Pocket Ant App Review

You are now the King or Queen of all the ants in the colony, it’s up to you whether they live or die. With the power of wind, rain, rocks, even lasers and more you will unleash your furry on all ants who cross your path.

Pocket Ant puts you in control of the ant hill. Your arsenal is pretty big and you have a large range of weapons including manmade and some mother nature made. You can attack the ants with fire, freeze gun, rain, rocks, land mines, firecrackers and more. I have to say I was surprised with all the “tools” you are given to play the game I did not expect so many options from a $0.99 game.

The point of this game is simple but a ton of fun, the controls worked great, the graphics were pretty darn good and the sounds matched up great with what was happening. The ants make a shrilling noise when the end has come for them. This app is suitable to be played by users of all ages and has great pick up and playability.

There is more to this game than just killing ants you must also keep track of love triangles, total number of ants, number of red ants vs black ants and the aggressiveness of the ants this can all be controlled within the control panel in the game. One great thing I always love to see is constant updates from developers and Concrete Software, Inc. has done a great job building the app up and adding new features. One of the newest features is the best, the rain storm with lighting is just to fun not to use every time I play the app plus the graphics and sounds of the storm are outstanding.

Pocket Ant comes recommended to anyone looking for fun game that can be played by anyone in the house or maybe somebody who just got bit by an ant and is in need of some revenge. Pocket Ant is currently $0.99 in the app store.

Rhapsody Offline Update!

Real’s Rhapsody iPhone app has had mixed reviews since its initial release last September. The companion app to the $15 monthly service requires a 3G or Wi-Fi signal to listen to any of the music, frustrating some users. Rhapsody’s development team has been hard at work on an offline play option to help remedy these woes, and now it looks as if the feature might finally be ready.

The company’s product team released a news brief on Monday along with a YouTube video showcasing the new version. Users can download songs over 3G or Wi-Fi by first creating a playlist on their device, then tapping on the new Save button that appears at the top of the list of music. Playlists with saved songs are highlighted in orange, while regular streamed playlists remain in black.

When the device’s network connection is unavailable, the app only displays downloaded songs and playlists, so as not to confuse listeners and the color of the menu bar even changes to let you know you’re offline.

Downloaded songs can be listened to and accessed from the device as long as the user is subscribed to Rhapsody’s service; once a user drops the subscription, the songs presumably become inoperative. Sadly, the new version isn’t yet available to the public, though Rhapsody’s planning on submitting it to the App Store “very soon.” Until it lands, users will have to be satisfied with the YouTube video and their existing app. Still, it’s nice to know the update is coming eventually.

Gibson App Review

There are countless guitar apps out there that offer some great tools for musicians on the go. Gibson Learn & Master Guitar is one of those applications that include a tuner, metronome and guitar chart, all in one nice package. This one even includes a few free video guitar lessons taught by the man who produced the Learn & Master Guitar course. Even though it seems like a big advertisement for Gibson and the lesson series, it’s still a free and useful tool for all guitarists.

The tuner is actually pretty accurate and there are two ways in which to tune your guitar. You can use the chromatic tuner, which will have the microphone listen to the pitch you play, showing how sharp or flat the note is. Or, you can use the simple tuner, which will play each string’s pitch through the iPhone’s speaker, and allow you to tune by ear. What’s really nice about this feature is that the pitch will automatically play four times so you have a few chances to get it right.

The metronome is very basic, offering only a few simple meters. You can choose to have the sound on or off. If the sound is off, the metronome will flash a bright light for each beat, so you can visualize the tempo.

The chord chart is useful, yet a bit disappointing at the same time.  Its nice, and clearly shows you how to play each chord, but it doesn’t actually play the chord so you can hear what it sounds like. Being a free app, you can’t complain too much, but it would still be nice to have that feature added in a future update.

The part that makes this app unique is the collection of free video guitar lessons that are available. There are eight free lessons that you can view from right inside the app and they are actually pretty lengthy. The beginning guitar lesson is forty-five minutes long! They are great lessons that move at a nice pace, and really do get you going on the basics of guitar. There are also intermediate and advanced lessons available. The top of the video selection screen is a big advertisement for the Learn & Master Guitar instructional series. If you want more lessons, you can tap on the ad to go check out the website and make the purchase. The app also includes a navigation button to visit the Gibson website to check out news and special articles.

Overall, the application is a great, free tool that any guitarist would appreciate having. Even though it’s not feature rich, it’s still nice to have. The user interface is intuitive and the graphics are surprisingly nice, making it look and feel like a paid application. It’s absolutely worth a try.

iPhone Street Fighter 4 Released

The wait is finally over and all you street fighter fans out there can finally start kicking butt on your iphone!

The Game Developer’s Conference is currently underway in San Francisco this week and during last night’s super secret Street Fighter event, Capcom pulled the switch and put Street Fighter IV onto the App Store.

Street Fighter IV will cost you $9.99 and feature 8 out of the 19 characters from the console versions.  A new ‘Dojo’ mode is also available on Street Fighter IV iPhone, which serves as a way for players to practice simple moves, to more advanced ones.  Multiplayer is possible as well via Bluetooth, so traveling street fighters can take on everybody no matter where they go.

This game is awesome and has some pretty cool graphics and responsive game play that all street fighter fans will enjoy!

Assassin’s Creed II For Free

The free price is only for the first 48 hours and it started today so if you are or aren’t into this game download it any way and check it out.  Its actually a pretty fun game.  You get to sneak around trying to assassinate other players, what could be funner than that.  Since it is free you and all your iPhone toting friends could all download it and have some pretty fun battles.

A multiplayer follow-up of sorts to last year’s Assassin’s Creed II: Discovery, Multiplayer features online multiplayer from a top-down perspective. Your goal is to find the appropriate hit contracts and defeat the corresponding assassins, which are controlled by other players.

Assassin’s Creed II: Multiplayer’s nominal price is $2.99, but it will remain free for the first 48 hours after its release. Even if you’re lukewarm on the concept, doesn’t seem like a bad idea to go and pick it up regardless. Check it out in the iTunes App Store.

Final Fantasy App Released

If you love classic NES game you will love the latest app available in the App store.  You can now relive the 8o’s iPhone style with the latest release from Square Enix.

Classic role-playing games Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy II have been released on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Publisher Square Enix announced both games are now available in Apple’s App Store for $8.99.  I wonder what the price of the original game of NES was back in the 80’s.

Both titles, which were originally released on the Nintendo Entertainment System in the late-1980s, include specially designed controls tailored to the iPhone and iPod Touch, as well as additional dungeons not featured in the original release.

So bring back memories and enjoy a few new adventures with these all time classic games that forever changed the face of gaming.  Make sure to check out the comments in the app store they are hilarious.  Some people claim to be so excited that they defecated in there pants while other now love their iPhone more than their children.

NASA Releases iPhone Game

NASA has released its first iPhone game, as the agency continues its relentless conquest of new media

Starting Monday, you can virtually drive a fictional Lunar Electric Rover on a future lunar outpost. The game is free and available through the iTunes store.

Noted for its use of Twitter and educational iPhone apps, NASA has been at the forefront of government engagement with new media of all types. This one grew out of the agency’s video podcast show, NASA Edge.

“We wanted to make this a cool game instead of an app where you just retrieve information,” said Chris Giersch, the host of NASA EDGE.

The game is very simple. As the game review site Krapps notes, the gameplay is a bit “Pacmanish.” Beyond driving around the rover, you can also see images from the proposed lunar outpost and learn more about what life on the Moon might be like.

For the first iteration, NASA decided not to go too extravagant. “We thought about going high-tech and going really jazzy, but for this first version, let’s just keep it basic,” Giersch said.

The Lunar Electric Rover in the game is based on a prototype tested at the Black Point Lava Flow in Arizona. It would have been part of a planned lunar outpost under the old NASA Constellation solar system exploration plan.

The game was developed by Analytical Mechanics Association at the NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.

Hour Face App Review

A disturbing new iPhone app called Hour Face is freaking out young and old… by making the young look old. Hour Face is an iPhone app created by Motion Portrait inc., a software firm located in Tokyo’s Shinagawa ward. The app utilizes some of the iPhone’s more advanced capabilities to turn the popular smartphone into a virtual time machine of sorts.

Unfortunately, Hour Face’s version of time travel only involves making your face look older… and older… and the process is so realistic that watching it can be quite distressing. Check out the following short video in which an unlucky female reporter for Japan’s NTV “Zoom In” morning show visits Motion Portrait’s head office to try out Hour Face. Check it out here :  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvITBdsBbUo&feature=player_embedded

Hour Face has enjoyed over 100,000 downloads in Japan alone and it costs 350 yen (about $3.90) there. It’s also available on this side of the pond for only $1.99 per download.

Zane Savage conducts a video review of Hour Face that points out some of the lesser known features. For example, once you age an image to the max and shake your smartphone, the on-screen oldster has a short coughing fit. Watch Zane ’splain here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goNos4yzOyo&feature=player_embedded

In a nutshell, take a photo of your face with your iPhone and save it (you can save multiple faces), then start the Hour Face app. Your phone will send the image to a remote server which then sends the image back to your phone as a pseudo 3D image – kinda weird as the image shifts his/her head and blinks.

The freak show is just getting started, though. A scroll bar at the side of the screen allows you to age the image, taking you from the present day to the far future faster than you can say “flux capacitor”. You can also de-age yourself, which doesn’t work nearly as well – don’t expect to morph into your baby pics. (via Japan Probe)

Mercury App Review

Developer iLegendSoft has this iPhone app that acts as a web browser. It’s a good app, although it can take its toll on a first-gen iPhone’s hardware. We’re not surprised Apple is now allowing other web browsers to work alongside its Safari browser on the iPhone. What we’re surprised by is the app’s description, which says that Mercury Browser has features that make it “the best replacement for Safari.”

Apple is known to protect its products and trademarks at all costs, and Safari is one of them. For a long time, the company denied web-experts like Opera the ability to throw in the iPhone version of their web browser. For one reason or another, the Mac maker later decided that it would allow mobile web browsers to compete with the mobile version Safari, and so Mercury, and other similar apps, were approved. However, its description doesn’t seem to fall in line with Apple’s policies

Mercury Browser is described as a “Fullscreen web browser with Tabs for iPhone and iPod touch. The clean UI and rich features make it the best replacement for Safari,” according to iLegendSoft, its creator. It is surprising how Apple approved Mercury with that description in the first place, let alone the fact that it continues to leave it untouched, as iLegendSoft submits updates, improving it.

Going by a developer’s recent talks with Apple’s reviewing board, “Apple doesn’t like it when developers mention Android in their app descriptions.” Google’s mobile operating system is known to be in direct competition with the iPhone OS. In this case, the Mac maker kindly asked the developer to tweak up his app’s description a bit, which he did, and now everybody is happy. We wouldn’t be surprised to hear iLegendSoft received a similar letter from Apple in the nearby future, instructing the developer to shake that comparison with Safari.

With that out of the way, one thing I like about the Mercury web browser is that it allows you to make the address bar disappear for as long as you’re browsing back and forth. When you need to type in a new address, there’s a small, green arrow pointing downwards, which you can use to make the bar pop out again. Surprisingly, a button living in the inferior side of the screen (resembling the “full-screen” command typical to YouTube videos) serves the user for the same function. This command, however, keeps the bar present on top at all times. Unnecessary, to say the least.

The tabs are also a nice touch, although the iPhone is clearly not ready to handle the workload (at least not my first-generation unit). The app runs slowly, and it’s graphically glitchy, especially when switching from portrait to landscape and vice versa.

There’s a free version and a paid version of Mercury, although the description fails to make it clear exactly what the paid app does that the free one doesn’t. In any case, you may want to download the app now, considering Apple may decide to yank it altogether at some point.

Word Pops

If you enjoy Scrabble or other word games you are going to love the game I recently found in the app store thanks to the good old genius recommendations.

Word Pops Free is a fun fast paced spelling game.  In Word Pops letters are inside bubbles at the top of the screen in rows of five.  The game starts out with two rows of bubbles and then one bubble at a time rises from the bottom of the screen up to start a new row of bubbles.  You must use the letters inside of each bubble to spell out words.  when you successfully spell out words you pop the bubbles of the letters that you used.  The object is to spell as fast as you can before your screen fills up with bubbles and the game is over.

Word Pops is easy to play and full of fun.  Some of the bubbles have special features that may freeze the game so you have more time to spell or blow up more bubbles around the word you spelled.  Word Pops also has some game customization such as sound and speed of the game.  Word Pops also allows you to track your high scores and even share them with your friends via twitter or Facebook.

If you love word games make sure to check out Word Pops!

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