Matt Demers

Matt Demers is a Toronto writer that deals primarily in the area of Android, comics and other nerdy pursuits. You can find his work on Twitter and sites across the Internet.

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Jun

[AtriX-Mas Continues] XDA Serves Up Gingerbread 2.3.4 For The Motorola ATRIX

Posted by Matt Demers in Atrix 4G (Olympus), Gingerbread 2.3, Motorola, News

As an Atrix owner, these past couple of days have been a bit of a "Christmas in (almost) July" celebration. First, we get confirmation that our bootloader will be unlocked with Android 2.3.4. After that, the phone is placed on sale on Amazon for one measly cent. Then XDA Developers say "screw that; we'll give you an unlock on Froyo!"

Now, in perhaps the biggest gift yet, the genius minds over at XDA have devised a way for users to install a pre-release build of Gingerbread 2.3.4 on their phones.

As with the bootloader unlocks, this flash is only available on the AT&T versions of the Atrix.

Jun

[Review] Cut The Rope On Android Shows Us What A Great Port Looks Like

Posted by Matt Demers in Game Reviews, Games, Reviews

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

Cut The Rope, which arrived to Android yesterday, is one of those "top shelf" iOS titles that has done so well for itself that it's become synonymous with mobile gaming. Of course, it isn't at an "Angry Birds" level yet, but it's permeated the public consciousness to a point where I've heard non-gamer friends talk about it with enthusiasm.

Cut The Rope is a puzzle game where you aim to feed a piece of candy to a green monster named Omnom. The candy is being held aloft by a piece of rope, which is affected by physics and is actually quite elastic.

Jun

No Need To Wait For Gingerbread: The Atrix Bootloader Has Been Unlocked

Posted by Matt Demers in Atrix 4G (Olympus), Froyo 2.2, Gingerbread 2.3, Motorola, News

Even though we reported yesterday that the Motorola Atrix would be receiving the option to unlock its bootloader, a group of dedicated developers on XDA have found a way to do, even on Froyo. The update involves flashing a specifically-coded SBF, and then running commands from the fastboot menu of the phone. If all goes well, you'll get the fabled "device is now unlocked" message, and you will be one step closer to killing that damned Motoblur.

^{XDA user XLR88 reports his success}

However, there are some limitations. The phone has to either be running the AT&T or OLYFR version of the phone; certain versions, like the French or Bell Canada Atrix have been reported to have less than optimal results (an error which stops the process, but no reports of bricking).

Jun

[Review] Galaxy on Fire THD Brings Extreme Quality And Ambition, But Is It Worth The $15?

Posted by Matt Demers in Apps/Games, Game Reviews, Games, Reviews

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

Sometimes, it's best when a game doesn't perform just one function. Especially when graphics-heavy apps charge more than usual for an experience that might grow stale, variance and depth is extremely important. The iOS port of Galaxy on Fire II has depth in spades, but is the overall experience worth the game's price?

The Gameplay

Galaxy on Fire II plays remarkably similar to a 2003 Windows game called Freelancer, in which you took on the role of an interstellar starship captain with an eye for earning money. The same concept remains true in Galaxy on Fire II; you can follow a story mission or go off on your own, accepting missions from people in space station bars.

Jun

[Review] Naval Clash Blows The Original 'Battleship' Out Of The Water, Brings Smooth Multiplayer Gameplay to Android

Posted by Matt Demers in Apps/Games, Game Reviews, Games, Reviews

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

In my youth, one of the games I hated most was Battleship - it was simply too slow for my liking. Spending what seemed like ages trying to seek out hits in a sea of misses only served to bore me out of my mind.

However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Naval Clash eliminated most of my hate towards the game. At its core, it's a rendition of Battleship that allows you to play against a CPU, friends over Bluetooth, or other players over Naval Battle's multiplayer service. Following the likes of Words With Friends, Naval Clash takes an old formula that "everyone" likes and makes it available on a mobile platform.

Jun

[Review] Doodle God Lets You Flex Your Omnipotence, Could Probably Have Used More Time In The Garden

Posted by Matt Demers in Apps/Games, Game Reviews, Games, Reviews

Last Updated: August 2nd, 2011

The Game

When distilled down to its base values, Doodle God is a large logic puzzle based on matching. You're given four elements (earth, air, water, fire) at the start of the game and can combine them to make things. Combining fire and air gets you steam, fire with water alcohol (firewater, har har), and many others.

From there, you can use the products of your matching to make other things, which is where the game gets most of its depth. There are over 200 different elements to find, and more being added all the time. This is the major selling point of the game, touting the ability to make fantastical creatures, like the front end of an airplane and the back end of a horse.

Jun

[New App Review] Pax Britannica Gives Us One-Button, Competitive Strategy

Posted by Matt Demers in Apps/Games, Games, News

Pax Britannica for Android is a port of the open-source game of the same name. Marketed as "the one button strategy game," Pax lives up to its word. Players take control of an underwater factory ship that is locked in combat with another ship of similar function.

Each ship it outfitted with a dial which allows it to spawn individual ships. This is accomplished by a player pressing and holding their finger on their assigned section of the screen: the needle on the dial unwinds clockwise, and each quadrant of the dial spawns a different ship. The ships fight using artificial intelligence, and each have their own strengths and weaknesses.

Jun

Swype 3.0 Beta Released, Includes Improvements To Prediction And Touch Typing

Posted by Matt Demers in Applications, News

The Swype team released a new round of improvements to their keyboard replacement software this evening. With this update, users can expect improvements to the "traditional" way of typing, as the correction engine that is used in the Swype method has been applied there as well.

Other improvements include better support for Android tablets, a simplified registration process, a new method of choosing words (in a horizontal menu, as opposed to a popup) and other improvements. You can find a complete list of their changes below:

Swype v3 introduces two major new features: Tap Correction and Horizontal Word Choice List
Our Tap Correction engine utilizes many of the concepts that make swyping so accurate.

Jun

[Review] Grand Prix Story Adds Some Much-Needed New Features To The "____ Story" Playbook

Posted by Matt Demers in Apps/Games, Game Reviews, Games, Reviews

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

Japanese developer Kairosoft seems to be the king of the mobile simulation genre, having pumped out three English titles (Game Dev Story, Hot Springs Story and now Grand Prix Story) which manage to be addicting as hell while benefitting from the touch controls of a smartphone. In their games, you're put in the shoes of a business owner who is looking to both make money and rise to the top of his/her chosen profession.

The Game

Along the way, you can customize everything from the staff you hire to the products you put out; going into each individual thing you can customize would lengthen this article by a couple thousand words, at the minimum.

Jun

[Review] Rebirth Brings A Basic But Faithful (And Free) Lumines Port To Android

Posted by Matt Demers in Apps/Games, Game Reviews, Games, Reviews

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

Puzzle games are some of my favourite titles for the Android because of their tendency to play well in short bursts. Rebirth looks to take the gameplay behind Lumines and bring it over to the mobile market: the question is, will it do the original justice?

The Concept

For those looking for a basic clone of Lumines (more on that later), you've come to the right spot. Rebirth is pretty much the game to a "T", and brings the block-stacking madness to the Android platform with good faith.

For those unfamiliar, Lumines was a puzzle game that was first developed for the Playstation Portable System.