Android – Iphone – Applications

Puzzle games come in all shapes and sizes in the App Store, and the best versions typically don’t have the bells and whistles that the top sellers do. Maybe I’m just a fan of indie puzzle apps, but there is some serious fun to be had with Portaball.

The first thing to note though is that Portaball really doesn’t have any bells and whistles. There is no sound, the majority of the game is just gray-scale, and there is absolutely no story. It’s just pure puzzle, through and through.

The object of portaball is to get the ball from its starting point to its ending point. The challenge is that you have no control of the ball directly, and it only moves in straight lines. To navigate the ball, you must use a portal system reminiscent of the cleverly named Valve classic, Portal. Each level takes up only one screen, and you must use a series of portals to move your ball around. To impede your progress, there are walls that have to be deactivated, walls that work on triggers, tiles that disappear, and tiles that speed you up (and slow you down if your ball is going the wrong direction).

After about level 3, the game requires quick thinking (or extreme use of the pause button) to figure out where your next portal will go. Because blocks disappear and some walls are on triggers, making a mistake leads to death more often than not. There are no lives or limited restarts, though, so the game will just continue on until you figure the level out.

While there are some easy levels here and there, many of the 50 levels in Portaball require a great deal of thinking. The developers certainly didn’t make it easy to move forward, and there is no help system in the game to guide you on your way. You either beat the levels or you don’t.

Fans of puzzle games will definitely get a kick out of Portaball, but its unforgiving nature and lack of any real graphics or sound will turn away some. If you can get past the utilitarian design, Portaball really is a good game.

[ Portaball Review is a post from 148Apps ]

written by [email protected] \\ tags: bartosz ciechanowski, beat-the-levels, Game, Games, going-the-wrong, iphone apps and games, overall-rating, price, puzzle, rating, replay-value, review, the-utilitarian, utilitarian

Sadistic killing is usually left to sadistic killers, but 505 had different plans for their off the wall rampage game. Instead of letting humans terrorize each other, Naughty Bear has you in control of a revenge seeking bear, intent on killing all the bears that didn’t invite you to the party.

Naughty Bear, once you get down to it, is really just an enhanced version of PAC-MAN. The map is a simple forest setting with paths that go in all sorts of directions. Like PAC-MAN, there are little things to collect while you walk (cupcakes) and killing enemy bears requires you to pick up weapons that last for a set amount of time. Each level has a different requirement, but all boil down to killing X number of bears or collecting X number of cupcakes.

The thrill of the game though isn’t the simple task of killing and collecting, it’s making quality kills. The weapons that you collect are varied in nature, and if you run head-on into an enemy bear or meet it by a special item — for example, the bbq pit– you’ll do a special kill. The kills are all way over the top, sort of reminding me of the ending of Duke Nukem, where he pops off the enemies head and, well, you can look it up.

Even with the over-the-top kills though, it’s hard to not notice the game’s flaws. For one, the controls are pretty clunky. Instead of a D-Pad, Naughty Bear has you just tap in the direction that you’d like your bear to go. It sounds easy enough, but the system is fairly imprecise and could use an overhaul. The other major issue was with the weapon variety. For example, at one point I found a stick to kill bears with, and then found three bears in a line to kill. Because I was using the same weapon, each bear died with the exact same death scene, kind of ruining the whole experience. Naughty Bear could really use either more weapons or some death variations. I like the whole death scene concept, but it has to be changed up every once in a while.

For a quick iPhone romp, Naughty Bear really isn’t a bad selection. It doesn’t have a ton of depth and the whole gameplay aspect is lacking, but it is fairly entertaining.

[ Naughty Bear Review is a post from 148Apps ]

written by tmunzke \\ tags: Application, Game, Games, iphone apps and games, naughty, notice-the-game, overall-rating, party, rating, weapons-or-some

I’m not sure how familiar most people are with the game carrom, but it was frequently played in my home when I was a kid. My family would sit around the kitchen table for hours, our index fingers throbbing with pain (we knew nothing of repetitive stress injuries back then), trying to flick disks into one of the four corner pockets on the board. It was my earliest attempt at playing a true dexterity-based game, and I was hooked.

Now, over 30 years later, carrom has returned to my life in the form of Carrom 3D for the iPad. It’s a nicely designed little game, and it definitely shows promise, but the developers have a way to go to capture the true feel of a game that relies on manual dexterity so prominently.

For those who are unfamiliar with the game carrom, it’s an easy game to explain. Using a large, square wooden board with pockets at each corner, players take turn flicking disks at a group of disks in the center, in the hope of “pocketing” some of those disks for points. That’s about it. But like pool, carrom is a game that requires an intuitive sense of geometry, not to mention durable fingers. After reading that description, it should be obvious why carrom would make a great iPad game: a classic dexterity game plus a touch sensitive screen equals gaming nirvana, right? This is a no-brainer, so much so that I wonder why more traditional dexterity games have not made the transition to the iPad.

Unfortunately, many of my hopes for this game were dashed when I started playing it. First and foremost among the disappointments is the fact that you cannot actually flick your pieces across the board. Instead, you must use (for lack of a better term) a “power meter” to control the strength of your move and to execute it. This takes the fun out of carrom, so it’s my hope that the developers quickly remedy what can only be called a serious flaw.

If played against human opponents, options are also limited. There’s no online play support (maybe in a forthcoming update?) and playing against local players requires passing the iPad back and forth. There’s also no AI for a single player to play against, only puzzle-like Challenges and a Time Trial mode.

There’s a potentially great game at the core of Carrom 3D. The graphics are quite nice and the board is well rendered and manipulated. But until the basic flicking mechanic is addressed, it’s best to pass on this one.

[ Carrom 3D for iPad Review is a post from 148Apps ]

written by [email protected] \\ tags: angles, developers, dexterity, Game, Games, ipad, nicely-designed, overall-rating, physics, pockets-at-each, price, rating, review

Tilt to Live was much beloved in its iPhone incarnation, and it would have been easy for developer One Man Left to simply update the graphics, tweak the controls a bit, and call it a day for Tilt to Live HD. However, they decided to do a bit more than that in making Tilt to Live HD feel more like a game naturally made for the iPad and not just an iPhone port. The first big change is that the playing field is huge, filling up the iPad screen, with all other objects only 1.3x bigger than their iPhone counterparts, meaning the game feels a lot more open. The other big change is that Gauntlet mode has been redone entirely. Instead of navigating through enemies in maze-like formations, you are now avoiding enemies and flying weaponry andcollecting orbs to score points, all of which feels truer to the Tilt to Live ideal than the original Gauntlet mode did.

And really, everything that is great about Tilt to Live HD is the same as what was great about the iPhone version. It’s still incredibly addictive and fun, with fantastic tilt controls and a great sense of humor. The tweaks One Man Left have made to the iPad version really do make the game feel more like an iPad game in every aspect from gameplay to controls. As well, the game uses a trial model similar to Xbox Live Arcade – you get the original game mode and initial 3 weapons for free, but have to pay a $3.99 in-app purchase to unlock the Code Red, Gauntlet, and Frostbite modes along with the rest of the weapons.

The biggest problem with Tilt to Live HD is less a problem with the game as much as it is a problem with tilt-based games on the iPad. Because of the larger size of the iPad compared to the iPhone, it just does not feel as comfortable or natural as playing the iPhone version does just based on the hardware in play here. As well, the iPad version still uses Agon Online for high scores; there’s nothing necessarily wrong with the implementation, it just would be great to see a more popular service like OpenFeint used, so my achievement points could go towards a greater total.

Much like the iPhone version, it’s hard to say anything bad about Tilt to Live HD; this is still one of the better arena shooter-style games on the App Store (minus any actual shooting), and it has lost nothing in the iPad transition. If you have an iPad and love Tilt to Live but want it in a more native flavor on your tablet, or have never experienced Tilt to Live before, Tilt to Live HD is well worth checking out.

[ Tilt to Live HD is a post from 148Apps ]

written by gunturbabu \\ tags: Application, code, device-reviewed, Games, gauntlet, ipad, ipad apps and games, Iphone, one man left, online, price, rating

There will be a segment of the population that will find BIT.TRIP BEAT to be absolutely brilliant and sublime. They will love the design aesthetic and the way the game blends old school gameplay with music seamlessly. Then there are those that will find the game’s attempts at art to be mere distractions to the gameplay, which is fraught with cheap dot patterns coupled with a lack of checkpoints, along with control issues. This review comes from a member of the latter crowd.

BIT.TRIP BEAT is at its core similar to brick breaker/pong games, where you control a paddle trying to hit back the dots coming at you. The difference is that each dot represents a musical note that flies in from the right side of the screen (and your right speaker) that plays on the left speaker when you hit it, forming the notes of the chiptune song that is playing, each level comprising a song. If you let too many dots fly past you, the screen goes black and white, and you have to hit enough dots back to make the top bar of the screen empty before your life bar on the bottom empties, or else it is game over.

The sound design of the game is absolutely fantastic. The game recommends that you play with headphones, and I suggest that you do just that, as it is an aural delight. When you really get going and get into the game, the experience is sublime, blending the basic gameplay with the music in a way that is absolutely incredible. For pure sensual experiences, this is top-notch. The game supports local multiplayer via Bluetooth as well, even allowing play across iPhone and iPad versions of the game.

But BIT.TRIP BEAT starts to suffer when put under the microscope. The first issue I have is that the game doesn’t seem to know what a checkpoint is. If you die at a section, you have to start the whole level over, and there are so many unpredictable dot patterns that are only beatable by rote memorization, so restarts are frequent. The tilt controls are practically worthless and need user-adjustable sensitivity options to make them feel more precise. The touch controls on iPad also are 1:1 movement only, which leads to some uncomfortable thumb stretching as you move up and down. Some kind of offset touch controls would make the game control far better. And then there’s just the whole fact that this is a game that is explicitly designed to challenge you by way of visual distraction as much as it is by gameplay design.

BIT.TRIP BEAT feels like a divisive game – creative, right brain types will likely appreciate the game for its art and can look past the flaws. Logical, left brain types will struggle with the game’s flaws to enjoy the core product. I find myself in the latter crowd, struggling to enjoy a game that is alternately brilliant and frustrating.

[ BIT.TRIP BEAT HD Review is a post from 148Apps ]

written by iieevvn \\ tags: attempts-at-art, bit.trip beat, design, device-reviewed, ipad apps and games, ipad games, mobile, music, namco, overall-rating, rating, review, screen, trip