing Real Tennis HD screaming at the screen as your inept virtual tennis player stumbles madly around the court, vainly attempting to return serves or even hit the ball at all.

It’s the reliance on console-style controls that ultimately proves the undoing of games such as this. Since the iPad features an amazingly responsive touch screen, why not simply touch the location on the court where you want your player to return a serve or lob a ball? A little multi-touch could go a long way here.

Real Tennis HD does have a low price of $4.99, but even that doesn’t excuse its poor execution. Gameloft can release much better games than this.

[ Real Tennis HD Review is a post from 148Apps ]

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