Convertbot Forum Review by msbaylor. (Visit the thread for video and more pics. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!)

ConvertBot is by Tapbots - the developers of WeightBot and for those of you that love the way the application operates, this one will not let you down.

This is probably the sleekest conversion application I have seen with its cool animations and sounds. However, the only issues I ran into – it takes longer than I thought the program should take to load. At first I believed that it was the app itself checking an Internet connection to update the currency conversions, but when I put my iPhone in Airplane mode, it took just as long. But it is a good thing to note that even though the currencies could not update, the program is still usable.

The sleek interface is what really makes this app so nice. This has to be the coolest working Conversion app for the iPhone. The “wheel” that takes up the main part of the screen can be rotated to set the conversion type:

• Angles: Degree, Radian, & Grad
• Area: Square Meter, Square Centimeter, Square Millimeter, Square Mile, Acre, Square Kilometer, Square Yard, Square Foot, Square Inch
• Currency: Australian Dollar, Brazilian Real, Canadian Dollar, Swiss Franc, Danish Krone, Euro, Pound Sterling (UK), Japanese Yen, Mexican Peso, Swedish Krona, US Dollar
• Length: Foot, Meter, Inch, Centimeter, Mile, Kilometer, Nautical Mile, Yard, Millimeter, Foot+Inch
• Mass: Milligram, Kilogram, Pound, Ounce, Gram, Stone, Stone+Pound, Metric Ton, Pound+Ounce
• Power: Watt, Horsepower, Kilowatt, BTU/Minute, Foot-Pound/Minute, Foot-Pound/Second
• Pressure: Pound/Square Inch, Centimeters of Mercury, Inches of Mercury, Kilogram/Square Meter, Pascal, Atmospheres, Bars, Pounds/Square Foot
• Speed: Miles/Hour, Kilometers/Hour, Knots, Miles/Second, Miles/Minute, Feet/Minute, Feet/Second, Kilometers/Minutes
• Temperature: Celsius, Kelvin, Fahrenheit
• Time: Second, Millisecond, Microsecond, Nanoseconds, Year, Week, Day, Hour, Minute, Hour + Minute
• Volume: Cup, Teaspoon, Tablespoon, Cubic Feet, Gallon (UK), Quart, Pint, Ounce, Cubic Meter, Gallon (US), Liter, Milliliter, Cubic Centimeter
• Work (Energy): Kilogram Calorie, Foot Pound, Newton Meter, Joule, BTU, Erg, Watt Hour, Calorie

Once you have rotated the wheel to the type/category, then you tap on the bottom left button and you use the “wheel” to select the specific conversion unit, take the center blue button, “ok” and it locks that unit in. This unit is the unit you are converting from. The other black button is the unit you want to convert to. You repeat the same process of locking in the unit.

By tapping on the top “number screen,” this opens up a keypad so that you can type in the amount you are converting from. The application has a live update, in which the app auto converts as you type the number into the app. Tapping on the “number screen” again brings back the conversion “wheel”

You can tap on the center wheel to switch the units if you need to.

By tapping on the “i” icon you can view the Settings which allows you to turn the sound on or off as well as the choice of viewing the Demo (which is quite a nice feature in the app).

Issues:

• Would like to have the “wheel” spin more smoothly, rather than “clicking” into place.
• Not as common currencies are not available in the app. (exe.: Argentinian Pesos or Chilean Peso)

Pros:

• Sleek Interface
• Sounds & animation to go with each “screen” or tap
• Complex conversions

Cons:

• Takes quite long to update currencies at app start up (quicker in airplane mode, due to currencies not updating)
• “Wheel” ‘clicks’ into place rather than smoothly rolling.
• Uncommon currencies not available

TiPb Review Rating

[Convertbot is available for $0.99 from the iTunes App Store.]

ReaddleDocs Forum Review by msbaylor. (Visit the thread for video and more pics. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!)

ReaddleDocs is a document viewer that basically covers all the ways of getting the document onto you iPhone – so there is no way that you cannot have your documents on hand.

When you purchase ReaddleDocs, you also receive 512MB of storage space on their server. This allows you to upload any documents to the server via any browser and then sync them with you iPhone via any data connection (EDGE/3G/WIFI).

When you tap on the “Online” tab, you select the server you want to connect to and then you have the ability to sync with the server so that any new documents that you have retrieved via the iPhone will backup to your server and vice versa.

Besides using your Readdle Storage space, you can also connect to your MobileMe iDisk or connect to a WebDAV enabled server.

A second way of getting documents onto your iPhone is by forwarding your attached document in an e-mail to you ReaddleDocs e-mail address (given to you when you create your online account). Then, again, you sync you iPhone with your account.

A third way, is to use the built-in browser and navigate to a document then tap on a button to download the document to your iPhone.

A fourth and final way is to transfer the documents from your computer to your iPhone via WiFi.

When viewing your documents, you can edit them - delete, move, create folders, rename folders, rename documents, mail documents, and add a document to a zip achieve.

All documents that can normally be viewed on the iPhone can be viewed via this application as well.

I really like the icons that it uses to represent the type of file (red icon for pdf files, blue icon to doc files, etc.)

Interface

Within the app you can view all your documents, view your online documents (through whichever server,) use the browser, view recently opened files and adjust settings for the app.

I think for the most part those screen are self-explanatory.

I also like the document “reader” interface. When viewing files such as *.doc, *.rtf, the viewer is simple – you can scroll through your document like you would in the iPhone document viewer, however, you have and “add” button at the top, which allows you to insert bookmarks for that document. I find this incredibly convenient when reading a large document or e-book. The toolbar at the bottom of the screen allows you to view and edit bookmarks, e-mail the document, scroll through a document quickly using the slider and a full screen button.

If you turn the iPhone to the landscape position, it automatically goes to full-screen and rotates the document accordingly.

When viewing an *.xls document, you have all the same features as above. At the top of the document, you can change between the sheets. You might also notice that when switching between sheets, arrows will appear at the bottom of the screen. These arrows are much like the arrows you would use in the browser.

When viewing images, you can view them much like you would in your photo reel, just tap the arrows to move through the pictures within that folder. You can also mail the documents via this image viewer.

Besides viewing and retrieving documents, you can also view the device photos (which might prove a faster way of delete picture on your iPhone if you have to do it that way.)

Settings

In the setting screen, you have the ability to view or hide the “device photos” folder, setup mail settings – mail from and mail signature; allow WiFi network drive and apply username and password; several different viewing options including “view HTML as book”; you can also enable a passcode lock; and setup the document encoding.

Issues Encountered

There is no way to move the images to your iPhone photo reel or set as wallpaper functions, while the picture is on my iPhone in a sense, I cannot actually do anything with it unless I email it to myself and do it that way. I don’t always have a data connection when I am traveling so it would be nice to move the images over to do what I wish with them. When viewing the a PowerPoint document, the slides seems to form one large “page” (see screen shot).

Conclusion

In my opinion the Pros out weigh the Cons and the price tag of $9.99 is completely worth it. To have the ability of getting my document on my hand held and having them at my finger tips is worth it. I was on a film set when I was asked to operate a Sony F900 camera. Luckily, I was able to go to a website using the browser interface and download the manual on my iPhone and had the ability to quickly skim through it and figure out how to use the camera.

Pros

• Multiple ways of retrieving documents onto your iPhone
• 512MB of server storage
• nice document viewer
• document logos make finding documents easier
• Ability to sync iPhone with server & vice versa
• Book marking in documents

Cons

• In doc viewer, tapping bottom of screen makes doc auto scroll, can be annoying at times
• Can’t handle large documents (over about 8MB)
• Viewing *.xls (or of the like) documents doesn’t always format correctly
• Viewing *.ppt (or of the like) format into one long page

TiPb Review Rating

[ReaddleDocs is available for $9.99 from the iTunes App Store.]

Vine2Wine Forum Review by msbaylor. (Visit the thread for video and more pics. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

Overall I think this is a neat little reference guide. While you might find more information about each of the term on the Internet (and I'd like to see the option for more information on the grape varieties). I think this application handles the information very well and it’s quick and easy to use.

Vine2Wine is a wine drinker's reference guide, whether you are a beginner wanted to learn the lingo or even for intermediates.

The app is simple. On the main screen you choose from three categories:

• Grape Varieties
• Wine terminology
• Wine Tastes

In the Grape Varieties list view. The different grape varieties are listed and depending on what type of grape it uses it is represented by a correlating purple of white grapes next to each variety. Also within the list view you have the phonetic pronunciation for the terms for quick reference. If you tap on one of the Varieties it will give you some information about it - such as color, flavors, & history.

Vine2Wine Forum Review by msbaylor. (Visit the thread for video and more pics. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

As for the Wine terminology and Wine Tastes list views, each term is listed and a small part of the first line can be seen. If you tap on the term, rather than going to a new screen, the list expands to display the full text. I thought this was a really cool feature as it was quick and easy to navigate between the terms within the list.

All the lists are just like your contacts list in that they have the letter scroll bar on the right-hand side of the screen.

Pros

• Easy Navigation
• Interesting and quick navigation within terminology lists

Cons

• Not all the grape varieties have pronunciations
• No way to add notes.

TiPb Rating

Vine2Wine is available for $0.99 from the iTunes App Store.

Meditate Now 2 Forum Review by msbaylor. (Visit the thread for video and more pics. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

Meditate Now 2 is an application that contains a series of audio clips that capable of helping you alleviate stress and allow you to relax. The audio is narrated by Stin Hansen, whom is an extremely experienced speaker and an award wining meditation expert. Her voice is absolutely perfect for this type of application. Most of audios range from about nine minutes long to about 15 minutes long (with two exceptions being at three & five minutes)

The audios include (paraphrased from the iTunes description):

• Be Grateful – Relax and feel more gratitude in your life
• Anchor your Spirit – bring substance to your life
• Breathe It Out – breath meditation that is perfect for anxiety and feelings of panic
• End Pain – bring relief to arthritis, labor, chronic, and surgery pains
• Your Best Self – Connect with your full potential and move beyond daily concerns with the meditation
• Serenity Prayer Meditation – recited at a time of trouble. Used in recovering alcoholics and addicts.
• Center Your Chakras – Center and align your energy centers
• Emotional Acupuncture – for emotional emergencies (also utilities a picture to show you how)

I also found that Stin offers a free podcast through the iTunes store. So if you are hesitant to get his application, you can always check out her podcast. I definitely recommend this app to anyone that listens to audios for meditation. While the 'Emotional Acupuncture' audio displays a picture, it is a little hard to understand what it is exactly saying to do. To alleviate this, it would be nice to have only certain parts of the picture visible that relate and change with the audio.

Pros:

• Professional voice & audio
• Easy interface to switch between audios

Cons:

• Photo in audio is hard to discern, if unfamiliar with technique.
• The info icon leaves the app unexpectedly

Forum Review Rating:

[http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=299295151&mt=8">Meditate Now 2 is available for $1.99 from the iTunes App Store.]

Over the last few weeks, one of our all-star forum reviewers, msbaylor, has been putting a massive amount of iPhone To-Do apps through their paces: Things, Appigo's ToDo, Toodledo, Done, Zenbe Lists, Ultimate ToDos, and Firetask. Well now he's to-done, and you can check out his colossal review roundup on our forums (along with screenshots and videos aplenty!)

On behalf of everyone seeking that holy grail of To-Do nirvana, we can't thank Matt enough for going to all this trouble. Here's what he wanted, but read it quick so you can get to the good stuff!

• Sync (not at additional cost)
• Sleek/non-confusing interface
• sub-tasks
• due-date
• priority

Illuminations Forum Review by msbaylor. (Visit the thread for video and more pics. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

Illuminations is developed by Killer Robots and is an interesting shoot-em-up type game. It is based around the idea of a firework show. You have to shoot rockets that come up from the bottom of the screen in order to make them explode, if you miss too many, then the show is over for you. You also might find enemies that might spawn at random to keep you from “giving a good show,” these also must be eliminated (and added to the show).

Layout:

Layout is simple. The main menu allows you to begin a new game, view high scores, view options and instructions. In the options menu you can turn on and off sound and/or the music. When you tap the screen around the actual buttons, fireworks are seen exploding – nice touch.

Within the game itself you have your “show meter” in the top left corner if you miss too many rockets the meter will drop, it is drop too far then it's game over. In essence, it's a life meter. In the upper right hand corner on the screen, the blue meter displays the amount of ammo you have left, the better the weapon the faster it falls, but if you pause, the ammo will regenerate. To the right of the blue bar displays one of five ammos that you can obtain. The pink bar is your bomb reload timer is essence. When you set off a bomb, the bar has to reload before you can use another. The number at the end of the bar is how many bombs you have left. Both ammo, lives, and bombs can be obtained from shooting the enemies.

Controls:

The game utilizes the tilt controls in the Phone and by tapping on the left-side of the screen you shoot your normal ammo, double tap the right-side of the screen. To pause the game and view a menu, double tap the pause button in the upper left-hand corner.

Graphics:

The graphics in the game are fairly simple your “aircraft,” enemies, rockets and ammo all appear 2D. When explosions occur – thus the fireworks, the particle graphics are very nice for the game. The background is a 3D basic cityscape the moves around at random. While many of the graphics are very basic, I think it adds to the overall user experience of the game.

Issues:

I didn't like the fact that the neutral position for the tilt controls was when the iPhone was lying flat on its back. I'd like to see a a neutral reset button whether manual or automatically set when the game begins.

When firing you letting off a bomb, I noticed that in my mind I would switch the controls around meaning I'd shoot using the right side of the screen instead of the left side. It would be nice if there was an option to switch this.

Overall:

I find this game pretty cool and oddly addicting. At only $3.99 this game will keep you occupied for hours. Some might find the price a little steep, but if you are into asteroid-like games with much better graphics and weapon upgrades, then this game is going to be for you.

Pros:

• Good particle graphics
• Asteroid-like game play but much more colorful
• Tilt-controls are accurate (not too sensitive, but just right)
• 5 weapon upgrades to use

Cons:

• No way to reset the neutral position for tilt controls
• After dying (show meter falls too far) you must start over from level 1

TiPb Forum Review Rating

[Illuminations is available from the iTunes App Store.]

Peeps by msbaylor. (Visit the thread for video and more pics. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

Peeps is a new and interesting way to view your contacts- by their pictures!

When you first open the application, all you contact are loaded into the app. For me it only took about 5 second to import all 150 or so contacts.

After that you'll see a screen that has about 9 of your contacts pictures and their names are listed below them. You can scroll up and down to see your contact via their pictures. If you tap on a picture you will be able to see your contact's info. Also within the multi-contact screen, you can create a new contact via the app by tapping on the “+” in the upper-right corner.

By tapping the “Peeps” button in the upper-left-hand corner you will be able to view your groups and to create them as well.

In the screen shot below I created “Mi Peeps.” Since I don't have a whole lot of contacts with pictures, I began to create a list of contacts that do have pictures. I also accidentally added someone that didn't have a picture, If you need to remove a contact from a group, tap and hold on the contact's picture and you will have the option to delete the contact, remove contact from group or cancel.

In creating the group of your choice, you can either select contacts from your existing Address book or create a new one.

While viewing you contacts, if you turn you iPhone on it's side, then you can view you contacts in an “cover-flow” format as your would on you iPhone's iPod.app. Just like in the iPod.app when you tap on the abum cover, you receive a playlist of that album, well in Peeps, when you tap the photo, you get all there contact information. This is a neat adaptation from the iPod.app.

I however, found that the screen turned back from the cover-flow with the slightest tilt out of “landscape” view.

[Editor's note: Since Apple has not made the CoverFlow API public, Peeps built a home-made version to emulate the functionality, which caused some confusion and delayed the release of the app]

Overall

I think this an interesting app especially if you have a lot of contacts with pictures, if you are like me and only 5% or so of your contacts have pictures, then this application is probably not for you. For people that do have a lot of contact pictures, I think this will be a “cool” way to casually flip trough your contact and show your friends, but, I don't think it will be of great use in the event you need to call one of your contacts, especially if you are in a hurry.

I'd really like to see adjustments made to the accelerometers in viewing contacts in “cover-flow.” After writing this review once and then speaking with the Peeps support, I found out a little more about the app than before. So and information screen explaining how to display and edit contact would be a nice feature to have. At $1.99 I recommend this app for people with lots of photos in their address book. It also seems to be a nice way to update the photos of a contact a bit quicker than going through the contacts one-by-one in the Address book.

Pros:

• Cover-flow viewing of contacts
• Easy and quick setup
• Create your own groups.

Cons:

• Viewing in Cover-flow is fickle

TiPb Forum Review Rating

[Peeps is available from the iTunes App Store.]

Bugz by msbaylor. (Visit the thread for video and more pics. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

Bugz has to be one of the most entertaining games I’ve played (and really the only one I’ve completed all the levels on).

The game play here is simple – you create an explosion, for lack of a better tem, which if the bugs hit it, they in turn explode creating a chain reaction. From level-to-level, you must “clear” a certain amount of bugs off the screen via the chain reaction you create using only that one initial tap.

For your first time through, the game will walk you through on how to play it.

Levels:

I found the early stages harder than the later stages, as there were more bugs to hit. Well except maybe for the last few, where you had to clear all of them or all but a couple. There are 102 levels, which are really segmented off into 4 different sections (if you will.) The first section only deals with clearing a certain amount of bugs from the screen. The second section is the same, but you have to also include the one or two of the silver-colored bugs in the chain reaction. In the third section, small flowers are introduced, where they move around the screen. If the bugs get to close to them, they will slow down or even stop, which might throw off your chain reaction. And in the fourth section, you are given a time limit in which you have complete the level.

If you have a Wifi connection, you can view the leader board and/or submit your score to the leader board.

Overall I found the game play quite addicting. I beat the game within 3 or 4 sittings (within about 3 hours). So for me it was a quite quick, but even though the game play was quick, the game grabbed my attention and submerged me into the game (which all great games should do). I’d really like to see more levels added as well and some increased difficulty in the upper levels.

Pros:

• Entertaining and colorful game play.

Cons:

• Only 102 levels
• Early levels seem harder than higher levels.

Forum Review Rating

[Bugz is available from the iTunes App Store.]

Wanted by msbaylor. (Visit the thread for video and more pics. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

Wanted is a simple picture editing application that turns a picture of a person into a wanted poster. The poster can then be printed out onto a piece of paper for the office. Don’t worry the output file is much larger than a normal iPhone picture.

The app begins with a menu and “wild-west” type music. You have the option to turn the music on and off as you wish. I found listening to the music relevant to the app, but turned it off after awhile.

In the menu you can select whether you want to use the camera to take a picture or if you want pick a picture from the camera roll. Here I picked a random image from Google...

The next screen you’ll see will have places to edit the title, in other words it doesn’t have to say “Wanted” also you can edit the reward, the status and the name in the poster. You can also edit the picture by tapping on the items next to the picture you have picked/taken.

You can then add pieces to the picture such as a hat, a revolver, a mustache, and/or a sheriff’s badge by tapping on it, it places is it on the picture. You can resize the objects by using two fingers to rotate and resize the objects. I noticed that after placing one object, then placing another that the 2nd objects was not automatically selected and threw my previous placement off until I realized I needed to select the second object, I also found that one of the hats, that has a curve to it on the bottom of it.

The below photo is the final picture. You can click on it to see the actual resolution of the photo itself. The developer claims that it is a printable photo, however, I have yet to do this, but when I do, I will say so below.

Overall this is an intresting app and I can see a fit for this app. I would like to see more objects added or more so more options of each object. While I like the final photo, I am not sure I quite like the wood background behind the "poster" within the final pic. I would like to see a default selection tool when placing the objects in the photo also a list of ideas for what to put in the title to make different posters. I really like the large file it exports to (noted above). Overall for the price tag of $0.99, this is a functional app for whatever purpose you plan on using it for...

Pros:

• Large resolution final pic
• Intresting Concept
• Music goes good with the teme of the app (a new one for costuming)

Cons:

• Sometimes placement of objects is hard
• "wood" behind the "poster" I feel, shouldn't be there.
• Only a few objects available

Forum Review Rating

[Wanted is available from the iTunes App Store. "Dead or Alive" Dieter? Priceless!]

Hero of Sparta by msbaylor. (Visit the thread for video and more pics. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

While this app came out some time ago, I have been meaning to write a review for this app, but I always end up getting distracted playing the game, then running out of time. So finally I have distanced myself from my iPhone to bring you this review.

This is easily one of the most addicting games I have come across. ngmoco:), the developer of this game has undoubtedly created a unique gem of a game.

The point of Rolando is to roll the Rolandos (characters) around the screen and move them from one point to another while avoiding deadly monsters, fire pits, etc. In order to get them through you might find that you have to push things around, climb across boulder, drop bombs, build bridges, etc. The easiest way to describe the app is to say that it is a cross between Touch Physics for the iPhone and the old Lemmings game.

Controls:

The game utilizes the accelerometers to maneuver the Rolandos on the screen – you tilt in the direction you want to move,. You can also make your Rolando jump by swiping your finger from the bottom to the top of the screen. When selecting your Rolando, you can tap on one of them to select it or draw a box around several Rolandos to select multiple ones. While tilting the iPhone in a certain direction controls the Rolandos, you might also find yourself using your fingers to pull back catapult, flip switches, dropping bombs, drawing bridges and other awesome little things.

Layout:

The game begins with a segmented screen- 9boxes that are black and then “unlocked” when you beat certain levels, within this main screen you can basically just play around with the different Rolando characters. I thought this was a neat little touch as its not really part of the game, but great way to get the user involved in the game – before the game. After tapping on the menu item to begin the game, you will be taken to a “story-book” map that basically lists the levels along you way to the Rolando City. You select the level you wish by tapping on a white circle and then again when the white balloon appears. The map is separated into 4 quadrant, or to say, 4 worlds. Each one having its own theme. Within the levels themselves you have to get the Rolando(s) from point A to point B winding your way around beast trap doors and catapults. While all levels require that you exit through the magic door at the end, you might also find that you must save the sleeping-prince-Rolando, in which, he is bigger than the other Rolandos and also uncontrollable, making the level quite difficult to an extent, but very addicting.

In the game screen, in the top left-hand corner, your are given a time limit and given extra points if you complete the level in the allotted amount of time, if not, then you don't get any extra points. Underneath the times is a counter #/# meaning, the first number is how many Rolandos you have gotten through the door and the second number is how many you must get though the level to complete it. If you tap on either of these icons a menu will appear to allow you to restart the level, continue, or quit.

If you decide to quit, don't worry, your game will be saved (iSave). Some levels have “checkpoint-balloons” so that you begin from the point of the balloon in case you are to die. If you push the home key in the middle of a game (without dying) you will resume from that position.

Sound:

There is music playing in the background and in games I tend to reduce the music over the sound effects to reduce noise confusion, in doing that, I enjoyed the music within the game and did not feel that it ever annoyed me. There are multiple sound effects that each animation gives off in the game and makes the game all the more interactive. The Rolandos themselves will “talk” to you via text bubbles and making a unique sound (reminiscing of the old Nintendo 64).

Overall:

I found this game extremely addicting. It is one of those games, if you just happen to have a couple of minutes to kill, then you can play this game then save your progress and continue later or if you have a bunch of time to kill, then by all means, play longer. I have played about halfway through the game and have found it very enjoyable and one of the best games I have purchased. I go though so many apps that I barely have time to complete each game before I move onto the next, but this one just has me coming back no matter what my time limit is.

Replay-ability I am not quite sure of. Once I complete the game, I am not sure I'll go back to play the levels again. However in having that timer, you can go back and attempt to complete the level with that time slot. If you are one of those people that like to get every little point, then the replay ability is high, otherwise, it going to be low.

This is probably the only game I haven't found anything negative to say about it and that in itself is outstanding.

One of the other games that ngmoco:) has made, Topple, I found in that game, that the blocks facial expressions reacted to each other and I found that so cool, and Rolando is no exception. Rolando is sure to please any puzzle-lover or adventure-game lover of any type! At $9.99, this game is a must and easily one of the best.

If you happen to find yourself near the “credits” button, under the options menu, you might want to take a look at it. It's probably the most creative and well-done credit sequence I have seen i an iPhone app.

Pros:

• Unique game play
• Characters faces interact with each other
• Addicting game play
• A combo of Touch Physics & Lemmings = addictive

Cons:

• I can't really think of any.

Forum Review Rating

[Rolando is available from the iTunes App Store]

Hero of Sparta by msbaylor. (Visit the thread for video and more pics. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

Hero of Sparta came out a few weeks ago around the time of Brothers In Arms and it is also done by gameloft. I've come to realize that gameloft has really been putting out some awesome games and this is no exception.

Hero of Sparta brings the "Hack n' Slash" genre to the iPhone.

Note: I showed this game to one of my non-iPhone friends while at his apartment and throughout the day he played it. So his input is also included in this review. He actually ended up beating the game on Easy and then began playing on Heroic difficulty level.

Controls:

The direction you move is controlled by the "directional pad" in the bottom left-hand corner and you attack methods are controlled by "2 attack pads" in the bottom right-hand corner - shield & attack. In the top right-hand corner you can change your weapon as you progress through the levels.

The controls I found very easy to adapt to. The only problem I ran into (as well as my friend did) that after playing the game for about 30 minutes or so, the "directional pad" doesn't pickup your finger movements very well. I sometimes stopped to wipe my hands dry (as my hands began to sweat due to the heat these iPhones produce.) and began to ply again, it seemed to be fine after that, however I again seem to happen quicker into game play the longer time-ago that I restarted my iPhone. In other words I think that it has to do with the iPhone's RAM.

The different attacks and blocks are mostly dependent on the two buttons and the "directional pad" But for certain special moves, you'll have to tap buttons on the main part of the screen, if you take too long, well, you won't last much longer...

After my friend completed the Easy level and he began playing the Heroic level and he said that he didn't find any difficulty difference, however, I found it much more difficult; although, I didn't play all of the Easy level.

Throughout the game you won't just be hacking away at mythical beasts, but you will be also be dodging arrows, jumping from rock to rock, and collecting crystals. Collect 5 green crystals and you increase you life bar, collect 5 blue crystals and increase your energy bar.

Graphics/Animations:

Um, wow... at first I didn't think much of it, but after I began playing I found myself more interested in the cinematic cut-ins and the cinematic special attacks. I'll talk more on cinematics later. The graphics themselves are pretty good, not superior, but very good, as the special moves and the 3D animations make up for the lacking of "superior" effects (in my opinion). Frankly I assume that if the graphics were better, the iPhone would have troble rending the animations and eventually crash. So I guess that is just how it has to be.

In the top left-hand corner the green-bar is your health, while the blue-bar is your energy. Your energy drops as you do special attacks or moves.

Sound/Music:

Music works well for the game, I never got annoyed nor tired of it, depending on the level of difficulty, you'll have a different soundtrack. The actual sound f/x I didn’t find as impressive and somewhat of a let down. They seem to be somewhat cheesy and very repetitive. It was really the only thing that bothered me in the game. The soundtrack will stop during certain parts on the game such as cinematic cut-ins or special attacks.

Cinematics:

Cinematics is a big thing to me. And I was very impressed with the cinematics to say the least at what this iPhone game could do.

The above screen shot isn't really in the game, it's the trailer before the movie, but still, the lighting in the trailer is pretty awesome. Okay so back to the actual game...

The above image was taken shortly after I was supposed to tap certain buttons to do a special move, but failed to do so, so hence - it's me getting my butt kicked.

Again like I said, the special moves are pretty much like 3D cut-ins, but you have to do certain things in order to have them progress, I think it's one of the best things within the game.

Overall:

I highly recommend this game; it provides game play unlike any other game does in the app store - namely the cinematics. While the controls can be tricky at time, it may take some time getting used to, but it's worth it. Game play is about 5 or 6 hours for easy, and possibly a little longer on heroic (not sure haven't finished playing through it. The replay ability is high due to the fact that all the weapons you gain on Easy or Normal difficulty level, you can use in heroic level.

Pros:

• Great game play
• Awesome Cinematics
• Good Cut-ins
• Multiple weapons

Cons:

• Control Touch screen can become fickle over time.
• Sound f/x are repetative

Forum Review Rating

[Hero of Sparta is available from the iTunes App Store]

Guitar Rock Tour Forum Review by msbaylor. (Visit the thread for video and more pics. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

In the game you play a “guitar” or a “drum set” along with songs. There are a total of 17 different songs, some of which are fairly recent, but also include songs such as “Smoke on the Water.” Each song can be played within three different difficulties and of course on each instrument.

Game/ Layout & Controls:

When loading the game, it takes about 20 seconds (as all gameloft games do.) Also it takes about 15 seconds to load after selecting a song. To reply the song there is little or no wait time. After the song though, in returning to the menus, you’ll have to do a bit of waiting.

In the game there are two modes – Quick Play & Tour. In quick play you choose your difficulty, instrument and a song to play. You can only play songs that have been unlocked in Tour mode. When beginning for the first time, the first three songs are already unlocked.

In Tour mode, you create a profile (up to 3,) you select an avatar and an instrument. Then you select a place on the world map to play at. You have to play 3-5 songs to continue to the next location. As you progress across the map, you will have to replay some of the songs that you have already beat, but from what I could tell, it seemed that the note pattern was different and a little more difficult, which in the end made it better instead of repetitive.

Whether you are playing in Tour or Quick mode, the guitar and drum layouts are the same. Firstly the guitar – the screen shot above shows the guitar layout. At the bottom, you have four fret-tap-areas, so as the correlating notes come to the bottom you tap them, usually in rhythm of the song or the strumming of the guitar in the song. If a colored note has a “wavy-line” coming out of it, it means you will have to “hold-the-note,” otherwise, it’s just a simple tap.

On the left –hand side of the screen, you have, as I like to call, your death-meter – the more notes you miss the lower the meter drops, if it drops to far, then you fail the song. In the top left-hand corner, you have the “star-multiplier.” The more notes you get in a combination without messing-up, the higher the combo and thus higher your multiplier. To the right of the multiplier is your score.

On the right-hand side of the screen is you have your “pyro power” meter, through each multiplier you get, you increase your pyro power meter. It’s like the “star power” in another related game, you “flip” the switch and your current multiplier can double up to 8x. Above this meter, you have a “home” icon, this take you to the pause menu.

As for the Drum set layout:

You have four tap areas as well, but usually the cymbals (yellow notes) are normally played together. The blue notes are for the left drum and the purple notes are for the right drum. Everything else on the screen is the same, however, in order to get the pyro power, certain notes will “be on fire” and if you hit these notes, you get a “full pyro meter” to use. When using pyro power, all the notes will turn orange-yellow.

Issues in Game & Layout:

Most of the issues I had in the game had to do with this section. As you can see by the screenshots, the game is played with the iPhone held vertically. It would’ve been nice to have a horizontal mode as it is hard to hold the iPhone, but you will get used it, however, if you play with the Hard difficulty – good luck, I had trouble holding the iPhone while my fingers flew across the screen.

When you hold the iPhone, I hold mine so that I play with my thumbs, my pinkies support the bottom, my pointer finger hold the top and my other fingers cradle the under-side of the iPhone. In doing this I found it was the best way to keep from covering up the speaker. I suppose if you use headphones, this isn’t really an issue. Gameloft also added a feature that allows you to flip the iPhone 180 degrees so that the speaker is at the top. The main problem I found was that the accelerometer that is used to rotate the screen was too fickle in the optional rotation. It’s somewhat hard to explain, but basically, it just doesn’t work.

In the guitar playing area, you have to flip the switch for pyro power; however, it is extremely hard to flip it while play on any difficulty, thus messing up your multiplier. I don’t see why gameloft couldn’t have the user shake the iPhone for this or something. Another side-affect I encountered was in attempting to flip the switch; I’ve also accidentally hit the men/pause button. Coming out of pause, can be difficult as it begins without warning exactly where you left off.

The death-meter with both instrument, I thought, fell to fast when missing notes and made my overall experience when playing the drums extremely frustrating. So there is really no way to practice the song even on easy.

In the drum layout when the pyro power is on, obviously all the notes turn orange, well whether the cymbals come up together of the two drums at the same time is impossible to determine due to their color.

I found the drum set very hard to play in Easy and soon failed the song miserably

Animations:

The animations follow closely like similar games. I really like he notes and the frets that they pass over – easily identifiable. I noticed that when you taped and note or when you had to hold down a note, that the path (or I guess you could say the “string”) vibrated as if it had been strummed. You’ll notice that when playing a guitar, you’re actually playing on the neck and the body of a guitar this adds a nice touch (sorry I am a bit ignorant of guitar vocab.) The animations that play in the background a very good and I‘ve noticed that the animations, that is the avatars, move to the beat on the song. Although sometimes the drummer animation got off a bit. If you are playing on tour (and depending on what song your playing in quick mode) the background scene will change (On top of a bus in London, Concert Hall, pool party, etc). The band does stay in constant motion while you are playing and if playing in Tour mode, the avatar you have selected, is also in the animation as well. Now as for the crowd, they are just black silhouettes moving about. When you tap on a note, the note literally explodes into flames. I thought this was nice at first, but I think it is a little overdone. Overall the animations are very well done. This is a major load-bearing app.

You MUST restart your iPhone in order to play this game. I also highly recommend that you turn Airplane mode on as when my iPhone would check for e-mail, the app would lag, and I would end up failing the song…very annoying to say the least.

Sound:

Other than the song playing, you’ll have the crown cheering when you begin 50-note streaks or more and on the other hand you’ll hear boo-ing if you start to mess up. Also when playing, if you do miss a note/beat, the drum or guitar will drop out of the song also, you will hear a miss-strum or drum-hit. I found this to be a very nice touch and greatly added to the realistic nature of the game.

Overall:

The game is pretty cool. My main complaints basically had to do the way the game is laid out and how awkward it is to hold the iPhone vertically rather than playing it horizontally. The replay-ability is very high as it has 3 levels of difficulty, with each layout being different per difficulty. Having airplane mode on is nearly a requirement in this game. I however found that turning on Wifi, sometimes helped. Not sure why…maybe faster data connection? I think the little things that make this application annoying (at time) could be easily fixed. I knew I could not goive this game a 5 stars, not even 4, because I knew the main thing keeping me from playing this game was that I could not turn my phone on Airplane for extended periods during the day and also playing on the harder levels, in finding the iPhone hard to hold, made me just give up on the game. So as much as I want this game to have a higher ranking, I am giving it a 3.5/5

Pros:

• Realistic playing – miss notes/beats, correlating instrument is not heard in song.
• Good, even great animations at times
• Backgrounds change
• Avatars ‘rock’ with music
• Replay-ability is very high
• Very east to “get into the game”

Cons:

• Notes hard to detect in drum pyro mode
• Smooth-playing only in Airplane mode
• Pyro-power is really hard to turn on and can end up screwing up your score.
• Death meter falls to quickly in my opinion – no practicing the song
• Airplane mode a requirement

Forum Review Rating

[Guitar Rock Tour is available from the iTunes App Store]

[Confession: I've been a little slow in getting the usual twice-weekly Forum Reviews up, and cjvitek and msbaylor, as if sensing my slacktivity level, put their production into turbo mode. So what's an editor to do? Come up with an angle, of course! So, from now until we catch up -- or I mess up again -- we'll be presenting lots more Forum Reviews. How many more? Well, we're calling it our Holidaily Double, so howzat for a clue? - Rene]

SimCity Forum Review by msbaylor. (Visit the thread for video and more pics. For more Forum Reviews see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

My main concern before getting this application was – would it be able to handle all the animations on the screen, or would it just be an expensive crashing app? After a brief setup and I selected the tutorial, I got a white screen. I thought this was a glitch (First thought - "NO, Not the white-screen-of-death!"), but after about 15 or 20 seconds, the main Sim-screen came up and walked me through the controls and what everything meant. That alone was very nice to have - major kudos for the help explanations.

Read on for the review, after the jump!

Issues:

The first thing it caught me was – how to add roads. I immediately had problems with this, laying it exactly where it wanted me to. I felt that an offset feature would be nice, so that I could see exactly where I was laying the road instead of covering it up with my finger. I later realized I could zoom in to be more accurate, however, this might prove difficult if you want to lay down a long line of road – pave > pan > pave > pan, etc. Also if you are off when you place something, you have the ability to move it around before confirming its location (a type of “post-offset.”)

Another issue I noticed was under the help menu (not the in game help,) that the buttons are very short and a bit hard to hit if you have fat fingers.

Animations:

Other than that, the game seemed to run just fine. I like how it adjusted some of the imagery to keep from eating up too much RAM without taking away from the game play. For instance – as you zoom out, animations will stop on the structures and just become static images. If you zoom in, all the way – in, you can see you Sims in transit (vehicular movement), however the images become fuzzy and less-sharp in detail as you zoom it. This was a bit of a let down, but I guess it has to happen to keep your handy-dandy iPhone from crashing… After all if viewing one or two structures on the screen, the structures animate, i.e., smoke stack on the oil factory puffs smoke.)

Controls:

The controls are fairly intuitive, incorporating the pinch/zoom, double-tap to zoom, and other features that you would normally use in the Maps.app are implemented into the application when viewing the map.

Tutorial/Help:

If you have question regarding anything on screen, just tap the question mark in the bottom left-hand corner, then tap the area/item that you have a question about and you will be given an explanation. This app has very helpful feature if you are new to this type of game.

Display:

There is a news ticker at the bottom of the screen that alerts you to things that are going on in your Sim’s world. If it is green text, then it usually means something good or something that needs to be fixed soon. This leads me to Advisors – depending on the “news stories” that show up, you have different “advisors” That will advise you on what to do in order to make your city better.

Conclusion:

This game exceeded my expectations in how the game handles and the depth of play, however, I was a bit dismayed on how hard it has to simply lay road down and how the images deteriorated when you zoomed in (I expected more from EA on image quality). If you’re a fan of SimCity or other God-view Sim games, then you should love this game.

Pros:

• Intuitive & Familiar controls
• Numerous features
• In-depth game play
• Great help menu
• Numerous map views to help you during the game.
• Several difficulties of play.

Cons:

• Some of the menu buttons are hard to tap on.
• Laying road or other narrow landscaping accurately can be difficult & frustrating.
• Images aren’t as detailed (noticeably when zoomed into the region).

Forum Review Rating

[SimCity is available from the iTunes App Store, though some may need to search for the "international" version. iSigh.]