Lucy Ingram

A year ago, I heard about an intriguing potential game in the making, a possible hybrid of games like Mass Effect and Heavy Rain, two of my all-time favorite console games. This alone was enough to pique my interest, but once I found out it starred a crack black ops team of lycra-clad ladies like Charlie’s Angels, I was sold.

Ambitious and innovative, Revolution 60 offers an iOS experience like no other. With gorgeous 3D animations, bold interactive gameplay and intriguing plot, Giant Spacekat brings to life a team of four futuristic female operatives assigned a mission to re-establish control of a compromised space station. As the sharp-tongued and strong-willed protagonist Holiday, you’ll find yourself balancing your decision-making between the needs of two of your subordinates – the compassionate Amelia and authoritarian Minuet.

I’m soaring through the air, dodging fallen trees and rocky overhangs, and evading plumes of sooty black smoke while trying to collect as many runes as I possibly can — and I’m loving it. Who would have thought being a dragon would be so cool?

In Dragon Raiders, an intriguing new iOS runner game, you’ll duck, dive and dodge your way through endless levels of entertaining fun to save the land of Landslandia from the meddling Megawobblins.

I’ve been trying to slip past demonic guards to escape magical chambers for the past few hours as I fight my way through the horrific world of Hellraid: The Escape. At its best, the game is gruesome, bloody and full of suspense, but it can also be painful and highly frustrating.

Because in this iOS game, death is no stranger: Die you will, over and over — that’s bloody guaranteed.

As someone who’s never witnessed any paranormal activity, I’d probably crap myself should I ever come across a ghost in real life. Luckily I’ve got the Blackwell adventure games to give me a tidy little taste of the supernatural.

The episodic game series introduces you to the spirit world through the eyes of Rosangela Blackwell, for whom dealing with specters comes as no surprise, thanks to her family’s long history of strange and unexplained happenings. Her story unfolds over five games that were originally released on PC (and ported to Mac). The first three games in the series, recently ported smoothly and successfully to iOS, introduce us to a brilliantly told story driven by dialogue and character interaction, with many problem-solving elements.

I’m a bit of a sucker for anything remotely magical, and I love the idea of blasting spells around to save the world. If you’re also excited by that, and love hordes of monsters too, then Storm Casters will be right up your alley.

Packing a library of spells so extensive that even the great Gandalf would be in awe, Storm Casters’ enchanting design aesthetics and whimsical outlook will make you a fan straight off.

Get Set Games (developer of Mega Jump) has a lot to be proud of when it comes to Storm Casters. The company’s latest dive into the world of dungeon-crawling and spell-casting is especially appealing to newcomers as well as fans of the roguelike gaming subgenre.

Next time you are traveling somewhere or commuting your way to work, look around you. It’s evident that the number of book lovers who have taken to reading on a digital format has risen significantly over the years. In 2011 and 2012, Amazon said it sold 105 books for its Kindle e-reader for every 100 hardcover and paperback books, excluding free eBooks.

Though it has become apparent in recent years that there is a slight fall in the growth of eBook sales (particularly so in 2013), eBooks are still far too compelling to die out, and today we tend to use more than one medium to consume the same thing. So next time you’re hesitating to pull out your Kindle or iPad mini on the bus or train due to the watchful eyes of a “book snob,” just remember that it’s not possible to please everyone, and that there are still thousands of benefits to the electronic book format.

Twenty years ago, if someone had told us we’d be streaming our favorite shows from the internet legally, we would have scoffed at them and disregarded it, never mind how the speed of broadband internet has changed the way we live our everyday lives. Roll on to the last couple of years, where media streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu Plus have taken over and the days when we sat in front of the television flicking through 57 channels with nothing on are no more. Now there’s a whole host of entertainment right at the tap of a button, and we literally have to make no effort to leave our seats as these services take over our smartphones, tablets and electronic devices in a huge way.

But which service to pick? We’ve researched every possible choice out there, engaged in some elaborate hands-on testing, and narrowed down the extensive list to one reigning champion. If you look at the table below, it becomes fairly obvious that each media streaming service provider excels in some aspects but lags behind in others. By comparing each feature, it became much easier to narrow down the overall ultimate media service app.

Internet Radio has some fierce competition. Since the launch of iTunes Radio in 2013, it became much harder to single out one service in particular that reigns supreme. Does the popular US service Pandora still have what it takes to surpass all others? Is Slacker Radio more your personal preference?

Either way, following on from last week’s column where we compared on-demand music services, we have taken it upon ourselves to narrow down the competition, including iTunes Radio, Pandora,  Slacker Radio, iHeartRadio, Last.fm and TuneIn Radio; see the table below. We’ve also done some hands-on testing and in-depth research in order to determine just who has the leading edge and what they offer in terms of functionality, catalog size, features and usability.

In 2001, Apple changed the way music was distributed with the arrival of iTunes, its online digital media store. Since that time, the digital age has evolved rapidly into an era where cassette mix tapes and compact discs are no more. As we enter an era in which the internet serves our every need, alongside digital distribution and the iTunes Store are an increasing number of on-demand music streaming services have become today’s most popular and possibly cost-effective means of accessing the equivalent of walking into your local music store and buying everything.

Unlike Pandora and iTunes Radio (which we’ll cover shortly in another column), on-demand streaming radio allows you to listen to any music in the service library as often as you like.

The competition between the unlimited all-you-can-stream music services is fiercer than ever before, and with the launch of Beats Music this past month, it has become even more difficult to pinpoint the most suitable music subscription for our needs.

However, after hours of research, a comparison of the seven on-demand services on offer (including Beats Music, Spotify, Rdio, Xbox Music, Rhapsody, Sony Music Unlimited, and Google Play Music–see our table below), and some hands-on testing, we’ve managed to narrow down the overwhelming choice to a select few that offer the best overall features and usability. So let’s crack on with the results, shall we?