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Tyrian is a classic SHMUP or 2D vertical shoot-em-up, developed by Eclipse Productions and originally published on the PC in 1995 by Epic MegaGames. The game officially went freeware in 2004 and a project called OpenTyrian came about in 2007 to create an open-source version. This iPhone port from Mobila Interactive is based on OpenTyrian but special enhancements have been made to take advantage of the iPhone’s unique interface. I can tell you right now (IMO anyway) that this is the finest port yet of any game for the iPhone so if you happen to like SHMUP’s, you’ve found heaven. Since this port uses original game assets, they must be downloaded (~10 MB) post-install from the Internet. Much like Flashback, when you first run the game you’ll be prompted through this process so try to be on WiFi (after this 1-time download you’re all set).
Story goes that you are Trent Hawkins, skilled terraformation pilot in a time ridiculously far in the future. Your job is to scout newly terraformed planets for habitable locations. One day your best friend is murdered and as he lay dying tells you it was the insidious work of Microsol and because of his knowledge of Gravitium, a secret mineral that can alter gravity. Microsol is a huge corporation that seeks to use Gravitium to power its warships and basically rule the cosmos. You of course immediately become next on Microsol’s hit list so it’s up to you to fight back and stop the corrupt machine… .
There are 2 ways to play Tyrian, classic mode and arcade mode. In classic mode you gain bits of the story through info cubes and can upgrade your ship and weapons with money gained during gameplay. In arcade mode the focus is pure action as the story is fed to you automatically as you progress and powerups are gained in the traditional manner of item drops after killing certain enemies. Here’s the basic feature set ripped unashamedly from the dev website: .
- Full Story & Arcade modes
- 4 Episodes: “Escape”, “Treachery”, “Mission: Suicide” & “An End to Fate”
- 50+ levels
- 7 difficulty levels
- Sophisticated weapon upgrade system with hundreds of weapon combinations to chose from
- Support for cheat codes, secret game modes, easter eggs, etc
- 30+ music soundtracks by Alexander Brandon with a Jukebox .
That’s right, the game is loaded with secret stuff: hidden options, mini-games, bonus levels, geeky references to other Epic games, you name it and it all just adds to the fun (check the Wikipedia page for info about the mini-games, secrets and such). There’s a fantastic array of options to customize the game to your liking, even a special detail setting for 3GS owners (though I’m not really sure what it does). One thing of note is that the game ran way too fast for me but lo and behold the game accounts for this and has several speed settings (1 notch down from normal was perfect). By jukebox they mean there’s actually an ingame app that lets you listen to all the game’s music tracks while retro graphics routines are displayed (very chill). The mini-games aren’t gonna wow you too much but their inclusion is definitely high on the ‘that’s cool’ list. Critical to the success of a shmup on the iPhone is the controls and fortunately Tyrian nails it. The default scheme is ‘direct’ in which the ship moves 1 to 1 with your finger and I found this mode flawless and extremely responsive. The alternative is a relative mode which is similiar but the ship doesn’t snap to your finger’s location; I found this mode a little clunky so went right back to direct. .
There are very few props and flops this time since as I mentioned earlier this port is just a shining example of how it should be done.
Would be good to see an option to have the onscreen UI elements on the right side instead of always on the left
In arcade mode your game isn’t autosaved after you finish a level; it’s saved after you start the next level. Until I figured this out I had to replay a number of levels, which I didn’t mind with a game this good but still I didn’t find this too logical a way to autosave. Perhaps allowing the player to manually save after each level would be a good idea.
That’s about it, check the video and screenshots if you need more convincing. By all means try the lite version first but bottom line this is a fantastic arcade-quality shmup experience on the iPhone and easily worth the asking price for the full game. The graphics are superbly retro-licious and remind me of the Amiga big-time; the music tracks are top-notch and fit the gameplay perfectly. There is a ton of value in this game and it totally satisfies the primal urge to shoot and blow stuff up (in a non-threatening sci-fi way, natch). .
Version reviewed – 1.1
Reviewed on – iPhone 3GS 3.0.1
iTunes Link – Tyrian Lite / Tyrian Full .
These games from GameStudio9 aren’t the most exciting things you’ll ever see, but they’re old classics and they’re free and they’re well done.
Tic Tac Toe allows you to play vs. another iPhone via bluetooth and it comes with easy/hard skill settings. Yes, it’s tic tac freakin’ toe, how much can the AI change between easy and hard? I dunno, just shut up and play!
Tiles Classic comes with 24 photos to unscramble, and you can set the difficulty from 3×3 up to 5×5. It’ll give you a “hint” by showing you where the tiles belong for a quick second, but other than that you’re on your own. Sorry, you can’t import your own pics but when the price is zero there shall be no complaining!
GameStudio9 did a good job on both these ad-supported games and it’ll be interesting to see what they come up with when they actually want to make some moolah.
"PhotoForge is the most powerful app of its kind in the App Store and a must-have for artists, creatives or anyone interested in image editing." – MacWorld.com
“If you can choose one app, look into PhotoForge….. Photoshop in your pocket, just enough tools to make some crucial editing on the fly.” – TheAppera.com
"PhotoForge is a well put together and professional image manipulation and painting app." – AllAboutiPhone.net
"Photoshop of the iPhone … it has tools and functionality I haven’t seen on a mobile platform before." – AppleTell.com
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PhotoForge is a highly optimized editing and painting application designed for the iPhone and iPod touch. It can be used for image manipulation, retouching, effects, and color correction, as well as a painter’s tool. It is indispensable for creating original artwork, or editing photos on your mobile device.
PhotoForge is a superb photographer’s tool, providing digital darkroom capabilities that are second to none. It is also a tool for creating incredible works of art and illustrations. PhotoForge allows you to put together an image, combining filters, brushes, and effects. They may be hand-painted, or a composite of photographic images mixed with painting. The filters and effects can be layered to produce even more dynamic results.
A D J U S T M E N T S
• Curves: Create your own filters. Edit each channel in RGB, CMYK and CIELab color spaces.
• Levels: Edit each channel in RGB, CMYK and CIELab color spaces.
• Sharpen & Unsharp Mask: Sharpen images to remove the softness introduced during digital photo capture.
• Noise Reduction: Digitally reduces color noise present in the photo. (Apply multiple times for more reduction)
• Simulated HDR: Produce images with greater detail by manipulating the visible range of an image's highlights and shadows.
• Auto White Balance
• Auto Exposure
• Manual Exposure
• Manual Vibrance
• Hue, Saturation & Lightness
• Brightness & Contrast
T O O L S
• Crop tool: Crop, rotate, and flip.
• Brush tool: Experiment with 8 different brush strokes. Choose from unlimited sizes, colors, and transparency options.
• Smudge tool: Smears the pixels along the direction of the brush stroke.
• Clone Stamp tool: Sample pixels at one location in an image, and paint them in a different location.
• Eraser tool: Erase away portions of brush strokes, filters or effects applied to the image. For example, this tool will allow you to colorize black and white filtered images, among countless other uses.
• Magnify tool: Zoom in, out, and pan.
• Eye Dropper tool: Selects the color of individual pixels in an image.
• Fill tool: Fill the visible area of the image with color.
F I L T E R S
• Black & White, Dreamy, Enhanced, Lomo, Sepia, Water Color, Oil Painting, Night Vision, Heat Map, Pencil, Neon, Blur, Emboss, Sunset, Blue Sky and Television.
O T H E R F E A T U R E S
• Load photos from your camera and your photo albums
• Start painting from a blank canvas
• Edit in portrait or landscape mode
• Hide the toolbars in full screen mode
• Resume previous sessions if interrupted
• Unlimited undo and redo options allow you to revert your editing mistakes
• Save to 4 different output sizes; 640×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1600×1200, 2048×1536(3GS only)
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ V I D E O ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
http://ghostbirdsoft.com/photoforge/video.html
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ F A Q ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
http://ghostbirdsoft.com/photoforge/faq.html
✂——————-
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What’s New
Levels!
View and edit each channels levels histogram in 3 color modes, RGB, CYMK, and CIE LAB.
Friend Mapper — Combine the iPhone’s built-in GPS with our natural tendency to be nosy and you get a plethora of location-based apps that allow users to find, follow and map their friends. Friend Mapper, (formerly Amigo Mapper) by Winkpass Creations, would be just another in this line of apps were it not for one seriously ambitious twist.
Friend Mapper lets you show your location to friends. You can also find friends that have opted to share their location. So far, it’s pretty standard stuff. The twist is that Friend Mapper offers live updating. So, not only can you see that your friend Jane is at the mall, you can watch as she moves from store to store. Or, more practically, if the family is planning to meet for dinner you can watch live as Uncle Larry takes a wrong turn and call him before ends up in the next town. Friend Mapper includes one touch calling or texting for any of your linked contacts.
Did I mention this app was ambitious? Unfortunately, it may be too ambitious for the current iPhone. The caveat to live updating is that it only works if your contact’s iPhone or iPod touch is turned on and they have the app open. Otherwise, it’s just a map which shows where your friends were recently — and if your friends don’t tend to update their location, it may not even do that.
Friend Mapper also works much better with iPhone 3G or 3G S. Original iPhone, without built-in GPS, won’t locate or track as precisely. Of course, this isn’t Friend Mappers fault.
In fact, most of what’s wrong with Friend Mapper isn’t the developers fault. It’s a brilliant idea. If only the iPhone could run multiple apps. Or, if your friends could be relied upon to consistently turn on and update their location. These are the two things that keep the live updating from being very live.
It would be nice to see some extra features to keep us entertained until live location updating becomes a more viable feature. The ability to snap and attach photos to a location, or a list of favorite locations for when the GPS doesn’t get it quite right.
In the meantime, Friend Mapper is a nice concept and is probably handy for very specific situations as long as your entire group owns iPhones. It would be fun during a scavenger hunt to spy on the other teams or it could add a new dimension to extreme hide-and-seek. If you have a group of friends willing to play along, you’ll probably get your dollar’s worth. But, don’t expect Friend Mapper to change the world. It’s just not there yet.
Facebook has now submitted v. 3.0 of their iPhone application to Apple, Through Twitter it has been said by Joe Hewitt that he has just uploaded Facebook for iPhone 3.0 to the App Store for review.
It has also been said by Hewitt that next week he will post screen shots and more details on Facebook for the iPhone app, and that he is looking forward to getting started on v. 3.1 the next day.
Since details first became available in July we have been tracking 3.0. A list of some of some improvements that are much needed is on Facebook. And as a bonus, it has been said by Hewitt that he has decided to include video uploads to Facebook from iPhone 3Gs phones as well.
So now this means that in just few days we’ll have access to the much-improved app which will be coming up with features such as a News Feed that is similar to the one on Facebook’s site, the ability to “like” items and a new customizable home screen. The most important thing is that it will also have video support for the iPhone 3GS, this is something which has been thrown-in by Hewitt at the last second, unexpectedly. And perhaps it is the best of all, and finally the app will have the ability to manage events.
It is anticipated that Apple will approve this app in short order. So soon we can access v. 3.0 on iphone. It is just that we have to wait a little bit for that moment.
Friend Mapper — Combine the iPhone’s built-in GPS with our natural tendency to be nosy and you get a plethora of location-based apps that allow users to find, follow and map their friends. Friend Mapper, (formerly Amigo Mapper) by Winkpass Creations, would be just another in this line of apps were it not for one seriously ambitious twist.
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