Super Monkey Ball was one of the first games that introduced us to the possibilities of gaming on the iPhone & iPod Touch when it was previewed back in March 2008, along with the announcement of the App Store. As the biggest selling game on launch day, Sega set the standard for other 3D games with superb graphics, an intuitive control system and incredibly fun gameplay. Now Super Monkey Ball 2: Sakura Edition is available on the iPad, so does this super-sized version live up to the expectations we’ve come to expect from those little monkeys?
If you’re a fan of games like Minigore or Guerilla Bob, then developers GameLab have a treat in store for you – Pirate’s Treasure for iPhone and iPod Touch – boasting stunning 3D graphics, all-out blasting mayhem and bosses too massive to fit on the screen, this game will certainly keep you entertained!
Calling all Star Trek fans out there: The iPhone 3Gs has a universal translator — Jibbigo. Speak into your iPhone in any of the five supported languages, and the iPhone speaks the translation back.
If you’re a fan of Flight Control HD, you’ll love Harbor Master HD for the iPad from Imangi Studios. It shares the same principles as Flight Control, although instead of planes you’ve got boats, which you must guide to their corresponding colored docks by drawing their route with your finger, ensuring the boats do not make contact with each other along the way.
The way in which Harbour Master is different to Flight Control is that once you have guided a boat to its dock, you must wait for it to unload its cargo before you can guide it back off to sea. This adds just enough complexity and challenge to the game to prevent it being too simple and boring.
The Touch Pad App is in my opinion, Edovia’s best application for your mobile Mac devices and now the iPad. For those of you who use a Mac Mini for your home entertainment and digital storage set up in your living room or bedroom, you must get this application. Basically, it turns your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad into a touch pad similar to the one on the Macbook. It can also act as an Apple remote. There have been some glitches and movements that didn’t work like the touch pads on the Macbooks, but Edovia just came out with their latest version of the app (3.1), and they cleaned up a lot of those issues. Still, this is a great app to have, and guess what, we’re giving it away for FREE today!
We’re doing something a little different today. In order to get this app, you gotta be on your “A” game with your Cult of Mac knowledge. We’re going to ask you trivia from articles published since last Tuesday (April 13th). Make note that the app codes we’re giving away are only good for the United States version of iTunes. Sorry to all of our international readers, but when we get sent promo codes, they’re usually always the U.S. version. We’ll try to ask for some international codes in the future.
Throughout the day, we’ll post a trivia question, and the first person that answers correctly will win one of the Touch Pad app codes. We have six codes to give away, so we’ll be doing six different trivia questions.
To redeem the app code, you can do so through iTunes or directly no the device you want to install it on. For instance, on the iPhone, you can go to the “App Store” app, scroll down, and tap on the “Redeem” button, then type the code in that we provide you and it will automatically download on your phone.
This is a $3.99 app, and if you’re like me, I hate paying for anything over a $1, so have some fun with this one, make sure you’re up to speed on what was going on with Cult of Mac last week, and keep refreshing our Facebook page every now and then today. Good luck!
Square-Enix’s cute little RPG, Song Summoner was an adorable little time waster back when it was released back in July of 2008 for the Apple iPod. It’s gameplay was a fusion between the tactical, turn-based stategy battles of Final Fantasy Tactics and the creature creation of Monster Rancher, an old PlayStation game in which you created unique Pokemon-like monsters to fight for you by plugging CDs into your console. Song Summoner worked similarly, allowing you to pick any MP3 on your iPod and create a unique soldier to fight for you, with stats and appearance plucked by algorithm from the data of the track.
It was a game I eagerly bought and desperately wanted to love. There was only one problem: even though it was released in 2008, and the iPhone and iPod Touch had been available for over a year, Song Summoner was a click-wheel game, only available on Apple’s non-touchscreen iPod line. Fast forward a year and a half, though, and Square-Enix is finally correcting that misstep: for $10, you can now pick up an updated version of Song Summoner subtitled “The Unsung Hereos” on the App Store. It contains the first Song Summoner came, as well as a sequel that is speculated to have gone unreleased thanks to Apple ending support for click-wheel games. There’s also a free lite version available for you to try.
If you’re looking to do some gaming this weekend, give Song Summoner a shot. The original was a blast despite the control scheme; for $10, I think the touchscreen version should probably be one of the better and more content rich games to hit the App Store this month.
Searching the iTunes app store is much easier when you’re not using the iTunes app store. Launching today, uquery.com aims to be the vehicle for the app discovery process.
The site uses its own system of algorithms called “AppRank” to make it easy and fast to find the right app for certain tasks. Search results appear in a easy-to-navigate center column along with options to refine your search.
Unlike the iTunes App Store, you can use your browser’s “find in page” command to pinpoint your search term in the search results. It’s the little things.
At the moment, uquery.com appears to generate search results from the full text app descriptions. As the site gains visitors, search queries and tweets, the “AppRank” system will improve its ability to make the app discovery process more intuitive.
