Despite our historical disinterest in Pocket-style iPod and iPhone cases, we have been big fans of Moshi iPouch when it was introduced initially for years for iPod and continue to believe that the company has one of only those solutions, we recommend that in its latest version, designed for iPod, iPhone and iPod classics touches. The current iPouch ($23) is made with a microfibre fabric that has the capability to clean out of the screen of your device and wipe his body on each of insertion and deletion, with a small headset or accessory pocket on the front and a cord at the top to hold closed main compartment. Available in four different colors, the iPouch also comes with a detachable cord fabric collar and a manager of cord for helmet rubber, added to the original design, increased price accordingly. By comparison, Puro company ($20) is relatively plain - research silicone rubber which uniquely uses a pad back Microfiber to protect the back of the iPhone 4, coverage of button, play - through screen access and all the port expected, President, microphone and switch holes on its sides. It includes screen protection.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
First: Iomega superhero backup and charger for iPhone
Company: Iomega
Web site: Iomega.com
Template: Superheroes
Price: $70
Compatible: iPhone 3 G/3GS, iPhone, iPod touch 4 G 4
If the Iomega concept the new superhero ($70) is not initially full meaning for you, we understand: this new accessory is clearly started at a very specific, but potentially significant user base fraction total iPhone. Super Hero is a dock in plastic and metal with a total of three connectors: iPhone and iPod touch-ready Dock Connector at the top, a port of power to the rear and a SD Card slot next to the power port. Iomega packages wharf with a wall adapter, and a SD 4 GB card allowing users to iPhone 3 G, 3GS, 4 or fourth-generation plug in iPod touch, run a free application from Iomega super hero backup and automatically save their pictures and their contacts without using a computer. Once you have completed this backup, you can use superheroes to transfer to another device, or your first contacts and photos where it's been completely clean; unless you enable encryption, images can also be opened by any computer.
While the obvious question is "why not simply use iTunes?," the responses of some people will be "I hate to iTunes", "I have not often access to iTunes" or "iTunes are fairly easy to transfer photos from my iPhone to a memory card. However, users may be disappointed to learn that superheroes is not Flash, as it has a huge 7 minutes for the accessory save 4 MB of data - only 82 and 10 contacts low images - most computers would be plowing through in a few seconds. We will have about superhero in our full review, but it is clearly an accessory that will appeal to users who prefer simplicity over speed.
First: Heckler Design @ rest / AtRest for iPad
Although we are usually not huge fans of DIY/assemble-it-yourself accessories @ rest Heckler Design / AtRest for iPad ($59) is really nice deserve the amount time editing needed initially modest. Heckler ships steel curved base with four handles iPad hard plastic, four clear rubber feet and two black of foam adhesive pads protect the Tablet against scratches. Following graphic instructions printed on the sides of an effective cardboard designed, recyclable, you choose one of the two depths for iPad - nude or caisson iPad, handles as you prefer - and feet and pads in place to protect the stability and anti-scratch. @ Rest provides both tilt angles distinct for the iPad to its design of double-face, 30 and 60 degrees, well-supported both so you can interact confidently with the touch screen. Each side has a slot for the use of a Dock Connector cable if you want to provide one for loading or synchronization. Four different colours are available. the Red version, which we sent looks like it came directly from MOMA, despite the fact that compete with metal stands we've tested offers a more great adaptability and don't require that all work self-assembly. It is an intriguing design with everything also interesting packaging.
iPhone 2G 3G 7 in 1 tool set
- Special screwdriver, this is not any regular T6, it is designed to give you the most reliable and very user friendly, it's long, and the body turn-able.- Plastic plying tools, including two pieces with two different sizes, you will NEED both of these pieces to help you open the housing much easier and safe, will not leave scratches on your device housings.
-You will get 6 ITEMS. Please take advantages of this great deal, not just the low prices, but a very good product to have. Hard to find Tool Kit.
Compatible with:
Apple iPhone, iPod Touch, iPod Video, iPod Nano, and other Digital products
Package Content:
1). Plastic Opening Tools x 2 (May be in Different Colors)
2). (+) Screwdriver x 1
3). (-) Screwdriver x 1
4). Triangle Shape Opening Tool x 2 (May be in Different Colors)
Price: $12.99
Friday, April 22, 2011
iPhone 4 Case - MiniSuit silicone skin case gel cover for AT&T Apple iPhone 4g 16gb / 32gb + microfiber key chain and screen protector
Luxuriate your iPhone with MiniSuit iPhone 4 grid design case. Bonus screen protector and Minisuit microfiber keychain included.Price: $19.95
Saturday, March 26, 2011
News: WSJ: smallest iPhone, MobileMe revamp coming this summer?
A new report from the Wall Street Journal corroborated a story from late last week indicating that Apple is working on a smaller version and cheaper iPhone, adding details of a reorganization to Apple's MobileMe online service could include a streaming media service cloud. Quoting someone saw a prototype phone late last year, the report indicates that the new model is called "n97," would be "half of the iPhone 4" is to have "a screen edge to edge" and "the voice-based navigation. It is intended for sale alongside the existing line of Apple iPhone and would be available to carriers for roughly half the price of traditional models iPhone. The new phone is expected to be released this summer, although these plans may change, depending on the source of the report.
Also mentioned in the report is a reorganization of the Apple MobileMe online service suite. According to a person familiar with the matter, Apple plans to make MobileMe free service to serve as a "record" online for personal data such as photos, music and videos. In addition, MobileMe could also be part of a new Apple's online music service that would give users access to their libraries mobile devices such as iPhone iTunes and iPad without the need for devices synchronized via a cable with a computer or for physical components onboard to store files. The report notes that the new service could begin in the month of June, dependent on the progress of the approval of the talks are preliminary stages; According to the report, Apple had planned for the service to deploy last year.
Friday, March 25, 2011
News: Youbiq intros Gymbl tripod mount grip for iPhone 4
Youbiq has introduced its new Gymbl portable tripod/mount/grip for iPhone 4. The all-in-one accessory serves as a handle, a portable tripod and tripod, featuring a head swivel, Pan and a case of shell included, which is used to fix the iPhone on the device. For use with the Gymbl, the company has also developed an application that connects to a new Youbiq cloud service designed to synchronize and archive each photograph on the iPhone, which allows users to organize and share their photos on the site of Youbiq cloud. Gymbl portable tripod/mount/grip of the Youbiq iPhone 4 sells for $69, while a standalone tripod adapter and the case is available for $49; both are expected to ship in February. Application of Youbiq will be available for $3 and includes 2 GB of storage on the site of Youbiq cloud, while additional storage capacity will be available in increments of 25 GB for $25 / year.
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News: Yelp adds integrated reservations OpenTable
Yelp has released an update to its social location app popular iOS add the possibility of making reservations with OpenTable. Yelp allows users to search for and find detailed info on companies in the vicinity of such as restaurants, bars, cafes and more. Users can filter search by neighbourhood, distance, price and hours, browse comments from other users and add their own quick tips, photos and comments in the JPA. With version 5.1, Yelp users can now find their favourite restaurant and make a reservation directly through OpenTable, service simply by selecting the "Make reservation" button. Yelp is a universal application and is available on the App Store as a free download.
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Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Article: iPhone + iPad gems: Crimsonworld, Dead Space, Magnetar: Space Fighter + Puzzle Maya HD
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Welcome to our latest gaming edition of iPhone + iPad Gems! Today, we’re taking extended looks at Electronic Arts’ noteworthy new third-person sci-fi horror title Dead Space—a game that’s purely for older audiences—and Mind Crew’s great iPad puzzler Mayan Puzzle HD, plus brief summaries of Gameprom’s new shooters Crimsonworld and Magnetar: Space Fighter.
The best overall title for the dollar here is Mayan Puzzle HD, but Dead Space offers a truly scary adventure if you’re willing to shell out for one or both separate versions of the title. Read on for all the details.
In a word, Dead Space ($7/$10) is horrifying—deliberately and amazingly so. Apart from the fact that Electronic Arts is once again needlessly selling two separate versions of the game for the iPad and iPod touch/iPhone, this new science-fiction horror game is a substantially satisfying and occasionally stunning 3-D action title, guaranteed to get your heart racing if you follow its recommendation to play with headphones on.
You take behind-the-shoulder control of Vandal, a deliberately anonymous operative who has been dropped into a seemingly quiet mining outpost in space, tasked with a religious mission to destroy the outpost’s power systems for reasons unknown. As you wander the halls, your helmet’s audio systems ring with vague promises of glory for completing your mission, explaining that you’re helping to unseat a government that is implicitly corrupt. But within seconds of success in disabling the power systems—perhaps 10 minutes into the roughly six-hour game—you realize that the saw and gun tools you’ve used to destroy passive wall targets are your only defense against hordes of murderous monsters you’ve unwittingly unleashed, and your church expects that you’ll sacrifice your life as the outpost’s infestation spreads. Your goal, it seems, is to escape from the mines alive; we’ll not spoil the plot beyond to say that the events are set after the console version of Dead Space and before the sequel, Dead Space 2.
It needs to be said that Dead Space’s graphics engine is the bedrock of the title’s appeal: the fully polygonal environments are highly detailed with occasionally eye-catching textures, and everything’s fluidly—if not always beautifully—animated, bringing both sci-fi backdrops and frighteningly alien enemies to life. More than any other factor, Dead Space’s frequent use of ambient effects—visual and sonic—is what pushes this game out of the me-too corridor-wandering action genre into tenser, more chilling fare. Dramatic moving shadows from dim overhead lighting and occasional illuminated dust particle effects set the stage early on, complemented soon thereafter by shocking sounds—nerve-rattling synthesizer chords, screams down dark hallways, and the limited vocalizations of semi-humanoid creatures called Necromorphs. They shift smoothly from ear to ear as you turn Vandal around, taking the place of music when you’re not receiving well-acted voice-over guidance of some sort. Full-screen color shifts between black halls, blue-lit rooms, and red slashing sequences provide visual clues that awful things are about to happen and be seen, or have largely cleared up so that you can move on.
Where Dead Space stumbles most is in the control department. Vandal is controlled primarily by an invisible virtual joystick accessed by moving up, down, left, and right behind his back, with camera/head movement handled by a second invisible stick on the right of the screen. These controls work pretty well when you’re just exploring the outpost, but become somewhat problematic when frequent combat sequences start up. EA has tried to make the weapons, mapping tools, and inventory pick-ups easy to use with virtual buttons without being visually intrusive, but everything from gunplay to slashing has a certain imprecision due to the virtual buttons’ overlap with the second virtual joystick. Blue “swipe here” arrows and tappable icons appear with frequency to guide your actions, looking great and generally working, but they shouldn’t be needed at all. Mapping, slashing, and shooting have been handled more intuitively in many first- and third-person App Store shooters, as have been weapon power-up systems and inventory management. Dead Space makes tasks that should be simple just a little too clunky.
Part of this is deliberate, and the other part due to the game’s ambitions. Vandal’s ability to use time-slowing, psionic energy, and twin-featured tools that need to be device-tilted or tapped into different firing positions adds elements of challenge to the game that simple walk-and-shoot titles typically lack. By the same token, these tricks and the acquisition of limited ammunition/power replenishments have too high of a failure rate, as your inventory is deliberately limited, and the game sometimes becomes confusing as it shifts to demand use of one power or another. Map guidance to your next destination is hidden behind two button clicks rather than automatically shown with a persistent rotating arrow. While EA was arguably in a no-win situation where either fewer features and simplicity or more controls and complexity would be needed, it could have done better after choosing the latter route.
Still, Dead Space is a really impressive game by App Store standards, and to the extent that its control and interface oddities can be written off as belonging in the same less than completely thrilling category as Capcom’s early Resident Evil games, players mightn’t get hung up on them. The ambience created by the graphics and sounds is so compelling that you’ll want to keep moving through the six environments until the story’s over. It’s just a shame that iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch owners will be forced to choose between two versions of the same game, at different prices, for no good reason; this further means that the iPad version’s in-app inventory purchase system can’t transfer benefits to the iPod touch or iPhone version. The device-splitting factor alone is enough to push Dead Space below the high recommendation it otherwise would have received—it’s really time for EA to jump on the universal app bandwagon, already. iLounge Rating: B+.
Last August, we were absolutely enthralled by Mind Crew’s Mayan Puzzle, a brilliantly developed block-matching game with graphics that had to be seen to be believed—particularly for the $1 asking price. Months later, Mind Crew twice added additional levels to the game, bringing it up to 50 puzzles without changing the price, and now the company has returned with Mayan Puzzle HD ($3), an iPad-only version with the same puzzles and dramatically improved artwork. Because the prices of both of these titles are so low, and their content is so impressive, we’re not as bothered by the developer’s two separate versions; that said, a single universal version would have been a better idea.
Mayan Puzzle HD once again presents you with amazingly impressive pre-rendered Mayan backdrops and silky-smooth music as you try to figure out how to remove all of the colored blocks from a well with only a limited number of moves. Having literally spent hours and hours with both versions, we’ve continued to be impressed by not only the individual puzzles—some of which are easy before becoming hour-long exercises in trial and error—but the fact that the looping soundtrack and at most once-repeated backdrops never really get old as you’re playing. Combined with special elemental visual and sound effects as groups of three or more same-colored blocks are matched at a time—lightning bolts, explosions, smoke clouds—the art is downright exciting by puzzle game standards, and the music disarmingly charming. If this isn’t the best-looking puzzle game in the App Store, it’s only because it’s tied with a few of the genre’s best and different games: World of Goo and Osmos, to name just a couple.
There are only three things wrong with Mayan Puzzle HD, two related to our prior review of the iPhone/iPad title, and the other new. First, in order to assist players who were getting stuck on certain levels, Mind Crew used an update to add a hint system that offers free walkthroughs for two puzzles before charging $2 for eight level solutions or $1 for three levels. Players have rightfully complained that they didn’t realize how the hint system worked before using up their hints on early levels, and that the subsequent fees for answers seemed sort of sneaky. While we can’t blame Mind Crew for wanting to make a little extra money on a title that’s priced so aggressively, offering a free first move as guidance for each level or letting players skip one or two unsolved levels at a time would go a long way towards addressing complaints of unfairness. While the game’s extra three game modes offer other things to do when you’re stuck in the “classic” puzzle mode, they still haven’t been given the same upgrades or polish as the limited-move puzzles, an unaddressed issue we noted in the prior review.
The last issue is relatively minor. For whatever reason—seemingly unoptimized multitasking support to update Game Center achievements in the background—Mayan Puzzle HD is given to very brief pauses that interrupt the smoothness of its animations now and again, detracting just a little from the otherwise spectacular artwork. Post-release optimizations will hopefully make the graphics run as fluidly on the iPad as they did on iPhones and iPod touches before.
Overall, Mayan Puzzle HD remains one of the very best puzzle games we’ve seen in the App Store, relying on the strength and majesty of its classic puzzle mode to almost entirely justify its reasonable price tag. Now that Mind Crew has moved the title successfully from the iPhone and iPod touch to the iPad, we’ll be keeping our fingers crossed and eyes open for a proper—and hopefully universal—sequel. Few things would excite us more this year. iLounge Rating: A-.
Crimsonworld and Magnetar: Space Fighter
Gameprom has made some of the most impressive 3-D pinball games we’ve seen on any device, iOS or otherwise, so we were genuinely interested to see what it could pull off with other genres. Unfortunately, its just-released iPhone/iPod touch shooters Crimsonworld ($1) and Magnetar: Space Fighter ($1) have little in common with its earlier titles, and are interesting solely in that their budget prices carry commensurately low expectations.
Crimsonworld is a 25-stage overhead walk-and-shoot title in the same vein as iDracula and its now untold legions of followers, placing you in the role of a sci-fi gunslinger who wanders through boring, flat backdrops shooting various types of aliens who appear while you’re grabbing and switching between 12 weapons. Control is handled through dual joysticks, one for movement and the other for firing, and you’re given a glowing targeting dot to let you know where your gun is pointed. Apart from the unusually sharp projectile lines that mark where your gun has been shooting, and the modest interest factor of seeing more powerful guns appear over time, there is literally nothing to distinguish this title from dozens we’ve seen before; the lack of in-game music, bland sound effects, and weak animations all contribute to a drab, unfinished experience. It’s hard to understand why Gameprom wouldn’t have employed its sophisticated 3-D graphics engines to give this game some real visual depth or interest. iLounge Rating: C-.
Magnetar: Space Fighter is a 20-stage vertically scrolling shooter, giving you control over an upgradeable spaceship that flies through space and above planets, shooting at targets that appear at its front and off to its sides. Unlike Crimsonworld, which is filled with dreary art and sonically all but empty, Magnetar has colorful parallaxing backdrops, semi-interesting waves of enemy attackers, and continuing background music to keep your eyes and ears interested as the title progresses. On the other hand, the gameplay is at least as derivative as Crimsonworld’s, feeling like a throwback to late 1980’s and early 1990’s overhead shooters, only with oddly proportioned spaceships and weapons that alternate—sometimes for better, sometimes for worse—between feeling too small or too big, occasionally making shots interestingly tricky and at other points requiring the use of limited-use missile and beam weapons. While we could potentially have gotten into the game with a different control scheme, Gameprom limits you to the imprecision of tilt controls for movement, which we’ve never liked in other shooters and find unnecessarily problematic here. Both of these titles could be fixed with post-release updates to improve their appeal; Magnetar’s the closer of the two to being ready to play when the control issues are addressed. iLounge Rating: C+.
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Sunday, February 13, 2011
Review: Capcom Devil May Cry 4 Refrain
Devil May Cry 4 Refrain is a semi-sequel to a nine-year-old PlayStation and Xbox action game franchise, based upon scenarios from the 2008 title Devil May Cry 4. Ostensibly set in the present day, the series is famous for its complex and gothic 3-d environments, as well as edgy fantasy-inspired characters who occasionally dabble in sanglants. Original series hero Dante both carried a sword and a gun, and now Devil May Cry 4 Chorus's lead character Nero starts with a sword, a gun, and a glowing energy arm, enabling a mix of short-, medium-, and long - range attacks that grow slightly in power as the game progresses with automatic power upgrades. Everything is presented using a 3-D camera system that shifts automatically from remote a overhead view to something closer to a side angle as needed, turning automatically to present you with a view of what's ahead.
Generally speaking, Nero runs from room to room killing demon-like attackers who appear from laser-like beams of light red; killing everything in a room unlocks one or more doors to move it to another room. A map overlay on the right side of the screen gives you a sense of where to go, with a tiny compass indicator showing your current direction. Looping music similar to Nine Inch Nails industrial angst plays whenever enemies are in the room, fading out when you've cleared everything from your immediate path. Clusters of similarly decorated rooms constitute each of the game's 10 levels, and there are eight boss encounters to break up the running with more concentrated slashing and shooting action. You can expect to spend two or three hours playing the game once from start to finish, perhaps more depending on how much you backtrack through the rooms in a given level.
While there's a laundry list of problems with Devil May Cry 4 Refrain, several key issues explain why titre won't be worth even $2 for many fans of the series. The biggest is the iOS game's absolutely lackluster graphics engine, which barely improves upon the ones used by Capcom for earlier titles such as Dead Rising Mobile and Resident Evil 4. Classic gothic architecture that was a stunning focal point of every past Devil May Cry game has been reduced to all purpose open completely, boxy spaces that are noisily textured but never particularly interesting to look at Nero wanders through drab gray snowy areas and drab brown castle internships that may as well blur into one another, and would aim for the fact that all of the rooms in a given level use the same color palette and textures. All of the original PlayStation 2 game's magical elements-such as the zipping of orbs and the flashes of enemy attacks — have been completely stripped out here, leaving even special effect animations looking utterly flat and often triangular. It's as if the game was developed for the iPhone and iPhone 3 G and given only the most modest resolution bump to run on the iPhone 4 and iPod touch 4 G; the polygons and textures are by today's standards, pathetic.
The action isn't anything to write home about, either. Once the franchise's famous 3-d backdrops have been collapsed into boxy shades of their former selves, and your character has been reduced to thumbnail size on an iPhone/iPod touch screen, the excitement of slashing, shooting, grabbing, and juggling enemies just flatlines. To Capcom's credit, Nero still gets to do all of these things with the decent virtual controls, but the artificial intelligence is so weak that you can play through the first three or four levels without obviously sustaining a single hit from a regular enemy; fighting against even a dramatically larger boss leads to similarly dissatisfying results, quickly devolving into-and succeeding with-button mashing. Worse yet, the constant camera shifting and muddled art make the room-to-room adventuring tedious; unless you really focus on your entry and exit directions using the tiny map grid, you stand a significant chance of getting so spun around fighting enemies that you'll exit through the prior entrance, then will need to repeat the room over again. We found this to be so barely fun that only the initially low asking price saved it from being a complete disaster.
Sonically, Devil May Cry 4 Refrain has just enough going on to keep the action modestly interesting. Though the frequent repetition of Nero's Sami few voice samples ("begone," he says when slashing enemies or wood;) ("Catch this," he repeats every time his energy arm expands) soon becomes mildly grating, the constant flip flopping between the NIN-styled angry killing music and goth themes as you're exploring is more sound than many inexpensive games offer. But the game's numerous cut scenes are purely rendered with flat images and tiny text, omitting the voice narration and 3-d imagery from prior Devil May Cry titles, and overall, the game can't help but feel like a mobile phone-quality experience rather than something worthy of a Nintendo DS or Sony PSP release.
To the extent Capcom sells games like this-at any point in their life cycles - for only $2, it is implicitly acknowledging that what it has published isn't worthy of the sort of higher prices that properly-developed action games can fetch on the App Store; as was the case with the sub-Sony PlayStation caliber titles Dead Rising Mobile, Ghosts laptop-' 'n Goblins, and some of its other games, that's certainly true with Devil May Cry 4 Refrain. But it ain't needn't have been. Capcom had relied upon an iPhone 4/iPod touch 4 G/iPad-only graphics engine akin to the one in Infinity Blade, it could have preserved much of the majesty and detail of the early PlayStation games. Instead, the company hacked and slashed away all of the impressive work done by the developers of the PlayStation version, leaving so little here to impress iOS gamers that it really can't justify asking much more for a game like this. Going forward, Capcom needs to make smarter development choices when porting its biggest hits to past Apple's devices, because titles like this one are actively undermining the goodwill its franchises have built up over the years, and Capcom's eventually going to be the one crying if its most popular past games stop drawing crowds.
A Note From the Editors of iLounge: Though all products and services reviewed by iLounge "final" are, many companies now make changes to their offerings after publication of our reviews, which may or may not be reflected above. This iLounge article provides more information on this practice, known as revving.
Review: Chair Entertainment / Epic Games Infinity Blade
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In short, Infinity Blade follows a family of nameless warriors as they embark for reasons unknown on a mission to slay an evil king. You start by taking control of a single character who confronts the king and then dies at his hands, creating a seemingly infinite loop of vengeance that will see his son, grandson, great-grandson, and future successors repeat the same fatal mistake. Or will they? Each fallen fighter leaves all of his possessions to the next warrior, enabling you to grow in power, weaponry, and defense as the game continues. At some point, one of the sons will have the right combination of sword, shield, armor, ring, magic, health bar, and experience points—plus your skills—to defeat the king and end the loop. This brilliant little concept makes it possible for you to adventure your way through similar backdrops again and again, with each loop requiring a half-hour or so of playtime, possibly less if you explore less and fight faster.Chair has structured the game ideally to facilitate adventuring and fighting for whatever time you have. The king is protected by a series of boss-caliber opponents rather than an army of one-hit losers, with each fight taking two or so minutes. Between fights, you needn’t concern yourself with granular movement within the fully 3-D world; instead, you tap on glowing points to move from scene to scene, controlling only your head as you reach each new point. This, combined with deliberately skewed and obscuring camera angles, turns each area into a hiding spot for potions, bags of gold, and inventory items such as helmets, swords, armor, and rings, which can be tapped on when you see them. Some merely boost strength or defense, while others add various magical and related abilities. A poison sword will leech life; a ring will let you stun an opponent with electricity; a suit of armor will also multiply your experience points when worn. Fights are much better than we had expected. Epic and Chair haven’t tried to replicate the joystick and button arrays of Street Fighter IV or other incredibly successful console games; instead, it gives you dodge buttons on the sides of the screen, magic and special attack buttons in the two top corners, a block button at bottom center, and plenty of space elsewhere to swipe your weapon to your heart’s content. Occasionally, a glowing point will appear on your opponent for a stabbing attack, but most of the action focuses on dodging, slashing, or parrying attacks by following the direction they come from. It feels entirely unlike great console fighters, but it works really well on these devices.Again, the camera angles and dramatic interruptions at key stages of both sides’ lifebars aid the experience: fights are third-person behind your character but very close in, making great use of the screen, and your goal is to stagger or dodge your enemy’s attack to open him up for a flurry of slashes. A big stagger leads to a brief cinematic, and the final one offers you the chance to rack up extra experience points by swiping as many times as possible in a “finishing” sequence. Sometimes, your foe goes off a bridge or staircase at the end of a fight, and most often, your warrior get pierced by the king’s magical sword before the game awakens to a Groundhog Day-like view of the castle in the distance. In any case, there’s no dead time in these fights; they’re all action, and evolve to become smarter as you keep playing.Thanks to its comparative simplicity, the experience-building system is more addictive here than in games that radically overcomplicate the statistical exercise of leveling up. You have a handful of categories to bolster with points earned through battle, and you gain separate experience points for each inventory item you use, with the option to use gold currency to either purchase new items or more experience if you don’t want to adventure for them. We’re thrilled that Epic didn’t insert an in-app ATM system to turn these acquisitions into paid purchases, but we’d also like to see a little more ability to actually customize your family of fighters beyond just swapping their gear, and the per-item experience levels are arguably surplusage: even after boosting experience, you’re still knocking off modest numbers of hit points per slice or stab of your enemies, so keeping the focus on acquiring decidedly better weapons is important. Epic’s 3-D graphics engine, based on Unreal Engine 3, is frankly 75% of the reason that Infinity Blade has received all of its buzz. The demonstration version called Epic Citadel provided a character-free tour through the game’s countryside and buildings, but offered only a minimal taste of what the action would be like, and no clue as to how the engine would hold up when both backgrounds and fighters were present. There’s mostly good news on this point: as discussed in our look at Epic Citadel, Infinity Blade’s environments are outstanding. Sometimes stunningly faceted with polygons. Incredibly textured on even the high-resolution iPad, iPhone 4, and iPod touch 4G, all of which are natively supported for the $6 asking price. The characters are, too. They don’t look real, but they look better than any combination of characters and backgrounds on any iOS game released thus far; the warriors are in most cases textured with distressed materials that look old, worn, and gothically beautiful—just like the castle and its surroundings. GPU-punishing details that could have been omitted, like circular-edged buildings and metalworks, spiraling staircases, and lifelike grass, all are present as if they were effortless to include within the Unreal Engine; special effects receive comparatively short shrift. That aside, only triple-A titles from triple-A developers have a prayer of approaching what has been accomplished here visually.The compromise is in frame rate. On the iPad, iPhone 4, and iPod touch, the frame rate is consistently under 25 frames per second, and probably more in the sub-20 range if we had to guess. Infinity Blade is fluid enough to feel great, particularly with its ambient audio track and menacing sound effects, which include voice samples every time you return to do battle with the king. Turn off the audio, though, and it’s obvious that the game stutters a little here and there because the developers wanted to pack the game with so much detail. The trade-off’s acceptable this time, but a sequel is going to need to smooth its motion in order to evolve to the next level.Will Infinity Blade evolve? The developers say yes. A section of the game’s menu system promises new items, enemies, and dungeons are going to be added “soon,” along with a Game Center-aided multiplayer mode. The latter feature will be extremely interesting to see implemented—will it be cooperative, competitive, or both?—but the first three could be great or nauseating. As impressive as this title is right now, we’re concerned that the developers may try to turn it into a cash machine with in-app purchases, such that the “red sword” will cost you 99 cents, and accessing the new dungeons might be a few dollars. The game doesn’t say whether the additions will be purchasable. Finding the right balance between free and paid upgrades is going to be tricky.If anyone can pull that off, Epic and Chair seem like leading candidates. Releasing this game at a wholly reasonable $6 price point with full iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch compatibility was precisely the right move, rather than fragmenting purchasers into different platform-specific apps with different prices, and though the experience will differ somewhat from device to device because of hardware capabilities, Infinity Blade delivers a fully realized fighting adventure game in any case. It’s astonishing to consider how much better of an experience you get for the price here than with either the $5 Click Wheel iPod Games released years ago, or the split-version, higher-priced apps some developers are trying to sell today. Based on the quality of the game, the impressiveness of its technology, and the developers’ pricing thus far, Infinity Blade deserves to be the most successful game yet released for iOS devices. It receives our exceedingly rare flat A high recommendation, and is worthy of attention on literally any iOS device capable of playing it. A Note From the Editors of iLounge: Though all products and services reviewed by iLounge are "final," many companies now make changes to their offerings after publication of our reviews, which may or may not be reflected above. This iLounge article provides more information on this practice, known as revving.
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Editorial: The Second-Generation Apple TV, Two Months LateriPhone + iPad Gems: Lady Gaga Revenge 2 + Rock Band Reloaded / HDiPhone + iPad Gems: Downhill Bowling 2, Handy Manny, Mensa Brain Test, Zoo Rescue + MoreiPhone + iPad Gems: Edge, NBA Elite, NFS Hot Pursuit, Space Miner Blast, Star Wars Arcade + WispiniPhone + iPad Gems: Astronut, Gunstar Heroes, Mushihimesama Bug Panic, Rage HD, Splatterhouse + MoreFriday, February 11, 2011
: Releases Abvio updated major Runmeter, Cyclemeter and Walkmeter
Abvio has published updates to Runmeter, Cyclemeter and Walkmeter, his trio of iPhone apps fitness based on GPS for tracking exercise performance. All three applications are built the same Foundation, each optimized for running, cycling and walking, respectively. Applications allow users to track their workouts these data such as time, location, distance, altitude, and speed of recording and then view their results on maps and charts organized by tracks and activities with a summary of different periods. Users can also automatically publish status updates to Twitter and Facebook training and hear responses of their online friends during their workout using the built-in text-to-speech engine. Version 5.0 adds integration with major social community dailymile.com allowing users to automatically synchronize and share their workouts in real-time with dailymile community and hear messages of encouragement from friends of dailymile to training sessions. The new version also introduces a virtual competition feature that allows users to import a route to add a competitor virtual to run, cycle or walk against. Routes can be imported drives previously recorded, friends workouts, fitness social sites or any other source of data from GPX compatible.
Other new features in the latest update includes a text-to-speech engine increased with a new integrated voice and enhanced. Another 16 voice options, and dialects for text-to-speech functionality are also available via-app purchase, including male and female voices in America, English British, German, French and Canadian French. The update includes also the 25 configurable voice announcements of distance, time, speed and improved voice quality and more. Additional improvements include a configurable display stopwatch with up to 40 different statistics, the ability to enter notes before and during a workout, improvements to the flexibility of the speed and pace displays, support for tracking the descent burn grade and energy in kilojoules and more. Three Runmeter, Cyclemeter and Walkmeter applications are sold separately in the App store for $5 each. Text-to-speech voice is available via-app purchase for $1 per vote.
: WordUs2 family friendly update releases
Dawn binary, Interactive has released an update of WordUs2, its popular word game for iOS, adding new dictionaries for three and four letters devices suitable for young learners. In WordUs2 players test their vocabulary by trying to guess a mystery word given that the first letter. Players try to guess the word one letter at a time and must guess not only the letters of the word, but also where they appear in the word. The game includes a dictionary of thousands of words and four game modes including a mode "Calm & collected" with unlimited time and assumptions and three modes of additional challenge where players are given a limited number of assumptions or a limited amount of time. WordUs2 is available on the App Store for $2.
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Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Behind the scenes: MacBook Air 11 "Muse gets Moshi + Speck SeeThru Satin"
A great sensation by hand is one of the things that we are looking for - and only sometimes find - for MacBook, particularly given that the MacBook Air is small and thin enough that you'll wind up holding a palm or one arm at a certain time when you are walking with her 11 "." It is a point not insignificant when we watched week last Covenant United leather pouch and noted that the smooth texture of the case dear envelope-style might not work for some users; a bit of tack can turn a long way when device hand-holding for long periods of time. Two new cases for MacBook Air offers completely different approaches to the protection of the laptop, but both 11 "use textures to differentiate himself from competing products."
Muse 11 of Moshi ($35) is undoubtedly just a longest ever-so-slightly darker grey version and Muse for iPad, adding just enough length to accommodate the MacBook Air in one of his two pockets of Rabat 11 "society." The other pocket for accessories - say that included eating Air - but made enough room for a full iPad inside, assuming that you're ready to go through some insertion and deletion of the contortions Moshi or we would truly recommend. In any case, it is a great Pocket second, and the contrast colour front flap is sealed with a couple of magnets hidden, then topped with a few nice metallic name badge.
It is a design certainly sharp - research, but let's be frank: there are many nice there sleeve MacBook research. The thing that makes it stand out you we really is texture, which, like the iPad, version resembles the surface of a high quality sofa rather than a typical case. Microfibre Moshi, which marks it as Terahedron, is sufficiently flexible be used to clean up the MacBook screen and plush enough to feel as if it is inflated. Each time that we receive, we want to reach some more - it is just as nice. For the price of $35, it has just the right look and feel; If the idea take your MacBook Air bare or with a sleeve film appeals to you, this is a really great option.
Speck has a completely different but equally compelling solution in the form of SeeThru Satin for MacBook Air 11 " ($50)." Several generations of SeeThru and SeeThru Satin cases have been released for previous MacBook (and, of course, iPod, iPhone and iPads), but this version is probably the best yet for a laptop. It is supposed to be 50% thinner than the last generation MacBook cases, a difference which is evident when the hull plastic lasts is disabled, because it can flex a little despite its edges molded precision. Yet when he is on the MacBook Air, he does no less protection than feel before, just more thin. And it seems all so cool.
Rubber touch outside is called Satin because it feels like that: rail at microscopic without be shiny or slippery, a difference between this and standard SeeThru cases. It adds a translucent frosted coating black air which allows Apple, logo to shine from above, diminished somewhat, while providing port areas open and antenna/rear hinged access if necessary. That it can align 11 "Air to all them should not be taken for granted having regard to the thinness of the computer to its minimum points;" Speck uses very small clips to keep the case attached to the edges of the MacBook and rubberized bottom pads to cover rubber black ones on the computer.
Just as with the Muse, SeeThru Satin feels really well - "right", same - and offers a truly minimalist protection form if you are simply looking to keep most of scratch-free Air aluminum frame. Then the $ 50 price tag feels like scope given that Speck costs the same price for larger and heavier for the 17 versions "15" and 13 MacBook Pros,"he does there not getting around the fact that the MacBook Air version 11" sentiment accurate, crisp, who deserves a kind of premium version of SeeThru Satin iPhone, itself a true standout of rivals through his company appearance. It's a franchise that Speck has consistently improved safe in every generation, improved versions of each year as large those who preceded them, and if we weren't such enormous fans of protective films for the MacBook Air, we would use Satin every day. It is easy to install, solidly constructed and complement good appearance really nice Air.