WorldView

by Eric March on November 21, 2008 at 3:00 pm

Rate it: (2 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
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App Name: WorldView
Version: 1.1.0
Developer: Andreas Linde
Category: Utilities

Sure, you can get various scenic webcam viewers for various locales — traffic cams or just general webcams from around the world.  But how about one that has over 6,000 of them in one app?  With geolocation to bring you the cams nearest you?  And the ability to bookmark favourites?  And a list of top-rated featured cams?  Random cam viewer?  Search capabilities?

Yep.  No doubt about it, WorldView is the ultimate webcam app for the armchair tourist.  With thousands of webcams to choose from, you’ll never be at a loss to see what’s going on around the world or in your particular corner of it.  Each cam features information about its location and distance from your current location, plus the info pane gives you the ability to bookmark, show its position on an embedded map (and from there the option to show it in the Google Maps app), open the cam’s web page, save the currently displayed cam image, or mail the cam to a friend.

When viewing a range of cams, they function much like the photos app, with landscape and portrait support, swipe to change cams, and tap to bring up a menu and cam information.  It does seem to be missing most of the Toronto traffic cameras — EyesMTO and the like — but what’s there in my area is still pretty cool, and it’s fun viewing cameras elsewhere to see what’s going on there.

The images aren’t live in the sense that they’re updaed every few seconds; in fact, most cameras update only every 20 minutes to an hour or longer, so don’t expect streaming video feeds here (though that would be cool).

For anyone who likes watching webcams (not that kind) it would be pretty damn hard to beat WorldView — it already contains far more webcams than you’ll ever likely be able to view, and it’s got all the features you could want.  As webcam viewers go, this is the one to beat, and as such, I grant it 5 stars and the nasty cold snap we’re getting in Toronto right now.  Andreas can have it.  All of it.

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Turkey Hunt

by Eric March on November 21, 2008 at 2:21 pm

Rate it: (2 votes, average: 1 out of 5)
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App Name: Turkey Hunt
Version: 1.0
Developer: Jirbo, Inc.
Category: Kids Games

You’re not fooling me, Jirbo.  You just took Bounce: Thumb Workout (a.k.a. Jirbo Bounce), dressed it up in Thanksgiving regalia, and gave it a new name.

It’s still a turkey.

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Plane Probe Lite

by Eric March on November 21, 2008 at 1:55 pm

Rate it: (2 votes, average: 4 out of 5)
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App Name: Plane Probe Lite
Version: 1.0
Developer: Bokan Technologies
Category: Logic & Puzzle Games

Something a little different.  You might say this is something like a mashup between Battleship and shades of Minesweeper.

You are given a 9×9 board under which are hidden 3 “planes” — that is, squares that are generally arranged in the shape of a plane with a body, wings and a tail.  The planes themselves are silvery metal, and the cockpits are made of gold, as indicated by a golden square with a crown on it.  Your job is to reveal all 3 cockpits.

The problem is, you are given 10 stars to start the game with, and every time you miss — that is, hit a square that doesn’t have a bit of plane underneath it — you lose a star.  If you run out of stars, the game is over.  So you need to find squares that contain bits of plane and then work out how the plane is oriented and what part of the plane the square(s) you have revealed are showing in order to locate the cockpit before you run out of stars.  Since you already know the shape of the plane, you must use that knowledge to assist you, because those are the only clues you get.

The graphics here are quite good, smooth and polished, and the gameplay is pretty addictive for those who like Battleship and/or Minesweeper games.

This lite version features only normal gameplay mode and normal difficulty, while the full version adds two more game modes (arcade and random) and two more difficulty levels, with the addition of global rankings and something called “Make a Wish,” wherein when you complete arcade mode you can make a wish on their online wish-board.  No, I have no idea what that means, but I wouldn’t go buying the full version for $0.99 in the hopes that an internet genie will belch its way out of your DVD-ROM tray to enhance your genitals and shower you with money.  Just buy the full version because it’s good.

Posted in Games: Logic & Puzzle No Comments »

More App Store Changes & Other Things

by Eric March on November 21, 2008 at 11:02 am

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Once again, the Mobile App Store issues from the beginning of the week have resulted in more changes — and for once it’s not bad news.  It looks like nobody appreciated the 100 app limitation in the Mobile App Store, because it’s gone, now; I’ve been flipping through a dozen pages and haven’t lost the “Twenty Five More…” button yet.  Hallelujah!  Apple have seen the error of their ways, praise be to common sense!  Of course, now that I’m able to look at all the crap I missed I’ve got my work cut out for me.

Which brings me to the “other things” — specifically, other thing.  There seems to be a problem with Gmail because I can’t send any E-Mails to myself today.  You see, when I’m at work I don’t have iTunes, so I browse for new apps in the Mobile App Store and E-Mail myself the links to the ones I want to write about to my GMail account where I can retrieve the iTunes links.  Since that’s not working, I’m going to have to trawl through my outbox and manually copy links — which means more battery life eaten up.  Thankfully I have an extra charger for work, but it has to be placed in such a way that I can’t really use the phone when it’s charging, so I’m going to just finish up what I already have in my GMail (which is enough for now anyway) and hopefully the problem with GMail will fix itself.

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Peace, Love and Happiness

by Eric March on November 20, 2008 at 5:11 pm

Rate it: (2 votes, average: 1 out of 5)
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App Name: Peace, Love and Happiness
Version: 1
Developer: myHIP.com
Category: Logic & Puzzle Games

Again?

Oh for cryin’ out freakin’ loud.  They must be churning out these games from some kind of high level scripting language that lets you write the most elemental of games in under 30 minutes or your pizza is free.

The game?  It’s SameGame for hippies and it has the same flair for design as the rest of myHIP’s titles.  Which is to say fugly, but with an extra side of tie-die and—

Waaaaaaitaminute.  Now I know where the HIP in myHIP comes from.  It’s all becoming very clear to me now.  These games were all designed while sitting naked in a circle, holding hands and swaying to Kumbaya with flowers woven into their hair, bongs at their side and blotters under their tongues.

This explains everything.

(No, seriously, that epiphany just came to me.  Far out…)

myHIP state that there will be a premium ad-free version coming out with 18 different themes.  It’s nice that they gave warning.

Posted in Games: Logic & Puzzle No Comments »

Miku Miku Mobile

by Eric March on November 20, 2008 at 4:39 pm

Rate it: (2 votes, average: 3 out of 5)
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App Name: Miku Miku Mobile
Version: 1.0
Developer: Masakai Kimura
Category: Entertainment

Memes get started on the internet all the time.  Some are amusing or catchy.  Others you wish you could take deep into the Nevada desert and shoot just to watch them die.  Leek girl (a.k.a. Hatsune Miku) falls into the latter category.  The stupid meme got started with a 4 frame animated GIF of Miku twirling a freakin’ leek (a leek!), which someone then made a Flash video out of with Loituma - Levan Polka playing in the background.  From there it just took off and became a meme in the inexplicable manner such things do on the internet, like the Badger song, Crazy Frog, the dancing hamsters, and so on.  (My apologies if I have dredged up any repressed memories.)

Now, Masakai Kimura, who clearly has a wealth of time on his hands and nothing better to do with it, has turned Miku Miku into an iPhone app.  In 3D no less.  With accelerometer support.  In this graphic and sound demo, a series of 3D Miku clones are flogging their leeks (there’s a euphemism for you) to a tune in the background.  They’re supposed to look like cute anime schoolgirls, but with that open-mouthed expression emitting a soundless, eternal moan and blank, soulless eyes, they looks like zombies who are about to vivisect you with that leek and then bite into your head to get at that sweet, sweet brain meat.

The accelerometer can be used to adjust your vertical position to view the scene from overhead or under the platform, and you can use a finger swipe to pan left and right.

All that and not even the courtesy of a shotgun.  How am I supposed to fight the undead without a shotgun?

Well, anyway.  From a technical standpoint it’s fairly well done if a little pointless.  It’s just the subject matter I can’t stomach.  But it would be unfair of me to rate this based on my personal feelings about the subject matter, so on that level I think it’s worth a 3 — but I’ll give it a 5 if Masakai implements a working shotgun in version 1.1.

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Meteor Lite

by Eric March on November 20, 2008 at 2:44 pm

Rate it: (2 votes, average: 4 out of 5)
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App Name: Meteor Lite
Version: 1.0
Developer: Mobile Stream
Publisher: Chillingo
Category: Arcade Games

Yet another Breakout/Arkanoid variant.  This one features some nice graphics and effects, I’ll grant it that, and some interesting block types and powerups (and powerdowns) that are off the beaten path for your average brick busting game, so at least Mobile Stream is trying to diversify by a few hairs.  In fact, there are 60 block types throughout the game, which is more than I think I’ve seen in such a game.

Like most of these control is accomplished by dragging the tab along the bottom edge of the screen to control your bowed paddle.  It’s nice and responsive so gameplay is smooth, and this one seems to pay a bit more homage to Arkanoid than most by including the occasional alien/robot or two.

It’s a well-appointed brick buster game, certainly up there among the best on the App Store right now — but the more of these that come out, the harder it becomes to muster much excitement for the genre, which has seen more clones than The Matrix.

This lite version features a rather generous 10 levels to work your way through, and for $1.99, you can get the full version and bump that to 90 levels and throw in additional bonuses and robots.

Posted in Games: Arcade No Comments »

MazePong Lite

by Eric March on November 20, 2008 at 2:20 pm

Rate it: (2 votes, average: 2 out of 5)
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App Name: MazePong Lite
Version: 1.2
Developer: Simon Besner
Category: Casual Games

Conceptually, it sounded moderately interesting.  Use the accelerometer to bounce your pingpong ball around and hit all of the targets on the screen to advance to the next level.  The reality however, was rather less entertaining.

The graphics are pretty plain — not terrible, unless you count the weird pink bubblegum texture in the background.  There are no special effects either, and very little sound; just your bouncing ping pong ball that makes the familiar clack-clack noise as it bounces.  Control is another matter.  While it goes where you tell it to, it’s far too sensitive to make controlling the ball a simple matter.  It’s very easy to tilt slightly and have the ball careen straight off the table … or gum … or whatever.

Furthermore you only get one chance, so if you screw it up on any level, you lose and must start over at the beginning again — though this is a limitation of this lite version.  There’s also the matter of hitting the targets — it’s not enough just to land on the edge, you pretty much have to get your ball entirely inside the target radius for it to count.

In general it seems like it could be a passable idea, but the execution here just doesn’t work for me at all.

This lite version limits you to 7 levels and 1 ball.  The full version features 24 levels and you’ll get 10 balls to lose — but it’ll cost you $2.

Posted in Games: Casual No Comments »

JumbleQuest

by Eric March on November 20, 2008 at 1:07 pm

Rate it: (2 votes, average: 2 out of 5)
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App Name: JumbleQuest
Version: 1
Developer: telience.com
Category: Word Games

I like how things suddenly become a quest just because new background images that are suggestive of a journey are used.  In JumbleQuest, you “travel the solar system solving progressively harder word jumbles”.

I’m guessing this was really aimed at a younger crowd, because the vast majority of word jumbles it presented were ridiculously easy — either because they were short, easily identifiable words, or because the scrambling was poorly executed resulting in a jumble that already looked like the original word with only two or three letters in the wrong place.  I did stumble over a few 6-7 letter words, but not for long.

The scenery is pretty nice — they’re digitally rendered images of various planets, moons, and our sun — not actual telescopic images, so they’re preternaturally crisp and detailed.  Since they’re backing a pretty weak game though, it doesn’t really help too much.

The UI for the game is very plain.  The word to unscramble is placed above a plain text box and the keyboard covers half the screen to let you type in your guesses.  Each correct guess advances you one level, and passing a certain number of levels gets you to a new stage (planet/moon).

Overall it’s got some nice backgrounds, but as a game I tend to think it would appeal mostly to youngsters due to the simplicity of the game — both in presentation and play.

Posted in Games: Kids, Games: Word No Comments »

Elemental Lite

by Eric March on November 20, 2008 at 12:15 pm

Rate it: (3 votes, average: 4.67 out of 5)
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App Name: Elemental Lite
Version: 1.0
Developer: Corélane
Category: Arcade Games

I couldn’t decide if this really fit into the arcade game category, as Corélane had filed it, because it’s not really full of arcade action, but it’s not really a puzzle or logic game either.  In the end it leans more toward arcade, if casual arcade, so I left it there.

Elemental is a kind of retro-styled arcade game where the object is to gather “pills” scattered throughout a level and place them in receptacles in order to advance from level to level.  To do this you roll your ball around the level using either the accelerometer or virtual D-Pad.  As you do so, an enemy ball chases you around the level trying to stop you, so you must deke around obstacles in order to try and put some distance between you and it.  The full version features 40 levels across 4 elemental worlds — earth, wind, fire and water, each with their own relevant graphical theme.

The graphics here are rather cool in a retro way — very 16-bittish, it would feel quite at home on a Sega Genesis or SuperNES. Sound is good here, too — nothing too jarring or out of place.  Movement is quite simplistic — there is no physics involved here, so anyone who might have been thinking “Hey, Oxyd!” like I did will be disappointed.  It’s straightup single-speed movement in one of the four cardinal directions.  The gameplay is rather sedate, leaning heavily toward the casual end of arcade gameplay — you aren’t really rushing around, mashing buttons to fire weapons or anything like that.  You’re mainly just trying to outrun your enemy (or enemies) while picking up pills and dropping them on their receptacles or picking up bonuses/powerups.

Nice game overall, well put-together if just a wee bit on the humdrum side where the gameplay is concerned.  Although this is a lite version, there’s no mention of what the limitations are, and there’s no full version available that I can find nor any limitations I came upon while playing (though granted I didn’t play for too long), so I have no idea what’s missing out of this version nor how much the full version costs, so you’ll just have to make do with this, such as it is — and it is pretty good, all things considered.

Posted in Games: Arcade, Games: Casual No Comments »

iMooBox Lite

by Eric March on November 20, 2008 at 10:59 am

Rate it: (2 votes, average: 2 out of 5)
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App Name: iMooBox Lite
Version: 1.4
Developer: Benjamin Seillier
Category: Entertainment

Oh, cripes.  I should have seen this coming — but since I haven’t seen one in years, I didn’t.  You remember those little enclosed plastic or cardboard “cans” with holes in one end and pictures of cows and a pasture on the outside, or sometimes just a cow spot pattern?  The ones that, when you turned them upside down, they would let out a beefy moo?  “Cow in a box” I think they were called, or something similar.  Well, Benjamin Seillier went and made a virtual Cow in a Box for the iPhone.

It does exactly what you think it does.  Flip your device.  Mooooooo.  (Or if you’re French like Ben, meuuuuh!)  Given that, you’re probably wonder why this is designated a “lite” version.  What could they possibly withhold?  Half a moo?  Nope.  The full verison, which doesn’t seem to exist yet, will feature Other Things in a Box! Kitschy things! Crazy things! 11 other Things in a Box in all!

I suppose that since these things (the real ones, that is) are apparently a dying breed, an app like this could be considered a form of digital preservation for a long-standing childhood toy.  Or just a silly little app.  I’ll let you be the judge.

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Cube

by Eric March on November 20, 2008 at 12:30 am

Rate it: (1 votes, average: 4 out of 5)
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App Name: Cube
Version: 1.0
Developer: fernLightning
Category: FPS Games

I can’t say I’m surprised that someone ported the Cube engine to the iPhone.  Given the iPhone’s power and the latent desire of many to see Quake III or something like it brought to the device (but not being able to have it because id won’t make it happen), I suppose it was only a matter of time before someone thought, “Hey, Cube!”  And here we are: Cube, it all its glory — such as it is.

The Cube engine is an open-source first-person shooter that one might describe as being somewhere between Quake II and Quake III in terms of graphics and capabilities, with the needle leaning a bit more to the Q3A side, particularly with regard to architecture and effects.  Here, it is faithfully ported over — nothing left out, not even the built-in editor, though it’s hardly practical on the iPhone.

The problem is this: Cube isn’t really a game.  It’s really just a tech demo to show off the potential of the engine.  While you can run and leap about and collect and fire ammo and weapons, there are no missions to embark on and no enemies to defeat.  It is, for all intents and purposes, a 3D FPS sandbox.  It’s a rather nice one, granted, if a rather aged — the last version of the original Cube engine, which was born in 2001, was released in 2005.  However, for a 412MHz portable device sporting a PowerVR MBX, its age works to its advantage, as it is capable of delivering more or less decent performance, all things considered.

Mind you, that statement is based on how efficient the engine is compared to the power of the iPhone/Touch — by FPS gaming standards, Cube runs a bit on the slow side, with significant, noticeable lag when viewing a far draw distance littered with objects.  As a fast-paced first-person Arena combat game, Cube’s performance would be insufficient to satisfy most hardcore gamers, as the lag would almost certainly mean missed opportunities to take shots at moving targets and almost certain death if you fail to get out of the path of an oncoming rocket.  Considerable modification to reduce poly counts and perhaps some streamlining of the code would be required before the frame rate would be high enough to support real adrenaline-pumping gameplay.  That is all assuming, of course, that Cube was actually made into a game.

Furthermore, the control scheme would definitely have to be arranged a bit. Having the jump button on the right above the move forward button is terribly inconvenient and makes jumping up on things rather frustrating since you have to take your thumb off the move forward button to jump — which means you can’t move forward while jumping unless you’re quick.  The fact that there’s a move forward button — and only a move forward button in addition to left and right movement also speaks to the need for better controls.  Granted, implementing full FPS controls on a touchscreen device is a logistical nightmare at best, but still, it’s still not good enough even as it is.

The graphics and sound are every bit as good as the desktop Cube, if in a smaller form factor, so that’s a good thing anyway.  But in the end, this is still just a tech demo, as ever it was with the original engine.  It would have been much more interesting if fernLightning had ported one of the open-source Cube mods over, such as AssaultCube.  At least there would have been something to play then.

As I mentioned earlier all of the original Cube features are there, which means all of the original deathmatch maps are there and loadable via the menu for you to wander through, so you can get a good idea of what this engine is capable.  Just don’t expect more than pure exploration.

I like that this has been successfully ported over, and with some work it could certainly be made into a nice 3D engine, so this is a good start — but it’s only a start.

Posted in Games: Action, Games: FPS No Comments »