Apps/Games - 16/409 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

May

[New Game] Combo Crew Review: An Old-Fashioned Brawler With New-Fangled Controls

Posted by Ryan Whitwam in Apps/Games, Game Reviews, Games, Reviews

The arcade-style brawler has a long and storied history. From the X-Men to Double Dragon, nothing has quite the same feel as a good button-mashing beat-em-up. The main problem with these titles on mobile devices is the lack of buttons to mash. Sure, there on on-screen thumbsticks and attack buttons, but it's just not the same. Combo Crew comes to Android in hopes of getting you (and your friends) hooked on its fluid gesture controls and slick presentation. Let's take a look at this just-released fighter.

Controls

Each stage in Combo Crew takes place in a single room with wave after wave of bad guys dropping in from above.

May

[Bonus Round] Blip Blup, What's The Phrase Free, And Gameloft's Epic

Posted by Jeremiah Rice in Games, News, Roundups

Welcome to the latest entry in our Bonus Round series, wherein we tell you all about the new Android games of the day that we couldn't get to during our regular news rounds. Consider this a quick update for the dedicated gamers who can't wait for our bi-weekly roundups, and don't want to wade through a whole day's worth of news just to get their pixelated fix. Today we've got a new puzzle game from noted developer ustwo, Zynga's latest attempt to enslave minions via word games, and another licensed title from Gameloft. Without further ado:

bonusround

Blip Blup

Developer ustwo has cultivated a reputation for simple, unique titles, and Blip Blup is no exception.

May

[New App] Glide Instant Video Messaging Now Available On Android, Currently In Beta

Posted by Kyle Wiggers in Apps/Games, News

Love using Skype and Hangouts but have friends or family that are rarely available to video chat? Glide is an attempt to solve that problem by taking an asynchronous approach to instant messaging. Here's the concept: conversationalists can login with their Facebook credentials, join a chat room, and respond to one another with videos up to 42 seconds in length. Videos are stored in the cloud, available for playback either immediately or some time after their initial posting. There isn't any message limit and data retention is currently unlimited – you won't see your videos disappear in the foreseeable future.

Glide, which launched on iOS early this year, is the brainchild of Israeli company Glide Talk.

May

Men's Room Mayhem Awards Players For Leaving One Urinal Empty Between Patrons, As It Should

Posted by Bertel King, Jr. in Games, News

Most men seem to understand the unspoken rules of bathroom etiquette. They get in, they do the deed, and they get out with as little awkward contact as necessary. But there's always that one guy who messes things up - that jerk who walks in and stands at the urinal next to yours when there was clearly another free one available. It's too late to educate that guy, but hopefully the next one will play Men's Room Mayhem before he makes the same mistake.

Ripstone's latest game puts gamers in the shoes of a bathroom janitor tasked with making sure the whizzers that walk in aim their tackle in the right direction.

May

Bitdefender's Clueful Spots Privacy Leaks, Keeps Your Apps Honest [Sponsored Post]

Posted by A Word From Our Sponsor in Applications

We briefly touched yesterday on Bitdefender's new privacy protection utility Clueful, but today we'd like to take a closer look at everything the app has to offer, along with what makes it stand out from the crowd.

For those who may not have caught yesterday's post (where we're also giving away two Galaxy S4 i9500s and two HTC Ones), Clueful is best described as a "personal privacy consultant" that offers full details of what your apps are actually doing behind the scenes. This includes details about which apps can potentially send your personal information and/or identity to third parties, track your location, have access to "sensitive data," show "very intrusive" ads, and much more.

May

PSA: Photos Shared Via Google Hangouts Will Spam Your Google+ Photos Account, But Some Of You Might Like That

Posted by Bertel King, Jr. in Applications, News

If you hadn't noticed already, any pictures shared with or by your friends during a Google Hangouts chat will automatically sync up with Google+ Photos, organized into albums by conversation. These images are uploaded even if automatic back up is disabled inside the Google+ app. New albums can be found under the "Albums" tab and are titled Hangout: [Your Name] ● [Contact's Name] unless you explicitly gave your hangout a title, so you shouldn't have any trouble finding them.

I imagine this feature will provide peace of mind to people who hold mission-critical conversations via Google Hangouts. As for me, I'm afraid it will just be spammy.

May

Google Play Magazines Updated To V2.0, Now Uses Card UI In The Magazine Library And New Slide-Out Navigation

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Applications, News

Google is going a little nuts with the card UI updates today – first Drive, and now Play Magazines. Today's update brings Google's magazine-reader to version 2.0, and makes it overall easier to use and nicer to look at – both welcome additions to an already-good app. Besides the new Card UI that replaced the terrible rolodex style called StackView, Magazines followed suit and adopted the new slide-out navigation drawer that we first saw in Google Earth and Shopper.

Other than the pretty factor, this version contains some "bug fixes"... and not much else. Of course, considering the app is designed purely for reading/looking at, aesthetics are key, so that makes sense.

May

Google Drive Gets A Big Update To v1.2, Brings New Interface, Optical Character Recognition, And More

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Applications, News

Google Drive just got a nice big update out of nowhere, which, first and foremost, brings it up to speed with the card UI – a feature that works really well on an app like Drive. Past that, there's a new "scan" option, which uses your device's camera to grab snapshots of things like receipts, and coverts them to searchable PDFs using OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology. The future is a fantastic place.

Spreadsheet editing also got a little less crappy and a little more feature-rich, as you can now adjust font types and sizes, as well as cell text colors and alignment.

May

Amazon Appstore Updated To Version 5.0, Adds Support For Nearly 200 Countries

Posted by Cody Toombs in Applications, News

Gordon Gekko tells us that "Greed is Good," a sentiment that I happen to agree with under the circumstances. n Amazon's continuing effort to be the first place everybody turns to for their Internet purchases, the online retail giant has updated its Android Appstore to v5.0 and now supports "nearly 200" countries. Thanks to an announcement last month, we know that this expansion propels the precise count from merely 7 markets up to a shocking 195. While Amazon's list counts a few non-sovereign nations and dependent territories, the total coverage still soars well above Apple's 155 or Google's 134 (for paid apps).