1st Impressions

Zenonia is probably one of the more complex games I’ve reviewed on the iPhone.  It is a lengthy RPG adventure game in the same category as Zelda.  As the game starts out, you can choose to play as a magician, an assassin, or a warrior.  Each has its own strengths and basically allows you to go through the game with three different experiences.  You can also choose to play on the side of good or the side of evil.  As you play, tons of articles can be collected and combined with the strengths and abilities of the type of character you are playing.

The game comes with some in-depth story lines and with  graphics that reminds me of the 16-bit console games after they started getting some depth to them.  Game play is done with an on-screen D-pad device that I found difficult to use with my big fingers.  I did, however, like the quick touch in the bottom right corner to move the story script along quickly.  In a way though, I wish that there was a way to switch the controls so that my prominent thumb count try to move around a bit better.  While the game costs $5.99 in the iTunes store, that is cheap compared to the price of similar console games and promises hours and hours of RPG entertainment for those that are fans of that genre.

Sneezies is a $0.99 release from Chillingo.  It falls into that “casual arcade” kind of category that is perfect for those times when you don’t want a huge mental challenge.  The premise is simple.  You have these little cute critters floating around in bubbles.  Your goal is to touch the screen in the single place that makes a puff of sneezing poweder that not only pops the bubbles, but causes the little dudes to sneeze…thereby popping more bubbles.  To get past each level, you have to pop a required number of bubbles and “release” the little critters that float down on parachutes.

The game offers an easy mode, a classic mode (45 levels), and a challenge mode (15 levels).  Your score be uploaded for rankings against others.  The game is responsive, and the graphics and sound are of high quality.  I really liked the option to adjust the volume level of the music and sound effects separately and not just turn them on and off.   Overall, it is a fun, cheap little game and another quality release from Chillingo.

Allergies is a $1.99 app in the iTunes store that is a must-have for those of us that suffer from things like the pollen season that can be measured in inches here in Atlanta.  If you and the term “outdoor” are not a good mix, then this is the app for you.  It downloads daily levels from the internet (specifically AccuWeather.com) that shows the levels of pollution, mold, weed, grass, and tree pollen in the air.  Daily reports of these conditions can also be emailed to your inbox each day.

As useful as this application is, I would really like to be able to touch each measured category and have it show the actual level (like pollen count) for the day as well as a graph of what it has been like over the last week and/or month.  Here in Atlanta, a “high” level is a very relative thing.  Anything over a count of 120 is considered “extremely high”.  Yet there are times each year when we exceed 2,500 to 3,000.  So being able to track this at a deeper level of detail would be great.

Overall though, this app provides a nice “misery index” for those suffering from allergies.  It gets a thumbs-up.

Darkness does one thing very, very will.  It calculates just about any kind of sunrise, sunset, twilight, and any other kind of time you can think…along with all moon phases…for your current position or any location in a huge database.  It not only shows the time of these events, but also the azmuth in degrees.  In total, eleven different things are calculated and shown for each location.  If you are a hunter or boater or astronomy fan, this will be a tremendous help.  As Apple says, “there’s an app for that.”  So if you are looking for something more than just a sunrise calculator, THIS is the app for that.  Darkness is currently $1.99 in the iTunes store.

Toki Tori, for those of you unfamiliar with the title, is a  platform puzzle game that exists on the Game Boy, the Wii, and other platforms.  Not only is it now available on the iPhone, but for a limited time, it is on sale for $0.99.  That is 80% off the normal price, and a bargain too good to pass up.  A lite version if available for free, but don’t bother.  Grab this while it is on sale…or later wish you had.

The game plays on the iPhone remarkably similar to the Wii.  I’m glad.  This title is a huge hit on the new Wii in our household and being able to play it on the iPhone while the kids fight over the Wii remotes is the next best thing to multi-player!  Game play is simple.  Navigate your little yellow chick around to locate all the eggs on each level.  As the 80 ever-challenging levels progress, you learn new tricks and pick up abilities that you can use.  These include things like ability to build bridges, teleport, shoot, and so forth.  The additional abilities become more an more important because additional levels also introduce enemies that have to be avoided.  Getting though all of the levels will offer many hours of play for a very nice sale price.  Even without the sale though, this game makes it to my “Must Have” list.  It just seems like the controls of the iPhone were made for this kind of game.  With it being on sale now, it gets a huge thumbs-up.

As with other Chillingo releases that I’ve reviewed, everything about this game seems to be top-notch.  No product is perfect though.  In my eyes, both the iPhone and Wii ports of this game lack one huge thing…ability for multiple players.  Because of the length of game play promised in this title, it would be really nice if I could track my own progress separate from that of another player.  This is key because as you gain new abilities in subsequent levels, they are explained and you are told how to use them on the level that they are introduced.  Jumping in on a level when someone has played several levels past where you were means that you not only have missed some of the levels, but may not know what you need to in order to successfully proceed.

If I were going to rate this game on a scale of one to ten, it probably would get a eight or nine due to the single-player nature of the setup.  At this price point though, it’s definitely a ten.  So pick it up while it is on sale.  You won’t be disappointed.  If the review has not convinced you, check out the YouTube trailer.

I’m playing with a preview copy of Chillingo’s soon to be released game, Minigore.  It’s a pretty slick arcade shooter.  The blue and red dots on the screen act like thumb-pads.  The blue controls your movement direction, while the red controls direction of fire.  Both can be turned off once you get used to where to put your fingers.  The object is to both avoid and shoot the little black, boxy creatures that are out to get you.  Think of this as a cross between a cartoonish, boxy zombie killer game and attack of the killer tribbles.

The graphics, music, and sound effects were, as is usually the case with Chillingo releases, of the highest calibre.  I found the game to be very responsive.  But it is definitely geared to the Nintendo/Sega generation that is cooridinated enough to play with two hands.  That’s not me. I’m an old guy and don’t think fast enough or react fast enough to succed at anything but becoming a gore-snack for the boxy little guys out to get you. LOL  With that in mind, my one suggestion would be to have some difficulty levels so that it could be enjoyed by different levels of experience with this type of game.  I like zombie shooters as much as the next guy, but I also like to stand a fighting change against them!

While the title has “gore” in it, the violence depicted is cartoonish in nature and should be fine for any age.  I’ve seen worse on Saturday morning cartoons.  I’m not sure what the price point will be when the game is finally approved and released (hopefully this week or next), but if you are into acade shooters, this looks like another quality game and worthy of checking out.

IM+ just came out with a new version that has the Push technology in it.  It is the first app that I’ve used that has that (other than the built-in mail and SMS app).  Have to say, I really like it.  The app is currently $9.99 in the app store.  That is a bit steep for me, but it *is* a free upgrade for those of us that purchased it at much, much lower prices and is probably worth it for those addicted to connectivity.  Not only does it offer an “all in one” place for IM’s from Yahoo, MSN, AOL, and Google Talk, but also offers connections to ICQ (does anyone use that any more?), Jabber, Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace.  As messages arive, they show up in the same kind of window as a SMS alert with an option to view them or close the window.  A message counter also shows up on the app icon.  The app has different high-quality backgrounds available for the chat windows as well, so you can customize it to the look you prefer.  If a message has a URL in it, you can also launch it in the built-in browser.

Setting up your accounts is very easy.  I kept getting messages that I was logged into AOL at multiple places, so I had to log out of Trillian on my PC and out of AOL on my chat sidebar of Gmail.  With the push notifications of any IM’s, as well as an DM’s from Twitter, there is really no need for me to have the other running on my PC.  I’ll still use TweetDeck for all the Twitter traffic, but IM+ will do nicely to alert me to anything important.

I did have a couple of error messages pop up when launching the application though.  It said it had not been closed properly.  Not quite sure how to close it any other way, but I did fill out the nice interface it had for submitting logs to the developers.  As this wasn’t typically a crash while using the program (although that did happen once), it didn’t really cause me any issues. Twitter updates don’t seem too frequent either.  So don’t be surprised if a maintenance release is in the works.  Ultimately, while I love the interface, the performance to me was not quite up to a $9.99 price tag.  I think it is getting there though.  It doesn’t make my “must have” list, but does get a thumbs up.

This puzzle game is incredibly beautiful, but frustrates me to no end. As you can see in the screen shot, I am 36 moves into the puzzle and literally not a bit closer to solving it. While I enjoy relaxing puzzle games, and while the music and falling petals were incredibly beautiful and soothing, I found this game to be so challenging that I wondered if a solution was even possible. But, according to Google, a 81-move solution does exist. Doesn’t mean I’m almost half-way there though! LOL

Game rules are simple. Move the tiles around so that you can get the largest piece, marked in red, out the “exit” on the bottom. Simple in concept. But this one is a real MENSA test. Think of it as one of those parking lot games where you have to get the car out, but with not enough space to move much. If you like a super challenging puzzle, then this one’s for you. I seriously doubt you will find a more mentally stimulating and challenging puzzle for $0.99.

My suggestions for the game are simple.  It appears that there are other configurations of this type game.  Having more than one level to solve would be nice.  It may be doubly frustrating, but still would be nice.  The second though would be to add some solution to this puzzle.  Either a link to an online solution or, better yet, some animated version of the pieces being moved until a solution is reached.  Finally, I’d love to be able to move a piece across two places without having to move it one place at a time.  Even if it counted as two moves, it would still be more intuitive, I believe.  These suggestions aside though, this is a great little mind-bender.  And trust me, I’ve seen the solution.  It *is* possible to crack this.  So go spend a buck on it and try it out for yourself.  It’s a great way to keep yourself humble.

Pocket Gold is a nice little timed arcade style game.  You have a TNT stick that is lit that you are playing against.  When the fuse runs out, your play for that level is over.  Luckly though, game play is simple.  You have a table with gold, coal, and diamonds (?) on it.  Your goal is to drag them to the appropriate colored cups.  Gold to the gold ringed cup, and so forth.  The graphics are nice.  The sound effects are nice.  Game play is easy and enjoyable.  An all around winner that is very aptly called a “casual” game.  And at $0.99, it isn’t going to set you back a whole lot for the “hundreds” of levels.

My one suggestion would be with the help screens.  The first one points from the different colored objects to the different colored cups.  Not too hard to follow.  The second screen was not quite so obvious.  It would be nice if you could tap on the clock, the dude in the hat, and so forth to see exactly what it is.

Ragdoll Blaster is a fun little game.  You shoot little “rag dolls” (although I prefer to think of them as little liberals LOL) over and through blocks to hit a target.  The target is sometimes stationary and sometimes moving.  Your control over the cannon is simple.  The distance from the cannon that you touch controls the force of the shot.  The location on the screen that you touch is direction that the cannon aims.  This $1.99 game is a unique concept in the iTunes store.  It’s a great way to work out some frustrations to “blast” some little folks into a wall.  It’s simple enough that even small kids can enjoy it, yet the seventy increasingly difficult levels offer a challenge for the most accomplished gamer.  It is at a good price point for the level of entertainment it offers, but had it been at $0.99 it would have made my Must Have list.