App Review: Angry Birds by ClickGamer

There’s something addicting about launching various bird types from a slingshot in an attempt to hit some green pigs. That is exactly what Angry Birds by ClickGamer is all about. The whole premise is that the green pigs have stolen their eggs (hence, they’re angry) so now it’s revenge time - but with your help.

Angry Birds consists of two worlds and more levels than most other puzzle or physics games in the App Store - more than enough to keep you busy for hours. The complexity of each level increases steadily but so does the capabilities of the angry birds that you propel at them. At first, you just launch a red bird that has not special powers, but later on you get a blue bird that when you tap the screen (while in flight) the bird splits into three. Then there’s the bomb bird, he’s black, which when you touch the screen he blows up. He’ll also blow up after he’s hit the ground. This guy is probably the most effective bird to launch (and the most fun) since he does the most damage to the pigs’ side.

As previously mentioned, the object here is to launch birds and the green pigs. If you hit a pig he pops, he’ll also pop when the surrounding debris hits him. You progress to the next level once all of the green pigs have been eliminated. You may need to get creative to ensure you can pop all the pigs before running out of birds to sling at them though. Also, you can restart any level at any time and as many times as it takes to pass it.

Angry Birds is a great, fun physics game similar to Ragdoll Blaster. We’ve been enjoying it for several days now and I find myself addicted to it. My 5yo son also really enjoys it and giggles and laughs as he plays it. If you’re a fan of physics style games (like Ragdoll Blaster) then this one is a must. Highly recommended.

What We Liked: Fun and addicting physics style game, price is right.
What We Didn’t Like: Some levels will take you many, many tries to clear it - this can get a little old and boring.

App Review: Guerrilla Bob by Chillingo

From the same producers as Minigore, Chillingo has delivered another dual joystick, top down shooter - Guerrilla Bob. We’ve been a big fan of Minigore when it came out last year so when Chillingo released this game, which is very similar, we were eager to take a look. Guerrilla Bob, with enhanced graphics and story mode gameplay makes for a fun and enjoyable iPhone gaming experience, even if you beat the game in less than an hour.

The first thing you will notice when you install Guerrilla Bob is that the 3D graphics are awesome. You are presented with a rich, 3D world of what looks like some Mexican village (complete with clothes lines!). There is a path down the center for you to follow and walk along and as you do you will encounter various enemies. Some enemies hide behind bunkers while others will come charging right at you, so you have to be on your toes. You can also go exploring, to some extent, behind the small-town buildings where you will likely find power-ups, health restores, other weapons and even more enemies. However, you’ll want to explore as much as you can because there’s almost always some type of power-up to help you out.

As previously mentioned, controls are via two virtual joysticks. One for moving Guerrilla Bob (you) and the other for controlling your chosen weapon. The dual joystick games are great since you can walk in one direction while shooting in another - a much needed feature when getting chased by one of the many super-enemies at the end of each level. Also, if you missed it, you can collect three different weapons: machine gun, rocket launcher and flame thrower. Each of these has it’s own advantage in different scenarios such as the flame thrower for close fighting, the rocket launcher for hitting enemies in bunkers (you can’t hit them with the machine gun) or the machine gun for well, just mowing them down!

Each level ends with a larger, harder to beat enemy that you must defeat in order to progress. However no worries since you start the game with a whopping 10 lives and there are more lives that you can collect if you’re looking for them. If you beat the last level then you unlock endurance mode where it’s pretty much just an onslaught of enemies. There’s even a surprise at the end of the last level, which is significantly harder to beat than all of the others (so save those lives).

I really like Guerrilla Bob. As mentioned, the graphics are great and the controls are good and the gameplay if fun and addicting. Our only complaint is that the game is pretty easy to beat but yet the price seems a little high ($2.99). I was able to beat all of the levels in less than an hour of total gameplay, so it’s pretty fast. However, that aside it is very fun and if you’re a fan of Minigore or some of the other top-down shooters then we highly recommend you checkout Guerrilla Bob.

What we liked: Excellent Graphics, dual joystick controls.
What we didn’t like: Relatively short overall game to beat, sometimes seemed difficult to aim.

App Review: Jet Car Stunts by True Axis

Alright, all you car lovin’, stunt crazed, speed fanatics take note and listen up: Jet Car Stunts is awesome! Seriously though, I can’t put this game down! I’m finding myself reaching for my iPhone more often just to get a few minutes of stunt action in. It’s crazy! This game is not only one of the funnest car games I’ve played lately, it’s highly addictive and leaves you wanting more and coming back to get it. Now, for the actual review portion of this post:

Jet Car Stunts has two different game modes: time trials and platforming. The two objectives are quite different and each offers it’s own set of challenges. If you choose platforming, the objective of the game is to jump from platform to platform, doing various (car) tricks as you go all while keeping your retry count and time down. Your main object here is just simply to stay alive (ie: don’t fall off the track) and complete the course. The courses for platforming are quite a bit more difficult than the tracks for time trials. If you choose time trials, the whole objective is to do five laps of the track as fast as possible and to beat the clock.

Jet Car Stunts is Open Feint enabled so your high scores (or low) are automatically posted for all to see (can be disabled). Taking a quick glance at the timings posted on the leaderboards tells you that you’ll need to practice a lot in order to really compete at a global scale. However, this isn’t really a huge interest for me. Simply playing the game in either mode provides a lot of entertainment value and playability in and of itself.

Jet Car Stunts has multiple levels in each mode. Each level is unlocked by completed all of the courses in the previous level. So, to move on to intermediate in the time trials, you must score at least a bronze in three of the four various courses in the easy set. Same goes for platforming, in order to move on you must complete four out of five courses for that level. Be warned though, tracks get tough quickly. Just moving into the intermediate group and you quickly realize that you need to be an expert stunt car driver to complete them.

Controling the Jet Car is done via virtual buttons (jet, forward, reverse, brakes) and tilting the device (accelerometer) left or right to steer. If you happen to be flying through the air (quite common in this game) and you see you’re about to overshoot your track or landing spot, touching the brake will bring out the flaps (air brakes!) to help slow you down. Touching the jet button will ignite the jet engine and propel you faster and faster. Be careful though, as you’re accelerating using the jet engine you are quickly burning through jet fuel. Once the jet fuel is gone you have to wait until you pass through a checkpoint before getting more.

In all, we’ve been having a lot of fun with this game and so with that, it’s an easy recommendation. If you like car games of any kind then check out Jet Car Stunts, it’s pure iPhone game fun!

App Review: Asphalt 5 by Gameloft

We’ve been eager to get our hands on Asphalt 5 ever since Gameloft announced that a sequel to Asphalt 4 was coming. So for the past couple of weeks, I’ve been racing and racing. After all, if you’ve seen the trailer, then how could you not be excited for this game? If you’ve been holding back in purchasing this game, then read on to find out if it’s worth it or not…

When you launch the game you are greeted with a typical intro that gets you excited and ready to play. You can select a Quick Race, Single Race, Career Race or Multiplayer Race. You are also greeted with your first car, a Cooper Mini. However, you also have a Nissan 370Z which you will want to switch to and use (at least, I did). Choosing Career allows you to unlock more cars, a lot more cars. There’s everything From SUV’s to motorcycles that are waiting to be unlocked so pretty much everything that’s worth racing is in there.

Aside from selecting your car each one is also highly customizable - providing you’ve unlocked the various customizations. There are three groups of customizations: Engine, Handling and Boost. Under engine, there are options such as ECU, intake, exhaust and turbo to customize. Under handling you can improve things like your suspension and braking and under boost you can increase capacity and speed. This high degree of customization makes sure that you’ll be entertained for hours not just racing, but building that perfect race car.

As previously mentioned, there are several types of racing modes (Quick, Single, Career and Multiplayer). Selecting Multiplayer requires that you setup an account with Gameloft Live in order to play online. However, once you do you get to join others online in racing against real people, and not computer bots. Like other games that are online, this adds a whole new dimension to the game that makes it that much more enjoyable. If you don’t want to race online but still want to race your friends, no worries. The game offers two local multiplayer modes to easily race friends that are close to you (same house): you can use either bluetooth or WiFi for greatest flexibility.

Graphics on Asphalt 5 are actually really great, however they aren’t much better than other racing games or previous versions of Asphalt on the iPhone. However, for a racing game they are well done and full of detail.

Gameplay for Asphalt 5 is excellent. You can select whether you have auto acceleration or not in the options which allows you to focus on steering and braking (and racing!). To steer, simply tilt/rotate the device in the direction you want to turn. There is also a boost button that comes in handy for getting that extra edge on your opponent (you will use this a lot in the multiplayer online games). I found no annoying quirks or issues while racing, which is nice since most racing games seem to implement some aspect of racing that just bugs (like your opponents always crashing into you).

Being a big fan of racing games I was happy to get my hands on Asphalt 5 and give it a go. The game is fun and will keep dedicated racing fans entertained for hours. Asphalt 5 is an easy recommendation as it is fun and provides hours of excellent gameplay. We didn’t find any real issues either, which is a nice relief.

What we liked: Online gameplay is great, highly customizable cars, a lot of cars to unlock, hours of gameplay, ability to just quick race if you don’t have the time to dedicate.
What we didn’t like: Cost (probably not a drawback but many will find the 7.00 entry fee to be too expensive).

App Review: Tap Tap Revenge 3 by Tapulous

Tap Tap Revenge 3 was by far the most anticipated game on the app store this month. And to me, it was worth the wait. After introducing push notifications in the last “version” (TTR 2.6), there was a lot of negative feedback. Tapulous say they have looked at the problem, and push works in Tap Tap 3.

What I really love about this game is the layout. At the title menu, you scroll along the “wheel” to select your gameplay. Career, the new quick play function, online, or two player. Tapulous have (and I think this is great) included avatars in this version. As well as the track store option, you can choose to buy avatar items such as guitars, backgrounds and clothes. At first, I thought you had to buy in-game currency with real life cash, but my heart quickly started beating again when I found out that you earn coins by completing songs in a reasonable position. Another new feature is levels. Now, Tapulous kind of introduced this feature in Tap Tap 2.x, but said it was experimental. In online play, you earn exp, and like most games, level up. At higher levels, you can enter better rooms with people more your caliber. What I also like is at the end of an online session, the winner is displayed at the top. It also says how many coins/exp he/she earned. If you tap the chat tab at the top of the online menu, you can chat with other players currently in your session. This is a feature that everyone wanted in Tap Tap 2.x.

Moving on to the actual gameplay, each song has it’s own unique, original theme. Tapulous have completely re-designed the structure of it. Special tappers, normal tappers, shakers, everything has a new image. Also in online gameplay, you can see the current players avatars at the top rightof the screen. Every now and then one might move up or down. This is good, because instead of it just saying what place you are out of x amount of people, you can actually see that person you wanted to beat, or that noob that everybody thrashes.

In every aspect of the game, tapulous have completely changed everything. Some may say it’s bad, but the majority of people I asked thought the changes were for the better. In conclusion, Tap Tap Revenge 3 has original, well thought out gameplay, but lacks the loading speeds that you may find in other apps. This is mainly because the online section is hosted on the web, not downloaded into the app itself. That means, every time you switch pages, you are downloading a different page. This could be improved by building in the online section, so we can move between sessions quicker! But most importantly, the price. Tap Tap Revenge 3 is in the $0.99 category, so be sure to snap it up before the price is raised! Thanks, Tapulous, for an excellent game!

App Review: Cocoto Kart Online Brings Multiplayer Racing to the iPhone

One of the big pushes lately in iPhone games it the move towards online multiplayer abilities and Cocoto Kart Online does just that. Cocoto Kart has a strong online emphasis with this version of the game and so we decided to give it a go and see how it stacks up. For those not wanting to play online, no worries, the game as a single player option that you can race against the computer.

Cocoto Kart is similar to every other kart racing game already in the app store. In fact, they are all very similar in game play and graphics. However, what Cocoto Kart Online brings to your device now is the ability to go online and play against other users. This makes this version of the game much more interesting and fun to play. Since I am a huge fan of online games, Cocoto Kart Online does fill a void I’ve had with other racing games.

Controlling your kart is pretty much like every other racing game in the App Store: you use your device to steer (accelerometer) and you touch on the screen to accelerate. Also Similar to many other racing games, the 3D graphics are excellent.

When you first launch the game you are asked to decide what type of game you’d like to play (single player or online). Selecting to play online gives you different game types: Battle Mode or Multiplayer Race. Selecting either type will put you into an already running game for which you’ll have to wait until the current race is completed before you can join. However, once you join, the racing experience is smooth and superbly done. We didn’t experience any lag or other delays typically associated with online games. In fact, we were very pleased with the game play experience.

In general, if you’re a fan of the kart racing games then Cocoto Kart Online is a no-brainer. However, add in the great graphics and excellent online game play experience then Cocoto Kart online is leaps ahead of the other kart racers. We have no trouble recommending this game to our readers.

What we liked: Online game play to compete against other humans!, great game experience.
What we didn’t like: A little too advanced for younger kids (bought it hoping my 5yo could play it, but sadly no).

App Review: Boom Brigade by 10tons ltd

According to the 10tons’ description of Boom Brigade, the game is a cross between tower defense, line drawing and top-down style games. I’m a huge fan of tower defense games and have been recently playing many of the line drawing games as well. So, to take these genres and attempt to mix them up, well, we just had to give it a try. Read on to see how we liked it…. Read more

App Review: Meteor Blitz by Alley Labs

Meteor Blitz by Alley Labs is a fast paced shooter game that is a must have for all those that enjoy shooter style games. You’re a ship in space doing all you can to avoid and shoot meteors as they come into your plane. Meteors can come into the screen anywhere, even where you currently are, so be alert and keep shooting. Oh, and watch out for the enemies that will come right at you when they appear too.

I first started playing Meteor Blitz just a few days ago and I have to tell you, I’ve been enjoying it. I purchased the game on a hunch, believing that it would provide a fast-paced, action style game play and I was right. It currently is my favorite shooter game installed on my iPhone.

When you first launch the game you are you select “Play” from the menu. You are given the choice of Arcade or Survival game play modes. If this is your first time in the game you are also put into an excellent tutorial that teaches you how to maneuver your ship and fire the various weapons that you have. The Tutorial is well worth the time, so don’t pass on it. Arcade style games give you your typical game progression with various worlds that you can unlock as you play. Survival mode is just that, to see how long you can survive against every type of enemy that the game has. For a quick game, Survival mode works well, however if you have a bit more time to kill then Arcade is very rewarding.

To unlock a new world on Arcade mode you must successfully complete 5 levels in the current world. The levels get hard pretty quick and it will likely take you a number of tries to get the next world unlocked. However, it can be done, remember the various weapons and use them appropriately.

Game play is excellent. Meteors and enemies appear near you or even on you (move!) and you immediately need to react. Different types of weapons are more effective against different types of meteors, pay attention to the tutorial as this will come in handy. Occasionally, enemies will appear near you as well, they charge at you if you are within their sites so shoot fast and move to avoid them. Occasionally there are “bonus” ships that you can shoot and they will give up a ring that will either restore your shield, give you a new life, slow down game play, allow you to collect rings eaiser or give you a bomb. Use the bombs to destroy everything within the vicinity (shake the device to activate bombs).  Rings are essential to buy upgrades to your weapons and ship. Collect as many rings as you can so that you can afford the upgrades that you want and need.

Controls are also superb. Using two virtual joystick pads for your thumbs. One joystick pad (left side) controls the ship and it’s direction of movement. The other (right) controls your weapons and the direction in which you fire. So, you can be traveling in one direction while shooting in the other. If you’re familiar with Mini Gore, it’s the same concept. You also have buttons to change weapons.

As you can tell, I’ve really enjoyed playing Meteor Blitz. It’s a well done, shooter game that anyone will enjoy - if you like shooters. However, it’s not exactly perfect in every way. Releasing both controls (lifting thumbs off the screen) will activate a pause. This isn’t all bad, but took some getting used to - It’s also configurable. The one action that kept getting me, which is the most annoying, is that tapping the screen activates hyper-speed. So, if you tend to lift your thumb (which I do) to stop traveling or hold still, then if you do this too quickly you’ll all of a sudden be in hyper-speed mode flying across the screen. Needs to be something different for this function (another button?).

In all, Meteor Blitz is a fun, shooter game that I’ve been playing pretty much non-stop since I got it. If you like shooters, take a hard look at Meteor Blitz.

Tips

1. Take your time with the tutorial, it will help you to understand the different types of weapons and when to use them.  The tutorial will take you all of 3 minutes to complete, so it’s pretty quick.
2. Careful when tapping the screen with your left thumb, you’ll likely activate the hyper-speed function of your ship by accident.
3. Find and destroy the bonus ships, then collect the ring that is left behind for a nice perk.  Continue to collect other rings left behind from meteors and other enemies.  The rings are what you use to buy upgrades, so you want as many as you can collect.
4. For the first 5 levels you should only upgrade the cannon.  Fire and Ice will help later.

Detailed App Review: Madden NFL 10 by EA Sports

Madden NFL 10 by EA Sports for iPhone is here! For those of you that have loved and enjoyed the Madden franchise over the past 20 years, your time has now come to enjoy this superb game on your iPhone.  Madden NFL 10 is complete with full teams and rosters from the NFL and all of the Madden animations, snyde comments and excellent graphics, it’s all here.  We’ve been playing Madden here at AppChatter.com for a couple of days now and so far it has not dissappointed. Read more

App Review: Geared by Bryan Mitchell (with helps)

We’re pretty much suckers here at AppChatter.com for puzzle games so when I saw Geared come to the App Store we just had to try it. Similar in style to many of the other “hand drawn graphics” puzzle games (like, Blocked), Geared is a new style of puzzle. The game reminds me a bit of Fantastic Contraption, but the whole premise is quite different. Your goal is to use the provided gears, place them on the screen to make all of the gears turn. Sounds easy, right? Wrong.

Actually, the first several levels are quite easy to complete. After a while of playing I was asking myself if the puzzles would get challenging or not. Adding gears into the screen and getting all the gears to turn seemed too easy, especially on the easy levels. However, once I got into the medium difficulty did things start to get a little challenging. Adding “no touch” zones to the screen makes it difficult to add gears where you want them, since the center of the gear cannot touch this area when you are moving them into place. The secret here is to drop the gear into place by holding the gear above the “no touch” zone then letting it drop. Hopefully it will land where you want, but if it doesn’t simply grab it and try again.

Geared by Bryan Mitchell is a fun and addicting puzzle game that I’d recommend to anyone that likes puzzles (or rotating gears!). We found the game enjoyable and challenging to play for a wide range of audiences. Since the easy levels are quite easy children can solve them while adults will find the medium and difficult levels more their speed.

Tips:

1. Remeber that gears are subject to gravity.  So you can “drop” them into place.  This is especially helpful on levels that have the “no touch” zone.
2. Use the gravity to stack gears where necessary, starting from the lowest on the screen.
3. If a gear reaches the final one but doesn’t turn it, you may need to keep adjusting it just tiny bits until it does.

Some Helpful Solutions

We’ve had a lot of requests so here are Level’s 4 and 5 from Geared FREE:

For gee wiz, here are Level’s 4 and 5 from Geared PAID:

Geared PAID Level 44 and Level 45:

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