Dacvak
No one shall be brought before our LORD David Bowie without the true and secret knowledge of the Photoshop. For in that time, so shall He appear.
::The iPhone and iPod Touch Games and Apps Thread of Impressions::
Currently we have a general App Store thread for discussion about new games and apps that have come out, but for many of us, it's way too tough to sift through the 30+ pages to find information about must-have titles. This thread is dedicated to the recommendation, review, and discussion of any and all apps and games and will be continually updated as new stuff hits the App Store. I'm going to do short, mini-reviews for each of the apps I currently own and give my own personal X/10 rating, and I hope that anyone who visits this thread will be inclined to do the same. Anytime someone gives a review for a particular game, it will be added to this original post. Anyway, let's begin!
X-Plane - Game - 9.5/10 - A simply phenomenal flight simulator. The controls are responsive and accurate, the graphics are the best on the iPhone, and with the new updates, there are plenty of options to customize your flight. If you like flight sims, BUY THIS GAME.
WinAdmin - App - 9.5/10 - Even at $12, it's an absolutely fantastic Remote Desktop utility for the iPhone. This is the reason to own an iPhone, in my opinion. It's your own person desktop in the palm of your hands at any time. It even works pretty decent on the Edge network. It runs smooth, has great zooming, easy keyboard, Ctrl-Alt-Delete, and good mouse controls. No complaints at all. It's a must own for anyone who has a need or desire to access their desktop at will. Absolutely must-have.
Galcon - Game - 9/10 - Fucking awesome online multiplayer fast-paced strategy game. It's like Risk, only each game lasts about 3 minutes instead of 3 hours.
Fieldrunners - Game - 9/10 - This is an awesome Tower Defense game. Instead of having a set path the enemies travel along, they free-roam and avoid your weapons that you set up. You can guide them around and make your own level this way. It's a lot of fun, but once beaten completely, gets kind of old.
AdrPool - Game - 8.5/10 - It's billiards action with ONLINE PLAY and full chat! It's about as good as any other top-down pool game you've ever played before. There are a few different modes. It's worth a purchase.
Enigmo - Game - 8.5/10 - This is a sweet little puzzle game. It reminds me of The Incredible Machine. Also tough to explain. YouTube it.
Scrabble - Game - 8.5/10 - It's a scrabble port, and a good one at that. It's got great controls and variant levels of difficulty. No online play, though.
BeatMaker - Misc - 8.5/10 - A sweet sequencer program. Tons of sound samples. It's a really robust program, but it's a bit expensive. It's not for the average user.
BeejiveIM - App - 8.5/10 - The best mobile IM application. I use it for AIM. It keeps logs, allows for landscape typing, but most importantly has an absolutely phenomenal GUI. If you do a lot of mobile IMing, it's worth the steep price tag.
Bubble Bash - Game - 8/10 - It's Puzzle Bobble. It's got a great presentation and makes terrific use of the touch screen, allowing multiple ways to control the game. Great colors, fun music. It's a good buy.
AquaForest - Game - 8/10 - I love this app. It's a mini physics sandbox with water, fire, and other various objects. The only downside is it suffers from tremendous slowdown with a lot on the screen.
Topple - Game - 8/10 - This is a super addictive physics-based puzzle game. Various objects of different geometric shapes fall from the sky, and using the touch-based controls, you have to stack them as high as you can without having the entire structure topple over.
Cubie - Game - 8/10 - A fantastic Rubik's Cube clone that uses swipe and multitouch gestures perfectly. You know, if you like Rubik's Cubes.
Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man - Games - 8/10 Pac-Man is a must have on any phone, and this is a port of a actual arcade version. There are three types of controls, but "swipe" is where it's at. This really is a fantastic Pac-Man port and totally worth the money.
Tetris - Game - 8/10 - It's Tetris by the Tetris Company. Meh. Could be better, could be worse. But Tetris is almost a necessity on any phone, and this is the best one on the iPhone. (Yeah, slightly better than Tris, or whatever it was called.)
Guitar Rock Tour - Game - 8/10 - A blatant Guitar Hero/Rock Band ripoff. The presentation is phenomenal, and all the tracks are master recordings (I think.) The note charts are pretty good, but the drums are kinda weak. This game does suffer from some input lag issues and crashes pretty easily. Play it in airplane mode to reduce lag and crashes. Still, it's pretty fun, and a bit better than Tap Tap Revenge.
Toy Bot Diaries - Game - 8/10 - This is a decent platformer with some nice controls. It's slow-moving and is heavily puzzle-based. Check it out on YouTube to see what I mean.
Labyrinth (Full Version) - Game - 8/10 - This is an awesome marble game, just like the classic wooden labyrinth puzzles you played with as a kid. The full version has hundreds of maps, and a crazy range of difficulty. I love this app.
Tap Tap Revenge NIN Edition - Game - 8/10 - The note charts aren't too bad. It can get laggy, though. There are only 5 songs on Expert level, which is a bummer because the game is really easy. Not worth 10 bucks unless you're a NIN fan.
Bloom - Misc - 8/10 - This is a simple little music-ish program... You tap the screen and it makes colors and sounds, lol. It reminds me of Electroplankton. It's tough to explain, but it'll keep you busy for a little while.
Google Earth - App - 8/10 - It's just like the PC version, only laggy. Still, awesome.
Neverputt - Game - 7.5/10 - This is a pretty fun mini golf game. Decent controls, but only 18 holes. I really wish they would add more, because I've played the original 18 about 20 times.
Line Rider - Game - 7.5/10 - Straight-up, it's Line Rider on the iPhone. It's really fun and straightforward, but drawing the lines with your finger can be pretty inaccurate. Not a bad port, but it suffers a bit due to the controls.
Asphalt4 - Game - 7.5/10 - It's a terrific looking game with decent touch screen controls. Simply awesome iPhone graphics. The controls aren't terrible, but no racing game on the iPhone has got them down perfectly, yet. I suppose it's probably the best racer on the iPhone so far, but nothing incredible.
Cro Mag - Game - 7.5/10 - It's a cheap and fun racing game. Nothing fantastic, but it's not expensive. Think Mario Kart if it was stripped of all its fanciness.
Big Bang Board Games - Game - 7.5/10 - Connect 4, Chess, Checkers, Reversi, Backgammon, and more. No multiplayer, though.
Dial Zero - App - 7.5/10 - This is a nifty app which catalogs all of the toll-free phone numbers to major businesses and gives instructions with each number on how to instantly reach an operator or customer service agent.
Dic-tion-ar-y - App - 7.5/10 - A full-fledged dictionary. It even has a voice option that speaks the word for you. "Motherfucker" is a particularly funny one in the middle of class.
iTap - App - 7.5/10 - iTap turns your iPhone into a Macbook touch pad for your PC. It uses all the same swipes and stuff. A triple-finger swipe brings up a keyboard which has a few extra useful keys, like Esc and the arrows.
Monkey Ball - Game - 7/10 - Nice graphics, great sound, awesome level design, fucking awful controls. By far the worst controls of a Monkey Ball yet, even compared against the GBA version. Still, if you can get used to them (somehow), it's really, really fun.
Kroll - Game - 7/10 - It's a fun little 2-D side-scroller beat-em-up game. I got bored pretty quickly and haven't spent much time with it.
MotoChaser - Game - 7/10 - Another racing game, this time on motocross bikes. I haven't played a lot with this, but I remember it being... like the other racing games.
iPint - Game - 7/10 - The best "beer" app. It's no longer available in the US, though. It's free, and fluid. (No pun intended.) Much better than that other shitty one. Even though these are the types of apps killing the App Store, they're still fun at parties and impressing non-iPhone owners.
Missile Command - Game - 7/10 - This is both a classic and modern version of Missile Command. My only gripe is that it's tough to be pixel-accurate using your finger on the touch screen. Also, the new "modern" mode is kinda weak. Old-school is where it's at.
Piano - Misc - 7/10 - If you play piano and want a piano on your iPhone, this is probably your best bet. Multitouch up to 5 different notes, but it only displays one octave at a time.
PocketGuitar - Misc - 7/10 - The best guitar app available. Control each individual string, then strum your chord. Don't expect to make real music out of this, but it is fun to mess around in.
i.TV - App - 7/10 - See what's on TV. This is a full TV guide. Kind of a slow-moving GUI. It's pretty informative, though.
Pinball RC - Game - 6.5/10 - An average pinball game.
rRootage - Game - 6.5/10 - It's a vertical shooter with automatic shooting. Not really challenging, nor is it all that fun. Touch-screen shooters rarely are.
Pyro Mania! - Misc - 6.5/10 - Like BLOOM, this app lets you tap random parts of the screen, only instead of random sounds, it's firework explosions. It's fun to mess around in and draw little paths for rockets to travel around on.
MazeFinger - Game - 6/10 - Visually, it's pretty nice. Basically, you just drag your finger across a maze on screen and try to get to the end before your timer runs out. It was pretty awesome for like 5 minutes, then got super boring.
iChoose - Misc - 6/10 - A coin flip app for your iPhone. I actually use this all the damn time because I'm a pretty indecisive person, and I always trust the coin. For most people, though, it'd be pretty dumb.
Guitar - Misc - 6/10 - A guitar app. It's different in the sense that there are preset chords instead of holding down individual strings. Meh.
Band - Misc - 6/10 - It's fun for dicking around. A simple program that has a fun drum pad, drum machine, shitty bass, piano, and a 12-bar blues thing.
TV Forcast - App - 6/10 - If you're like me and only watch a few different TV shows, this app tells you exactly when they're on and if it's a new episodes. A nice looking GUI, and good for its purposes.
Fake Call - Misc - 6/10 - A cheap application that makes your phone appear like you're receiving a call. It's useful for getting yourself out of a lame conversation with someone, or getting a quick laugh. (Like when Mark Summers decided to call me.)
Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? - Game - 5/10 - Not if you bought this app.
Level - Misc - 5/10 - This is a level for your phone. It has calibration, but I can't honestly ever see myself finding a true use for this besides showing my technologically-gimped dad how my iPhone can be a sweet tool.
CameraBag - App - 5/10 - Allows you to change your photos and give them different looks, like an old 50's black and white look, or infrared look. It's pretty dumb.
Big Oven - App - 5/10 - A robust cook book for your iPhone. A pretty shitty GUI, though. And it searches everything online, so you might as well just hit up food.com instead.
Tunnels - Game - 4/10 - A dumb little "follow the path" game. I think it was free, though.
More Cowbell - Misc - 4/10 - A dumb little app that turns your iPhone into a cowbell. The only reason I keep this on my phone is because when I went to Applebee's once with some friends, Don't Fear The Reaper came on and comedy gold was created.
iChalky - Misc - 3/10 - This app is so stupid. A little stick figure bounces around on your screen. You can sort of drag him around, but it never really does what you want it do. Even the ability to put the face of my fat friend Dean on it and recklessly shake my iPhone around didn't help the cause.
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Additional/New Reviews:
Live Poker - Game - 9/10 - Free online poker game that has a large established community as it is a featured game on myspace and facebook. Don't waste your money with Apple's Texas Hold'Em.
Lux Touch - Game - 9/10 - It's a port of an excellent Risk clone. What more could a Risk fan ask for?
last.fm - App - 9/10 - Awesome streaming radio and scrobbling application by last.fm itself. You can listen to streaming music using your data plan wherever there's cell phone coverage. Great for people like me who can't access Pandora. Only problem is that it is prone to crashing due to what I assume are crappy 3G networks. Doesn't work well with backgrounder + Safari on a jailbroken phone, but that's more due to the iPhone's limitations. Free.
Shazam (iPhone only) - App - 9/10 - [price: free]: Ever listen to a song on the radio and wonder what it was? Well this app is for you! Simply press "tag now", and the iPhone will listen to a sample (20 seconds or so), and query a server to determine what song it is. If the query is successfull, it will give you loads of information, like: Artist, Song, Album, Genre, Label, as well as possible YouTube and iTunes-Store links. It will keep a time-stamped record of all the songs you've tagged. It's a great utility for tagging songs that peak your interest. It doesn't work all the time, but it's success rate is pretty good. Very impressive application, and an absolute must have if you have a data plan to access this feature anywhere.
Tweetsville - App - 9/10 - New twitter client that costs less than twitteriffic and has some cool features like advanced search, trends, and the ability to see an uninterrupted tweet history of the people you follow. 4 bucks
1password - App - 9/10 - If you have the mac app, you should definitely dl this. keeps all your web passwords, wallet items, personal info in a secure package. syncs to the desktop app. free for now.
Ocarina - Misc - 9/10 - This is a fantastic, innovative musical toy for the iPhone. Like the Ocarina you saw for sale 400 hundred times per Nintendo Power issue, this one has four keys that you can hold down for different pitches. You can even customize it. As an added bonus, they include a world map and allow you to hear what everyone else is playing around the globe.
Touch Physics - Game - 8.5/10 - iPhysics-esque game that has great presentation and ease of use. Very fun, and gets challenging later on.
Spore: Origins - Game - 8.5/10 - Great mini-spore "snake-esque" game that focuses on the evolution stage of Spore. You can take a picture of ANYTHING and skin it to your creature, and the part options are pretty awesome. Plus you look totally cool tilting your iPhone to control your creature. And it's not just eating creatures, there's levels you swim through too.
Phit - Game - 8/10 - A fun tangram-meets-tetris type of puzzle game. Using the touch controls, you must fill the entire space on the bottom of the screen with the given blocks. Addictive and challenging.
Trace - Game - 8/10 - It reminds me of Kirby Canvas Curse, which is a great thing in my book. You need to get from point A to point B by drawing lines.
Kitten Jump - Game - 8/10 - A simple but addictive game where you control the kitten and make it continually jump on the clouds. See how high you can get!
GW Chef & GW Octopus - Games - 8/10 - Very good ports of the originals.
OmniTuner - App - 8/10 - A must have for a musician. You can tune guitars, mandolins, banjos and more.
Weathereye - App - 8/10 - The best weather app I've used and it's free (ad supported). You can add lots of cities, has buttons for current, short and long term forecasts. very slick.
Moviestar - App - 8/10 - The IMDb search app I had been waiting for. Very handy for those "who was that guy in that thing" moments. free
Neogaf webapp. 9/10 click this link. use it. love it. bow before ckohler.
LED Football -Game - 7.5/10 Classic feel of the handheld, but I do miss the hard, clicking buttons.
LED B-Ball - Game - 7.5/10 same as above.
Bix - Game - 7.5/10 - A good Qix clone. Only your "cursor" is automatically moving, which makes it slightly less precise. Still, the swipe controls work great.
Pinch n Pop - Game - 6/10 - Good game, the last update seems to have helped out people with big fingers (like me).
Firetail - Game - 6/10 - An ok Qix clone, controlled by tilting the ipod/phone.
De blob - Game - 6/10 - Good game, uses the top-down look. if you can get it for $4 or less, I say go for it.
Newtonica - Game - 6/10 - Ex-Skip Kenichi Nishi is the brains behind this simple ditty. Again this was a cheap one (500 yen), and it shows, but it's surprisingly addictive and has a great soundtrack by Kenji Eno.
Spin - Game - 5/10 I bought this game because of the Jonne Valtonen "soundtrack". It was only 500 yen. It's a simple puzzle game where you can spin a 3D shape in any axis, and you have to make its 2D appearance match a silhouette on the screen. It gets quite tricky when the time limit becomes shorter. Unfortunately the music isn't as good as I had thought from the trailer, and it is a very short loop, but it's still a decent game, for the price
Star Trigon - Game - 5/10 - This is that Namco game which has the same characters as the Mr.Driller series, but is controlled by a single button. You spin around planets, and hit the button to leave orbit and fly off in a line towards the next planet. The idea is to form triangles and save your friends. It started life as an arcade game and has never seen a home port until now. For that reason alone, it's worth checking out. But honestly, it's not a very good version, and the game wasn't amazing to begin with. It could do with just a tiny more polish.
-------------I'm going to add all the new ones below this line now--------------
Bike or Die 2 - Game - 7/10 - Addictive qualities and high difficulty. Ride your bike either left or right and use physics to your advantage in order to collect objects across the 2D map.
Powerboat - Game - 7.5/10 - Think Wave Race or Hydrooooo Thunder! Decent controls, and fancy iPhone graphics. It's not bad, but it's certainly not as good as the aforementioned water jet games.
Price Is Right - Game - 9/10 - It's the fucking Price Is Right! Period! You can go through using a 3 strike mode, or you can play just like any regular contestant as if you were really on the show. It uses the real announcer voice guy, and videos for hundreds of different items. Local multiplayer on one iPhone, too. Buy this game, it's damn good.
Touchgrind - Game - 8.5/10 - This is a super innovative skateboarding title that literally turns your fingers into the skater. There's a very limited number of tricks you can do, and only one real skate park, but it's still a blast to kill some time with. Highly recommended for skateboarding game fans.
Snail Mail - Game - 7.5/10 - Control a little snail dude with your finger in a 3D rail-shooter-esque space, dodging shit and collecting mail. It's pretty addictive and has some decent visuals.
Trism - Game - 9/10 - the addiction factor, for me at least, is thru the roof. reminds me of Dialhex, where you try to get the colored hexagons grouped together. but instead of 6 pcs matching, you only need 3. at the same time, the game will throw you some obstacles, like locking a peice in place, and making one a bomb, so you need to get rid of it within 6 moves. also has acheivement trophies. You basically move the pieces by moving the lines along the hexagonal grid--drag the lines left to right, from top left to bottom right, from top right to bottom left, and vice versa. the pieces wrap around the board, and will bounce back into place if you cant get a match.
Currently we have a general App Store thread for discussion about new games and apps that have come out, but for many of us, it's way too tough to sift through the 30+ pages to find information about must-have titles. This thread is dedicated to the recommendation, review, and discussion of any and all apps and games and will be continually updated as new stuff hits the App Store. I'm going to do short, mini-reviews for each of the apps I currently own and give my own personal X/10 rating, and I hope that anyone who visits this thread will be inclined to do the same. Anytime someone gives a review for a particular game, it will be added to this original post. Anyway, let's begin!
X-Plane - Game - 9.5/10 - A simply phenomenal flight simulator. The controls are responsive and accurate, the graphics are the best on the iPhone, and with the new updates, there are plenty of options to customize your flight. If you like flight sims, BUY THIS GAME.
WinAdmin - App - 9.5/10 - Even at $12, it's an absolutely fantastic Remote Desktop utility for the iPhone. This is the reason to own an iPhone, in my opinion. It's your own person desktop in the palm of your hands at any time. It even works pretty decent on the Edge network. It runs smooth, has great zooming, easy keyboard, Ctrl-Alt-Delete, and good mouse controls. No complaints at all. It's a must own for anyone who has a need or desire to access their desktop at will. Absolutely must-have.
Galcon - Game - 9/10 - Fucking awesome online multiplayer fast-paced strategy game. It's like Risk, only each game lasts about 3 minutes instead of 3 hours.
Fieldrunners - Game - 9/10 - This is an awesome Tower Defense game. Instead of having a set path the enemies travel along, they free-roam and avoid your weapons that you set up. You can guide them around and make your own level this way. It's a lot of fun, but once beaten completely, gets kind of old.
AdrPool - Game - 8.5/10 - It's billiards action with ONLINE PLAY and full chat! It's about as good as any other top-down pool game you've ever played before. There are a few different modes. It's worth a purchase.
Enigmo - Game - 8.5/10 - This is a sweet little puzzle game. It reminds me of The Incredible Machine. Also tough to explain. YouTube it.
Scrabble - Game - 8.5/10 - It's a scrabble port, and a good one at that. It's got great controls and variant levels of difficulty. No online play, though.
BeatMaker - Misc - 8.5/10 - A sweet sequencer program. Tons of sound samples. It's a really robust program, but it's a bit expensive. It's not for the average user.
BeejiveIM - App - 8.5/10 - The best mobile IM application. I use it for AIM. It keeps logs, allows for landscape typing, but most importantly has an absolutely phenomenal GUI. If you do a lot of mobile IMing, it's worth the steep price tag.
Bubble Bash - Game - 8/10 - It's Puzzle Bobble. It's got a great presentation and makes terrific use of the touch screen, allowing multiple ways to control the game. Great colors, fun music. It's a good buy.
AquaForest - Game - 8/10 - I love this app. It's a mini physics sandbox with water, fire, and other various objects. The only downside is it suffers from tremendous slowdown with a lot on the screen.
Topple - Game - 8/10 - This is a super addictive physics-based puzzle game. Various objects of different geometric shapes fall from the sky, and using the touch-based controls, you have to stack them as high as you can without having the entire structure topple over.
Cubie - Game - 8/10 - A fantastic Rubik's Cube clone that uses swipe and multitouch gestures perfectly. You know, if you like Rubik's Cubes.
Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man - Games - 8/10 Pac-Man is a must have on any phone, and this is a port of a actual arcade version. There are three types of controls, but "swipe" is where it's at. This really is a fantastic Pac-Man port and totally worth the money.
Tetris - Game - 8/10 - It's Tetris by the Tetris Company. Meh. Could be better, could be worse. But Tetris is almost a necessity on any phone, and this is the best one on the iPhone. (Yeah, slightly better than Tris, or whatever it was called.)
Guitar Rock Tour - Game - 8/10 - A blatant Guitar Hero/Rock Band ripoff. The presentation is phenomenal, and all the tracks are master recordings (I think.) The note charts are pretty good, but the drums are kinda weak. This game does suffer from some input lag issues and crashes pretty easily. Play it in airplane mode to reduce lag and crashes. Still, it's pretty fun, and a bit better than Tap Tap Revenge.
Toy Bot Diaries - Game - 8/10 - This is a decent platformer with some nice controls. It's slow-moving and is heavily puzzle-based. Check it out on YouTube to see what I mean.
Labyrinth (Full Version) - Game - 8/10 - This is an awesome marble game, just like the classic wooden labyrinth puzzles you played with as a kid. The full version has hundreds of maps, and a crazy range of difficulty. I love this app.
Tap Tap Revenge NIN Edition - Game - 8/10 - The note charts aren't too bad. It can get laggy, though. There are only 5 songs on Expert level, which is a bummer because the game is really easy. Not worth 10 bucks unless you're a NIN fan.
Bloom - Misc - 8/10 - This is a simple little music-ish program... You tap the screen and it makes colors and sounds, lol. It reminds me of Electroplankton. It's tough to explain, but it'll keep you busy for a little while.
Google Earth - App - 8/10 - It's just like the PC version, only laggy. Still, awesome.
Neverputt - Game - 7.5/10 - This is a pretty fun mini golf game. Decent controls, but only 18 holes. I really wish they would add more, because I've played the original 18 about 20 times.
Line Rider - Game - 7.5/10 - Straight-up, it's Line Rider on the iPhone. It's really fun and straightforward, but drawing the lines with your finger can be pretty inaccurate. Not a bad port, but it suffers a bit due to the controls.
Asphalt4 - Game - 7.5/10 - It's a terrific looking game with decent touch screen controls. Simply awesome iPhone graphics. The controls aren't terrible, but no racing game on the iPhone has got them down perfectly, yet. I suppose it's probably the best racer on the iPhone so far, but nothing incredible.
Cro Mag - Game - 7.5/10 - It's a cheap and fun racing game. Nothing fantastic, but it's not expensive. Think Mario Kart if it was stripped of all its fanciness.
Big Bang Board Games - Game - 7.5/10 - Connect 4, Chess, Checkers, Reversi, Backgammon, and more. No multiplayer, though.
Dial Zero - App - 7.5/10 - This is a nifty app which catalogs all of the toll-free phone numbers to major businesses and gives instructions with each number on how to instantly reach an operator or customer service agent.
Dic-tion-ar-y - App - 7.5/10 - A full-fledged dictionary. It even has a voice option that speaks the word for you. "Motherfucker" is a particularly funny one in the middle of class.
iTap - App - 7.5/10 - iTap turns your iPhone into a Macbook touch pad for your PC. It uses all the same swipes and stuff. A triple-finger swipe brings up a keyboard which has a few extra useful keys, like Esc and the arrows.
Monkey Ball - Game - 7/10 - Nice graphics, great sound, awesome level design, fucking awful controls. By far the worst controls of a Monkey Ball yet, even compared against the GBA version. Still, if you can get used to them (somehow), it's really, really fun.
Kroll - Game - 7/10 - It's a fun little 2-D side-scroller beat-em-up game. I got bored pretty quickly and haven't spent much time with it.
MotoChaser - Game - 7/10 - Another racing game, this time on motocross bikes. I haven't played a lot with this, but I remember it being... like the other racing games.
iPint - Game - 7/10 - The best "beer" app. It's no longer available in the US, though. It's free, and fluid. (No pun intended.) Much better than that other shitty one. Even though these are the types of apps killing the App Store, they're still fun at parties and impressing non-iPhone owners.
Missile Command - Game - 7/10 - This is both a classic and modern version of Missile Command. My only gripe is that it's tough to be pixel-accurate using your finger on the touch screen. Also, the new "modern" mode is kinda weak. Old-school is where it's at.
Piano - Misc - 7/10 - If you play piano and want a piano on your iPhone, this is probably your best bet. Multitouch up to 5 different notes, but it only displays one octave at a time.
PocketGuitar - Misc - 7/10 - The best guitar app available. Control each individual string, then strum your chord. Don't expect to make real music out of this, but it is fun to mess around in.
i.TV - App - 7/10 - See what's on TV. This is a full TV guide. Kind of a slow-moving GUI. It's pretty informative, though.
Pinball RC - Game - 6.5/10 - An average pinball game.
rRootage - Game - 6.5/10 - It's a vertical shooter with automatic shooting. Not really challenging, nor is it all that fun. Touch-screen shooters rarely are.
Pyro Mania! - Misc - 6.5/10 - Like BLOOM, this app lets you tap random parts of the screen, only instead of random sounds, it's firework explosions. It's fun to mess around in and draw little paths for rockets to travel around on.
MazeFinger - Game - 6/10 - Visually, it's pretty nice. Basically, you just drag your finger across a maze on screen and try to get to the end before your timer runs out. It was pretty awesome for like 5 minutes, then got super boring.
iChoose - Misc - 6/10 - A coin flip app for your iPhone. I actually use this all the damn time because I'm a pretty indecisive person, and I always trust the coin. For most people, though, it'd be pretty dumb.
Guitar - Misc - 6/10 - A guitar app. It's different in the sense that there are preset chords instead of holding down individual strings. Meh.
Band - Misc - 6/10 - It's fun for dicking around. A simple program that has a fun drum pad, drum machine, shitty bass, piano, and a 12-bar blues thing.
TV Forcast - App - 6/10 - If you're like me and only watch a few different TV shows, this app tells you exactly when they're on and if it's a new episodes. A nice looking GUI, and good for its purposes.
Fake Call - Misc - 6/10 - A cheap application that makes your phone appear like you're receiving a call. It's useful for getting yourself out of a lame conversation with someone, or getting a quick laugh. (Like when Mark Summers decided to call me.)
Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? - Game - 5/10 - Not if you bought this app.
Level - Misc - 5/10 - This is a level for your phone. It has calibration, but I can't honestly ever see myself finding a true use for this besides showing my technologically-gimped dad how my iPhone can be a sweet tool.
CameraBag - App - 5/10 - Allows you to change your photos and give them different looks, like an old 50's black and white look, or infrared look. It's pretty dumb.
Big Oven - App - 5/10 - A robust cook book for your iPhone. A pretty shitty GUI, though. And it searches everything online, so you might as well just hit up food.com instead.
Tunnels - Game - 4/10 - A dumb little "follow the path" game. I think it was free, though.
More Cowbell - Misc - 4/10 - A dumb little app that turns your iPhone into a cowbell. The only reason I keep this on my phone is because when I went to Applebee's once with some friends, Don't Fear The Reaper came on and comedy gold was created.
iChalky - Misc - 3/10 - This app is so stupid. A little stick figure bounces around on your screen. You can sort of drag him around, but it never really does what you want it do. Even the ability to put the face of my fat friend Dean on it and recklessly shake my iPhone around didn't help the cause.
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Additional/New Reviews:
Live Poker - Game - 9/10 - Free online poker game that has a large established community as it is a featured game on myspace and facebook. Don't waste your money with Apple's Texas Hold'Em.
Lux Touch - Game - 9/10 - It's a port of an excellent Risk clone. What more could a Risk fan ask for?
last.fm - App - 9/10 - Awesome streaming radio and scrobbling application by last.fm itself. You can listen to streaming music using your data plan wherever there's cell phone coverage. Great for people like me who can't access Pandora. Only problem is that it is prone to crashing due to what I assume are crappy 3G networks. Doesn't work well with backgrounder + Safari on a jailbroken phone, but that's more due to the iPhone's limitations. Free.
Shazam (iPhone only) - App - 9/10 - [price: free]: Ever listen to a song on the radio and wonder what it was? Well this app is for you! Simply press "tag now", and the iPhone will listen to a sample (20 seconds or so), and query a server to determine what song it is. If the query is successfull, it will give you loads of information, like: Artist, Song, Album, Genre, Label, as well as possible YouTube and iTunes-Store links. It will keep a time-stamped record of all the songs you've tagged. It's a great utility for tagging songs that peak your interest. It doesn't work all the time, but it's success rate is pretty good. Very impressive application, and an absolute must have if you have a data plan to access this feature anywhere.
Tweetsville - App - 9/10 - New twitter client that costs less than twitteriffic and has some cool features like advanced search, trends, and the ability to see an uninterrupted tweet history of the people you follow. 4 bucks
1password - App - 9/10 - If you have the mac app, you should definitely dl this. keeps all your web passwords, wallet items, personal info in a secure package. syncs to the desktop app. free for now.
Ocarina - Misc - 9/10 - This is a fantastic, innovative musical toy for the iPhone. Like the Ocarina you saw for sale 400 hundred times per Nintendo Power issue, this one has four keys that you can hold down for different pitches. You can even customize it. As an added bonus, they include a world map and allow you to hear what everyone else is playing around the globe.
Touch Physics - Game - 8.5/10 - iPhysics-esque game that has great presentation and ease of use. Very fun, and gets challenging later on.
Spore: Origins - Game - 8.5/10 - Great mini-spore "snake-esque" game that focuses on the evolution stage of Spore. You can take a picture of ANYTHING and skin it to your creature, and the part options are pretty awesome. Plus you look totally cool tilting your iPhone to control your creature. And it's not just eating creatures, there's levels you swim through too.
Phit - Game - 8/10 - A fun tangram-meets-tetris type of puzzle game. Using the touch controls, you must fill the entire space on the bottom of the screen with the given blocks. Addictive and challenging.
Trace - Game - 8/10 - It reminds me of Kirby Canvas Curse, which is a great thing in my book. You need to get from point A to point B by drawing lines.
Kitten Jump - Game - 8/10 - A simple but addictive game where you control the kitten and make it continually jump on the clouds. See how high you can get!
GW Chef & GW Octopus - Games - 8/10 - Very good ports of the originals.
OmniTuner - App - 8/10 - A must have for a musician. You can tune guitars, mandolins, banjos and more.
Weathereye - App - 8/10 - The best weather app I've used and it's free (ad supported). You can add lots of cities, has buttons for current, short and long term forecasts. very slick.
Moviestar - App - 8/10 - The IMDb search app I had been waiting for. Very handy for those "who was that guy in that thing" moments. free
Neogaf webapp. 9/10 click this link. use it. love it. bow before ckohler.
LED Football -Game - 7.5/10 Classic feel of the handheld, but I do miss the hard, clicking buttons.
LED B-Ball - Game - 7.5/10 same as above.
Bix - Game - 7.5/10 - A good Qix clone. Only your "cursor" is automatically moving, which makes it slightly less precise. Still, the swipe controls work great.
Pinch n Pop - Game - 6/10 - Good game, the last update seems to have helped out people with big fingers (like me).
Firetail - Game - 6/10 - An ok Qix clone, controlled by tilting the ipod/phone.
De blob - Game - 6/10 - Good game, uses the top-down look. if you can get it for $4 or less, I say go for it.
Newtonica - Game - 6/10 - Ex-Skip Kenichi Nishi is the brains behind this simple ditty. Again this was a cheap one (500 yen), and it shows, but it's surprisingly addictive and has a great soundtrack by Kenji Eno.
Spin - Game - 5/10 I bought this game because of the Jonne Valtonen "soundtrack". It was only 500 yen. It's a simple puzzle game where you can spin a 3D shape in any axis, and you have to make its 2D appearance match a silhouette on the screen. It gets quite tricky when the time limit becomes shorter. Unfortunately the music isn't as good as I had thought from the trailer, and it is a very short loop, but it's still a decent game, for the price
Star Trigon - Game - 5/10 - This is that Namco game which has the same characters as the Mr.Driller series, but is controlled by a single button. You spin around planets, and hit the button to leave orbit and fly off in a line towards the next planet. The idea is to form triangles and save your friends. It started life as an arcade game and has never seen a home port until now. For that reason alone, it's worth checking out. But honestly, it's not a very good version, and the game wasn't amazing to begin with. It could do with just a tiny more polish.
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Bike or Die 2 - Game - 7/10 - Addictive qualities and high difficulty. Ride your bike either left or right and use physics to your advantage in order to collect objects across the 2D map.
Powerboat - Game - 7.5/10 - Think Wave Race or Hydrooooo Thunder! Decent controls, and fancy iPhone graphics. It's not bad, but it's certainly not as good as the aforementioned water jet games.
Price Is Right - Game - 9/10 - It's the fucking Price Is Right! Period! You can go through using a 3 strike mode, or you can play just like any regular contestant as if you were really on the show. It uses the real announcer voice guy, and videos for hundreds of different items. Local multiplayer on one iPhone, too. Buy this game, it's damn good.
Touchgrind - Game - 8.5/10 - This is a super innovative skateboarding title that literally turns your fingers into the skater. There's a very limited number of tricks you can do, and only one real skate park, but it's still a blast to kill some time with. Highly recommended for skateboarding game fans.
Snail Mail - Game - 7.5/10 - Control a little snail dude with your finger in a 3D rail-shooter-esque space, dodging shit and collecting mail. It's pretty addictive and has some decent visuals.
Trism - Game - 9/10 - the addiction factor, for me at least, is thru the roof. reminds me of Dialhex, where you try to get the colored hexagons grouped together. but instead of 6 pcs matching, you only need 3. at the same time, the game will throw you some obstacles, like locking a peice in place, and making one a bomb, so you need to get rid of it within 6 moves. also has acheivement trophies. You basically move the pieces by moving the lines along the hexagonal grid--drag the lines left to right, from top left to bottom right, from top right to bottom left, and vice versa. the pieces wrap around the board, and will bounce back into place if you cant get a match.
