1st Impressions

Nothing beats hunting through the Apple Store and finding a really great game. Sure, every now and then you slam into a dud but sometimes you come across an Angry Birds or, in this case, Cut The Rope. The graphics are cute and the sound effects are adorable leaving you with a promise of an enjoyable experience.

And it delivers. Nothing is as addictive as working through a puzzle game which employs ropes, bubbles, air-blowing machines and spiders—and that’s just the first two worlds. The game play is pretty intuitive but what just takes the cake is that the game also makes use of the multi-touch engine so that sometimes you need to cut ropes simultaneously to make sure your puzzle is solved. Add to this the added tenseness of some of the prizes with a timer on them, you’ll find your gameplay, occasionally, pretty nerve-wracking.

But it’s totally worth it when you’ve actually managed to miss the spikes, grab the stars, blow past the danger and finally drop the candy into the waiting hungry mouth. Awesome.

Cut The Rope is available for $0.99 on both the iPhone and iPad.  A free “lite” version is also available for both platforms.  The just released 1.1 update adds a “cosmic box” of 25 additional levels set in a spaceship theme with anti-gravity devices.  This must-have title just keeps getting better and better and justifies the over 3-million downloads to date.

[written by guest contributor Rey Reynoso]

AppShopper is, in short, everything I need in order to do any kind of tracking or shopping for iPhone apps. And this must-have app just got even better.

AppShopper.com is basically an online web-based version of the app store.   While you still have to purchase the app through the official store (a convenient link will take you there), this web site not only displays the typical descriptions and screen shots, but tracks the app’s history of updates, price changes, and total sales over the prior 30-days.  But you don’t have to download iTunes and go to the App Store and fetch information any longer.  By marking an app as already purchased or adding it to your wish list, you can get notified when the app changes or the price drops.

These notifications are really what makes this web site and iPhone app that syncs with it powerful.  From the web site, you can receive them via email and/or as RSS feeds for your news reader.  In the iPh0ne app, you can get these push alerts as sounds, popup messages, and badges.  In other words, you can get this information sent to you in a number of ways.

The other really handy thing that makes this site and app great for shopping is the combination of selection criteria available for browsing the site.  As you can see in the screenshots, you can select between popular apps/games/utilities, those that have ad recent changes, those that you already own, and those that you would like to get one day.

Once you get into that selection for all new updates or just popular ones, you can choose to limit it by iPhone apps, iPad apps, Universal apps, or All apps (this is done in the settings).  Another selector lets you choose what category (or combination of categories) you want to browse, whether you want to limit it to paid apps or free apps, and whether you want all types, just updates, new apps, or price changes.  So, for example, you can select to just see iPhone games that are free due to recent price changes. With the Wish List and Purchased App selections, you can limit it by categories and sort your list by date of update, name, or ascending or descending price.

There is only one thing that I wish this iPhone app and/or web site would do that isn’t part of its current functionality.  I wish you could set alerts based on price change below a particular amount.  There are things on my wish list, for example, that are in the $7 or $15 price range.  I’m not interested in them until their price drops to at least half of that.  So I wish there was a way to say “alert me if this title drops $2.99 or below”.  There are other apps out there that do this, and this only, but it would be nice if it were incorporated into this one.

The iPhone app for AppShopper is free.  It is ad-supported, however.  The recent 1.3 version update to the app allows a one-time $0.99 purchase to remove the ads.  It also allows you to filter out foreign language apps that hit the US app store and block certain categories of apps that you may not be interested in.  That is really convenient.  And, as I recently posted on my Facebook page, the timing could not be more perfect for this app.  I’ve received a number of press releases recently telling of sales and free apps coming up next week for the celebration of Thanksgiving.  If you want to stay on top of all of the price drops on some really popular titles from major publishers, and even the titles that you may think are treasures that others consider junk, there is no better solution for that than the AppShopper web site and iPhone app.

Cut The Rope is my new favorite iPhone game.  As another high-quality release from Chillingo, this physics puzzler well deserves its spot, right after Chillingo’s Angry Birds, at the number two spot on the App sales list.

I find the game play of Cut The Rope to be a tad easier than Angry Birds.  It is more of a thinking mans game than brute force and, as the levels increase, takes more and more strategy to complete.  Coming in at 100 levels at the low price of $0.99 (and an additional 25 coming in a pending release), the game gradually increases in both difficulty and complexity.  You start out doing nothing more than cutting ropes with a swipe of your finger in order to feed the critter, Om Nom, a piece of dangling candy.  As you progress though, you get into bubbles that make your candy float, air pumps that blow the bubbles, and even catapults.

But there is more to the game than getting the candy to Om Nom.  You also need to collect all the stars on the screen in the process in order to win the ultimate number of points for a particular level.  The strategy comes in cutting ropes or popping bubbles or whatever not only in the right order, but with the proper timing so that all the goals are accomplished.

The developers are not just sitting on their success though.   If you would like to see a teasing sneak peak at the pending 1.1 update with the new space theme and anti-gravity elements, check out this YouTube video.  The new version will also bring graphics optimized for the retina display and 11 new achievements for the Crystal leaderboards.  And if all of this with a 25% increase in levels are not enough, the developers are also promising a release timed for the holidays with even more Om Nom goodness.  I predict that that level of dedication to their customer base is going to keep this game on the App Store charts for a long time to come.

All in all, I’d give this game a perfect 10 out of 10.  It is simple in concept but will take hours to master.  Three MILLION downloads and 59,000 5-star ratings in the App Store can’t be wrong.  If you don’t have this title on your iPhone yet, you won’t be disappointed.

I’m probably one of the few reviewers of iOS games that hasn’t played Angry Birds. Considering how long it has been on the top of the sales charts, I may be the only one with an iPhone to have never played it. But, after recommendations from multiple people, I decided to give Angry Birds Halloween a whirl a week before the holiday and see what all the hoopla was about. And boy am I glad I did.

Angry Birds Halloween is a $0.99 sequel to the grossly popular Angry Birds franchise. Published by Chillingo, this title has been everywhere. It is on multiple platforms and there is even talk of plush toys and movies. And for good reason. The Halloween sequel to Angry Birds has 45 levels exclusive to the iOS platform that have a decidedly spooky theme to them. At its core, the Angry Birds game play is reminiscent of the old games where you shoot cannons or missiles at a target by determining the correct trajectory. In this case though, you are shooting birds (seven types) from a fixed slingshot at a construction containing pumpkins and pigs. Once your “bird” hits the target, physics takes over and angle and force of impact come into play to hopefully collapse it. The different bird types act different ways. For example, tapping the screen somewhere between the launch and impact of the bird will make it split into multiple projectiles, speed up, or even explode. Destroying all the pumpkins before you run out of “ammo”, and doing it with the least number of shots possible, finishes the level and determines your score. There is a nice trailer for the game on YouTube that will show you a good teaser for the overall experience.

It is hard to put my finger on exactly what makes this little game so enjoyable. I’d have to say it is a combination of great graphics, great sound effects, simple game play, and fulfilling sense of destruction. The game definitely gets five-stars from me and makes me run right out and purchase the regular Angry Birds title….if I had the self control to put the game down long enough to go to the app store. LOL

Blue Defense: Second Wave is a wonderful sequel by the same folks that brought us Blue Attack, Blue Defense, and Red Conquest.  I’m not a huge fan of arcade type games as they generally require quick thought and reactions.  While game play on this game is quick, the controls are so simple that you don’t have to think a whole lot about it…just react.

The game concept if fairly straightforward and simple.  You are a blue planet under attack.  Your job is to shoot down the attackers.  As soon as the level starts, the shooting starts up automatically.  It is this auto-fire part of the game play that makes it something that I can enjoy.  All the user has to do is to aim the “fire” at the attacking hoards.  This can be done both via tilt controls and by touching the screen.

The $1.99 game boasts a whopping 64 levels, 24 different enemy types, and multiple game modes that combine to give you 74 mode-based leaderboards.  On top of that, there are over 200 medals to obtain.  The graphics are retina-quality and the game is very responsive to both the tilting and touch controls – even when you are using them simultaneously.  In short, it is a quality product at a very reasonable price.  I was so impressed with it in, in fact, that it is the first arcade shooter game to ever make my Must-Have list.  If I were going to recommend an arcade shooter for the iOS platform, Blue Defense: Second Wave would be it.

It has been a very long time since I have anticipated the release of a game with so much excitement.  I’ve literally been searching the app store every morning to see if it is there yet.  I knew within 10 minutes of this game going live in the App store.  When it showed up, it was like a new gift showing up under the Christmas tree!   And, unlike many games that don’t quite live up to the anticipation (or utterly fail to do so), I have to say that Virtual City is no disappointment.  And I dare say that the 250,000 folks that tried out the free version won’t be disappointed either.

Virtual City, a G5 Entertainment release, is a successful port of a game available for other platforms.  I like it better than other games in the genre of Sim City because while the game does have its complexities, game play itself is not as cumbersome and doesn’t require memorizing huge poster-size technology trees.  It works so well on the iPhone touch screen that I’d have to say that it would likely be at the top of my list of purchases should I ever get an iPad.  The very intuitive pinching to zoom in and out and moving around on the map does not really require a full size screen though.

The premise of the game is simple.  Each of the 50 levels has a list of stated goals.  They can be accomplished in any order in order to complete that level.  There has to be order in the completion of each task though.  For example, your goal may be to send pies to the neighboring city.  In order to do that, you have to work out the dependencies of that goal.  You can’t just build a pie plant though.  You have to get grain delivered to the mill, flour from the mill and milk from the dairy farm to the bakery, and pies from the bakery to the next town.  This may require construction of roads or tunnels, trash pickup and delivery to the recycling center, additional homes for workers, and responses to natural disasters, fire, illness, and the eventual breakdown of equipment.

The dependencies are easy to figure out though as they are primarily transportation related.  If you click on a factory, it shows you what items it needs and what items it produces.  Items that are already being taken care of are checked off.  In effect, your goal is to deliver all the dependencies for each of the required items in a game.  It is more about connections and transportation than it is actual construction or utility infrastructure like other games of the genre.  The goals of the game are not just in the make & deliver category though.  Even the “make & deliver” goals depend on a proper balance of money, environment points, population, and community happiness.  It can be quite a job.  And, I have to say that from the standpoint of someone that was once  a project manager as a career, I found the “job” to be very enjoyable.  The focus on raw materials, manufacturing new items from them, and transportation is something that I find unique and refreshing and makes this game so much more than a clone of SimCity.  If you like games like SimCity, to which games of this genre are forced to compete with and be compared to, you will like this one as well.  I’d go so far as to say you might actually be like me and enjoy it better.

As I said before, Virtual City comes with 50 different levels across terrain found in 5 different states.  There are 7 different “production chains” to master (things as diverse as baking, printing, and cosmetics), multiple upgrades available for 50 different types of buildings, new technologies to unlock, and even 5 different “sandboxes” (to be added in the next release) that allow for free form play to your heart’s content.

I only have a couple of suggestions for the game.  I’d love to have an easy way to cycle through trucks, dumpsters, and buses and “follow” them around in the game to see where their pickups and drop-offs could be maximized.  While there is a way to select each item individually, there doesn’t seem to be a way to easily find which truck(s) visit a particular factory, for example, without clicking on every truck in the fleet to find out.  I’d love for there to be an option when I select a factory to see it’s current transportation.  It would make upgrading them easier.  My other suggestion would be to clarify something in the tutorials.  I know that a garbage truck (a “dumpster”) can visit multiple places and deliver at a single location (the recycling center), but does that stretch to other kinds of trucks as well, and what is the limit?  It appears that I’m limited to a single destination, but is there a limit to the number of “pick-ups” before I get there?  I figured it out by trial and error, but it would have been nice if it had been spelled out in a clear fashion in the tutorial.  Finally, I’d love to see a better way to tell what parts of your infrastructure are not needed for a particular level’s goals.  Early on, I deleted a factory that I didn’t realize I needed and could not find a way to re-build it.  What I was wanting to do wasn’t part of the level’s goals/tutorial, but I’d hate to make that mistake on something important and be forced to re-start a level.

You can download a teaser version with the first four levels for free (takes about half an hour to complete), but my recommendation is to skip that and go right for the full game.  At an introductory price of $2.99, it is guaranteed to bring you hours and hours of gaming pleasure.  I’d hurry though, as the price is going up on September 13th.  This game is one of the few that makes my “Must Have” list and I could not recommend it any more highly.

To tell you the truth, when I saw the title of this game I thought it was a donut-inspired clone of something like Diner Dash.  I was not aware of the award-winning PC game upon which it is based.  This is not a time management game though.  It is a process management puzzle.  It reminds me a bit of Aztec Quest or something where you have to place different pieces of equipment in the right place configured the right way in order to “complete your order”.

The goals are simple to comprehend.  On the right side of the screen you have orders for donuts.  They are different types with or without icing, sprinkles, filling, or whatever.  In order to complete your order, you need to set up the flow between the different machines so that you get the right number of the right kind.

One of the things I really like about the game is that it is challenging, but there is no time constraint to cause you pressure.  If you don’t get it right the first time, you are not running out of a limited number of lives or something.  This gives the game a nice relaxed feel that I find appealing.  This is enhanced by the fact that the puzzles can have more than one solution.  This allows you to solve the level by figuring out the right order of things without having to get too down in the weeds with exact placement of equipment.

One of the other things I really appreciate with the game (other than great graphics and game play) is the attention to detail.  Not only does the game allow for multiple player profiles, but sound settings based on different volumes (as opposed to just on and off).  It also separates the 111 levels across five different factories for a little variety.  Another thing that I really like is that, but muting the overall sound on the main launch screen, one can play books or music from other apps while playing the game.  The game also allows for skipping levels if you really get stuck on one.

I can come up with very few suggestions for this game.  I think it would be nice if additional “factories” or level packs became available in future upgrades – even if they were in-app purchases.  Ability for users to contribute their own levels would be cool as well.  But these kinds of possible future enhancements take nothing away from the game as it exists today.  It is solidly built and I can’t find a single fault with it.

Rocknor’s Donut Factory, at an introductory price of $0.99, is a steal of a deal for the 100+ levels it contains.  It’s been a while since I reviewed a game that made my Must-Have list, but this not only makes that list, but also gets 5-stars from me on the App Store.  If you are one of the folks that come to me later and ask if I recommend this game for you personally, consider it recommended.

NDrive USA is an app I’ve had on my review list for a couple of weeks now.  I’ve used in in an extensive and exhaustive house hunt, and it was the very use of the app (and reason for it) that was causing the delay in getting the review done.  I was feeling guilty for not getting the review out sooner, but then saw something today that made me think the timing could not be better.

NDrive is a HUGE app.  Weighing in at 1.78 GB and a normal price of $32.99, the app does everything a GPS app would be expected to do.  But the app just made my Must-Have list.  Why?  Because the first 1 million downloads will get it at $2.99.  You can read more about the special promotion here.  If you don’t have  a GPS in your vehicle and don’t already have a turn-by-turn GPS app for your iPhone, you’d be crazy to let this steal of a deal pass you by.

Now for the review.  NDrive did a great job in locating places I was going to check out in my house hunt.  It is a very complete and complex app.  Being unfamiliar with these types of apps, there was a bit of a learning curve in using it.  The thing that threw me off initially was that I could not get it to take/find addresses.  I was trying to stick in an address in the same format as I would write it out.  But the iPhone app wants your address in the same way that the Post Office looks at it…from the largest geographical area down to the smallest.  You start out giving it the city, then the street, then the number.  Once this concept clicked,  was quickly using the app to get from place to place.

The only true issue I had with NDrive was hardware related rather than software.  Obviously, the iPhone is going to pick up better GPS accuracy in the open.  Unfortunately, I don’t have a convertible and medical issues require me to recline as much as possible.  This led to inaccurate locations and directions unless I put the iPhone near the windows.  When I say “inaccurate”, I don’t mean that it was telling me to turn left when it should have been a right.  It would tell me to “turn left ahead” and I’d already be at the intersection.  So, for best results, I’d suggest using this app with one of those windshield mounts like what a typical GPS would have.  If you put them both in the same location with the same access to the sky, NDrive provided every bit as good of a navigation experience as the built-in system in a much more expensive Lincoln Navigator that I was in on one of my “testing” days.

In case you need any further incentive to get such a comprehensive app for such an incredibly low price, check out the app features:

- Fully functional SIGNPOSTS AND INFOLANES
- Embedded store-inside-store to allow an easy download of extra features to your Application
- Highly effective search engine and fast calculations derives benefits such as fast and easy calculation of alternative routes and re-routing
- Car, Pedestrian and Adventure Mode
-ADVENTURE MODE will guide the way while trekking, bike riding, off-road in cars, on boats and even on light aircrafts
- Simple and intuitive user interface
- MULTI-TOUCH TECHNOLOGY with gesture recognition for menu, zooming, tilting and panning will enable you to control and display maps easily
- POIs (Points of Interest) and favorites with phone/fax number, description, email and website address
- UNLIMITED NUMBER of customizable favorite’s entries and user defined categories
- Search and navigate to city centers, street names and numbers, crossings, postal codes, favorite places, recent locations, coordinates and nearby POIs
- Advanced itinerary with multiple waypoints which enhanced planning
- Keyboard available in either ABC or QWERTY mode
- Integration with iPod, offers listening to music while driving
- Automatic Day/Night mode
- Sound and visual alerts for desired and fixed maximum speed limits
- Automatic Portrait/Landscape display mode
- Free access to the NDRIVE COMMUNITY where sharing POIs with other users anywhere in the world is possible
- Search Online from your NDrive application using search engines like GoogleTM to find additional POIs in any location
- Actual and complete map of the USA (March 2010)
- OVER 1,500,000 POIs representing restaurants, gas stations, tourism attractions, hotels, landmarks, etc.
- Precise voice instruction and full interface language support for: English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Dutch and Portuguese.

Nurikabe Vault is, in short, a must-have iPhone application for those that like logic puzzles.  The concept, according to Wikipedia, was invented by the same guys that came up with Soduko.  It’s more graphical and less numerical though.  If you like PathPix, you are going to feel right at home with this $2.99 title.  Like PathPix, your game level starts out with some numbers.  Your goal is to connect “blocks” or “boxes” that total up to the number.  These connected boxes can only connect vertically and horizontally.  But there is an interesting twist that sets these 500 levels apart from games like PathPix.  Your collections of squares have to be divided by a “path” that is no more than a single square wide.  And it too has to connect in a single unbroken line that doesn’t break or try to go diagonal.  Two different collections of squares can touch diagonally, but that doesn’t “count” as a connection.

The game interface is incredible.  A lot of thought went into it, and it shows.  What you can’t see in the screen shot to the left is that those background graphics that look like green gears actually rotate or move slowly.  The initial menu also uses this gears-type theme.  In it, you have an inner wheel and an outer wheel that you rotate to get to the level number that you wish to play.  A status message at the bottom of the screen tells you if the level has been completed or in progress.  If you have completed it, it tells you the best time you have for reaching the solution.

Once you get into a game level,  touching a gray square and dragging your finger will add adjoining gray squares.  You can do the same if you are adding to the “path”.  Tapping any square (except for the ones with the numbers on them) will rotate though the options of a “block”, a “path”, or neither.  Once you finish a level, the button on the bottom of the screen to undo a “move” changes to to one that takes you to the next unsolved level.  The levels also auto-complete once there is only one choice left and that choice solves the level.  I wish this was an optional thing though as sometimes, as I neared completion, it completed it for me before I had that “Aha!” moment and realized that I had solved it.  It almost made me feel cheated because I had not fully figured out that I had figured it out.

Like I said, the game comes with 500 different levels, each with a unique solution.  The levels are divided over five different “worlds”.   Puzzle sizes range from the simple 6×6 grids like what I’ve displayed here, but go up to 9×11…basically three times the size of the small ones.  In order to get from one “world” to another, you need to swipe horizontally on the main menu screen.  This is not as obvious as it could be, but takes you to the larger levels with the different graphical themes associated with that “world”.

The game graphics are incredible, but the minimalistic “clicking” sound effects are perfect for listening to your own music or, like me, an audiobook while you play.  One future enhancement that I would love to see would be the ability to start the titles or playlist from within the game so that you can also stop it when things get hairy and you need to concentrate, but don’t want to just mute the sound and loose your place in the book.

Nurikabe Vault also includes OpenFeint support for leader boards.  You can also challenge your friends.  Other game features are not quite as obvious though.  If, for example, you split up your “path” so that it isn’t continuous, it will “tremble” or “shake” a bit to get your attention.  Same goes with a collection of the “boxes” or “blocks”.  If you don’t have enough in the collection, it will “twitch” a bit.

While the game costs $2.99, I think it is well worth it.  A free version with 20 levels is available if you would like to try it out.  You can also become a fan of their Facebook page where occasional promo codes or news is announced.  I’d highly recommend the Wiki page as well.  Not only does it do a great job of laying out the rules and some strategy tips, but when you look at the graphics there, it really shows you how far Nurikabe Vault goes in setting itself apart with an an incredible implementation of a classic logic game.

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