App Picks of the Week: Reaper, 60 Minutes, BillGuard and Gunner Z

This week's roundup of hot apps that we've found include some games, an information app based on one of the longest-running news programs on television, and a handy consumer protection tool.

Reaper: Tale of a Pale Swordsman - Joseph Keller

Reaper

Reaper is a fun, side-scrolling action game where you take on the role of the Black Swordsman venturing into the Wilderness to complete quests. There are both scripted and random battles, and you fight against a wide variety of enemies. Upgrade your Swordsman and his sword using the money and experience earned from combat. Reaper is a very colorful game with a charming art style. While free to play through the first ten character levels, Reaper does contain in-app purchases, each unlocking one of three editions of the game. The Adventure edition opens up the full game for $2.99. The Destiny edition is $3.99, adding the full game, an arena, a fortune teller, and the Destiny item set. The Dark Legend edition, for $4.99, adds everything from the first two, in addition to a Dark item set, Dark side quest, and Dark Harvest mode. Reaper is available as a universal download on the App Store.

60 Minutes - Peter Cohen

CBS' famed news program has been available on iOS for a while, but it's recently gotten a a stem to stern overhaul. New to the 3.0 release is an additional 50 "classic" 60 Minutes segments, a new Browse by Decade section, and the ability to sync bookmarks between devices using iCloud. The 60 Minutes app lets you watch each segment from each week's show, previews of next week's show, originally produced content, archived material and more.

BillGuard - Ally Kazmucha

BillGuard

I've been using BillGuard for years and it's not only given me great peace of mind when it comes to knowing my bank accounts and credit cards are safe, but it has saved me money. I've found grey charges on many of my credit cards that I was able to call and get removed, sometimes they had been accumulating for years! On one card in particular, I never would have even know about them if it wasn't for BillGuard and I ended up getting a refund of about $600! That was insane to me.

BillGuard also has excellent Passbook support so you can check your balances and recent transactions without even opening the actual BillGuard app. The newest update with support for iOS 7 brings a gorgeous new interface to BillGuard as well.

You can protect two cards with BillGuard for free. To guard 10 cards, it's only $45 a year. I saved that fee 10 times over in one year. If you have credit cards and debit cards, I strongly urge you to check out BillGuard.

Gunner Z - Chris Parsons

Gunner Z

Back in July, we got a good look at Gunner Z and now BitMonster has finally released the Zombie apocalypse styled game to the masses and it lives up to the hype for me. Built on the Unreal Engine 3, and developed by a team that used to work at Epic Games, You get to attack zombies in a number of ways, though, you have to keep in mind that these zombies aren’t exactly mindless. They’ve been trained and engineered by an enemy military force to be above and beyond killing machines.

This is what rocks our world from the App Store this week! What rocks yours? Sound off in the comments.

Peter Cohen