1st Impressions

This article is not a review of the perfect alarm clock but rather a “wish list” if you will about what I wish I could fine in one single application.

Since first acquiring my iPhone about 2.5 years ago I have purchased numerous alarm clock or apps designed to soothe you to sleep with relaxing music or sounds.  While it would be ideal to have both kinds of apps combines into one (and some developers have tried with varying degrees of success), I would like to focus this article on what I think would be the ideal alarm clock application.

Before getting into those features, let me explain how I typically use my iPhone at night.

• First of all, I have a hard time sleeping much of the time so I enjoy listening to soothing music or playlists full or babbling brooks or rain showers accompanied by binaural tones designed to help you sleep.
• Next I have to dim the brightness of my iPhone so that the brightness of the clock don’t keep me awake.
• I then have to make sure that my jail-broken phone has the correct profile running (I wouldn’t need to jail-break it if Apple would release apps like that…) to block all pop-ups by turning off WIFI and placing the phone into airplane mode. (It doesn’t do any good to have a clock running during the night if a pop-up blocks the display….)
• If I need to get up at a specific time I then need to turn on an alarm in the default clock application so that, regardless of the volume level I have my soft music playing, the alarm will go off loud enough to wake me.
• Finally I can start the night-stand type clock application I use and place my phone in a charging dock for the night.

So, what would an ideal alarm clock application need to have in order to make me happy?

1.       Provide me with sleep timer during which it will fade in and then fade out music of my choice or built in “go to sleep” music or sounds

2.       Access the camera for the first few minutes to adjust the brightness of the clock as you prepare for bed and get the lights turned out

3.       Provide the option to either block all pop-up notifications or, at least, remove them from the screen after a pre-determined time period

4.       Allow for separate volume levels for the music that is playing and the alarm that is set from within the app

SO… are those four things too much to ask for in a single application? You tell me. Better yet, if you know of an application that comes close to offering those features, leave a comment and let me know.  I would love to check it out.

Several years ago I remember an automobile commercial (I think it was for Oldsmobile) that used the catch phrase, “This Is not your father’s Oldsmobile…” The purpose was to emphasize the differences between the old model and the new one.

Well, I would like to borrow that phrase and say to the folks that were fans of the original Ragdoll Blaster, “This is not your father’s Ragdoll Blaster!!” You see, to compare the new one to the old one would be like comparing the new Ford hybrid to the old Model T. It would be like comparing a Rembrandt or Picasso to a cave man’s drawing. It would be like comparing my wife to…… well, I better not go there but you get the idea.

The game play itself is basically the same but the game has been totally revamped. The graphics are far better (utilizing numerous colorful backgrounds as well as much better graphics for the game elements) and the entire gaming experience has been improved to the point that it is like listening to a band on an old cassette tape versus hearing them in person.

There have been many changes to the game including almost 50% more levels (150 or more), replacing a dashed blue “sight line” with a red laser sight, and adding many more physics elements including secondary cannons, portals, gravity wells, and such.

As I have said in previous reviews, I love physics based games and Ragdoll Blaster 2 has just jumped to the top of my Must Have application list. While there is a lite version available for trial purposes, don’t waste your time. Ragdoll Blaster is available for only $2.99 from iTunes and is worth every bit of that and more.

The only thing I didn’t like about the game was its use of Plus+ to keep track of high scores instead of Open Feint which I think is beginning to become the standard in the online leader board contest. Of course the ability to imagine that the ragdolls are family or co-workers when you fire then into walls is a bonus so I guess the two balance each other out… LOL

I love physics based games.  I guess the love for building things or figuring out how things work can be traced back to all the time spent with Tinker Toys as a child (building a hammer to beat my brother over the head with) and even stealing my own kid’s Legos to build things.  When physics based games first came to the PC I can remember spending hours and hours playing The Incredible Machine.  Now, with the processor speed and graphics capabilities (and accelerometer) of the iPhone, I can keep games like these in my pocket and play them whenever I want.

The latest of this genre that I have installed and spent time with is FunkyBall Worlds.  Unlike games like Ragdoll Blaster, Enigmo, or Crazy Machines, three entirely different kinds of physics based games in that same genre, FunkyBall Worlds utilizes the accelerometer as well as touch controls of the iPhone to control a ball and try to get it from one end of the level to the other. Along the way you “jump” the ball from one floating platform to another, all of them at different levels, angles, and sometimes even moving.  If that weren’t difficult enough, the levels get more and more difficult by adding things such as mortars, mines, lasers, and even worse.  You are not only playing against the clock but try to collect additional points by collecting stars along the way.  The final scores are not only available within the game but, like many other Astraware games, can be posted online and compared to your friends scores utilizing Open Feint.

The graphics in the game are just what you would expect from anything Astraware releases and that is absolutely beautiful.  The things that impressed me the most about the game is the ease in which you control the game as well as the fact that, after playing just a few levels, you begin to get addicted to it to the point that I can’t even put it down while trying to watch the NASCAR race in Atlanta.

FunkyBall Worlds comes with three different worlds with 24 levels per world. If you want to take it for a test drive, there is a Lite version which gives you a good taste by providing the same three worlds with but only 3-4 levels in each.  FunkyBall Worlds is available in iTunes for $2.99.  If you want to check out a YouTube video of the game, you can watch it here.

Create A Mall is a $3.99 game in the App Store.  It reminds me of a cross between Sim City and a Tower Defense game.  The premise is that you have to build a successful mall.  Starting out with small shopping centers as a 3-level  tutorial, you build, and then upgrade, different types of stores in order to balance revenue with popularity.  It is this upgrade option that reminds me of upgrading towers in a TD game.  You can also destroy a store so that you can put something new in its place.

The game is going to offer the casual gamer a lot of play time.  There are a total of 30 different “levels” in six different cities.  As you complete each level, you are awarded money that you can use to upgrade or build stores as well as spend in the stores that you create.  You are also given trophies for meeting different goals.  These can be displayed in your office.

The unfortunate part of this game is that it seems to be geared solely to female players.  Doesn’t matter if you give your player name as “Daniel”, you will be referred to in the game as “Kelly” and playing as a girl for girly things.  When it comes time to purchase things, it seems geared towards women’s jewelry, women’s shoes, women’s blouses, and so forth.  Makes it kind of hard for a guy to get excited about.

I like the concept of the game though.  Although I’ve never played Sim Tower, I’d think that the game would appeal to more of that type of audience if it was either gender-neutral, or offered playing as a male character with sporting goods stores, electronics stores, hunting/fishing stores, and so forth.  If it added this, I could really see justifying a $3.99 price point.  As it is though, I’d only recommend it to those that really like things like Diner Dash or other girl-friendly time management games.

This review is probably different than any other that I have written in that my opinion of the game (or multiple games as in this case) changes as the review goes on so pay attention and see if you can follow my train of thought.

Handmark and Astraware have become world leaders when it comes to games for the smart phone and the graphics capabilities of the iPhone really allowed they to create some great games that are beautiful as well.  I have purchased several of them for my iPhone (many more than I would admit to my wife… LOL)  and found them to be some of the favorite games I have on my iPhone.

With all that being the case, I have to admit that I was initially a little disappointed with the implementation of the games that were included in Astraware Board Games. I felt like Randy Jackson when, while judging contestants in American Idol, he begins by saying, “You know I like you, Dog, but I have to keep this real.  That song just didn’t do it for me.”  By that I mean that I am a great fan of Astraware and have reviewed their games for years but this one in particular just didn’t impress me as much as I had hoped the first time I spent much time with it. If forced to, I would have initially given it a rating of 3.5 out of 5 stars. It isn’t because of anything glaringly wrong with any aspect of the game (graphics or game play) but, after giving it some thought, I think the issue is probably more to do with the games included than anything else.  I would have probably paid double or triple the price if the board games included were a little more complex such as Monopoly, Scrabble, The Game of  Life, or other very popular board games. Of course licensing for those games would probably be an issue that would prevent that.

With nine different games available to play, each providing not only instructions but also hints if needed, the game does indeed offer a lot of variety and the graphics are indeed very good in each game (even the more simple ones such as Tic Tac Toe) but in my opinion they just didn’t seem to quite reach the same level as other board games I have such as Monopoly of Scrabble.  Of course those games can easily cost $5.99 each so I guess getting 9 games for under $3.00 is actually a pretty good deal.

The nine different games available are Chess, Backgammon, Ludo, Checkers, Reversi, Nine Men’s Morris, Snakes and Ladders, and Tic Tac Toe.  While I was initially only familiar with five of these, the instructions and hints available with the games easily provided me enough help to play the others as well. Another advantage is that you can play each of these games against the computer or with other family members.

Astraware Board Games is available via iTunes for $2.99.  When you think about it, that is actually a great deal ($0.33 per game) and, for the price, is actually a great deal.  I can think of one situation in particular where this game would really come in handy and that is to occupy your kids in the back seat of a long road trip.  They could spend hours occupying themselves individually or playing together.  How many parents wouldn’t pay a lot more than $3.00 to keep their kids occupied while you drive? LOL

I was a diehard supporter of Palm devices for years starting with the very first generation on the Palm Pilot and migrating through several models before eventually making the jump to Windows Mobile and then on to the iPhone.  During the course of all the models I have to admit that possibly my favorite device of all (prior to the iPhone) was the Tapwave Zodiac that I used until it (along with the company) died.  It was while reviewing games for the Zodiac that I first encountered what soon became my favorite aerial combat / flight simulator game and that was “Hellfire: Apache vs. Hind”.  It was with great excitement that I discovered that the game has now been ported over to the iPhone.

At 48 years of age, my reflexes and hand/eye coordination is not what it once was so, while there are many jet fighter sims available in the iTunes store, a slower paced helicopter sim is just my speed – and Hellfire delivers that in spades.  Created by Pazzazz Games and marketed by Astraware (part of the Handmark family), Hellfire lets you utilize a mixture of accelerometer and touch screen controls to fly your choice of two different helicopters (depending on whether you choose to fly for the Soviets or the US) and, using their totally different amounts and types of armament, complete your missions.  By giving you this option, you are not only able to choose between 4 different degrees of difficulty (based on rank) and two different game modes (flying isolated missions or starting a campaign of missions and working your way up In rank) but, once you become an ace in one helicopter you can get an entire different challenge by adapting your tactics due to the different armament in the other helicopter.

The dozens of missions that you encounter start easily enough but soon become more and more challenging (even on the easy levels) as the ground to air or air to air defenses get tougher and tougher and the missions begin to add more than one objective. You start each mission with 3 lives and, once you get shot down, the mission begins all over again.

One of the things that keeps the game from becoming repetitive is the 3D environment and terrain that is used in each mission.  Whether it is the difference between the trees that you have to fly over or around (based on your altitude) or the terrain which includes everything from mountains to oceans and glaziers to deserts.  While the graphics are not as visually stunning as some games that I have seen (which I refer to as eye candy), there is something to be said for just sticking to the basics and not distracting from the game play or tie up processor time by focusing on window dressing instead of game play.

To get you started you have the option to view the built in tutorial which basically flies you through the entire first mission with instructions on how to control the helicopter’s movements as well as the selection and use of its armaments. When it comes to flying the chopper to your destination you can’t become lost because there is a large white arrow on the ground that constantly points the way to your next mission objective.

As much as I love this game, it is not perfect.  I would love to the option, for example, to pull up an objective map and set your own “waypoints” and chose the order in which you accomplish the objectives in your mission.  It would also be nice to be able to manually select individual targets in a target-rich environment instead of having them chosen for you. Another possibly easier change would be to remove that big white arrow from the screen and instead add a waypoint indicator to the radar screen and make you find things yourself.  I know that these options would require a massive rework of the game but they would make a great game even better.  Also, while there are 16 missions per helicopter, I wish that there were additional missions available – even as in-game purchases of mission packs.

Hellfire is available from iTunes for $4.99.  While I think that the price might be a little too high, the game is one that will remain on my iPhone for a long time to come. This is just a thought but a trial version might let perspective buyers get their feet wet and let them see for themselves what a great little game this is before they were dissuaded by the price.

At first glance Oddblob, by Astraware, might look like just another puzzle game – but not taking a closer look would be a disservice to what I have found to be a truly unique game experience.

Yes, at its core OddBlob is a puzzle game.  The object of the game, which has 4 difficulty levels and 2 different modes of play, involves moving from one end of the screen to another by jumping from one tile to another. As you do so, you land on squares that move you, bounce you, or block you from moving onward.  If that weren’t enough, ,many of the blocks that you jump on will disappear behind you or, if you are playing in Panic mode, right out from under you if you delay too long. By jumping/bouncing from one end of the screen to the other (which is constantly being generated in front of you) you gain extra points by landing on squares that contain different fruit or, better yet, a slice of cake.  When landing on one of these you have the chance to gain even more points by playing a mini-game.  Failure to land on solid blocks will drop you into the mud and use up one of three available lives.

While all this is going on you are accompanied by either a catchy sound track or a song of your choice from your iPod library – but what is absolutely amazing to me is the graphics. Fans of “Claymation” (clay animation) will absolutely love this game as even the title screens are made using this technique.  While I can easily imagine the hard work and maybe even some frustrations that must accompany the efforts involved, it must have also been a lot of fun to, with the use of wire frames, use clay to shape every position of OddBlob as well as the game blocks.  This evolves great deal of work however, because it also requires the designers to photograph each of the clay figures from every angle before then running everything through a computer to generate the final product.

If all that weren’t enough, the game utilizes Open Feint so that, if you choose to, you can keep track of leader boards for each of the two game modes.  While the casual puzzle player might think that leader boards might be overkill based on my fun description of the game, let me set that straight.  The difficulty levels that I mentioned before are simply a starting point for you.  As the game progresses it rapidly becomes more and more difficult until all your three lives are used up.

OddBlog is currently on sale for an introductory offer of $0.99 in the iTunes store.  I am not sure how long it will be on sale but I would advise fans of puzzle games and clay animation as well to take advantage of the sale while it exists.

A lot can happen in 10 weeks if developers are on the ball.  That is the case with OpenFeint.  Back in mid December, I did a review of this gaming social networking platform.  If you are not familiar with OpenFeint, I would recommend reading that rather lengthy review first and coming back here.

The reason why a re-visit is warranted for this product is two-fold.  First, they have come out with their own stand-alone app, and second, the OpenFeint team have made a lot of back-end improvements.  And, unlike other apps that produce an update, this has a ripple effect across every game out there that uses OpenFeint and utilizes it to its fullest.

OpenFeint is much more than just a platform that allows for leader boards and high scores.  In fact, with the recent updates, it has addressed just about every suggestion that I made in my initial review.  With the 2.4 release of OpenFeint, they have added location support, notification if a friend is online, a really cool ability (if the game allows) to save your game progress in the cloud and pull it down and play it on a different unit, and the really cool stand-alone app has a nice interface to a free game of the day.

A lot of the free games are worth what you pay for them, but sometimes you find a real jewel.  And, since both the OpenFeint app is free and the daily game is free (for the day), there isn’t much risk in checking it out.  And, since you can browse the catalog of OpenFeint games and see featured one, ones your friends are playing, recommendations, and a random selection from the thousand plus that are available, it makes for a nice distraction to occasionally see what is available.

The bottom line is that OpenFeint adds a lot to the games that implement it.  If you have never set it up or checked it out, I suggest you do so.  To not use it is to really miss a whole new dimension of the games that implement it well.

The fast paced, dual stick shooter Guerrilla Bob is on sale this weekend in anticipation of its awesome new update.

In coming weeks Angry Mob Games is going to release a series of new features to spice up the Guerrilla Bob experience. These include the new ‘Mercenary’ game mode and a new array of hardcore weapons, all of which can be upgraded.

Bob will collect his war booty from the bad guys and he’ll be able to pick up all these weapons from the shop:

• Baseball Bat
• Bomb Pack
• Molotov Cocktail
• Chainsaw
• Machinegun
• Shotgun
• Rocket-launcher
• Grenade-launcher
• Flamethrower
• Double Uzis
• Sticky Bow
• Chaingun
  

The game will be available this weekend for only $0.99. If you’d like to see what real action means, pick it up this weekend and be ready for mayhem when the update hits.

Before reviewing this game let me provide a little background. I live in the Southern United States (the South will rise again!!!) and am very familiar if not downright fond of a a personality type known as Rednecks.  According to my wife, I have even sired one! Carl, my redneck youngest son, is a typical redneck in that he talks with a southern drawl and hunts or fishes at every opportunity.  He wears overalls at every opportunity (even to church if they are a new pair and without holes in them) and thinks that duct tape will fix anything. It is his voice I hear when I play Space Miner.

At its core Space Miner: Space Ore Bust is a space mining game although there are also side missions that your Uncle Jeb gives you occasionally. While I have never been a fan of space mining games (they typically lack any king of personality and get very redundant very fast) this game is a real joy to play due to a couple of things.  First, the incredible sound track (I haven’t heard this much banjo music since I watched Deliverance and the Jews Harp and whistling only serves to make the music that much better…) Secondly, the redneck humor and puns will have you busting a gut with laughter at times.

Much like the stereotypical space mining game you utilize the on-screen controls to pilot your ship around space blasting away at asteroids and retrieving oar with your tractor beam.  You also are given the opportunity for side quests such as rescuing tourists.  Like many other space mining games you are also given the opportunity to advance by purchasing upgrades for your ship although you need to make sure that, even if you can afford the upgrade, you have enough energy to use the upgrade.

Instead of using Open Feint, which seems to be becoming more and more prevalent in iPhone games, Space Miner uses a Plus+ interface to track your achievements and post them on Leader Boards.

Originally priced at $4.99, the game  is currently 60% off and, for what may be only for a limited time, you can snatch it up for $1.99.  To give you an idea of the popularity of the game, there are currently 245 comments of the game on iTunes and 234 of them give the game 5 stars. I totally concur.  If you are a space mining fan or simply love a good arcade game then this game is for you. If you have never tried space mining games before then this one will be a great one to start with for the humor if for nothing else.

If I were allowed to make one change to the game it would be to add an option for audible voices (either male or female based on your profile) so that folks like me that have poor eyesight could more easily enjoy the game.  Of course those outside the Mason Dixon line might find a redneck drawl hard to understand…. LOL