Android – Iphone – Applications

It goes without saying that the Sentinel series is one of, if not the most successful tower defense franchises in the App Store. Unlike other games in the genre, the Sentinel games actually feel like games that could withstand the test of time on any portable system. They all have excellent graphics, more detailed textures than any other game of their kind, have a wide array of towers and one shot weapons, and most importantly, are challenging.

The team at Origin 8 though had their work cut out for them when they decided to create the third game of the series, Sentinel 3: Homeworld. Not only did they have to match the high bar that they had already put in place, but they also had to exceed their standards enough to keep the tower defense crazies (like me) happy… and boy am I happy.

Before the additions though, newcomers to the game will find the same formula that have delighted the seasoned vets for a few years now. Sentinel 3 is a fixed path tower defense game that adds a few tidbits to the tried and true formula. Instead of just having an allotment of creeps that you can let through, Sentinel gives you a base and an assortment of barriers that you must protect. Protecting these barriers not only prevents the creeps from getting to the main base, but they also act as a great enemy hoarder for your big guns to shoot at. The other addition to the mix is interest, something that many Sentinel players use differently. As you pass wave after wave, the money that you don’t used gains interest, letting you accumulate towers faster than you normally would in a typical tower defense game. The trick is that while you aren’t spending, you aren’t building… and the creeps sure don’t get easier as the games progress. If you plan well enough, the interest system can really be a boon to your bank account.

Not to rest on their laurels, Sentinel 3 adds some major features to the already packed game. The first is a commander unit that can finally do away with the pesky enemy units that find their way into the tiny spots on your walls and wreck havoc. Not just a typical unit though, the commander adds moral to the towers around him and gains EXP in battle, allowing you to upgrade his abilities and add combat abilities between levels. The use of the commander doesn’t effect the game quite as much as, say, the heroes in Warcraft 3, but it definitely adds a welcome RPG element to the game. Also added is the weapon selection screen which makes you buy tower and one time weapon slots for use in levels. From there, you have to make the tough decisions as to what weapons and towers you go to battle with… and if my experience is any sort of indicator, the selection often comes down to trial and error.

If you want to bypass all the RPG elements and just get right into the game with all the weapons, you can play the classic mode which works much like the old Sentinel games. There is also the standard “endless” mode that lets you play with all of your RPG-esque stats from the campaign mode, but in an endless style for Game Center high score glory.

As expected, Sentinel 3: Homeworld is one of the most polished, well designed tower defense games in the App Store. Each of its 20 levels are extremely well crafted, and the additional units, weapons, and RPG elements all come together to create the best game the series has to offer. If you are a fan of the previous Sentinel games or just love the tower defense genre, be sure to pick up Sentinel 3 as soon as you can.

[ Sentinel 3 Review is a post from 148Apps ]

written by husain \\ tags: commander, Game, Games, price, review, tower, tower defense, work

Last month we told you that Epic’s impressive looking Infinity Blade would make its way to iOS devices in time for the holidays. Now we have even more specifics, as Epic has officially announced that the game will be available on all iOS machines on December 9. In case that sounds far off to you for some reason, remember that it’s actually next week.

The action RPG is poised to be one of the most graphically impressive games to come to iOS, considering it’s being powered by Unreal Engine 3. As the studio which created UE 3, Epic is well-versed at getting the most out of the engine, and if early screenshots are any indication, this title is going to be absolutely gorgeous.

It seems we may also have to pay a premium for those tantalizing visuals, as Epic has also announced that Infinity Blade will retail for $5.99. For many iPhone owners there may be a bit of sticker shock associated with such a price, especially considering a lot of perfectly nice looking games sell on the App Store for $0.99. Is this game really going to be worth the money?

While we can’t say for sure if Infinity Blade is worth your money, signs are pointing in a positive direction. The game appears to be polished to an incredible degree, and Epic as a studio is known for their high-quality work in creating compelling gameplay experiences. Past performance may not be an indication of future results, but Infinity Blade really holds a lot of promise. For iPad owners this game is a near no-brainer, as the $5.99 price tag easily falls in line with what they’re used to paying for apps, and may even be considered a bargain in some respects. UPDATE: Our source does indeed say “Universal App” so the screen resolution shouldn’t be an issue. Thanks to Twitter fan @enygmadraco for catching that! The trade-off is that there is no iPad-specific version of Infinity Blade planned, so the pretty visuals may be stretched and lose some resolution if you expand them out to fill the whole iPad screen. But we’ll stop trying to sway you one way or the other, in a week you can decide for yourself.

[via Joystiq]

[ Infinity Blade Gets Release Date and Price is a post from 148Apps ]

written by j4352 \\ tags: epic, future-results, Game, Games, holidays, infinity blade, Iphone, money, near-no-brainer, price, release date, rpg, unreal-engine

Astronut is one of those games that is so simple in concept and so elegant in presentation that you wish you could have had something to do with its creation. It bears a cursory similarity to the insanely popular Doodle Jump, but allows for more nuanced gameplay and a delightfully animated graphical style. It’s a freemium game, so there’s no reason to avoid downloading it. The first four levels are included for free, but you will probably find yourself forking out the extra $1.99 for the additional 14 levels.

Like Doodle Jump, Astronut’s goal is to keep your astronaut character moving further and further up the screen (the game is played completely in portrait mode), but really the similarities between the two games end there. For one thing, Astronut has clearly defined levels, unlike Doodle Jump’s journey forever and ever upwards. Make it past the finish line in Astronut, and you’re golden – until the next level at least. Rather than using a traditional jump mechanism, Astronut relies on gravity and the rotation of planets for movement. Every object you land on in Astronut is spinning 360 degrees, so you have to time your jumps (or boosts, which make for longer, more controlled jumps) carefully to get where you need to land next. Since you’re in space, there is no falling; you’ll just be pulled to the next available planetary body.

You also don’t have an offensive weapon, and there is a wide variety of enemies which stand in your way. Get hit or captured by an enemy three times and you’re health is depleted and the game is over (unless you land on a health refill icon, another nice touch). You will occasionally find help along the way, including a shield which destroys enemies. You also play bonus rounds every two or three levels which place you in a top-down game where your goal is to guide your ship over as many bonus items as possible in a limited amount of time. It’s fun, and even better, it breaks up the gameplay nicely.

Astronut was created by developer Icon Factory, and their tendency towards ease of use and clever, bright graphics suffuses the entire game. Sound effects and music are clean and crisp and help create a real atmosphere in the game. In short, this is a very well-designed game and one of those perfect “pick up and play” apps that is sure to keep casual gamers interested for a while. It’s free (at least the first four levels are) so you have no excuse. It’s almost launch time.

I’m big enough to admit it. I once owned an Apple Newton. *Cringe* I know, I know. You don’t even have to tell me what you’re thinking. At the time, though, I was entranced by the idea of portable note taking and the way-ahead-of-its-time notion of handwriting recognition. Today, the iPad can do all of that, plus just about anything else a developer can imagine it doing. But, amazingly, note taking is still a priority. Th built-in notes app probably suffices for many people, but its bare-bones approach doesn’t allow for significant organization or even variety in note types. That’s where apps like Notability come in.

Notability is a big behemoth of a note taking app, able to do pretty much anything you want it to do (with one major exception – more on that in a minute). Want a place to type up your notes? Check. Want to organize those notes by topic? Want to add and edit web clips, photos and simple figures/drawings? Check, check and check. Want to record your voice notes and associate them with your written ones? Big check.

Generally speaking, Notability is easy to learn and use, and anything that seems confusing can be quickly cleared up by using the extensive help files. It’s use of a built-in web browser and photo/web clip editor is also impressive, as is its on-the-fly reformatting of text to flow around images and clips (a la Apple’s Pages app). Once you are finished with your notes, you can send them to yourself or others via email, of course, but you can also send them as PDF files to your Dropbox account or iTunes. Printing is enabled in Notability, and (using the Mac OSX application Printopia at least) it prints beautifully.

The only real downside I see in Notability is that you cannot hand write your notes like you can with other apps like Penultimate. Then again, outside of its handwriting capability, Penultimate is fairly limited. It all depends on what you are looking for in an app. If you want something akin to one or more Moleskine notebooks, I recommend Penultimate. If, however, you have the need to take many, many notes and annotate them with photos, voice and web clips, Notability is the exceptional choice.

And no, I don’t have my Newton anymore. Can you imagine trying to carry that thing around in your pocket?

[ Notability for iPad Review is a post from 148Apps ]

written by assurance \\ tags: $4.99, Apple, Application, device-reviewed, dropbox, exceptional, newton, notability, notes, overall-rating, pdf, price, time

Following on from my wine experiences with Pocket Wine, I thought I’d see what Beer etc could teach me about the world of beer. Beer etc isn’t as pretty to navigate through as Pocket Wine but does serve some benefit.

Rather than educating you on the ways of the different tastes that each bottled beer presents, Beer etc is an app that lets you rate each beer and read the views of others through it. To do this, you have to search for each beer. This presents a problem if you’re trying to discover new beers randomly as you can’t basically. However if you’re sitting at the bar wondering what to order, it’s exactly what you need.

Each entry offers a rating, an ABV value and a ratebeer.com link for more details. You can also add your own notes to the database and search via location if you’ve found that a certain area produces particularly good beer. One really useful feature is that, excluding the ratebeer.com content, everything is accessible offline. Particularly handy if your local haunt has poor phone reception or no wi-fi access.

It’s all potentially very useful but it also feels terribly minimal. It’s fair enough to overlook the very basic presentation of the app but the actual content is lacking. It’d be nice if you could search for a beer randomly to try something new, or to have more information on each beer.

Beer etc certainly has a market desperate for more information on beers, it just needs to exploit this a bit more to make it indispensable.

[ Beer Etc Review is a post from 148Apps ]

written by Duy Phong \\ tags: $0.99, appselo, beer, beer etc, database, device-reviewed, Iphone, lifestyle, overall-rating, pocket-wine, price, rating, re-use-value, review, wine