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Nov

Serving Up Pies: Pizza Boy Review

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

Much of the platforming genre is based on nostalgia: nostalgia for games like Super Mario World, Donkey Kong Country or Sonic the Hedgehog. These titles dominated consoles and earned themselves legions of fans along the way. An entire sub-set of mobile games is based around recreating that magic, especially when it comes to gameplay.

Pizza Boy is one of those titles. Its premise is simple, like most games of its type tend to be: you're a pizza delivery boy looking to get a particular pie back from a bird who has stolen it. In order to retrieve it, you'll be traversing a number of levels by running, jumping and throwing bottles as projectiles.

Nov

Taking The Power Back: Reviewing Royal Revolt

Posted by Matt Demers in Game Reviews, Games, Reviews

It's hard to be a free to play app in the Google Play Store. With so many games throwing in-app payments into the faces of their players, it's tempting to follow along with them - if the money's good, why not? However, in the pursuit of cash, gameplay might suffer. On one hand, you want people to pay money, but on the other, you (ideally) don't want to ruin the experience they have if they don't. Thankfully, Royal Revolt avoids that last problem.

The Concept

Royal Revolt is a reverse tower defense game: instead of protecting against hordes of enemies, you are the horde that is looking to wreck everything.

Oct

Iron Jack 2 Review: Plays Well, Rusty In Other Places

Posted by Matt Demers in Game Reviews, Games, Reviews

Iron Jack 2 is a mashing-up of multiple kinds of genres; it combines platforming with some physics-based gameplay and places them inside a familiar "beat levels, get three stars" box. You play as a lone spaceman whose job it is to collect fuel energy. Once enough energy is collected,a level can be exited and completed.

This sounds simple enough, right? We've seen many games use this formula to great effect, making its players jump through increasingly difficult hoops in order to get that vaunted three-star score, and a place on leaderboards. It's a great way of encouraging replayability: instead of having to concentrate on making every level fun, you just make it competitive, instead.

Oct

Review: Glu Mobile's "Indestructible" Is Anything But Bulletproof

Posted by Matt Demers in Game Reviews, Games, Reviews

In the realm of dual-stick shooters, Android’s offerings seem to be plentiful. However, one company’s name stands out due to their past success: Glu Mobile’s Gun Bros is a franchise that many gamers will recognize. Gun Bros seemed to have it all: an addicting premise, no shortage of customization, and perhaps most importantly, controls that didn’t suck. I’ve played my fair share of Gun Bros, so when Glu announced that they would be releasing a similar title (only this time, with cars!) I couldn’t help but be curious.

Rev Up That Engine…

Indestructible isn’t a concept that feels particularly new: you have a heavily modified car with a number of weapon options, and your goal is to kill enemies before they kill you.

Aug

[New App Review] Current Caller ID Brings Solid Caller ID With A Social Twist, If You're Into That Sort Of Thing

Posted by David Ruddock in App Reviews, Applications, News

Android's selection of good incoming Caller ID apps is a bit meager. While a search of the Play Store yields many options, most of them are deficient in one important way or another (or, not free), or flat-out sketchy. One of the more popular ones was actually WhitePages Caller ID - which Current Caller ID replaces, as it's made by the same company.

What makes WhitePage's app special (and better than others), in part, is that it utilizes the company's rather extensive curated directory of phone numbers - over 300 million currently.

Current Caller ID also brings in a social element, pulling data from your Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts to provide even more information about the people calling you.

Jan

[Review] Amuse Lets You Browse Tons Of Websites Like Memebase And Ragecomics On Your Mobile Device Through A User-Friendly Interface

Posted by Brandon Lancaster in App Reviews, Applications

Amuse has been out for some time now, and there certainly are apps like it, but we decided this one was worth mentioning simply because it works great and has an insanely high rating on the Android Market. The function of this app is very simple, it basically provides you with a mobile feed consisting of the most popular 'entertainment' sites like Rage Comics, Demotivators, 9gag, and many more. Populate the app's home screen with your favorite sites from the list, and see a feed of content directly from the site in an easy-to-consume mobile layout.

UI And UX

Right from the start, I noticed that this app was very well made.

Sep

[App Review] Football League Clubs' App Offers Club News And Game Highlights On Your Phone, But Lacks Finishing Touches

Posted by John Thompson in App Reviews, Applications

Last Updated: October 3rd, 2011

Football. The "beautiful game" full of highs and lows, drama and controversy, near misses and outright blunders. Americans call it soccer, but in England, where we have the best leagues in the world and the best fans to match, we know better than that.

It's only right, then, that we have a great Android application to match all of the football that goes on week-in-week-out, and thanks to the Football League Clubs' App, we may have just that!

The Football League app has been available for the iPhone since the start of last season, offering users a range of news, team player profiles and video content.

Aug

[App Review] PC Monitor Allows You To Keep An Eye On Everything (And I Mean Everything) That's Happening On Your Windows Or Linux Computer

Posted by John Thompson in App Reviews, Applications

If you've ever wanted to keep an eye on your computer from your smartphone whilst you're out and about, then you'll know how limited your options are. You could use a remote monitoring tool such as LogMeIn Ignition to physically control the machine, but it doesn't offer a quick overview of resources on your phone and the application costs a cent shy of $30, which isn't exactly a price that encourages impulse buying.

If LogMeIn doesn't fit the bill, and you're looking for an application that can show you all the information that you need to know on the screen of your smartphone, without having to take control of the actual machine and navigate Windows on a 3.5-inch screen, then you may want to take a closer look at PC Monitor.

Feb

[Hands-On] Chomp: A New Hope For Finding Apps On Android

Posted by Zak Stinson in App Reviews, Applications, Reviews, Videos

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

If you are reading this post, it's extremely likely that you have an Android device. If you have an Android, it's 100% certain that you want to pluck out your own eyeballs in rage every time you are forced to use the search feature in the Android Market. Even Market alternatives like AppBrain leave a lot to be desired, with sub-optimal search results and a less than beautiful UI. The sad fact that Google, a company that makes most of its revenue from search and ads, can't seem to provide half-decent results is what motivated the folks behind Chomp to get into Android.