Reviews - page 103

The original Jet Car Stunts rocked the App Store back in 2009 — blowing away our memories of fiddly pre-iPhone racers with a colorful speedster of a game that took full advantage of the device’s touch interface and accelerometer to create something truly addictive.

If you played the original Feed Me Oil a couple years ago, you probably fell in love with its surreal graphics and fun, physics-based puzzles. If you didn’t, the name is probably confusing the hell out of you. Because you really shouldn’t feed anything oil, right? That’s super gross.

Don’t get stuck on that, though, because Feed Me Oil 2 is out now, and it features the same addictive gameplay with shinier graphics and some new tools to get that oil where it needs to go.

And where it needs to go is, like, right into the mouth of a weird, animal-like hill or something. But again, don’t dwell on that because if you do, you’re missing out on a great game.

I’m a huge fan of Rickshaw’s bags. Pretty much everyone in the Rickshaw office cycles to work, and it shows in the design of the bags. They’re well made, practical and light, but still full of clever design details. The Commuter 2.1 is no exception, somehow managing to offer a huge collection of pickets and cubbyholes, and yet remaining light enough to be more comfy on the shoulder than many more simple messenger bags.

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Interactive zombie film series The Hunting is back with its third installment, which has you continuing to make life-threatening choices and furiously tapping on your screen to run and fight off crazed undead who want to put the nom on you.

It’s another creepy, high-tension experience that will quickly make you regret playing it with headphones and/or in the dark, both of which I did because I clearly don’t know what’s good for me.

But while the game is still completely scary and harrowing as ever, it fails to build on Part 2’s impressive shotgun blast of terror and what-the-hell-ery.

I went into Ark Saver expecting it to flounder about like the Noah’s Ark mini game in Bible Adventures on NES. I’m incredibly surprised that it is not only playable but pretty addictive.

The goal in Ark Saver is to match the next animal in a long line with its pair as quickly as you can. Each level gives you 30 seconds to pair 50 or more sets, and each level introduces more creatures to match. To get the highest score, you’ll need to maintain a combo streak that breaks every time you tap the wrong picture. Luckily, the only harm breaking a combo repeatedly has is decreasing your overall score.

If you upgraded your old iPad for an iPad Air late last year, you probably did so for several reasons — but I’ll bet one of the biggest was its new form factor, which is substantially thinner and lighter than any of its predecessors. The last thing you want to do with it, then, is slap a big chunky case on it that makes it even bigger than the iPad you owned before it.

Thule took that into consideration when designing its new Gauntlet folio case for the iPad Air. Although its main focus is clearly on protection, so the case is tough and robust and ready to absorb any impact, it’s also surprisingly light, and much thinner than you’d expect a case of this ilk to be.

It’s also practical, with rubber grips that provide a built-in stand for typing or watching movies, and a “stability clip” that keeps its front cover securely closed when your iPad’s not in use. There’s a soft interior lining that prevents scratching, and the Gauntlet provides easy access to all of your iPad’s buttons and ports.

Okay, so you’ve mastered Super Crate Box, and you’re so good at Super Hexagon that you can’t play it anymore without yawning. And maybe you’ve also bested a Sasquatch at arm-wrestling, and you’re the King of the Oompa-Loompas because those two things are just as likely.

But if you like those other games and are looking for something “inspired by” them, you’d do well to check out Atomic+, a recently released arcade/twitch/minimal title that puts you in the position of an electron that can leap between atomic orbits and has a lot of stuff flying at it constantly.

So maybe not quite like an actual electron, but you get my point.

It’s been a while since we had a Call of Duty game for iOS. This latest incarnation — first released back in September — is set in the Black Ops II universe, and follows a Joint Special Operations Team in the year 2020, as they battle Cordis Die, a pseudo-terrorist organization with unfriendly intentions. (Don’t they all seem to have those?)

If you own a laptop, it’s pretty easy to up and move to a more comfortable workplace when your joints start to stiffen. But if you have a giant 27-inch iMac or Cinema Display, you’re kinda stuck at your desk. You could opt for a standing desk, but what if you want to sit? Or you could go for one of those adjustable numbers, but what about the perfectly good desk you have already? That’s where the WorkFit-A comes in. It’s a big robot arm that lets you swing around even a 27-inch (2013 model) iMac as if it were an iPad. A really, really big iPad.

So let’s get the obvious out of the way at the start: Streets of Rage isn’t exactly new. The original game came out in 1991 — meaning that it would now be of legal drinking age were it a person. The iOS port is newer (obviously), but coming out in 2009 that puts it in roughly the same timeframe as iOS 3. Ancient.

So why are we reviewing it?

I love games like Canabalt, even though a world of tricky endless runners flowed from that simple endless platformer’s success. Last Bunny takes the Canabalt style and introduces tilt controls along with jumping to give you more control over the fearless rabbit bounding over buildings.

You play as, well, the last adorable bunny in a world overrun by those grumpy stone blocks from Super Mario Bros. games and missiles. You jump from building to building trying to avoid bombs and pitfalls. Unlike Canabalt, you have control over the speed at which the bunny runs. By tilting your phone to the right or left, you can increase or decrease his movement to make jumping more precise. This is very helpful when blocks fall just outside the rabbit’s jump distance which will ultimately lead you to running into them unless you’re moving at a slower speed.

There is something unimportant and yet oh-so-important about choosing the right way to carry around your laptop.

Apple purists likely hate anything which covers up their beloved machines for even the shortest amount of time. For the rest of us, however, it’s about finding the most attractive way possible to transport your laptop without being mugged in the process.

Old people probably remember Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!, a game for the original Nintendo Entertainment System about Little Mac, a tiny boxer rising through the ranks by defeating opponents so much larger that they look like they could swallow Mac whole with very little difficulty.

It’s an underdog story that owed a lot to films like Rocky and The Karate Kid — movies that helped to create that most honored of sports-story traditions: the training montage.

Endless Boss Fight, a new free-to-play game from developer White Milk Studios, is basically a perpetual game version of those montages.

Rockstar Games has been re-releasing its GTA catalog on iOS platforms for the past few years. GTA 3 appeared as a 10th-anniversary port back in late 2011, and revered follow-up Vice City turned up a year later. San Andreas’ arrival isn’t a surprise, then, but it’s certainly a pleasant treat — a bit like when that Christmas gift you’d been requesting all year finally turns up under the tree.

For those unfamiliar with this particular entry, it follows the rise and rise of former gangbanger Carl Johnson — aka CJ — as he returns to Los Santos to find his mom dead, his family in ruins and his former gang marginalized. From there it’s a climb back to the top, as CJ takes on local gangstas and corrupt cops en route to re-establishing control of the streets.

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.