Android – Iphone – Applications

I’m always on the lookout for another casual puzzle game, the kind that I can keep on my iPod to play when I’ve only got a few minutes or when I need a break from the latest big release title. Finger Balance, from Coconut Island, fits firmly into the genre. But, is it worth those precious few minutes?

Finger Balance really should have been called Thumb Balance, because it’s all in the thumbs. You touch your thumbs to the screen, activating a balance bar upon which sits a ball. By careful maneuvering, you must navigate the through a maze to the end of a level. The trick is, the ball cannot touch the walls of the maze.

The basic mechanic is novel enough, and the variety of boards is sufficient enough, that each level is a new challenge. Keeping your thumbs in sync is harder than it sounds.
 The difficulty level of boards varies widely. While things, on the whole, progress from easy to hard, there are some of the 30 levels that will make you want to tear your hair out, and others that you’ll breeze through on the first try.

Since puzzles go quickly (you’ll either succeed or fail in under a minute), it definitely falls in the realm of casual pocket games. Once you beat a level, though, there won’t be much to draw you back. There are “goal times,” presumably set by developers with deft thumbs, that are nigh impossible to hit on the first go. While you might be able to meet them with some practice, you won’t want to. It’s just not worth the effort; there’s a novelty to the game, but not an enduring one. As such, you’ll probably shoot through the 30 levels pretty quickly. Developers of Coconut Island have promised monthly additions, which should help improve the game’s longevity.

The graphical presentation is nothing special. Colors tend towards orange, red, brown, and teal, and to be honest it comes off as a little ugly. Sound effects are incidental, and the music is mediocre; you can mute both, but they have not enabled the iPod for playing during the game.

If you’re the kind of player who likes to crunch through puzzle games, and you’re looking for another one to add to the queue, then Finger Balance may be worth your buck. If you’re not the puzzle gaming sort, then do not go out of your way to catch this one.

[ Finger Balance Review is a post from 148Apps ]

written by Duy Phong \\ tags: balance, device-reviewed, finger-balance, Game, Games, iphone apps and games, kind, music, overall-rating, rating, touch-the-walls

Chaos Rings on the iPhone is an excellent balance of RPG elements and pocket device sensibilities. Because of its small size and more casual nature, Chaos Rings had to strike a balance, and it did so very well. For the most part, that holds true on the iPad, where Chaos Rings continues to be a spectacular effort by a major developer to bring console-quality RPG play to the iOS. However, this upscaled effort is not without its blemishes.

It’s Adventure Time!

In Chaos Rings, you begin by taking control of either Escher and Musiea or Eluca and Zhano, each a pair that has been kidnapped by the mysterious Agent and forced to fight in the Ark Arena. There are two other playable couples, but those can only be played after beating the game. The prize for the victors is eternal life; the losers get only death.

Most of the game is spent fighting through maze-like dungeon worlds with names like “Ancient Path of Doom,” where you are set upon by random wandering monsters as you seek out giant boss battles. It all sounds a little contrived, but it works as a vehicle to limit the scope of the game – which is actually a pretty good way to approach such a game on the more casual iOS devices. Besides, Square Enix knows RPGs inside and out, and they bring all of their carefully honed sensibilities into making this an enjoyable dungeon crawl.

Part of what makes Chaos Rings work so well is the way they’ve balanced the combat. As you battle, you can choose to have each member of your pair attack separately, which offers more strategic options and is almost mandatory in boss battles; or have them strike as a pair, which is more straightforward, more damaging, and better suited to most wandering monster challenges. As you play on, you will get to know your enemies, and you will get to decide how complex you want to make each challenge. By the late stages of the game, I preferred strategic play to paired-up power attack, but that’s the whole point – you get to play the style you like. Character customization via “genes” – powers that you win from monsters and equip to confer special abilities – add to this variability.

I won’t deny that by the end of the game the story had hooked me as well. Even for its simple, well-tread premise, Square Enix builds all sorts of little subtleties into things, such that by the end you will certainly be invested in these characters. And their personal story arcs are different enough that playing through a second time keeps the game interesting.

The other thing I loved about this game is something small, but spectacular: the moving joystick. We’ve seen static joysticks before, and adjustable joysticks, and moveable joysticks; but Chaos Rings lets the joystick appear wherever you place your thumb. It’s such an intuitively good idea that I’m surprised no one came up with it earlier. It’s a feature that actually works better on the iPad, since there’s more screen to touch and grips are going to vary across individuals more.

There are minor quibbles I have with the game. The monsters could use more variety, for one; there’s about a dozen monster types, and they vary from dungeon to dungeon only by the skins applied to them. The same holds true for the dungeons: all the interior dungeon walls look exactly the same, on every level, distinguishable from one another only by the outside locations. Could they not have even varied the interior wall color to provide some flavor? Another annoyance are the puzzle challenges – rooms in the dungeon that you must defeat via moving blocks and flipping switches. I can see how these were intended to add some variety, but they feel lazy. They’re never challenging, and are definitely the weakest point in the play experience.

These are just quibbles, however. On the whole, Chaos Rings is a great game.

The iPad Experience

As much as I love Chaos Rings, I have to admit to being a little underwhelmed by the way they handled the iPad upscaling.

When the original Chaos Rings released, I played through the Escher and Musiea character arc on the iPad, and at the time I remember being impressed at how well the iPhone version upscaled. So I had high hopes for a fully rendered HD version. And some of it looks great – the character models are nice, the line artwork is stunning, and monsters look fierce.

But other elements, such as the backgrounds, still look as pixilated as they did when I upscaled the iPhone version. This is especially noticeable in the cinematic scenes, where these HD rendered characters sometimes look completely out of place against the blocky, pixilated stage(check out the image of the Agent, left, for a prime example). I don’t know if this was a conscious decision on the part of the developers, an oversight, or a moment of laziness, but it’s very noticeable.

Also, the scaling of some interface elements could have been adjusted a bit more for the iPad. One major example here is the combat buttons. On the iPhone, these needed to be big and sitting high. With the iPad, these could easily have been scaled down so that they appeared under the thumb. Instead, they’re placed as high on the screen as they were on the iPhone, where they’re less convenient for the standard iPad grip. It’s minor, but annoying.

Conclusions

Chaos Rings was a singular achievement on the iPhone, and it continues to impress on the iPad, even with its upscaling blemishes. At $15.99 you are paying a premium price for it, so if you have already played out the game on the IPhone, I don’t see this as necessarily worth the hefty price tag. But if you’re experiencing it for the first time, then the iPad is certainly a great platform to do it on.

[ Chaos Rings For iPad In-Depth Review is a post from 148Apps ]

written by simonivan \\ tags: $15.99, agent, chaos, chaos-rings, ipad, ipad games, rating, review, rpg, square enix

We can all agree, in theory, that maintaining a healthy diet and exercise routine is a good idea. Implementing them? Eh, well…

FitClick’s Diet & Workout Tracker takes the calorie-counting “food journal” idea and combines it with a workout tracker, allowing you to keep track of diet and exercise all in one app. The premise is that by setting daily goals and keeping track of your habits, you’ll be able to maintain a healthier lifestyle.

To use FitClick, you must first register with FitClick.com and select your diet/exercise plan in accordance with your goals (track workouts only? carb reduction? healthy lifestyle?). From there you can start using the app. On the main menu, “Calorie Balance” will display your daily caloric balance: daily goal – calories eaten + calories burned = how many additional calories you can eat for the day.

For that to work, you’ll need to use the “Diet Tracker,” which tracks meals. Five “meals” are built into each day; you can add multiple foods to each meal and tweak their serving sizes. For adding foods, you can use either the vast built-in catalog or create a “custom” item.

Workout tracking works similarly: pick an exercise, select a duration, and the app will tell you how many calories you’ve burned. I find this to be finicky at best; often the calculated calories are highly inaccurate. You’ll need to adjust the time to compensate, which is a pain.

All of your information is synced to the FitClick.com website, which is a great resource and superior to the app in many ways. The syncing is flawless, and online access is very useful.

As for the app’s design…well, it’s lacking, and takes far too many taps-per-task. Why can’t I choose from commonly-eaten foods? Why separate meals at all? What’s the point? The interface too often obstructs the app’s functionality, which is a shame.

Other than its bloated interface and rigid, inaccurate way of measuring burned calories, FitClick is actually a robust app. The food database is good, and the website is wonderful. Whether or not you can get past the interface and incorporate it into your daily routine, however, is up to you. FitClick isn’t perfect, but it’s a robust start.

[ FitClick Diet & Workout Tracker Review is a post from 148Apps ]

written by rockingevil \\ tags: calorie-balance, daily, diet, finicky-at-best, fitness, health & fitness, interface, Iphone, iphone apps and games, overall-rating, rating, workout-tracker

There is nothing more irritating to me than losing something, my keys for instance, and having to scour my house until I find them. Why, then, do I enjoy hidden object games like Little Things so much? I’m hard-pressed to answer my own question, but there is no doubt in my mind that the appeal of Little Things lies in its devotion to a spare, meticulously-crafted presentation.

My first thought when opening the app was that its art style was either designed by or inspired by graphic artist and children’s book author J. Otto Seibold. The clean, clever drawings and color pallette certainly seem influenced by him, and the style adds a real sense of whimsy to a genre of game that has become more about inane backstory (all of those hidden object “Mystery of…” games) than about the simple joys of seeking that which is hidden.

And simplicity is what Little Things is all about. There is no story element, no code breaking quest you’ve been sent on by some secret society. The game presents you with an object, say a wheelbarrow, then recreates the object with a collage of common, everyday items. Then, you are given your task: locate six pairs of high heels, for example, or ten telephones, among the cacophony of stuff. Solve the puzzle, and you may be rewarded with an achievement or a piece of a jigsaw puzzle that you assemble after several rounds. The goals are small, and the rewards are minor, but the whole is somehow greater than the sum of the parts.

Little Things is a game where atmosphere is everything and everything contributes to that atmosphere. Minimal keyboards serve as music, and there are only the slightest hints of sound effects, but both of these pair with the graphical style to enhance the total impact of the game.

It won’t change your life, but you may find yourself having a quiet zen moment staring at and searching through the screens of Little Things. Sometimes, that’s just what we all need.

[ Little Things for iPad Review is a post from 148Apps ]

written by zulu \\ tags: Games, kids, life, little-things, mind, overall-rating, rating, review

After Flick Fishing’s success, it was only a matter of time before Gameloft jumped into the fishing action. Their answer to the fishing genre is Fishing Kings—and while it might not be my type of game, there’s no denying that it’s polished, looks great, and comes with plenty of fish, locations, and possible upgrades to keep you hooked.

At each fishing spot, your character will appear in a boat, looking out over the water. Tap the water to choose where to aim, then flick your iPhone to cast your line. The view transitions to an underwater look at the lake, river, or ocean. You can see the fish swimming past, as well as local flora like the coral reefs in the first location.

Once you hook a fish, you must reel it in—but slowly, minimizing the line’s tension to prevent a break. The fish thrashes about, and you must tilt your iPhone to match its direction. Once it’s close enough, you can flick your iPhone again to land the fish.

This control scheme, while lengthy, works well for the most part. My only complaint is that sometimes the reel wouldn’t respond, which seems like a very odd bug.

Fishing Kings’ main focus is on catching fish, but missions from your PDA (really? a PDA?) give it structure. Some are just “Catch x of fish y”, but others place you in tournaments, where you’ve got a set time to land the largest fish of the designated breed. Clearing missions unlocks gear upgrades and new fishing locations.

Overall, Fishing Kings is a comprehensive take on the fishing genre. It looks great, and other than that reel bug, it works perfectly. My only real complaint is that, well, I got tired of doing the same thing over and over again. It’s an extremely repetitive game. But that’s personal preference. Fans of fishing (or just fishing games) should find a lot to love in Gamelofts’ newest title—and they’ll even snag some Gameloft Live trophies to boot.

[ Fishing Kings Review is a post from 148Apps ]

written by zulu \\ tags: Application, designated, fish, fishing, fishing-kings, gameloft-live, Games, Iphone, iphone apps and games, line, photo, price, rating, replay-value