Entries Categorized as 'Paid Apps'
August 10, 2009

Hidden item games started becoming popular earlier this year when someone finally got up the energy to draw up a bunch of artwork for it, and there have been quite a few of them over the past number of months, so it’s safe to say that while it’s a genre that can always survive new entries due to having limited replay value, there hasn’t really been anything new under the sun with the fried egg hidden in it.
Anicombo have evidently felt the same way and worked out what the next logical step for the genre should be: Throw some 3D at it. Or some of it, anyway, as the end result…
Posted in Games: Casual, Paid Apps
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August 7, 2009

That there poor possum done got hisself runned over. Dang shame to just leave him lyin’ there. We need ta give that critter a proper burial. In batter, chicken-fried and served with taters ‘n gravy.
Welcome to the Roadkill Cafe, flattest grub this side of the I-540.
Roadkill Cafe puts you in the role of Slim LaChance, the owner of a little shack off the side of a dirt road in a little out-of-the-way spot on the outskirts of the middle of nowhere, and you aim to make a name for yourself and your fine, vulcanized cuisine. However, for such an obscure spot, there sure is a lot of traffic, and that’s…
Posted in Games: Arcade, Paid Apps
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August 7, 2009

I’ve never been a breakfast person. The only things I want when I get up in the morning are an enormous coffee and my teenage metabolism back. Candywriter seems to want to remind me about that meal which is allegedly the most important one of the day though vis a vis their light-hearted and whimsical take on those Vegas money munchers with the introduction of Breakfast Slots — and I’m a man who can’t say no to bacon.
Breakfast Slots looks like your average 5-reel slot machine on the surface, excepting of course that the reels are plastered with images of coffee, milk, OJ, bacon, eggs, yogurt, fruit, and other morning…
Posted in Games: Casino, Paid Apps
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August 5, 2009

Back around a decade ago, popular RPG franchise Might and Magic saw the release of its seventh installment, For Blood and Honor. Two of its side quests revolved around a new mini-game New World Computing had devised called Arcomage. It was a card game not entirely unlike real-world fantasy card games like Magic: The Gathering, though not nearly as complex.
In Arcomage, each player had a structure that consisted of an inner tower and an outer wall. The basic object was to use your cards either to take down your opponent’s wall and tower while preventing him from doing the same to you, or build your own…
Posted in Games: Board/Dice/Card, Paid Apps
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August 3, 2009

I was actually looking into secure ID storage on my iPhone recently when I had this dropped into my lap, and from SplashData no less, so I knew it was just what I’d want in sensitive information storage and retrieval.
SplashID represents what is probably the best application for keep track of all sorts of sensitive data you don’t want prying eyes peeping: Your birth certificate, SIN card, driver’s license, credit cards, lock combinations, web logins and passwords, and pretty well everything else. It features templates for the most common types of things you’d want to store, but is also completely extensible allowing you to add your own types and categories. Even with…
Posted in Paid Apps, Utilities
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August 3, 2009

I can say that because Bobby Fischer is a fictional character, even if he’s based on a real person. So there are quite a few games of chess on the App Store to go with the thousands that exist for other platforms throughout computing history, to say nothing of history’s most fabled dedicated chess machines like IBM’s Big Blue or Sirius Cybernetics’ Garry Kasparov. Chess Elite goes a little bit beyond your average single-player chess game though.
To start with the basics, Chess Elite features a strong single-player chess engine with adjustable difficulty to allow you to customize the game to your skill and/or patience…
Posted in Games: Strategy, Paid Apps
1 Comment »
August 2, 2009

Interactive digital toys have been a staple of pretty well every operating system since the days when computers were capable of presenting something compelling enough to make people want to play it. Heck, even before that the demo scene effectively presented largely non-interactive toys that showed pretty and technically impressive visuals and sound. That’s why there are a lot of them around these days. Fluid Motion Painter could probably fall into a similar category as Spawn Illuminati, in that it’s artistic in an abstract sort of way, in the realm of fluid dynamics instead of particles.
It may be a little bit unfair to compare the two though because they’re actually…
Posted in Entertainment, Paid Apps
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August 2, 2009

iBright has some interesting timing. Just last week my wife downloaded a game called Sky Wire [lite] (iTunes links) which I thought was a pretty unique little tightrope walking game, though the graphics and sounds left a lot to be desired; it was quite plain overall, and not really worth a review. It wasn’t bad enough to be full of FAIL, but it wasn’t really good enough to say very many good things about.
But then along comes Bryce Katz of iBright Studios to submit a very similar concept called TightWire, developed by Wasted Pixel, and one look at it told me that this is how you do a tightrope walking game. …
Posted in Games: Casual, Paid Apps
3 Comments »
July 29, 2009

There are plenty of copter/cave flyer games out there, including on the App Store. I never really saw the attraction to the original game. It boiled user interaction down to such a basic level (one button) that it just didn’t engage me. It was okay for the first few minutes, and then it just got boring. Lots of people have tried to improve on the formula, and some have done fairly well, but it wasn’t really my cuppa.
So along comes a fellow named Konstantin from CyanSoft (no relation to the Myst people) submitting iHawky for review. I took a look and at the time I checked it out it…
Posted in Games: Casual, Paid Apps
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July 28, 2009

This is the part where I insert the “Aw, geez, not this s–t again!” image macro. Or I would if I didn’t willingly elect to do this review.
But never let it be said that I never someone a fair shake. I can be mean and snarky and rip crap apps to shreds, but I’m always willing to give their developers a second — or third, or fourth — chance. Technicat is one of those developers that I keep giving chances to. Frapstr readers from the earlier days may recall that I’ve reviewed Technicat’s earliest endeavours, FuguTilt, FuguBowl (which is almost the spiritual predecessor to this) and the well-deserved Hall…
Posted in Games: Sports, Paid Apps
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July 27, 2009

Ever play a game and you know you’ve played it before in a Web-based Flash version but you can’t for the life of you remember what its name was? iCollider is like that. I don’t suppose it’s important though because anyone who recognizes it will probably remember themselves, and the rest who don’t will have something new to try.
In any event, Rashid Nasibulin (whose games I have reviewed before) is back in action with iCollider, a a fast-paced action game that starts off deceptively easy but starts getting pretty frenetic in short order. The idea here is that a variety of types of atoms are constantly turning up and floating around, and…
Posted in Games: Action, Paid Apps
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July 26, 2009

It has been frought with delay after delay. Chris lost a developer, and had to find a new developer. It took several weeks in App Store limbo before someone bothered to take a look at it. But now, finally, Theme Park Madness 1.1 is now live on the App Store.
This latest release features 6 all-new tracks, all of which are considerably larger and far more complex and challenging than previous tracks, where much more judicial use of speed and brakes are required to successfully complete the level. Each of the new levels packs its own theme. Three of them are space themed and accessed at the top…
Posted in Games: Casual, Paid Apps
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