ESPN is a popular sports network. Pinball is that fun table game you play at bars and arcades. What do they have in common? Admittedly, it’s not a whole lot, but that hasn’t stopped the creation of ESPN Pinball, a colorful and fast-paced game for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

ESPN Pinball offers users eye candy in the form of showy, retina display enhanced graphics. Even the main menu is covered in carbon fiber like textures and glistening chrome. In play, the look isn’t so different. The developer has eschewed realism in favor of something that is a bit more fun to look at. Unlike a real pinball game, sparks and debris fly when the ball collides with an object from the table. Other times, the ball will become charged with fire or will shoot bolts of lightening. Even calling the pinball table a “table” seems a little inaccurate, since it has been 3D rendered to look like a stadium full of screaming fans. (…)
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For young children with an interest in animals, or those just learning about wildlife, Animals 360 is a free app featuring animal pictures, sounds, and habitats. Designed to provide an interactive way for children to learn animal names and sounds, Animals 360 is a pretty kid-friendly app and includes a few fun extras you might not expect for free.

The app includes four modes – Tour, Photos, Quiz, and Puzzle. The tour is habitat based and features farm, safari, and forest. Panning left and right, images of various animals native to the selected habitat are displayed and their animal sound can be heard by tapping on the pictures. The photo mode contains photos of additional animals ranging from bear and bison to woodpecker and zebra. Each animal has three images, viewable by swiping up or down. The entire collection is accessible in an alphabetical list and the sound they make can be heard by tapping on the speaker icon at the top of each photo.(…)
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Stick Stunt Biker for the iPhone is a combination two very successful game genres: the stick-figure ragdoll physics game, and the side-scroller dirt bike stunt game. It’s a great example of both of these, so it’s no wonder Stick Stunt Biker is consistently in the best-selling games section of the App Store.

Like other ragdoll physics games that came before it, Stick Stunt Biker has a minimal appearance. The player controls a stick figure that rides atop a stick bike, up and down ramps and hills that are depicted as simple lines. The background resembles a city scape that has been doodled on graph paper. It’s like countless doodles bored students might have rendered before games like this came along to save them from their dreaded math classes.

The real charm comes not from the objects that populate the game, but from the realistic physics engine behind the scenes. The movement of the dirt bike as it leaps over hills is quite convincing. The best visuals happen when the player loses: if the bike doesn’t land correctly after a jump or wheelie, the stick figure will be thrown across the screen, tiny limbs flailing in all directions. (…)
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Don’t let the name fool you: Mazonaut is about mazes, not delicious mazzoball soup. After you recover from that initial disappointment, Mazonaut is a fun and fast-paced game for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch.

The object of the game is to guide the Mazonaut through a never-ending, neon maze that’s straight out of TRON. And, yes, the maze literally never ends. The maps are randomly generated when the game begins, and so the action can go on until the player ultimately, and inevitably, dies. It’s less frustrating than it sounds. Just as in Doodle Jump, another never-ending action game, the object is to beat your personal best.(…)
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Knowsy – Plenty of board games have made the leap to the iPad. Scrabble, Monopoly and other long-time favorites have converted their popular gameplay to the iPad’s multi-touch screen.

Along comes Knowsy. It plays like a board game that has been re-imagined for the iPad. Knowsy is played by trying to guess your competitor’s preferences. One player starts out as the VIP. This person must choose a topic among options such as movie genres, elementary subjects, hobbies, toys or colors. Within these categories are more specific subjects that the VIP must rank in order of preference from one through five. The options are all written in playful font on a series of tiles which are slid around the screen until the choices are complete. (…)
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AppCraver.com, 2010. | Gather Some Friends and get Knowsy | Best iPhone Applications | Top iPhone Apps