Migrating!

Hey Everyone! I now have a brand new site with a brand new name. It's www.iphoneptune.com. Come check it out. I'll definitely have a lot more features up and running like polls, new apps, news, price drops, contests, and more. This will be the last post I will do on this blog. Ahh the nostalgia!

Centipede Ultra ($.99)

Who doesn't love those old fashioned arcade games that we used to play so much? Sitting in the bar with some friends playing the classic game of Centipede used to be one of America's favorite past times in the 80's and now you can play this great game on your iDevice! How awesome is that?!

This app brings Atari's finest to the palm of your hand with new updated graphics and sound. (Boy, does it sound great with headphones!) This game brings you new power ups to destroy those nasty critters but still has that old fashioned feel of the trackball and fire button.

This game has three game difficulties. The easy level (which is what I play on) fires automatically. Medium and hard is where you have to click a button in the top left/right of the screen to fire. Other than that the game feels about the same though. To play you just slide your finger back and forth to aim (and fire). If you have never played the game before, it is quite simple to get used to. When you gain more points you will get another life. (Every 15,000 to be exact) All together you can get ten lives.

The PowerUps

I love this feature. These were not in the original (based on what my Dad remembers) but its awesome all the same. If you fire at a PowerUp you will get a special power. These include:

*Rapid Fire- Super fast shooting!
*Multi Shot- 3 cannons firing parallel
*Reflect Shot- 2 cannons firing diagonally (Great for spiders)


There are also PowerUps that affect the environment:

*Time Slow- Slows down all enemies (Also happens when hitting an inchworm)
*DDT (Bomb)- Completely nukes all insects
*Burst- Kills all enemies near the Burst PowerUp
*Swarm: Makes 4 enemies COME OUT OF NO WHERE!!

I must say... This is a fantastic app. Me and my Dad play it all the time. There are a few things I would love to see in an update though.

A universal highscore list- The game comes with a device highscore list (for when you play against a friend on that device), but there isn't an online leaderboard for this game
OVER 1,000,000!!- The score counting stops when you hit 999,999!! Yes...we've done it.
Old Centipede option?- Some prefer the classic look of the game. Maybe you could put in an option?

My Dad just said (as he's sitting here playing it) "This game definitely held up over three decades" So take it from him. He's been playing it since the beginning.

http://www.atari.com/

Chess Knight ($.99)

One of my friends in school like to play chess and he brought in a chess app on his iPod. It was fun but it glitches up a lot and the graphics were a bit boring. So I checked around and found this app called Chess Knight. It is a lot better. The graphics are really nice looking and the features it has are very cool. 
You can play against a computer with a level of your choice, you can play against a friend on your iPod, or you can use a Bump feature to play against a friend who also owns the game. 
How does the Bump work? First, you both have town the game and turn on bluetooth, then you press the button that says "Use Bump Feature," bump the two iPods together and, boom! You guys should be connected! I haven't tried this feature yet since no one I know owns the game, but if it DOES work as promised, well....that is really cool.

SketchPad ($.99)

I really love to draw and this app is perfect for anyone else who does. SketchPad is unlike most drawing apps. You have an  unlimited drawing space which really helps when drawing large things. You can zoom in and out as much as you want, adjust the line thickness and color, and it even has a copy and paste feature! That is one of my favorites.
I would give this app a VERY high rating. It is so awesome if I could marry an app, I would. :D

UG tools ($3.99)

I would like to thank Andrew Apanov for sending me another promo code. Thanks for all your support!

In a previous review, I wrote about the Ultimate Guitar app. That was used to search for tabs and chords. If anyone out there plays guitar I would highly recommend that app and this one.
UG tools has a couple of great tools that will aid in your quest to become a great musician. It includes

A great featured metronome
A chromatic tuner (this feature needs a mic)
A "brain tuner" (will play the sound of the string you need to tune)
A large chord library. (No wifi needed!!)

I ran a bit late with this review because I was using it so much! It is an amazing app that is portable, user friendly, and all around awesome.

If I may request a feature that would be a great update.. I would love to see one more section after the chord library that would have guitar scales. Different keys and types. It would make it the perfect guitar app. It's super now.. But with that feature? Woah.

Tiny Wings ($.99)

Hmm.. What is it with people and birds? I mean...Angry Birds was on the top list for how long? NOW, there is this game named Tiny Wings.
You are a tiny bird and dream of flying. Oh how bad you want to soar! But, you cant yet, you see. So, not wanting to wait any longer, you go from island to island gaining speed by going up and down small hills. The catch? You HAVE to keep it daytime. You do this by collecting "Sun coins." Collecting a lot of these will keep it daytime.
There are also "Speed Coins." These guys will boost your speed a good deal. This game comes with a lot of different islands each having maybe 25 hills to rack up points. These islands are all different colors and gives the game a nice feel when you get to a new one.
I also enjoy how they created the objective part of the game. When you complete everything on the objectives list, you get a better nest.
For a buck, you can't go wrong with this game. If you like those high score, fast paced, reflex needed games, you will like this one. Most definitely a five star app.

(Maybe this is the game that will de-throne Angry Birds for a while! ;D)

http://www.andreasilliger.com/

Cut The Rope ($.99)

Cut the Rope ($.99)

The same friend I was talking about in the Chess Knight review showed me this awesome game. I must admit, I was a bit skeptical at first. It kinda seemed a bit boring and childish. I watched him play, and the more I watched...THE MORE I WANTED IT! It is not at all what I thought it was.
*By now you probably know how I review apps. Next, I will talk about the objective and gameplay, then the goods, and if any, the bads. :D*
The object of the game to get the candy into the cute little monster's mouth by...cutting ropes. It sounds quite easy when I say it like that, but as you are trying to do that, the candy has to "dodge" different obstacles, spiders, and collect stars to go to the next level and boost your score.
I really enjoy the graphics in this game. It is cartoonish and relaxing when you feel like playing a puzzle game. I also like how the little monster whimpers if he doesn't get his candy. I like the feature that allows you to skip a level if you JUST CAN'T GET IT. You can come back to it later. (If you want to get to the next set of levels, you DO have to finish all the puzzles in the "box.")
Not much I can really say bad about this game... Ummm... The only thing I can POSSIBLY think of is landscape supported puzzles would be awesome. I would highly recommend this app. It is a fun puzzler and is well worth the buck!

http://www.chillingo.com/

Fragger, Gravity Guy, and SushiGoRound

I would really like to thank Miniclip for sending me 3 promo codes for these games. Thank you so much guys!

Fragger $.99


Fragger is a very fun game and it also gets very challenging as well. You are a soldier in the war! You must throw your grenades at the enemy! You do this by holding your finger down and positioning your throw. Then you lift up to let go. Like most games, it sounds easy in writing, but it gets pretty tough. There are many obstacles in your way to the enemy. Walls, wood, dynamite.. Once you surpass those, you are good to go.
As I stated earlier, you have to hold your finger down and let it go to release. I would really like to see an update that you can hold down to get set, but then press a button to release. It gets a bit annoying sometimes when you have to get a little higher but your finger gets in the way.
Overall this is an amazing app though. Very fun to play, a lot of levels.. What more could you ask for?

Gravity Guy $.99


Gravity Guy is another amazing game! This game is basically what the name says. You are a man that is trying to escape from a futuristic prison. The robot men are trying to catch you, so you have to... RUN! But the twist is, you have to avoid obstacles by switching the gravity. You go through checkpoints to ensure you keep going forward but it gets faster and faster as you go along. You cannot switch the gravity while in the air. You must be on the ground. (Or ceiling) Sometimes you might float into space!
This a great game to kill time (or not) and is another challenging one from Miniclip.

SushiGoRound $.99


Has anyone ever played that game Lemonade Stand? SushiGoRound is a bit like that, but with more recipes and better graphics. You..are a chef in a sushi restaurant. Can you handle seating, feeding and keeping nonstop customers happy?
There is a recipe book full of the foods your customers want. Make the right combination of ingredients, and match the food to the person. Sound easy? WRONG! Customers start to poor into the restaurant and and if you don't serve them fast enough, they will get angry and leave.
Like a real kitchen, you will run out of ingredients. You will have to order the food which could be quick or a long process depending on how much you pay.

8 Bit Games-Flying ($1.99)

I would really like to thank Teruaki and everyone else at White Dev for sending me a promo code to review this awesome game! Hope you guys like the review as much as I like the app!

Anyone out there who likes classic retro arcade games, this is one for you! Flying is a 3D game where you fly a small plane and avoid the many structures that start to come at you (rather quickly sometimes!) It being an 8 bit game has pixelated animations and music which gives it that great feeling of the 80's! Like a lot of games, it sounds much easier than it really is. Different types of buildings and statues (of all different sizes) come at you waiting for you to crash into them! (Mwahahaha) The type of camera angle (behind the plane) makes it even more of a challenge to navigate at points. (In a good way) There are also different places you fly through:

-New York City
- Egypt
- Inside of a Pyramid
- (Loop to NY city)
In the Pyramid, enemies are moving around as well so be careful!

Very simple controls: Tilt your device left or right to steer and tap anywhere on the screen to pause. I like that because it makes it a lot easier to play.
There are just a couple things that I would really like to see in the next update.
1.) The music. It has some arcade music sounds but I think it would fit the part well if you got some really awesome music and put it in. 
2.) Another amazing feature this game should have is the ability to access your your Twitter and Facebook accounts. It would be great to see other people's scores. (Or at least brag about them to your friends on Facebook). This games does have Scoreloop (Online system like Openfeint) which should quench your high score posting needs. 
Even though there are a couple things missing I love this game. I can tell this will be on my iPod for a long time.

P.S. This game has an equivalent called 8 bit games- Flying 2d. It's basically the same game (Free & less features) but you see your plane from the top! It gives the game a whole different perspective.

Geared (Free)

This is a real brain-buster game. The object is to make the already spinning gear connect to the non-spinning one by adding more gears. Not nearly as simple as it sounds. The puzzle gets more challenging by only giving you a certain amount of gears or different sized ones. Then the puzzles start to have areas where you can't place a gear. (Hint hint: sometimes you have to drop them!) there are tons of fascinating levels that will keep you entertained for hours.

This... Was a short review.. I don't know what else to say, really. THIS WAS AN AWESOME GAME! Ummmm.... GO GET IT NOW! :D

http://www.bryandev.com/support.php

Doodle God ($.99)

This game is interesting. It is a very good concept and it works very well. The object of the game is to create new forms of matter with just earth, air, fire, and water. ( You'll be very surprised at how many things you can create!) I like how the game feels as well. I played a game "like" this one and it was pretty bad. It was hard to create new things, navigability was terrible, and the overall gameplay was just...blah. You start by making things like swamps, dust, plants, and things like that. Then, you start to make things that have life! Plankton, lizards, birds, humans! You can keep adding to things too! Once you make humans and vodka you can combine them and get and alcoholic! Or you can add swamp to human and get corpse, or something like that.
All of the things you can make are well thought out also which means you won't get a fish by combining fire and grass! Great game that will probably take you a while to complete.

http://www.avaloid.com/contact

AAA Pokedex ($.99)

This is pretty nifty app for anyone who likes Pokemon. What are there now? 493?? Wow... Anyway, this app will take you through ALL of the things you need to be a Pokemon Master! Let me get you a list of all the stuff it does:

To find your Pokemon
•See all the Pokemon by number or in alphabetical order
•You can search
•Browse by type

Getting the info on the Pokemon
•You can then find general info
•It's stats
•Breeding info
•Training info
•It's full evolution process
•All of the moves it can learn in all the games
•and where you can find each one in every game

This app really has everything!! The pictures are all clear, the info is amazing, and it's just an overall awesome app. Two things i would like to see in an update though: landscape support and maps of the different regions. Aside from that, this app gets 5 out of 5 stars hands down.

http://www.pixelka.com/

Tonepad (Free)

Tonepad is really fun app to play around with. It is a music app that can create your own music tracks by placing dots on a board. How the music sounds depends on how you place the dots (how many you place and the patterns you place them in). It is a bit hard to hear just playing with your iPod speakers but if you hook it up to external speakers or plug in your headphones, it is really cool. You can save a track and play/edit it later which is another great feature found in this app.
By the way... If you really like this app, there is a paid one with more features in the app store for $.99! Try this one first, see how you like it, and if you do... Have a blast with the paid version! It has more features like creating custom ringtones and making as many songs as you want!

http://www.tonepadapp.com/

Axe In Face ($.99)

Hey guys! I just got this off the app store and you should too! It sounds like a violent game, but it really isn't. The object of the game? To keep your Viking manliness and protect all of your sacred daffodils! Sound fun? It is. You draw a path from your Viking and have to kill all the approaching Vikings with your axe. Once they get into the flower patch, you lose!
There are different things that happen during the game though. For example, other Vikings start to come holding trees! What do you do?! You throw your axe into a fire, hit them with the flaming axe, and they...disintegrate.
I would most definitely say this is a five star app. The gameplay is fun and cartoonish yet it gets quite challenging. Now go my son! Go fight so you can reach Valhalla!!

http://bluecarrotgames.com/axeinface/

DLO HybridShell 2g Case

I just bought this case at Radioshack and I really love it. It's called the HybridShell for the iPod Touch 2g. On the back it is clear so you can see the back of your iPod and on the edges it has great looking green silicone. It is is ultra-thin but offers a lot of protection. This case comes with a screen protector as well which is an awesome touch.
The only problem I had with this case was that it was a bit hard to get on. They give you instructions on how to do it, but still was a little annoying... Now that it IS on though, it was worth the effort because it is such a nice looking case.
You can probablly pick this case up in a lot of electronic places or even eBay! I actually got mine on sale for $5 on clearance but the tagged price for one of them is $24.99. Don't let the "high" price discourage you though, it is well worth it.

http://www.dlo.com/products/view/HShell_touch_2g

Wow...

Woah...Its been a while hasn't it? It says my last post was from October 8th...Sorry everyone.. I've been busy with school and haven't had a lot of time to review things. BUT! I am back now! I have a ton of apps and accessories that I will be reviewing so hang tight!

Marblenauts ($1.99)

I really want to thank Johan Bros for sending me out a promo code for this app. Thanks again!

If you like challenging puzzlers, this is one you should check out. In the beginning the marble...people give you a pretty good tutorial of how to actually play the game and then you do it yourself. The object of the game is to get the right colored marblenaut into the correct color transporter. To do this, you must destroy a rock to either the left or right of the little guy. Sounds simple right? WRONG! For you to blow up certain rocks you must get one marblenaut to a specific place. A bunch of the puzzles include teamwork between however many nauts there are in the place.
While the first couple are easy, it DOES get harder due to the addition of obstacles that get in the way. Really, there isn't much I can say bad about this game. It is a fun one to play when you want something to do that will make you think or just want to play something fun. Great game that I highly recommend to any puzzle fan!

Hoggy (Free)

I was looking around the net and the app store for a game like Kirby for my iPod and came a across this one somehow. It may have been on a forum or something.... ANYWAY! This game is like Mario, Kirby, PAC-Man all mixed together in one colorful game. The object of the game is to use your power of gravity shifting to go through many levels, eating all of the fruit and making sure you don't get squished by an enemy monster… thing.
It is a Kirby-ish kind of game which I really recommend that you try out. It's a fun FREE challenging game that will keep you busy thinking of a way to get around that monster! You have nothing to lose!

Pizza Boy ($1.99)

I really want to thank everyone and anyone from ACNE play for shipping me a promo code so I could have the chance to review this great app. Thanks again guys!

God I love retro-style games! I honestly think these ARE the best type of games out there for the iPod and this is a truly magnificent one. The storyline is fairly simple, yet explanatory. You...are a pizza boy, who was delivering a pizza one day, and a terrible nasty bird stole your pizza. What do you want?!!? REVENGE!!! ...and...your pizza back to earn your $8.50 an hour :D
You, as the pizza boy run, jump, and throw bottles you collect along the way to find that blasted bird and also finish the "maze/platform" in a given amount of time.
The graphics are stunning, the gameplay is simple, the puzzles and mazes are challenging, and overall, the game is a definite 5 out of 5. Hands down awesomeness.
I would get it.. Really. Go and get it.

Animation Creator ($1.99)

I would really like to thank Ernie Lyon for sending me a promo code so I could review this app. Thanks again Ernie and everyone at Red Software, LCC.

Does anyone like to draw, or more specifically animate your drawings? There are a couple of animation apps out there but this is one of the best I think. It's really a fun app to play around with but once you do make a good looking animation, you can upload it to YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter! That is a feature that some applications lack.
There is a lot of different features that you can play around with to make a fun animation. A couple are using a good amount of different colors, drawing shapes like straight lines, circles, and rectangles, different pixels sizes when you use the paintbrush, using layers, playback speed, and more. I like to use Pivot on my desktop a lot and that is a pretty great equivalent.
I really like how you can see the onion skin when you go to the next frame as well.
I can't really say anything bad about this app because it is pretty much everything I want in an animation app.
Just one suggestion for the devs at Red Software: while I do like all the features it is lacking one thing. A sort of copy paste function. Once you click the plus sign to add a new frame, yes, you do see the onion skin, but the last drawing wasn't there making it hard to make a smooth animation because it will be different from the last. It isn't really anything MAJOR but it really would be a bit more enjoyable to make a very smooth animation rather than a choppy one.
All in all this is a five star app and I will make sure I rate it so in the app store as well.