It’s time for our weekly digest of tiny iPhone reviews, courtesy of iPhoneTiny.com, with some extra commentary exclusive to Cult of Mac.
This time, we review 4×4 Jam, A Doodle Fly, Business Card Reader, Gorillacam, Magnetic Joe, Magnetic Joe 2, Neocell Fighters Evolution, Noise.io LE, Rasta Monkey, Samurai: Way of the Warrior, and Ultimate Video Poker.
APP OF THE WEEK
Gorillacam: Camera app w/ anti-shake, level utilities and multi-shot/time-lapse. Has flaws, but still essential. 4/5 Free https://is.gd/aN9jp
4×4 Jam: Bouncy, free-roaming racing game. Looks nice (despite pop-up) but lacks excitement & is too samey. 2/5 $1.99 https://is.gd/aN92h
A Doodle Fly: Short, luck-reliant distance-shooter, rescued by bonkers storyline and custom-drawn characters. 2/5 Free https://is.gd/aL9W6
Business Card Reader: Surprisingly good OCR app for business cards. Imperfect scanning, but still saves time. 3/5 $5.99 https://is.gd/aIaTd
Magnetic Joe: Irritating physics platformer with hateful intrusive ads every time you complete a level. Awful. 1/5 Free https://is.gd/aN8FF
Magnetic Joe 2: More of the same, but better graphics/design drags this up to mediocre. Ads still hateful, tho’. 2/5 Free https://is.gd/aN8SU
Neocell Fighters Evolution: Old-school vertical shooter. Simple controls but unimaginative gameplay + bad audio 2/5 $0.99 https://is.gd/9WZUY
Noise.io LE: Synth ‘demo’. Some decent presets, but limited creative potential and confusing UI. 2/5 Free https://is.gd/aN9cN
Rasta Monkey: Part Sway, part Sonic, part Rolando. All annoying as hell. Shame, ‘cos graphics & ideas are fine. 2/5 $0.99 https://is.gd/a253U
Samurai: Way of the Warrior: Swipe-based hack & slash. Good controls, comic graphics & fun, but repetitive. 3/5 $1.99 https://is.gd/9WZMc
Ultimate Video Poker: Large collection of simulated video poker games marred by dreadful interface & graphics. 2/5 $0.99 https://is.gd/9X09F
Not a good week for games, bar the fairly fun but repetitive Samurai: Way of the Warrior (and Rasta Monkey could have been good if it didn’t boast level design that you wished was sentient so you could repeatedly punch it in the face while yelling WHY?), but a couple of good non-game apps. Business Card Reader makes a decent stab at business card OCR. During tests, it was, unsurprisingly, imperfect, but even when I had to make changes to the data it had grabbed from cards, it was still a time-saver (and the original pics are stored for reference anyway). But the winner this week: Gorillacam. The iPhone’s Camera app is simple, but lacks features. Gorillacam adds a whole bunch of useful things, including time-lapse, grids and anti-shake, although it does take a rather long time to save photos.
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