Reviews - page 103

I’ve long been a fan of minimalist protection for my personal iPads, using a green Smart Cover for the non-retina iPad mini I still favor as my main reading and web surfing device.

When I got the Toffee case in the mail, however, I might have detected a bit of jealousy from the Smart Cover, which has gotten rather grimy and well-used over the past several months as I move the iPad mini from bag to bag, house to car seat, bag to coffee house table, and such.

The Macleay Folio comes in a very classy box, all recycled cardboard and slide out inner pieces. The folio itself peeks out through the clear front of the packaging with a classy style that promises a higher-class iPad mini experience. It’s ostensibly marketed for the iPad mini with Retina display, but as both models of iPad mini are essentially the same, the Folio will work with either.

I took some time with the Folio to figure out if the classiness was worth hiding my mini inside of.

What do monsters, Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. series of chaotic fighting games, and steampunk have in common?

Nothing, you guys. Absolutely nothing.

But those are all elements in Fright Fight, a new free-to-play, online-multiplayer brawler that has players controlling a variety of spooky monsters in fights to the death atop floating platforms. It’s chaotic, insane, and mostly fun.

It’s a Frankenstein’s Creature of disparate parts cobbled together, and the arcane force that brings it to lurching life is in-app purchases.

Fans of Cartoon Network’s megahit Adventure Time are probably familiar with “Card Wars,” an episode in which heroes Finn and Jake square off in a ludicrously complicated collectible card game.

If your first thought after seeing that installment was “I have to play that crazy-ass game,” you’re in luck: It’s now available for your iPhone or iPad. While not quite as complicated as the on-screen version, Card Wars offers the same basic card-and-board gameplay with 3D monsters battling it out for fortune and glory.

And behind its zany exterior lies a deceptively deep experience with Floops galore.

As Facebook tends to find itself on a decline of popularity, Mark Zuckerberg and the people of Facebook are making valiant efforts to refresh and revive their social networking site. With the introduction of their new app Paper – stories from Facebook, they strive to combine personal and world news together for a seamless enjoyable experience. Will Paper become your new go-to news app?

Take a look at the new Paper app and see what you think.

This is a Cult Of Mac video review of the iOS application “Paper” brought to you by Joshua Smith of “TechBytes W/Jsmith.”

The original Eliss wowed everyone back in 2009 with its multitouch controls, cool music, and increasingly frantic gameplay. Now, we have Eliss Infinity, which includes the original game and a few more modes to keep even veteran players interested.

Eliss is a puzzle/action/insanity game in which you have to manipulate the sizes of “planets” to make them fit inside of rings. You do this by combining smaller ones by dragging them into each other or splitting larger ones by pulling them apart with your thumbs. But differently colored planets can’t touch, or they’ll eat each other away.

That’s the basic idea. But Infinity has a lot more to offer.

Alright, so the Iron Man-shaped hero in Robo Nativity is totally not licensed. I was unsure if he was supposed to be more like Mega Man until a helpful prompt informed me that for a minimal fee I could also play as War Machine. So, you’re definitely playing as Iron Man in this curiously named platformer-meets-endless runner.

You start off running along the ground beneath various platforms. Enemies and obstacles require you to jump and fire as you collect as many gold coins as you can. As far as this being a nativity, you won’t encounter any babes in mangers, but the Mandarin-like baddies this not-Iron Man shoots do look a bit like wise men. So, don’t look for any new religions in Robo Nativity, unless you are way into the idea that Tony Stark is the messiah (I kinda am).

With popular music streaming apps like Spotify and Pandora already popular and on devices all over the world, any newcomers are faced with an immediate challenge. The makers behind the popular headphones and speakers Beats By Dre are taking their crack at the genre, with their new app and service Beats Music.

Take a look at the new Beats Music app and see how it compares to the competitors.

This is a Cult Of Mac video review of the iOS application “Beats Music” brought to you by Joshua Smith of “TechBytes W/Jsmith.”

We have no shortage of endless running/flying/floating/swimming games in the App Store. And here’s another one.

Avoid: Sensory Overload is a techno-skinned endless game in which you guide a ship through a perpetual series of obstacles and traps. All the while, the thumping music and neon-infused background light show do their very best to distract you.

It’s flashy, annoying, challenging, and ultimately a lot of fun.

How many times have you had to replace an iPod because you dropped it in water? Almost all of us have suffered the agony of liquid damaged devices at least once — but this is something you never have to worry about if you buy your iPod shuffle from Underwater Audio.

Every unit the company sells is protected by an invisible coating that allows you to get your iPod shuffle wet. And we’re not talking about a few splashes here; you can literally take it swimming, wear it in the shower, and forget about having to keep it covered up when you’re out jogging in the rain — and it will continue to work just as it should.

“Our waterproof iPod shuffle will go with you from land to sea and everywhere in between,” Underwater Audio says — so of course, I jumped at the chance to put those claims to the test.

Jelly King ambitiously introduces himself as the king of all jellies…but that’s not quite true. Before he can take his rightful place as gelatinous royalty, he has to bounce his way through a harrowing adventure to collect diamond shards. No problem, right?

Jelly King is the kind of platformer that works well on mobile devices. In his excitement, the jelly you control is constantly bouncing. All you have to do is guide him left or right as you clear obstacles or pick up powerups. Jelly King bounces a certain distance each time you move, so the challenge is to anticipate future moves based off of where you start. If you’re too far away from the edge when Jelly jumps over a gap he might clear the first obstacle, but swiftly fall off the next.

While the smash-hit app Flappy Bird has been removed from the App Store, developer Dong Nguyen has still found success with a few of his other games. Consistently ranking at the top of the app charts how will Nguyen’s new game Shuriken Block rank in your interests?

Take a look at Shuriken Block and see how it compares to the hype and popularity of the late Flappy Bird.

This is a Cult Of Mac video review of the iOS application “Shuriken Block” brought to you by Joshua Smith of “TechBytes W/Jsmith.”

Heroes went and got themselves in a big damn hurry.

It’s not enough anymore that they just get through the dungeon and fight the terrifying monster at the end. These days, they feel some strange need to do it all without stopping. It’s escalation, I guess; the new guys want to show off, so they run. Endlessly.

Dungeon Highway is the story of one such valiant champion who runs and shoots and dies a lot. And then you start over, and he runs and shoots and dies some more.

I’ve been looking forward to SteelSeries’ Stratus since it was announced back in January of this year.

The joy of most iOS titles is the ability to play using the touchscreen. The gaming world has benefitted greatly from iOS game developers learning how to best control their games without a physical controller.

However, there are a few games — especially versions of old-school console games — that just cry out for an actual button-filled controlling device that you can use while staring intently at the screen.

The Stratus, and other controllers like it, aims to fill that need with a smaller, super-portable and highly accurate controller that takes advantage Apple’s own iOS game controller code that’s built right into iOS 7.

Whether you’ll find this a successful or not depends a lot on your device, the games you want to play, and how your hands fit on the Stratus itself.

The elusive developer behind the smash-hit app Flappy Bird has other games in the App Store that haven’t yet been pulled. Are they any good?

Take a look at Super Ball Juggling and see if it measures up to the hype and fame of Flappy Bird.

This is a Cult Of Mac video review of the iOS application “Super Ball Juggling” brought to you by Joshua Smith of “TechBytes W/Jsmith.”

If Indiana Jones carried an iPad, he’d carry it in the Outback Solo. It’s a beautiful, tough waxed-canvas and leather number, with a padded lining for an iPad, pockets on the front for an iPhone and a wallet or a charger, a little loop on the front for handing your whip and a leather flap that closes with a magnetic clasp to keep out snakes. It’s pretty great.

This just in: Someone has made a game about zombies.

You probably weren’t expecting that, huh? A zombie game? It’s crazy on the face of it.

Now, look: I hate zombies as much as the next person. Maybe a bit more, even. Stupid shambling a****les. But that doesn’t mean I want to spend all of my gaming time killing them. I have a lot of other things to pretend to kill, like Nazis and Pokémon. So I’ll admit that I wasn’t immediately sold on Overlive, a new undead-themed gamebook with role-playing-game elements, even though it’s hard to go wrong with me once you start offering choices and stats.

Once I started playing it, though, Overlive won me over.

Here’s the thing about touch controls: You’re controlling the game with the same thing you’re using to see what you’re doing. This creates a problem when your dumb, clumsy fingers start blocking your view and lead to cheap and preventable deaths.

Some games prevent this by putting the control areas off to the side or in an otherwise unused place on the screen, leaving the view clear. Lego Star Wars: Microfighters, the latest in the synergetic juggernaut of a series, is not one of those titles.

It’s surprising that developers and publishers as experienced as Warner Bros. and Traveller’s Tales would allow such a clumsy and stupid thing to happen, but here it is.

When I was young, maybe between the ages of twelve and fifteen, I used to make very basic games with a friend of mine called James Brzezicki. They were almost always the simplest things imaginable: a single sprite jumping over other sprites, or a ball bouncing back and forth between two paddles. This wasn’t because we had worked out how to strip gaming down to its most base elements, but rather because it was all we could work out how to program.

I hate thick wallets. I carry mine in my left front pocket most of the time, and I really don’t need something huge and bulky in there to both look dorky and hurt.

I’ve spent some time paring down the stuff in my wallet, too, making it as minimal as possible. I usually carry my driver’s license, my Visa debit card, a bit of cash, and a couple of shopping club cards, like Costco and Safeway. I rotate a credit card in on occasion, too, if I need the extra buying power.

Usually, and especially when I go out on the town for an evening, I only need the ID, some cash, and my debit card.

That’s exactly what fits easily in the new Wally Wallet iPhone case, making it a dream come true for this wallet minimalist.

I’m a big fan of words. The idea that you can arrange letters and spaces in such a way as to change minds, inspire emotion, and create art is powerful and almost magical.

And the idea that you can do the same thing to ruin someone’s day or knock them down a peg is a different kind of magic, but just as eagerly sought. Spell Quest: Grimm’s Journey falls into the latter, “words can hurt” camp.

But they’re hurting monsters, so it’s probably alright.

To save time, here’s my advice: If you have an iPad or iPhone, a guitar and $300 to spend, then spend it on the iLoud. It’s a small, portable Bluetooth speaker that is way louder than any other Bluetooth speaker, and it lets you plug in your guitar and use your iPhone – wirelessly – to add effects using an app like IK Multimedias’s AmpliTube.

More importantly, the iLoud rocks.

The History Channel has gotten a little weird over the past few years.

It used to be all about World War II and the Industrial Revolution, but ever since around 2008 or so, something has been creeping in. Something decidedly un-historic. Now, we flip over to History to learn about UFOs, prophecies, and pseudoscience. So it makes sense that the channel would release a fake documentary about a War of the Worlds-style conflict that took place instead of World War I.

The Great Martian War is an endless runner that shares its name with that program, and it places you in the middle of the conflict as a scout trying to deliver intel to Paris on foot. You’ll run, jump, and slide to avoid obstacles and massive alien walkers.

And you’ll die. You’ll die a lot.

Love is difficult sometimes.

You’ve seen it: the unrequited, the ill-matched, the people who just never should have met in the first place. People who are so much opposite that you wonder why they don’t just murder each other. Alright, that last one is a bit extreme. Actually, it isn’t. I know some people.

Anyway, Pyro Jump is about a flame who is in love with a paper doll, and he will overcome any obstacle, jump any gap, and avoid any spike that stands between him and his cherished one.

She’s not too into it for obvious reasons, but the game’s fun. When I don’t hate it.

When should you take your iPad and when should you take your MacBook?

If you use your iOS devices for work on the move, and often find yourself wishing that your tablet came with a built-in physical keyboard so you didn’t have to haul your laptop everywhere, you’re most likely the perfect target audience for M-Edge’s nifty keyboard case — the 10-inch Tablet Universal Stealth Pro Keyboard Case (to use its full and slightly Tom Clancy-sounding name).

Want more details? Read on.

It’s been, like, a whole day since I’ve reviewed an endless game, so it’s a good thing they come out so regularly. I don’t even know how to handle games that don’t constantly scroll anymore.

Marvel Run Jump Smash! features cartoon-styled versions of Marvel Cinematic Universe characters (and some other superpowered guests) who are perpetually sprint after Loki, the adopted brother of Thor and villain from The Avengers, to reclaim the Cosmic Cube, which is what I will always call it because “The Tesseract” makes me cringe, and all of this just makes me sound like a giant nerd, but the point is that it’s an endless runner with superheroes.

It’s not a great one, but hey. Marvel.