1st Impressions

If there were ever two things that don’t go together, it’s pregnancy and drugs.  When my wife was pregnant, she was cautious to the point of being paranoid.  Now, you don’t have to be paranoid because there’s an app for that!

The $2.99 application is, in my eyes, a must-have application for anyone who is pregnant, planning on getting that way one day, or loves someone that will.  By looking up a drug’s name, you are not only shown warnings as it relates to human pregnancy, but also animal studies on things like pregnant rats and mice, and information for post-pregnancy labor and nursing.  You can also bookmark a drug for easy location later.

I didn’t find the drug database in this to be as robust as the one in Side Effect Check, and I also had an issue in the email function where it sent a “{null}” emails instead of the information described on the screen, but I found this to be a very useful application.  It makes my Must Have list.

Two new games have hit the App store recently that follow in the genre of those parking lot puzzles or traffic puzzles where you attempt to move the pieces around until you free a designated one. In this case, the designated one is appropriatly identified as the Blue Block. The clean interface of the game is due in large part to the lack of concentration on different kinds and/colors of vehicles. This game offers a simple GUI and graphics that do not distract from the goal at hand.  It makes up for that typical eye-candy with a massive puzzle database. When I say massive, I mean to convey an almost limitless supply.

Blue Blocks is currently free and contains a virtually endless number of levels (literally tens of thousands) starting with kiddy difficulty levels and immediate levels and going up. Virtual endless game play at a current price of zero should be a no brainer… ButWait!!!!  There’s More!!!

Not to be satisfied with the free Blue Block game, the developers took a common genre and stepped it up a notch. They added an additional blue block. This makes any given level twice as difficult. The almost 4,500 games in this pack are devided between medium, hard, and expert difficulties. If you want something at the kiddie or easy level, go back to the free game.  The difficulty levels seem well set. My attempt at the very first level ended me finishing with close to twice as many moves as it could have been done by a master at these. I learned real quick that I am no master. LOL

The game interface is simple.  Pieces slide with the swipe of a finger just as you would expect.  The status bar across the top displays your chosen difficulty level, the puzzle level you are working on, the number of moves you should be able to complete it in, and, in my case above, the fact that it took me almost twice that to complete it.  Once a level is complete, you can choose to re-play it and try to better your score or to move on to the next level.

I do have a few suggestions for the game(s).  First, I like it when a game has multiple player profiles.  My iPhone is the only one in the house and more than one person plays games on it.  Second, while I would not like a timer to stress me while I played the game, it would be nice if the level selection screen that showed how many moves a complete level took also displayed the time it took you.  Where this could really benefit is if the game added an online leader board that showed a score calculation based on your speed and a percentage of par.  Ability to optionally post these scores to Twitter and/or Facebook as some other games allow would not only allow for a bit of bragging, but also drive some attention to the game.  Finally, I would love to be able to move a piece, change my mind, and move it back without it counting as a move.  My scores are going to be plenty high as it is without my fat-finger mistakes adding to it.

Overall, I’d give this pair of games a solid 10 out of 10.  They make my Must Have list and have replaced any of the competing products on my iPhone.  Close to 40,000 combined levels for a total price of $0.99 is an incredible bargain.  If you want to try the double-block harder levels without the $0.99 expense, there is even a lite version that offers 50 puzzles for you to try.  My recommendation is to skip that though and grab Blue Block while it is free and Blue Block Double while developer still has it at a $0.99 price.  It’s worth a lot more.

Transformations is an INCREDIBLE word game.  It is definitely a Must Have for anyone that likes crosswords or any other kind of word game.  For $0.99, you get 2,000 puzzles like the one pictured.  Each word is changed a particular way, called a transformation, from the one it connects to.  This can include adding a letter (or two), re-arranging the letters, replacing a letter, and words that sound the same.  It is definitely a mental challenge.  If you get stuck, a two-finger tap on the screen brings up a menu to change to a different puzzle, fill in a letter, show your errors, and even an option to move on to another level.

The game offers three different difficulty levels and two different modes of play.  One is relaxing, and one is timed and you try to complete as much as you can before you run out of whichever time limit you select.  You get points based on the number completed puzzles and the number of correct letters on the current one when the time runs out.  The game also has the nice feature of allowing you to play music from your library while playing the game.

My suggestions for this almost-perfect game are few.  A leader board reflecting how long a particular level takes to complete would be nice.  Adding a transformation for synonyms would make for a nice addition.  Additions to the game is not what makes it just barely less than perfect though.  The keyboard is custom.  It has that “delete word” key on the bottom left.  The keyboard has a slightly different feel to it from the default iPhone keyboard though.  On a couple of occasions, I found myself having to tap a letter twice.  It doesn’t negatively impact overall game play, but if it was refined a bit, it would make this truly a masterpiece.

Overall, if I were to rate the game, I would give it a 9.5 out of 10 stars.  It’s that good.  If the $0.99 isn’t enough to make you want to rush out and get this, a lite version containing 40 puzzles is available for you to try.  If you like word games though, skip the lite version and go for the full thing.  It is guaranteed to bring you hours and hours of fun and challenge.

Cubit is a great little game that just hit the App Store in August.  It is a wonderfully executed puzzle game.  As you can see in the screen shot, the top of the screen has three views that show you where your block(s) reside from three different perspectives.  The goal is to move it/them so that the numbers on your “key” at the top correspond with the number of sides that are touching.  The numbers turn yellow as you achieve that goal.  As you move your finger around on the bottom of the screen, your field of play rotates around so that you can view it from any angle.  By touching a block, you can move if forward/backward, left/right, and/or up/down.  It sounds a lot more complicated than it really is.  It is actually very intuitive and the means of play in no way gets in the way of the game.

In many ways, this game reminds me of the old Nonogram style games.  In this case though, it has been elevated to 3D.  It is this increasing level of complexity with a small playing field that is perfect for the iPhone.  Larger puzzles with massive grids would be too difficult to casually play.  I would, however, love to possibly see 4×4 grids added in the future.

Some real thought went into this game.  There is no timer or anything to cause you stress.  As you finish a level, you can post the fact that you completed it on Twitter.  The first few levels are nothing really to brag about though.  If this feature were disabled until you got into more advanced levels, that would be fine with me.  Other thoughtful things are that you can leave the game at any time.  When you come back, it not only remembers what level you were on, but the position of your blocks as you left them.  If you get stuck, you can skip to the next level (as long as you stay in the same difficulty level of 20 puzzles) and return to the current one at another time.  As you get close to completing the puzzle, it will even tell you how many moves it will take to finish it.  While sometimes this appeared helpful, when you are really stuck, it is a taunt at how close you are.   One undocumented feature is that you can turn off the sound in the game and listen to your iPod library of music while playing the game.

My suggestions are few.  I’d love for there to be some hint system for the more difficult puzzles.  When you are getting up to 5 different blocks to move around, it would be nice of you could replace the actual view of things as displayed on the top with the front, side, and top view of what the solution looks like.  In other words, you would see the solution represented graphically instead of numerically.  Having both modes of play would really help, I would think.  The only other suggestion I would have is to add additional levels that are generated on demand and/or levels with an increased playing field size.  While I think the higher levels of the game are probably smarter than I am and I’m likely to never get finished with them all, I could see the benefit of having more puzzles available in the cheaper difficulty levels.

The game currently consists of 100 different levels that get increasingly more difficult.  If the $2.99 price tag is too much for you, a free lite version is available that contains the first 15 levels.  And, if you can wait until September 5th, the app will be on sale for $0.99.  At that price, it definitely makes my Must-Have list for any puzzle fan and deserves the 5-star rating in the App Store.  While I don’t give out stars here, this game made it to my single partially-full iPhone screen of favorites.  So, out of the hundreds (300-400) apps and games I’ve tested and/or reviewed, this makes it to my list of top 10-15 games.  So my suggestion is simple.  Download the Lite version to play with for the next 72-hours, then grab this thing while it is on sale.  You won’t regret it.

UPDATE: Seems that once you get past the novice and beginner difficulty levels (40 puzzles), you do get into 4×4 grids.  This means that you have 64 possible positions for blocks instead of 9.  My genius son played some of these higher levels (as well as everything before them), but found it more difficult to maneuver the blocks where you wanted them.  It became frustrating.  It also revealed the need for keeping track of user progress for more than one user.  If I am any indication, the game gets too difficult at some level that probably differs from one person to the next.  That is why I would love to see it generate new levels within a certain selected difficulty level.

To be perfectly honest, arcade games are not a huge attraction for me.  As I’ve said before, I am more of a puzzle kind of game.  Arcade games just never hold my attention…until this one came out.

Inkvaders is a new title from Chillingo.  I predict that is is going to be a huge seller for them.  The game is pretty much perfect in every way.  Controls are easy.  The left thumb-pad controls the direction you head.  The right thumb controls your jetpack and your firing of your selected gun. An icon in the top corner shows you level of ammunition for your gun.  Tapping that icon lets you choose a different weapon.  Up to 15 different weapons are available in the “vending machine”.

Game play is very smooth.  Your goal is to kill all the zombie-like aliens that are beaming down to the planet/moon depicted by your current level.  Three different locations are available for play.  As you collect points from marked boxes or by killing aliens, you are offered upgrades and additional weapons in the vending machine.  You also collect points by using your jetpack to “catch” stars and asteroids that are above you.  Ammunition and jetpack power run out though, so you have to be careful about when/how you use them.  Run out of ammo and/or jetpack power, and your ability to avoid the aliens gets severely limited.  If they get too close, they “zap” you and your health decreases until you die.  Loose all your lives and the game is over.

Three different difficulty modes are available.  The game also comes with an “endurance” mode so that you can play as long as you wish.  The ability to leave the game and resume it is a real plus.  At the $0.99 intr0ductory sale price, this game makes my must-have list.  It is a ton of fun for a buck.  Although I didn’t need it, my only suggestion would be for there to be an option to reverse the controls for those that are left handed.

This free app immediately made my Must Have list.  It is the best app I have seen for finding those great bargains in the app store.  What really sets it apart is not only the push notifications, but the ability to filter each category by all sales, bargains of 50% off or more, and price drops to free.  Viewing popular apps with price drops is also cool.  The only issue I had with the app is that it doesn’t seem to have a full database.  I wanted to add the new Civilization Revolution game, for example, and it could not find it.  And when I searched for Myst, it apparently used it as a wildcats ( like *myst*) and the title was buried deep in the long list of mystery and mysterious stuff.  I’d also like to see some way to limit searches and displayed apps to only selected categories.   I am not complaining though. For a free app, it’s a bargain and very useful. Check it out.

Block Drop was a great surprise to me.  It is a great little game and is currently on sale for $0.99 in the app store.  Controls are very simple.  The arrows on the right control direction.  Holding down the “button” on the left allows you to jump your “gem” two places.  It is kinda like a cross between Time Box or Nintaii and one of those peg-jumping games.  Instead of rolling a block around to get it to land on a particular place, the object is to jump from square to square, making them disappear as you leave them, until just the one with a checkerboard is left. Makes for a very unique take on an old classic.  Since you can get multiple blocks stacked up in the same location, some squares will have to be jumped on more than once to make them all disappear.  In case these “stacks” obstruct your view, a small “map” appears in the top right corner of the screen.  If you get stuck, there is a great option to show the solution.

This map and the solution gets critical as you go to higher and higher levels.  Every level that you play is completely randomly generated.   Level 1 starts with 5 blocks.  Each subsequent level contains one more block than the previous one. Level 21 has 25 blocks and so on up to level 999 which contains 1004 blocks.  When you choose a level, you are basically choosing a difficulty level.  Ultimately, this means that you have an unlimited number of “levels” with 999 levels of difficulty.

Not only are the graphics stunning on the 999 levels, but the computer generated sound score is very relaxing and, unexpectedly to me, really adds a lot to the game.  One thing I could possibly would suggest for this title is an “undo” feature and/or a button to reset the level.  Block Drop is $0.99 in the app store for just a short period of time though, so get this while it is on sale.  It is the perfect addition to any puzzle-lover’s collection and makes my Must-Have list.  If you like puzzles, you won’t regret it.  This title is quickly becoming a favorite and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

As a news junkie, I’ve been anticipating the BNO News app ever since it was announced.  For those of you familiar with news sources on Twitter, @BreakingNews is consistently one of the best sources for breaking news.  It repeatedly beats any competition with the first to post an alert.  They are able to do this because they don’t just repeat news, they are a new Breaking News wire service.  They even offer email alerts if you are not into Twitter.  Since early March, they have gone from roughly 30,000 fans/followers getting their alerts to a million or more and are now adding to that by as many as 10,000 per day.  You don’t get that kind of following without providing premium news content.

The BNO News app is much more than just another interface to their Twitter account.  While I followed the Twitter tweets, I did not subscribe to the SMS alerts for them.  Did not want SMS alerts for everything.  Advertisements for the BNO service was not something that I wanted to wake me.  But this app has some really nice push features.  You can turn off the push alerts between certain hours, and also turn off alerts for low priority news.  Push notifications that the Russians have two nuclear attack subs patrolling the eastern seaboard of the US get though with a popup window and alert sound (just like a SMS).  The fact that the Russian president called Obama to wish him happy birthday (with subs? LOL) did not alert.  But it and all the other news is available in the application.  As you can see in the first image that I posted, the critical alerts are marked with a bar on the left side.

When you tap on a news item, you are brought to a second screen.  This screen reflects the link to the story (which will take you to the third screen I posted) if one exists, as well as the option to turn on or off the alerts for low priority news.  If I could offer one suggestion at this point, I would love for the tap of an item in the news list to take you directly to the full story, with perhaps a finger swipe that will take you to this intermediate screen that doesn’t really offer a lot of new information.

The app is a very reasonable $1.99 in the app store.  This covers the first month of push notifications.  After that, a subscription fee of $0.99/month will be introduced that will cover the bandwidth costs of the notifications and offer additional options.  As the app description puts it, “Non-subscribers will still continue to receive some notifications but will not have the more advanced filtering enabled. The monthly subscription fee will be the current minimum product price in the App Store ($0.99 in America).”

Besides wishing that I could bypass this second screen, I would love to have the ability to interface to Twitter and re-tweet a story, the ability to forward a headline via SMS and/or email, and once on a page for the full details of a story, the ability to email the link or bookmark it.  Perhaps this could be done with an option to open the news links in Safari and a link to Twitter where things could be re-tweeted from there.  Enabling cut & paste within the app might work as well.

The bottom line is that this app does not disappoint.  It makes my Must-Have list.  With additional releases already being planned, I am looking forward to all this will offer as the app matures.

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.

When I started this review site, I promised short reviews.  So in short, WOW! This game is incredible!  It is the Must-Have new Fieldrunners.  If I were going to give stars out, I’d give it six out of five.  Yeah, that’s right.  As much as I was looking forward to this game, it exceeded all expectations.  I will go so far as to say if you are only going to have one tower defense game on your iPhone, make it this one.

Defender Chronicles is another is a string of quality releases by Chillingo.  It takes tower defense type games (like Fieldrunners and others of that type) to a whole new, and much better, level.  The first thing that strikes you as you launch the game is that it is not the typical top down perspective.   It is a 2D side view.  This alone makes it fresh.  But it doesn’t stop there.  Besides the numerous types of attackers and defenders and the different levels at different skill levels (about five of each), the game offers classic, campaign, and endless modes.  And, just for the added twist, it throws in a twist of a role-playing game.  You can not only use gold earned by killing attackers for purchase or upgrades of different types of defenders, but can also use it to customize your hero/leader so that you can concentrate on different character attributes, skills, armor strengths, and so forth.  By changing these attributes and difficulty levels, this game offers endless play at a very low $2.99 price point.

I took a load of screenshots as I played through this game.  Picking the right one to post that would give an accurate representation of the game was impossible though.  None really do the smooth graphics and soundtrack justice.  So here is a link to a video of the game in action.  If you haven’t watched this yet, and my recommendation above doesn’t have you clicking that purchase button yet, you owe it to yourself to check it out.  The game is every bit as impressive as the video makes it appear.

As great as the game is, I do have some suggestions.  First, I’d love for there to be different player profiles.  My son is going to love this when he sees it and I know I’d like to keep my progress and such separate from his – if I can get my iPhone back from him.  Being able to save a particular place in the game and come back to it with a different hero configuration would be cool as well.  Second, while I enjoyed the accent of the voice-overs, some of the text in the tips and help need just a tad bit of polish.  The grammar makes it appear (in a couple of cases) that English was/is not the first language of the folks doing it.  I hate that an application of such quality in every other way suffers in the grammar department.  Third, while the sound effects are great, I’d love some kind of sound effect as each attacker died.  If you are zoomed in to a particular part of the screen (and yes, you can zoom and scroll around), you can still see deaths indicated in change to your gold, but an auditory indication would be nice as well.  I’d also love an auditory “ding” or something to let me know when I have an archer or other defender selected and achieve enough gold for an upgrade.  And speaking of sound, I’d also like volume sliders for the music versus other sounds as opposed to just on/off.

Overall, I’m very pleased with this game.  I can’t wait to see what the future holds for it.  There is already a community forum devoted to the game, and version 1.1 is waiting for Apple’s approval with improved memory requirements, a new “novice” level, and “additional bug fixes”.  I haven’t come across any bugs myself, but I’m sure a game with this level of complexity must have had something slip through.  The fact that it is quickly being addressed is a huge plus.