Carnivores: Dinosaur Hunter developed by Tatem Games is a first person hunting simulation game that puts you in the shoes of a dinosaur hunter. The game throws you into 5 different locations and made me feel like the Australian hunter that thought he was the king but eventually got viciously eaten from either Jurassic Park 2 or 3 (does anybody remember?).
Your goal is to hunt down dinosaurs with a choice of 6 different weapons that most hunters’ use like the rifle, bow & arrow and shotgun. With these weapons at your disposal, you will be hunting all types of familiar dinosaurs such as the Stegosaurus, Velociraptor and of course, the big mama of them all, the T-Rex… Read More
Graphics / Sound Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Game Controls Rating: 3.75 out of 5 stars
Gameplay Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Replay Value Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Overall Rating: 3.31 out of 5 stars
It is hard to imagine a time where light gun shooters like “House of the Dead” didn’t dominate the landscape of arcades from coast-to-coast. There is just something special about taking a tour of duty through the hellish conditions that has allowed the visceral violence of the genre take root stateside, spawning numerous sequels and imitators over the last fifteen years. Despite its popularity in a coin-op setting, it is hard to fathom that an on-rails shooter would translate well to the portable space, but that hasn’t discouraged the development of Zombie Crisis 3D. Will this be the shooter that finally gets it right on iOS or is this game as dead as your adversaries?
Players fill the shoes of an aspiring zombie slaying malcontent mercenary by the name of Dana, who is hell-bent on getting to the bottom of an undead infestation that was inadvertently unleashed at Arco Company. While traipsing through the dark, dank, and oppressive corridors of this rogue bio-lab, players are treated to small doses of story through comic style dialog vignettes, much like what would be shown in some sort of motion comic. Much like other zombie themed shooters, the game is fairly light on story, choosing to only setup the beginning of each stage and prior to entering a boss encounter.
While traditional on-rail shooters put an over-emphasis on precise aiming and targeting, Zombie Crisis seems to be void of any such mechanics. The simplistic control scheme consists of touching enemies to fire the gun in a given direction, with special weight being put on headshots. Reloading is the only other control and it is executed by either shaking the iPhone or pressing a reload button in the bottom right corner of the screen. As straightforward as this may seem, it seems to lack the precision that would be desirable of other games in this genre. This isn’t to say that the control are broken per say, they are just not as strong as would be expected.
Easily the biggest disappointment would have to be the very limited selection of weapons. For a title that emphasizes death and dismemberment, only having three firearms to do so is rather shameful. Players will get to use a traditional revolver, shotgun and mini-gun, all of which have their own different range of effectiveness and spray radius. Other commonly used weapons like rocket launchers, grenades or even SMGs are nowhere to be found, which begs the question, WHY? If you are trying to imitate an industry leader, one would think that having a fully featured arsenal would be a high priority.
If you are looking for a mindless (pun intended) way to burn an hour or two, Zombie Crisis 3D should fit the bill quite nicely. As long as you can get past limited weaponry and a thin plotline, there should be plenty to sink your teeth into. If you can enjoy a good “B” movie or Zombie flick from time-to-time, this will be right up your undead alley.
Last night, while I was attending Showstoppers, an event for the media for CTIA, I encountered an App known as Start Talking.
Start Talking is everything that its name implies, an App that allows the user to talk to his or her mobile phone. This really allows the user never to look at or touch their phone at all, which is useful to avoid texting-while-driving.
So if you want to send a text message, just tell your phone. Not only does Start Talking let you talk to your phone, but it will talk back and read your messages aloud.
Start Talking is currently available on Android phones, but is coming soon for all platforms. Check out the official website for more information.
For better or worse, Apple’s App Store submission policies became much more lax last week. In Apple’s own words, “In particular, we are relaxing all restrictions on the development tools used to create iOS apps, as long as the resulting apps do not download any code. This should give developers the flexibility they want, while preserving the security we need.”
So while Apple’s policy on using Flash to make a game hasn’t changed, they are allowing streaming Flash and code conversion technologies that will let Flash games run on the iOS.
After just a few days of development, given that the announcement was only seven short days ago, iSwifter, from Peter Relan’s YouWeb, is launching today. iSwifter is using cloud computing to stream various Flash portals, such as Kongregate, Yahoo! Games, and AOL Games, to your iDevice, unaltered.
“iSwifter represents a game-changer for smaller Flash game developers that don’t have the resources to port their games to multiple mobile platforms like iOS and Android,” says Net Jacobsson, a former Facebook executive, advisor to King.com, and founder & CEO of Playhopper, a Flash-based social gaming start-up.
The big question here is what this means for fans of the App Store. You can really look at it one of two ways, one being extremely optimistic and one being, well, Apple’s stance.
If everything works out for streaming services like iSwifter, gamers could enter a sort of renaissance of free gaming options. I’m not exactly sure how the online services will work within things like, say, Yahoo! Games, but I would be pretty happy to play Yahoo! Pool in some of my downtime. Sure, Flash games can be silly, but there are a ton of them out there, and many of them are far better than some of the free offerings in the App Store.
Take Johnny Two Shoes (Plunderland) for example. As much as I love Plunderland, I think I spent more time playing their Flash title, Heist 2, than I’ll ever spend on their hit App Store title. Nothing against their iPhone games, but they were originally a Flash game outfit, and they made some quality titles.
The down side of all this is highlighted in a John Gruber quote on Daring Fireball. “As for Flash games, isn’t it utterly obvious that existing Flash games, which work via keyboard and mouse, wouldn’t work at all on devices which lack both keyboard and mouse?”
I guess that kills my dream of playing Yahoo! Pool. I’m not really sure how you would accomplish the click and drag necessary to hit a shot, but the resulting mess doesn’t sound pretty. I suppose Flash devs could start coding in anticipation of iDevice usage, but as Steve Jobs said himself, “If developers need to rewrite their Flash websites, why not use modern technologies like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript?”
Regardless of technical limitations, be sure to check out the iSwifter video below. It further explains the mission of the app, and shows a live demo of iSwifter playing Screw the Nut, “one of Kongregate’s biggest games,” on the iPad.
Graphics / Sound Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
User Interface Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Gameplay Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Re-use / Replay Value Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars
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Hello everyone this is Michelle from The Portable Gamer with your iCasual Report for Plunderland from Johnny Two Shoes LLP for all devices running current iOS software.
A’hoy Matey and welcome to Plunderland, where you control a ship of Pirates bent on plundering all the worlds treasures. To set sail, just tilt your device in the direction you want to travel. The more you tilt the faster you go and of course to stop just straighten up. Your ship comes equipped with cannons to destroy your enemy. When you touch the screen you get a helpful dotted line which shows if your aim is true, simply let go to shoot. Sink the ships to unlock the treasure and tap to collect. Each level has a goal to be reached in order to unlock the next, but you should try and collect as much as you can because you use the money for more powerful upgrades.
Last night, while I was attending Showstoppers, an event for the media for CTIA, I encountered an App known as Start Talking. 
For better or worse, Apple’s App Store submission policies became much more lax last week. In Apple’s 
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