HTC is one of the world’s leading manufacturers not only for handsets in general but Android handsets as well. In fact, some of their hardest hitting smartphones such as the HTC EVO 4G have created massive buzz with some deeming it one of the best devices on the market powered.
Another handset that’s been known to be in the works over at HTC’s labs is the Merge. If you’ve been paying attention you’ll know that this device briefly appeared on Verizon’s website giving us an official look at the device. However, just recently, it seems that another leak has went down and the Android powered HTC Merge has appeared yet again on the wireless carriers website.
While the original leak was just a 360-degree image of the device, this time we get a chance to get up close and personal with the HTC Merge. While it doesn’t really show us anything we don’t know, we do get a nice look at the device’s Sense UI and aesthetically pleasing form factor.
It’s not often that we have four major new games released on the same day, but that’s exactly what happened yesterday morning. Thanks to a confluence of events and the alignment of the planets, RAGE, Lord of the Rings Middle Earth Defense, Splaterhouse and Mushihimesama Bug Panic are all available right now for iOS devices. Forget holiday shopping for others, time to buy yourself some gifts!
+ Universal App – Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2010-11-18 :: Category: Games / Adventure
RAGE is the latest offering from John Carmack and id Software, the folks behind the incredibly popular Doom franchise. The game finds players in a post-apocalyptic game show where they must survive waves of mutants and scrounge up enough money to win their freedom. This should be a nice appetizer for the console version of the game, which is slated to be released in September of next year. By the time that edition arrives you should be well-versed in all the different ways to slay mutants.
iPad Only App – Designed for the iPad
Released: 2010-11-18 :: Category: Games / Action
Just in case you were wondering, no, the Lord of the Rings franchise will never go away. This latest entry takes on the tower defense genre with an iPad game centered on protecting Middle Earth from Sauron. Players can positions and upgrade heroes to fight the hordes as well as call on allies to thin the enemy ranks. If you’ve been missing Aragorn and company then here’s your chance to jump right back into Tolkien’s fantasy realm.
iPhone App – Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2010-11-18 :: Category: Games / Arcade
How far would you go to save the woman you loved? Would you put on a cursed mask and enter a mansion full of demons who hunger for your flesh and only exist to cause you pain and suffering? Or would you instead just remember that there are plenty of fish in the sea and she was kind of a nag anyway? If you chose the former then welcome to Splatterhouse, where senseless violence has never been so fulfilling. If you chose the latter then congratulations, you are a sane and reasonable human being.
iPhone App – Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2010-11-18 :: Category: Games / Arcade
First off, if you can pronounce the game’s name correctly, you win a dollar. Once you’ve struggled with typing the title into the App Store search (good luck AutoCorrect) you can gain access to a great new update on a classic arcade game. One warning though, you have to have the absolute latest model iPhone, iPod or iPad to play this game, otherwise it simply won’t work on your device. Thankfully a warning is posted prominently on the app description so hopefully there will be minimal cases of people downloading the game and then not being able to play it.
Graphics / Sound Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars
Game Controls Rating: 3.35 out of 5 stars
Gameplay Rating: 3.9 out of 5 stars
Re-use / Replay Value Rating: 3.75 out of 5 stars
Overall Rating: 3.81 out of 5 stars
In case you are wondering, Stenches is Trenches with zombies instead of Germans. Having not played Trenches a ton, my time with Stenches was much like hanging out with a long lost girlfriend that moved away far too soon: it’s fun for a time, but then you realize why you weren’t so upset when she originally left.
Stenches lives in the side scrolling castle defense/attack genre that is populated by such titles as Trenches and Epic War 3. The basic concept is to build a bunch of units to fortify/advance your lines while fending off the waves of zombies that are approaching from the right. As you kill zombies, you get gold that you can spend on new troops or ballistic weapons that can strike the zombies from long range. The goal, much like a WW1 battle, is to advance your army to nearby trenches that not only provide shelter, but can be upgraded to become a troop spawn point.
Sales of the game, and its mass popularity, surely come from the polished exterior and likable characters. There are no NPC’s to speak of, but the troop units all have a likability that isn’t matched in the genre. The battlefield, zombies, heck, even the battle sounds in the game are all extremely well made… often sucking you back in after you are determined to stop playing.
Once you get past the polish though, the game quickly shows off its true colors. There are a few issues that I have with the basic game play, and most of the issues come down to frustrating troop movement. First off, the movement in Stenches is all done by line drawing, just draw a little line to tell a unit where you want it to go. This is a great implementation of the touch screen, but when you have 5 units standing in the same spot, what do you do? This problem comes to light primarily when you are advancing your lines to a new trench. To add difficulty, Stenches puts a troop limit in the trenches, and the only way to raise this limit is to upgrade the trench with an engineer. Singling out the engineer for movement is a pain in the rear, and protecting him is even worse. It would make sense to protect your hard-at-work engineer with a few machine gun units, but in the heat of battle when you are moving the units to the trenches their horrible AI will overshoot the trench and blow their cover. Needless to say, there badly needs to be an “advance to next bunker button,” in addition to the regular advance gesture.
My other squabbles come down to the maddening lack of hand to hand combat strength and the unfortunate low max troop count, but the movement issues are by far the most frustrating. Do these issues mean that Stenches is a bad game? No, but it’s hard not to think that the game could be much much better with a few of the kinks worked out. As is, it is a worthy buy if you love the genre or are a fan of Trenches… just be ready for some frustration.
Google Docs users rejoice as you’re now going to be able to edit all your Google Docs documents, right from your iPhone (or any other mobile device for that matter). Simply pointing your iPhone to http://docs.google.com/ will take you to the mobile version of the site.
I think it’s worth noting that you’re only going to be able to edit documents. You will not be able to create new ones, at least for the time being. Have a look at the video below. It’s actually pretty impressive…
I tried this on my iPhone but it wouldn’t work properly. It looks great when I first load a page but I can’t see anything anymore once I start scrolling down. This might just be a bug that will be fixed soon.
Are you a Google Docs user? If so, what do you think of the mobile version?
Developer: iBright Studios
Price: $0.99
Version Reviewed: 1.1
Graphics / Sound Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Game Controls Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Gameplay Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Re-use / Replay Value Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars
Overall Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
This might firmly place me in the strange category, but I liked TightWire more than just about anyone out there. Something about walking that huge balloon of a man across that tiny little wire, way high above the ground, made me really happy. The concept was really funny, the controls were surprisingly functional, and I was pretty darn good at it (always a good quality for a game to have).
iBright Studios, makers of the aforementioned app great, have now come out with a new app called Mazonaut. Like TightWire, the concept is a bit silly, but this time I’m not sure if it works. Mazonaut is a fairly simple maze game that has you controlling an astronaut looking guy in a maze in space. The controls are all accelerometer based, so maneuvering around the endless walls is fairly challenging, and to make things worse, pieces of the ground break off randomly, falling into the big black hole below. Don’t get too upset if you fall though, because there is no end to the maze… just a high score to be obtained after a tedious trip through the neon walled halls of space.
At the end of the day, Mazonaut is a forgettable experience that isn’t nearly as good or creative as TightWire. The accelerometer mechanics in maze finding are inexact at best, often seeming horribly tedious. For a dollar it’s hard to criticize a simple high score game too much, but with the multitude of amazing time wasters out there, there’s really no reason to run out to get Mazonaut unless you are a real maze superfan. Even still, I’d probably play something a bit more polished like Labrynth instead.
Stenches lives in the side scrolling castle defense/attack genre that is populated by such titles as Trenches and Epic War 3. The basic concept is to build a bunch of units to fortify/advance your lines while fending off the waves of zombies that are approaching from the right. As you kill zombies, you get gold that you can spend on new troops or ballistic weapons that can strike the zombies from long range. The goal, much like a WW1 battle, is to advance your army to nearby trenches that not only provide shelter, but can be upgraded to become a troop spawn point.
iBright Studios, makers of the aforementioned app great, have now come out with a new app called Mazonaut. Like TightWire, the concept is a bit silly, but this time I’m not sure if it works. Mazonaut is a fairly simple maze game that has you controlling an astronaut looking guy in a maze in space. The controls are all accelerometer based, so maneuvering around the endless walls is fairly challenging, and to make things worse, pieces of the ground break off randomly, falling into the big black hole below. Don’t get too upset if you fall though, because there is no end to the maze… just a high score to be obtained after a tedious trip through the neon walled halls of space.
Comments