Well, fall is finally here and you know what that means: candy, pie, raking leaves, and partaking of farmers’ bounties. It also means that Mother Nature cannot make up her mind if it should be 90 degrees or 40 degrees outside. To aid in your morning debate about long johns or shorts, we have four weather apps to help you figure out what mood Ma Nature just might be in.
Weather HD When it comes to showing off the weather, Weather HD takes strides in making it a gorgeous and sexy affair. Not only will you get some of the best eye candy, but also you can easily find the forecast, navigate between cities with a simple swipe, and enjoy what would otherwise be a rather boring experience.
+ Universal App – Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2010-04-01 :: Category: Weather
Living Earth HD Maybe looking at a forecast is just not enough to satisfy your weather needs. Maybe you would enjoy seeing how the weather looks on a global scale. Living Earth HD is the answer to those prayers with a 3D simulated globe displayed in real time. It also includes the all-important weather, forecasts, and even times of cities across the globe. If you are a fan of our pale blue dot, this is the weather app for you.
Hurricane Hurricanes do more than just get odd names, they can trash a city with a might even Hulk would be envious of. Hurricane gives those of you living in hurricane zones great tools for monitoring items like wind speed, location, and five-day forecasts of Hurricane Jimbo. Those of you not content with only seeing current hurricane info are in for a treat as well, as Hurricane contains historical data on every hurricane dating all the way back to 1851 for the Atlantic, and 1949 for the Pacific.
iPad Only App – Designed for the iPad
Released: 2010-04-01 :: Category: Weather
The Weather Channel If you are a Weather Channel addict, then there is only one app to fill your midday cravings for weather. The Weather Channel app brings on useful features like severe weather alerts, forecasts, full screen maps, allergy forecasts, Hurricane Central, and so much more. Those of you who want to brag that it is 70 and sunny where you are to your friends who are digging out from four feet of snow, well, you can even post your locations weather right to your Facebook wall. Keep in mind, when you are sweating and burning up in 100+ degree heat, turnaround is fair play.
Glif is an upcoming iPhone 4 tripod and mount from the mind’s of Dan Provost and Thomas Gerhardt. Glif’s website describes the product as, “a simple iPhone 4 accessory with two primary functions: mounting your iPhone to a standard tripod, and acting as a kickstand to prop your phone up at an angle.”
The device is a small, L-shaped piece of injection-mold plastic with an embedded tripod mount. Glif locks around the long-sided part of your iPhone and snaps into any standard tripod… Read More
Keanu Reeves have joined the likes of Xzibit and Rick Astley by becoming a celebrity Internet meme. A picture of Reeves looking down and eating a sandwich emerged on the Internet. People took this photo and Photoshopped it into funny photos, some of them containing captions. NYMag.com interviewed him and asked him if he had heard about “Sad Keanu” and he said he hasn’t. Below is an excerpt of the interview:
[Note: I changed a couple of the hyperlinks from the original interview so that it would link directly to the blog posts that the NYMag author is referring to.]
Seriously, though, this is one of the reasons I think one of the big appeals of you as an actor is that people are always straining to figure out what’s on your mind, what you’re thinking, why you’re sad … There’s thousands of people doing this.
Wow. So, what, now they’re putting me next to other objects?
Graphics / Sound Rating: 3.9 out of 5 stars
Game Controls Rating: 4.1 out of 5 stars
Gameplay Rating: 4.7 out of 5 stars
Re-use / Replay Value Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars
Overall Rating: 4.24 out of 5 stars
Babylonian Twins has had quite the time getting to the masses. It was originally made for the Commodore Amiga system in Baghdad during the early 90’s and is considered the very first commercial quality game to come out of Iraq. Due to Iraqi political turmoil and the death of the Commodore platform, the game was shelved for many years, only to come back after fan demand from a YouTube video got to a boiling point. In 2008, Rabah Shihab decided to release an updated demo for the game and then in 2010 released a full iPhone port that could be enjoyed by everyone.
Even with the uplifting history, it was hard for me to get too excited about another iPhone platformer. There are a few inherent problems that are working against games in the genre, almost all of which funnel into the control category. The D-Pad’s are almost always sub par, the jumping is usually overly difficult because of problems with button placement/size, and the combat is hampered by the lack of a button that you can accurately hit as a reflex.
Babylonian Twins does a good job hiding the limitations that the platform genre typically faces by being a slower paced puzzler, ditching some of the treacherous mini platforms for some puzzle based trickery.
The game works by using a formula that was made popular (at least in my mind) by the old Blizzard (Silicon & Synapse) classic, The Lost Vikings. like the old classic, you must use your heroes, in this case the Babylonian Twins, to work with each other in an effort to pass each of the levels. To accomplish this, you alternate which twin you control, using the other as a platform to jump on, a placeholder for a button that needs to be held, or a partner in crime to spring another one free.
The resulting game is a smart, well thought out platformer that will challenge even the most experienced gamers. The graphics and sound really aren’t anything to write home about (which is understandable, coming from the Amiga platform), but the resulting game is definitely worth a try. If you like platformers but want a bit more of a challenge, be sure to pick up Babylonian Twins.
Developer: Collective Cognition
Price: FREE
Version Reviewed: 1.0
Device Reviewed On: iPad
Graphics / Sound Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Game Controls Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Gameplay Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Replay Value Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Overall Rating: 3.38 out of 5 stars
Multitasking. For most of us, it’s a fact of life, and a skill we had better develop sooner rather than later if we hope to get ahead in life. No, surprisingly, the app called Multitasking is not a business or productivity app. It’s a game, but you may find it helps you split your mind in more directions than you previously thought possible.
At its core, Multitasking is a series of quick, simple action mini games, a la Wario Ware. However, whereas Wario Ware focuses on novel mechanics and clever mini game design, Multitasking focuses on throwing several simple tasks at you at once to see if you can keep up with the pace.
The games that make up Multitasking are nothing new to anyone who has been playing video games for, say, the past 30 years. There are quick word scrambles, a whack-a-mole variant and even a one-sided version of the classic Pong thrown into the mix, among many others. While any of these, taken alone, would be simple to the point of boredom, Multitasking ups the ante by having players interact with three different games at any point in time. Since you only have a few seconds to perform each needed action, the game can become intensely difficult very, very quickly.
While the premise of the game itself is novel, the games within the game are not. I would have liked to see greater originality in mini game design, rather than a retread of old reliables. Novelty and surprising originality, in the end, are what makes games like Wario Ware so charming, and it’s sorely lacking in Multitasking. In addition, the build of the game I played suffered from random crashing, and the music would drop out unexpectedly; according to the developer’s iTunes description of the game, these are known problems that they hope to remedy soon with an update.
Multitasking is an original idea with unoriginal gameplay. Taken as a whole, however, it is successful at what it tries to do, and it is one of the more challenging games I’ve played. Maybe it will even help me be able to do three things at once at work.
:: OUR PRETTY EARTH
Even with the uplifting history, it was hard for me to get too excited about another iPhone platformer. There are a few inherent problems that are working against games in the genre, almost all of which funnel into the control category. The D-Pad’s are almost always sub par, the jumping is usually overly difficult because of problems with button placement/size, and the combat is hampered by the lack of a button that you can accurately hit as a reflex.
Multitasking. For most of us, it’s a fact of life, and a skill we had better develop sooner rather than later if we hope to get ahead in life. No, surprisingly, the app called Multitasking is not a business or productivity app. It’s a game, but you may find it helps you split your mind in more directions than you previously thought possible.
The games that make up Multitasking are nothing new to anyone who has been playing video games for, say, the past 30 years. There are quick word scrambles, a whack-a-mole variant and even a one-sided version of the classic Pong thrown into the mix, among many others. While any of these, taken alone, would be simple to the point of boredom, Multitasking ups the ante by having players interact with three different games at any point in time. Since you only have a few seconds to perform each needed action, the game can become intensely difficult very, very quickly.
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