Reviews - page 102

Thanks to the rise of the iPhone and iPad, Windows users are switching over the Mac in greater number than ever. If you’ve spent your entire computer life playing in Windows, you’ve probably accumulated quite a few apps in your toolkit that are Windows-only and letting them go during the switch ain’t easy.

For those Mac users that are having trouble letting go, but don’t want to throw down money on a new Windows-license just to use a couple apps, CrossOver 13 for Mac will let you install and run popular Windows software without having to reboot into a separate Windows partition.

The Apache helicopter in Apache Candy is more like a friend to Jay Jay the Jet Plane than a fierce combat copter. He’s the little pink and purple avenger that could, and all he wants is to collect candy.

Apache Candy is another infinite side-scrolling shooter on iOS, but the cheery graphics are what drew me to it. It reminds me of the retro game Twinbee and other cute-em-up shooters that have you blasting your way through screen after screen of adorable-yet-lethal enemies. Apache Candy is nowhere near as deep–you’re really only collecting candy and trying not to die–but the look was enough to satisfy.

The Colossatron is a mysterious, robotic dragon-thing that drops out of space specifically to destroy cities. Nobody knows what it is or where it came from; all we know is that it must be destroyed before it destroys us.

Nobody even knows how to control it, and that includes anyone playing the game.

Colossatron: Massive World Threat is the latest from Jetpack Joyride developer Halfbrick, and it’s the studio’s most esoteric title yet. And this is the team that also made a game about chopping fruit while avoiding bombs that, while possessing fuses, apparently only explode if they get cut.

So, yeah. It’s even weirder than that.

Cut the Rope is one of the most popular App Store games of all time, and rightly so. When it launched way back in 2010, it was an original concept. Physics-based puzzlers are all the rage now, but Cut the Rope was one of the first good ones. Since then, ZeptoLab has continually updated the game with new features and levels, including spinoff releases like Cut the Rope: Holiday Gift, Cut the Rope: Experiments, and Cut the Rope: Time Travel.

The original Cut the Rope has been downloaded over 100 million times, which is insane. That’s why the full-blown sequel has been highly anticipated. And after months of teasing, it’s finally here.

I used to be a printer opportunist. Find me the cheapest printer in the store, who cares, they’re all the same.

Which, honestly, is true for a technophile like myself (within a certain price range, anyway). I have a Wi-Fi network, spare cables, and a ton of different apps that will let me print from my various Macs and iOS devices.

Not so, however, for someone like my parents. When I went to buy them a printer a few months back to go with their new iPads, we found out that even the AirPrint printers need a WiFi network. They don’t have one (I know, don’t ask).

That’s where the Epson XP-950 comes in. Yes, it’s a high-quality up-to 11X17 photo, paper, and disc printer and scanning device, but the killer feature here? Directly printing from an iPad to the printer without an actual Wi-Fi network to send the print job across.

Oh, and it’s super easy to set up and use.

That headline isn’t hyperbole. I’ve started this review three times, but I kept thinking of things I should “check out” in the game so that I could make sure I was writing the thing properly. But mainly, I just wanted to keep playing the new Adventure Time version of Ski Safari.

If you haven’t played the original, it’s a twist on the endless runner genre: The endless skier. The hapless hero has to give it all he has to outrun an avalanche that is barreling down the hill behind him. He can do backflips for points and can hitch rides on the local wildlife for speed boosts, and all the while, he’s collecting as many coins as he can.

Ski Safari: Adventure Time is the same thing only with 100 percent fewer skis and way more characters from Pendleton Ward’s awesome cartoon series. So basically, it’s better in every way.

Nightmare: Malaria is the story of a little girl with malaria. In her dreams, she is thrust into a horrible nightmare world where she is trying to save her teddy bears from a horrible world infested with malaria-carrying mosquitoes and vats of bubbling disease. Your goal is to guide her through the world and hide in screened tents to ward off the infected bugs.

You can download the game for free, but between each level you’ll see a prompt for a microtransaction. This won’t unlock features in the game, and you don’t need to contribute money to win, but the $3 purchase is actually a donation toward providing mosquito nets to people at risk for contracting malaria. You can donate as often as you want, and the whole game is designed to educate players on the dangers of the disease. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Against Malaria Foundation work tirelessly to help eradicate malaria, but your small contribution can provide preventative measures to people who can’t help themselves.

The Lollipod is a lightweight lighting stand masquerading as a camera and iPhone tripod. And this is – in almost every way – a good thing. A light stand isn’t nearly as sturdy as a camera tripod, but it is a lot lighter, a lot more likely to be in your bag when you need it, and is roughly 1,000% better than no tripod at all, aka a sharp rock propping up your delicate iPhone.

Alright, so they’re the “AntiSquad” because they’re a ragtag bunch of misfits with little in common who still manage to pull together and get the job done when it counts. But sometimes headlines are hard.

AntiSquad is a new tactical game with a cartoonish art style and a whole lot of things to tap on. If you’ve played games like Breach & Clear or Final Fantasy Tactics, you get the general idea: Your group and the enemy take turns moving across a map trying to get into position to attack or outmaneuver each other. You have grids and buffs and cooldowns and all that other genre-standard stuff.

And other than its cool art, “genre-standard” is the best way I can think of to describe this game.

The inevitable fate of all popular mascots to eventually end up in a go kart. Take a look at Mario, Crash Bandicoot, Sonic, and many other iconic video game mascot characters and you’ll find they’ve all squished themselves into a car at some point. Well, now the Angry Birds are, too.

Angry Birds Go is a free-to-play karting adventure full of repetition and cool-down meters. Unlocking aesthetically pleasing carts means putting in real money, and your spirited birdy racers get tired after a short while. Beyond that, Go is a completely average racer.

I don’t know why characters in endless runner games are always in such a big hurry.

Sure, Runbot was fleeing the secret lab that created him. And the guy in Temple Run has that whole “killer demon monkeys” thing going on, so he’s cool.

But Rez, the hero of the new endless runner Galaxy Run, is just headed home. Why’s he gotta be Mr. Perpetual Motion all the time? It just gets him killed a lot.

The first thing you’ll notice about Star Trek: Trexels (if you’re a massive nerd like me anyway) is that all the little pixel people are wearing Original Series uniforms while the overall game interface is the LCARS system from The Next Generation. A minor complaint, but it is a gripe I feel keeps Trexels from reaching its true potential.

You play as a Starfleet admiral tasked with searching for the USS Valiant that disappeared in the currently unexplored Trexel system. The Valiant may have been destroyed but Starfleet doesn’t know for sure. So you hire a crew and send a barely constructed starship out to explore uncharted space. Nothing bad whatsoever could happen!

In my review of The Room a few months ago, I said it was the best mobile game I’ve ever played, and I meant it. The Room 2, the iPad-only sequel to the puzzle-box escape title, is out now, and it’s more of the same.

And I have absolutely no problem with that.

It’s really good. It’s really, really good. If you played the first one, you should play this one immediately. And if you didn’t play the first one, you should play it, and then you should play this one, and then you’ll be all set.

So, yes. You could say I am a fan.

Every time I think I’ve found my favorite pair of gaming headphones, Steelseries sends me another one to try out.

This time, it’s the H Wireless series, a fantastic, well-designed headset that connects via optical or analog inputs to provide stunningly good Dolby sound without wires. You can, of course, connect an iPhone or iPad to the box, as well, getting a quality sound to walk around the house with.

Seriously, these are my new favorites.

If you wreck a house during a party,someone has to clean it up. House Cleaning has a kind of warped, hoarder-ish perspective on tidying up that will have your kids shoving all their misplaced mess into boxes. But it might encourage children to try to clean up after themselves if all other forms of parenting fail.

After a totally awesome bash, the cutie cleaners in House Cleaning realize they can’t just leave books and CDs scattered throughout the garden of their friend’s home. So, you must dutifully help them sort out the garbage from the decent items before they can move onto another section of the post-party warzone. Plus, they’ll even do a bit of magical yard work when you’re done.

Assassin’s Creed IV launched on consoles this fall and offered all the ship-on-ship action gamers required. Developer Ubisoft, not one to let a good idea go un-reused, has now released Assassin’s Creed Pirates, a sidestory about one man’s rise from prisoner to fearsome buccaneer captain. It ditches the main series’ free-running in favor of a completely seaborne experience.

Does Pirates rake in the booty, or does it walk the plank to plunge the briny deep to Davy Jones’ Locker? Could that last sentence have been any more forced?

You’ll find the answers to these questions and more after the break.

I’ve played digital card games on my iPad before, including some heavy hitters like Might And Magic: Duel Of Champions and Magic 2014.

I’ve played some real-time battle arena games, like Raid Leader or Skulls of the Shogun, and enjoyed them as well.

But I’ve never, until now, played such an engaging mashup of the two gaming genres. What Singapore-based Spicy Horse has done here is create nothing less than a sublime, well-balanced, purely addictive combination of collectible card game, arena-based real-time strategy, and a training/leveling up system that just begs for exploration and mastery.

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I’m old, so I remember playing the original Double Dragon on a decrepit arcade cabinet at Showbiz Pizza while the Rock-afire Explosion played and lurched in its creeepy, mechanical way in the next room and I just paid attention to the game because I knew that if I thought about the musical robots coming to life and murdering everyone, they would. And that’s how I predicted The Secret.

Anyway, I was never good at Double Dragon. The enemies punched too fast or too hard, or I couldn’t line up my hits correctly, and I swear that stupid machine was broken because it was impossible. Now, we have Double Dragon Trilogy, an iOS port of the brawler series that includes remixed music and some new modes.

And I know this is a good port because I’m still really bad at it.

When I saw Tunnel Escape in the App Store my first thought was that it looked a lot like the magic carpet sequence in the Super Nintendo version of Disney’s Aladdin (which is the best version, do not bring your Genesis fanboyism into this). What I wasn’t prepared for was it bringing back all the tension I felt as a kid trying to avoid swells of lava while soaring through increasingly narrow passages.

Tunnel Escape is decidedly much more relaxed than Aladdin as the only thing you’re fighting against is how long you tap the screen. Each tap raises the little cube higher in the world, and if you don’t tap, it’ll sink down on the bottom of the tunnel. Touching the walls, or top of the screen, means instant death, so you have to feather your taps to succeed.

We all aspire to be more than we are, to mold ourselves into our own perfect forms and escape the limits thrust upon us by circumstance or luck. But we can’t always do it on our own. Sometimes, we need someone to come along and nudge us in the right direction and help us achieve our full potential.

Division Cell is a metaphor for that. I think. I mean, it could be, I guess. It’s a minimalist puzzle game about helping unhappy shapes to become what they wish to be. See that rectangle? It really just wants to be a square. That irregular polygon over there? It looks at triangles with tears in its eyes and whispers “Why not me?” into the night.

Why wouldn’t you help them out? Jerk.

The universe has a problem: It has all these planets lying around with no life on them. So obviously, the solution is some kind of forced cosmic osmosis to spread vitality throughout the void.

That’s the premise of Abductor Pro, anyway. It’s a new iOS title that puts players in the space boots of Antaris, a green alien tasked with grabbing humans from Earth for transplantation to other, less human-y planets. But the planets are picky, and possibly racist*, and they’re very particular about who gets to live on them.

Your job as Antaris is to make sure the right people get to the right place.

I’ve tested lots of leather wallet cases for the iPhone, but the Wall St from id America is a lot different to the rest.

It’s not a folding case like Twelve South’s iconic BookBook, but rather a sleeve that your iPhone slips into that has a large hole in its front for your display, and a little pocket in its back for your credit cards.

It’s an ideal alternative for those who like to keep things simple and don’t want to have to deal with flappy front covers when using their smartphone. It makes everything easy to get to, and it doesn’t cover up any buttons, ports, or speakers.

The Wall St fits both iPhone 5 and iPhone 5s (there’s another version for iPhone 5c, too), and it’s available in a number of pretty colors, including brown, blue, orange, and red. It costs $34.95, so let’s find out whether it’s worth it.

Now that you’ve played a game about making games to death (Game Dev Story)why not move on to conquer the world of Rock and Roll? Band Stars is another in the long line of simulation/micromanagement games that boils the creation process down to statistics and creativity points. The difference here is that you’re running a band rather than a company.

If you’ve played any creation sim before, you’re likely familiar with Band Stars’ format. You start by creating your band from a basic set of characters then can hire more as you can afford them. Characters have unique stats that determine how useful they are in the recording process, and you can increase those stats through training.

I almost wrote off Numerity.

After about 10 minutes with the hidden-number game, I thought it was ridiculously easy and almost insulting. All the game was doing was showing me numbers, and then I’d find them in the onscreen jumble and tap them until they formed a picture of Charlie Chaplin or Marilyn Monroe. It took about a minute for each puzzle, and I was ready to give it up then and there.

But then some weird things started happening.

For the iPad I use at home, I want minimal bulk. I’m willing to sacrifice protection for that privilege, but I want to be able to use my iPad 3 in as close to the original form factor as possible.

For iPads I’ve used with kids in classrooms, or ones that might be used in hospitals or in the enterprise, I’d rather have more protection, even if it means a sacrifice of heavier, bulkier, proportions.

Otterbox has long been the industry standard super-high protection case, but this new entry into the field, the K Kuvs Klover iPad Case is a strong contender for just as much protection for half the price.