Tuned for iPhone Hits All the Right Notes – A Must-Have for Music Quiz Fans [Review]

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Tuned-screen-1

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97NRmtw1G6U&feature=player_embedded

Tuned is an innovative new game for the iPhone that offers music lovers an endless number of entertaining music quizzes from just about every genre there is. The unique thing about this game is that it takes its music from the song previews in the iTunes store’s top charts, so even if you don’t have a single track of your own stored on your device, you can still enjoy the quizzes.

When you begin a new game in Tuned, you can choose to play either 50 questions with the free version, which is supported by iAds, or you can purchase the $0.99 upgrade to unlock 100 and 300 question games. This also unlocks all of the genres and multiplayer – which we’ll cover later on – and is well worth the buck in my opinion.

After you’ve selected how many songs you like to play, you then choose your genre from the 30 available. Pretty much everything is covered here, from top hits to pop music, hip hop & rap to fitness & workout, and classical to reggae – there’s something for everyone. You can also select which iTunes store you’d like the music to come from, including U.S., U.K., Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Mexico and many more.

When you’re ready, hit ‘start’ and you’re thrown straight into the quiz. You will hear a preview of each song and the aim is to try and select the correct artist from the 4 possible answers. The faster you answer each question correctly the more points you earn, and correctly answering a number of question consecutively will enable the score multiplier.

Tuned supports Game Center and allows you to compete with friends and players from around the world in the online leaderboards, in addition to offering a whole host of achievements for you to try and unlock.

The first thing you’ll notice about Tuned is how smoothly it performs. Over both Wi-Fi and 3G this game is incredibly fast and responsive when switching between tracks, and a real joy to play.

The second thing you’ll notice is how addictive it is. I was hopping into bed the night I downloaded the game and decided I’d spend 10 minutes trying it out. After nearly an hour I had to force myself to put it down. It fills you with an urge to continually try again and again to beat your high-score and unlock its plethora of achievements.

One of my favorite features is the iTunes integration: after answering each question you can choose to listen to the rest of the song preview, and if you like it, one tap of a button will take you straight to the track in the iTunes store for you to purchase. Everything is seamless and works just as it should, and thanks to multitasking support, after you’ve purchased your track you can switch straight back into Tuned and continue your quiz from where you left off.

Now we move onto multiplayer, which is executed brilliantly in Tuned and is even more addictive as single-player. It’s a split screen arrangement, so you take one half while your opponent has the other, and the quickest player to answer each question correctly gets the points. Multiplayer could be improved by introducing Bluetooth and Wi-Fi support for more than one device, but as it stands it works really well for you and a friend.

Overall Tuned is a really great game, and one of the best music games I’ve played on an iOS device. There’s hours of fun to be had with the free version, and if you can afford the $0.99, the extras are well worth it. It’s highly polished, works incredibly well, and for music quiz fans no other title comes close. Because Tuned takes all its music from the iTunes store, every quiz is unique and updated daily depending on the store’s top charts. All it needs is support for Bluetooth and Wi-Fi multiplayer.

[xrr rating = 80%]

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