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Mar

[Hands On] ErnCon Successfully Combines Equal Parts Asteroids, Bullet Hell, And Multi-Player Action

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Games, News

ErnCon, an awesome game with a strange name, reached version 1.0 today, officially "going gold." The game could be described as a mix between the classic 'Asteroids' and any entry from the chaotic "bullet hell" genre, with some interesting multiplayer capabilities thrown in.

ErnCon's description urges users to "join your allies in the epic battle to retake the galaxy," which could be paraphrased as "shoot everything and stay alive." When first starting the game, a nameless, busty guide will help you learn how to play in a quick tutorial mission. After the tutorial, players can choose to either shoot through Survival Mode or Missions.

Mar

[Hands On] 4gency Releases Node.Hack, An Awesomely Unique Action Game That Offers Players A Chance To "Hack The World"

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Games, News

Giving us perhaps one of the most unique games I've ever played, 4gency released Node.Hack to the Play Store today. The game poses the player as "a digital warrior on the front lines, cracking the world's toughest computer systems for profit." Indeed, the object of the game is to hack through individual nodes to accrue thousands upon thousands of dollars and escape before being destroyed by enemy AI.

The first thing I noticed about Node.Hack was of course its visual style. The graphics in this game are obviously very simple, but that simplistic art style is extremely well-suited to the gameplay.

Mar

Fascinating: OnLive Unveils OnLive Desktop - A Free, Instantly Available Windows 7 Cloud Instance For Tablets, Complete With MS Office, Media Streaming, And More [Hands-On]

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in App Reviews, Applications, News, Tablets, Videos

OnLive, the company that has already revolutionized gaming is now gunning for making the same kind of splash in OS virtualization. And not just any OS virtualization, but Windows 7 in the cloud, for free - a set of words I never thought I'd write in the same sentence.

Something worth pointing out right off the bat is OnLive's "groundbreaking video compression technology" that is used to stream the Desktop cloud to your tablet. If there's one company that has figured out how to perfect streaming of full-screen media, it's definitely OnLive.

I was a bit skeptical at first, but after trying out every aspect of the app through a relatively slow, Spanish Vodafone HSPA+ hotspot here in Barcelona, I have to say I'm thoroughly impressed.

Feb

[MWC 2012] Hands-On With The Toshiba 7.7" AT270 Tegra 3 Tablet

Posted by David Ruddock in AT270, Toshiba, Videos

We trotted on over to the NVIDIA boot at MWC in Barcelona this morning, and happened upon the newest tablet offering from Toshiba, the AT270. Officially unnamed at this point, the device is packing a 7.7" SAMOLED 1280x800 display, a Tegra 3 processor, Wi-Fi, and 32GB of storage (it's unknown if this is the standard amount). It's also running Android 4.0.

Playing with the device was a fairly pleasant experience - though an attendee using the AT270 right before us managed to lock up the device on the unlock screen. So, it's definitely still in the development stage. However, Ice Cream Sandwich performed well, and everything generally seemed pretty snappy.

Feb

[MWC 2012] Hands-On With The Qualcomm S4 Transformer Pad Infinity (TF700KG): Hey, Look - An Antenna Window

Posted by David Ruddock in Eee Pad Transformer Prime, Transformer Pad Infinity, Videos

While at the Google booth earlier today, ASUS was kind enough to let us take a look at the upcoming Transformer Pad Infinity (basically, a beefed up TF Prime), albeit a version we had not yet seen.

The TF700KG is likely going to be a Europe-only device (unless it were to be picked up by a major carrier here in the US), as it has a 4G LTE SIM slot on it, and runs on a Qualcomm S4 MSM8960 dual-core processor. The Infinity also has a 1920x1200 IPS display, significantly higher than the resolution of the Prime. However, one of the biggest changes many people noted that would be coming to the new-and-improved Transformer was the antenna window.

Feb

[MWC 2012] Hands-On With The Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 And 10.1

Posted by David Ruddock in Galaxy Tab 2 10.1, Galaxy Tab 2 7.0, Videos

We're at the Samsung booth at MWC this afternoon, and first on our list were Samsung's newest Tabs - the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1, and the Galaxy Tab 2 7.0. The devices are actually fairly similar - same processor, same cameras, microSD card slot, and 3G SIM card slot. Both are also running Android 4.0, which is pretty standard fare for tablets these days. They even share very similar, very plasticky rear covers.

In fact, on paper, both of these devices are actually very boring. But there's a key piece of information Samsung hasn't announced about these devices: pricing.

Feb

[MWC 2012] Hands-On With The Panasonic Eluga: Not As A Big As A Whale, But About As Slow As One

Posted by David Ruddock in Eluga, Panasonic, Videos

Panasonic's new smartphone, the Eluga (like the whale, minus the B), is actually a pretty decent looking device. On paper, and in person. Its dual-core TI OMAP4430 processor is a proven piece of kit in phones like the DROID RAZR, and it's 4.3" qHD display isn't bad looking at all. With 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage, it actually sounds like it might even be good. Yeah, the thing is, it's not. At all. Just watch the hands-on video, and you'll see why:

Yes, they were all that slow. No, there isn't anything wrong with the video. The performance is so bad that the phone is pretty much unusable in its current state.

Feb

[MWC 2012] Hands-On With The Galaxy Note 10.1: We're Going To Need A Bigger Note

Posted by David Ruddock in Galaxy Note 10.1 (GT-N8000 / N8010 / N8013), News, Videos

When we heard about rumors of Samsung releasing a 10.1-inch version of the popular Galaxy Note smartphone, we were understandably a bit skeptical. I mean, the idea makes sense - a larger Note would mean more area to use that advanced pressure-sensitive stylus. But given that Samsung has yet to announce a Galaxy Tab 10.1 successor, it seemed a bit odd. But now, the Note 10.1 is obviously for-real, and we spent a little time with it today.

First things first: the stylus works as advertised. While a bit laggier to actually display the results of the pen's input than its smaller sibling, the Note 10.1's stylus performed admirably, as you can see below (I'm super creative).

Feb

Initial Impressions And Hands-On With The Motorola Droid 4 On Verizon

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Droid 4, Phone Reviews

A little over two years ago, a phone hit the scene that changed Android forever. That phone was, of course, the Motorola Droid. It almost single-handedly put Android on the map. Its QWERTY slider made it one-of-a-kind, and Android 2.0 was the hottest thing smoking. Fast-forward two years and three keyboarded QWERTY Droids later, and what do we have? The newest generation of Does, the Droid 4.

While some may argue that past Droids have been a letdown, The D4 fulfills many, if not all, of the requests made of the Droid line (on paper, at least). It's fast. It's sleek.

Feb

[Hands-On] Magic Portals Teleports An Addictive Portal-Like Sidescroller Onto Your Android Device

Posted by Brandon Lancaster in Game Reviews, Games

Seeing as I'm hopelessly addicted to Portal and Portal 2, I was pretty excited when we came across Asantee's new game Magic Portals. Basically, it's a physics-based puzzler that revolves around the whole portal concept. While it obviously isn't exactly unique, it is absolutely entertaining and fun to play.

Gameplay

So as I said before, the whole game is based on portals - hence the title. As we all know, portals aren't really a magical phenomenon, though. They are the result of a rather complex portal gun created at Aperture Science. But for the sake of this game, portals are shot out of the characters hands using magic spells, and I guess that's cool too.