Fly-flap is a game where you must clear away the flies.  To get rid of a fly you need to tap on it.  Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it?  In the beginning it is.  As the game progresses, though, the flies get faster.  Also, you’ll get introduced to the bug, which can cause a big stink if you accidentally click on it.  There’s even a spider which is actually a good thing, because you can drag a fly into the spider’s mouth for bonus points.  Of course, this temporarily distracts you from the rest of the board, but it’s amusing!  When you successfully tap a fly it will release a bubble which you can click for bonus points as well.  Be wary, though, because if you accidentally tap an empty spot on the screen the meter on the left will go down, and when it’s empty the game is over.

Here Comes The Spider

There are actually two modes to Fly-Flap: Campaign and Arcade.  Arcade mode simply walks you through a series of levels, each one more hectic than the last.  You have to tap a certain number of flies on each level, and if you miss too many before reaching your quota you lose and have to start over.  In Campaign mode there are a series of levels that each has a goal, like needing to feed a certain amount of spiders or trying to dodge bugs for a certain length of time.  The campaign mode is a lot of fun, but sadly there are only 10 levels in this mode.  Once you’ve beaten a level in campaign mode you can keep retrying that level to better your score, but I hope at some point they consider adding a bunch of levels to this mode, even if it’s through downloadable content.

To help (or hinder) your progress there are several bonuses.  On the good side you get anti-fly spray, which lets you swipe to kill multiple flies at once instead of tapping.  A horn will clear the screen of all flies, and “blinding” temporarily dazes the flies, making them easy to hit.  These bonuses can be collected and used when you choose.  There’s also a bonus that slows the flies down, and this gets applied automatically when you tap it.  On the down side there’s double trouble, which swarms the screen with flies.  There’s also a bonus that makes the flies go faster, and one that causes you to see double (or triple, even), making it hard to decide which is the right fly to hit.  Despite the difficulties it causes, I actually like this negative bonus in concept.

Dazed And Confused

The visuals in Fly-flap are great.  These flies are not your average, wimpy garden variety flies, but rather bulbous, sarcastic looking beasts that like to stick their tongues out at you and grin with these conniving, crooked toothed grins.   I also love the look of the spider as he’s eating a fly.  There’s no question that the animation is quality.  They also did a good job with the backdrops, giving them a cartoon look that fits the whole atmosphere of the game.  The sound effects also work quite well.  The “num num num” of a feasting spider cracks me up, as well as the less than energetic “yea” emitted any time you score a bonus item.  The thing that sticks out the most, though, is when I died with a screen full of laughing flies (around level 13 on arcade mode).  Talk about an eerie sensation.  As for the music, well, let’s just say that it doesn’t even come close to the quality of the rest of the aesthetics.  In fact, I spent about 10 minutes listening to it while working on something else, and I don’t think I’d care to ever listen to it again.

Fly-Flap is a lot of fun.  It’s a simple concept that’s executed well, and it’s amusing to watch and listen to.  I do hope they consider adding more campaign levels, and that background music has got to go, but otherwise there is plenty to like here.  This is the kind of game that mobile devices were made for, and it’s definitely earned it’s place on mine.

Final Verdict: Recommended
App Store Link
App Shopper Link

[All About Quick Looks]

Boardwalk Games is comprised of 3 mini-games: Balloon Safari, Tiki Toss and Spill Da Milk.  Balloon Safari is definitely the most diverse of the three games, but is actually my least favorite, just because the controls are a bit off compared to the other ones.  I’m sure it’s because they are trying to accurately simulate the flight of the darts, but it drives me nuts.  In other words, I’m no good at it.  At any rate, no matter which game you pick the control scheme is roughly the same.  You press on the object you wish you throw and drag it around the screen.  When the targeting circle encompasses the object you wish to hit you let go of the screen.  There almost always seems to be a little bit of variance between where you thought you let go and where the object actually flies, but this is most noticeable when it comes to Balloon Safari.  Also, if you have any kind of covering that makes the bottom edge of your device a little “fatter”, you might find it somewhat challenging to hit the bottom row of Tikis in Tiki Toss.

Spill Da Milk

Each game has two modes.  Quick Play mode for any of the games is basically a “score as many points as you can until time runs out” mode.  Personally, I’m not a big fan of this mode no matter which game you’re talking about.  I like the Progressive mode.  For Tiki Toss and Spill Da Milk, each level of progressive mode requires you to score a certain number of points within a time limit in order to progress to the next level.  In Tiki Toss a randomly selected Tiki will become the “bonus points” Tiki for a few seconds, and this job will continually rotate as time wears down.  It’s in your best interest to hit as many bonus point Tikis as you can.  In Spill Da Milk you occasionally get a brown colored milk bottle, which gives you some extra time, or a green colored bottle, which awards you extra points.  Spill Da Milk has an extra little caveat in that even if you’ve knocked all the bottles down at a particular table, the table won’t be reloaded until all the bottles have actually rolled off the table.

When playing in Progressive mode for Balloon Safari it’s like playing 3 mini-games within a mini-game.  In the first level you simply need to score as many points as you can by popping balloons.  In level 2 you must pop groups of balloons in order to get points.  For example, if the first balloon you pop is red, you must pop another red balloon in order to get any score for that sequence. A missed shot will not break the sequence, but hitting a different colored balloon will.  The final level for each set is a matching game, as each balloon on the board has a picture of an animal behind it.  Every time you match two animals correctly all the rest of the pictures that are left will be shown briefly.  If at all possible, the best course is to find one pair during that brief reveal so that you can keep progressing in the level.  You’ll keep cycling through these three types of levels until you fail to complete one.

The Tiki, Tiki, Tiki, Tiki, Tiki Room

All of the games look good graphically, but I’d say my favorite is the Tiki Toss.  Each of the Tikis is animated when they are selected as the bonus points tiki, whether it entails them sticking out their tongue or having their eyes glow.  Plus, I like how the shelves rock and the cloth flap behind the tikis ripples when you hit it.  Spill Da Milk is kind of plain (how much can you do with Milk bottles?) though I do really like the backdrop which has a couple of cows that look like they are suffering from the Tom & Jerry version of mad cow disease.  The Balloon Safari is okay, but nothing in that game really sticks out as being nifty.

I’m really impressed with the sound effects in this game.  From the clank of the milk bottles to the popping of balloons, everything sounds authentic.  The one that gets me the most, however, is Tiki Toss.  Hitting a tiki sounds different than hitting a shelf, which also sounds different than hitting the backdrop.  A lot of times in games like this they tend to skimp on such distinctions, but the attention to detail here adds greatly to the authenticity of the game.  If you closed your eyes, you could almost picture yourself actually being at a fair.  All we need is the smell of funnel cakes and some hollering “step right up!”  The music is also very well done.  The music that plays while you’re “wandering the boardwalk” makes you feel like you’re trudging around a carnival, though it could use the sound of a roller coaster to be complete.  Each of the games has their own track as well, which is actually kind of unusual for a Skyworks game, and is greatly appreciated.

Overall I’d have to say that Boardwalk Games is one of my favorite Skyworks games.  The attention to detail, especially when it comes to sound, is some of the best I’ve seen from them.  The mini-games are fun, and it’s a challenge to try and find ways to better your score every time you play.  There’s even a secret spot on each game that you can hit to increase your time by ten seconds.  Little touches like that tend to impress me.  I will probably still never plop down $10 to try and knock down milk cans in real life, but don’t be surprised if you find me testing my luck on this virtual boardwalk every now and again.

Final Verdict: Recommended
App Store Link
App Shopper Link

[All About Quick Looks]

IO

This is one of those typical sci-fi scenarios – ship lost at space, crew has vanished, what happened?  It’s up to you to find out and bring the ship safely home.  You can rest assured that if something like this ever became a reality I would not be in charge – or anywhere near – the rescue crew, because I would just add to the mystery.  I have as yet to make it past the second bad guy in this game, and after I’m finished with this review I will be more than happy to delete IO from my device and never try again.  I think there is a lot of potential here – a nice “rails” platform game that still has a sense of depth, hidden areas in multiple layers of the ship, a cool atmosphere.  All the makings for a deep space thriller are there.

Isn't He From Robocop?

Unfortunately, the game is just too difficult.  On top of that, small things in the interface just bug me, like the fact that the toggle button for running, walking and crouching is a bit flaky.  Also, as I found out the hard way, if you try to select a gun you don’t own yet, it unselects your previous gun, leaving you unarmed.  Shooting doesn’t seem entirely accurate either, which is somewhat essential for a game like this.  You’re supposed to tap on the screen where you want to shoot, but I think the pseudo 3D nature of the levels confuses the targeting sometimes, and you can be standing right next to a guy and tapping on him, yet you aren’t actually hitting him.  It gets quite frustrating after a while.

Visually IO is okay.  The actual playing field is only about one third of the full screen, so the graphics aren’t overly detailed.  The background colors are kind of muddled to give the game an ominous atmosphere, but in the end they just look muddled.  I do like how foreground objects and things that can be interacted with are more colorful to stand out, but that has a mixed effect of almost making things feel cartoonish.  The sound effects are pretty basic sci-fi affair, and there is no music, which I think is absolutely essential for a game like this.  In the end, though, sloppy controls and insane difficulty are IO’s downfall.  Fix those two things, and this could be a decent platform game.

Final Verdict: Not Recommended
App Store Link

Zingles

I’m not really sure what the name Zingles means, but basically this is another variation on Sudoku.  Sudoku is a game of logic and numbers.  The standard version uses the numbers 1 through 9, and the object is to fill the board such that each row and each column contains the numbers 1 through 9, and each 3×3 grid within the board also contains the numbers 1 through 9.  It sounds a bit odd, but once you actually play it the game can be a blast, and it can certainly tax your reasoning skills.

Well, It's Sudoku

My general philosophy about electronic Sudoku has been “Sudoku is Sudoku, and it’s all about the interface”.  Well it turns out that Zingles challenges that philosophy by actually presenting variations on the game.  You can play on a nice selection of board sizes, ranging from 4×4 (definitely designed for kids) all the way to 16×16 (requires the use of the letters A-G in addition to numbers).  There are also two variants called Jigsaw and Killer, but sadly the game has no instructions, so I’m not sure what’s different about these modes, though looking at them tells me they are different.  To fill a square you double tap it and select the number or letter that you want in that square.  To take notes you select a square and then tap the pencil icon, and whatever letters / numbers you tap will show up in the square as suggestions and not your final answer.  There are a couple of other icons as well, but without some help I’m not really sure what they do.

Visually the game looks fine, though there is nothing exciting about the graphical scheme.  The numbers and letters are easy to read, even on the 16×16 grid.  There is no music or sound effects, but thankfully the game supports letting you listen to your own music.  I give Zingles a shaky recommendation.  I’ve seen better interfaces on electronic versions of Sudoku, but I like the fact that there are multiple board sizes.  A game having no help is a big turn off for me, though, especially when there are modes that don’t appear in most versions of a game that I’d like to know how to play.  Still, there’s some nice variety here, and the smaller board sizes are a great way to introduce the game to your children.

Final Verdict: Recommended
App Store Link

Potpourrii

I love match 3 games, so I really thought I’d enjoy Potpourrii.  The first couple of times I tried it, however, I just didn’t get it.  Turns out that was the problem – I just didn’t get it.  Revisiting the game after all this time I realize that it’s actually a nice match 3 game with a twist, and it’s quite fun.  The playing field is a pool that contains spirits floating in it which represent the seasons.  To remove a spirit from the pool you must shoot it with a spirit from the previous season (ex: spring spirits remove summer spirits).  If the pool gets too crowded the spirits will get stuck, and if they can’t move for 5 seconds you lose a life.  When all lives are gone the game is over.  Spirits will continually be generated from four points along the pool, one for each of the seasons.  If a spirit stays queued up too long it will be launched automatically, which can result in less than desirable circumstances.

Well Done In Winter

To launch the spirits yourself you take control of a cannon that rotates 360 degrees around the pool.  Moving the cannon simply requires you to turn a wheel in the lower left corner of the screen.  Once the cannon is positioned in front of a spirit spawning point you can pick up the spirit by pressing the lower right corner of the screen.  Then you position the cannon where you’d like and press the lower right corner again to fire.  There are also supposed to be bombs that you can drag and drop to use, but so far I haven’t run across any of those yet.

The graphics in Potpourrii are both cool and functional.  There are nice little details, such as leaves floating in the pool during the fall and ducks swimming in the summer.  The spirits and gnomes look pretty neat as well, as does the little warlock in the upper left corner.  Even though he’s the evil guy, he’s actually kind of amusing, much like Gargamel from the Smurfs.  The sound effects fit the game quite well, and love the sounds of joy from the gnomes when you clear a level.  The music is okay, but I actually like the little riff that introduces a level better than the music that plays throughout the level.  If you haven’t had the opportunity to try Potpourrii yet, I highly suggest you give it a whirl.  This is one of those oldies but goodies.

Final Verdict: Recommended
App Store Link

That wraps it up for this week. Hopefully it was still Saturday somewhere when I posted this, but if not, oh well. I’m not sure what’s on tap for next week yet, but we’ll all know by the time I get it posted next week, won’t we?

In Tilt To Live you control a small white ship – or a triangle with flames coming out of it, depending on how you want to look at things.  The little area you call home is being overrun by viscous red dots, and your sole purpose is to avoid them as long as you can before being overcome.  Well, okay, that’s not really true.  Your job is to take as many of them down with you as you possibly can.  To do that you will be provided with randomly generated pickups that unleash weapons of mass destruction upon the unsuspecting dots.  Maybe the U.S. military should have looked here first.  The down side is that weapons get activated the moment you collide with them.  The plus side is that they are a whole lot of fun to use!

Here Comes The Ice...

So what are these weapons I speak of?  The base arsenal comes in three flavors: pink, yellow and red.  The pink weapon is some kind of burst that can do a whole lot of damage.  Unfortunately it takes a couple of seconds to charge once activated, and it must be aimed.  Just make sure you don’t turn the wrong way at the last moment.  Next are the guided “missiles” which take out a few bad guys and sound like insane fireworks.  Finally you have the little nuclear explosion that disintegrates anything that comes into contact with the cloud.  This is great to get rid of a lot of dots in close range, but not effective for much else.  The first unlockable is an ice weapon, which again has limited effectiveness except for close range, but it looks way cool.  Keep in mind that frozen dots are NOT dead dots, however.  Just a friendly tip from your less than expert triangle flier.  There are other nifty gadgets to be unleashed as well, which I’d report on if I could actually unlock them, but I’m not very good at the game (I got to use some of them in the preview build, but my mind forgets easily).

The game is simple to control.  You tilt the device.  For those that haven’t caught on yet, that’s where the title Tilt To Live comes from.  You tilt… to live.  Pretty creative, huh?  I will say that I found their calibration menu, “Assume The Position”, somewhat amusing the first time I saw it.  Why?  I don’t really know.  I guess I’m just easily amused.  Whatever the case, you have default positions of “standard”, “top-down” and “sleepy”, and of course you can self-calibrate if you like.  And please, get your minds out of the gutter.  Before I leave the gameplay section I’d like to briefly mention the achievement system as well.  Normally I don’t necessarily care about such things, unless there’s nothing else in the game that interests me.  However, I find the achievements in Tilt To Live quite humorous.  It doesn’t hurt that several of those achievements are unlocking new weapons as well, which makes it all worth it.

And Now For Some Lightning

To say the graphics are simple does the game a disservice.  I mean sure the villains are red dots.  Your space ship looks like the top view of a paper airplane with a little flame coming out of it.  But all the effects are so cool.  I dare you not to be impressed the first time you unleash the ice weapon.  When a bunch of dots get together to form a large red arrow that points at you – pure Tom & Jerry.  Let’s not forget the swirling green backdrop either.  You rebels from the 60’s will appreciate that.  The sound effects are pretty decent as well, which is often not the case for more casual games like this.  I especially like the sounds associated with the missile and ice weapons.  The music steals the show as far as audio is concerned, though.  I think I said it in my preview, but I’ll say it again anyway.  The music reminds me of a blend of The Mask and Ratatouille, with just a hint of Danny Elfman thrown in.  It’s only one song, but it never gets old.  I suppose it could just be that I die rather quickly, though.

If you only by one “dodge ‘em all” game this year, make it Tilt To Live.  If you plan on buying more than one, make sure this is one of the ones you buy.  If you weren’t planning on buying any, you should really reevaluate your purchasing system and buy this one.  Did I mention you should buy this?  Anyway, I’m not going to restate the reasons why here – you can reread the rest of the review for that.  I’m just going to go back to playing now.

Final Verdict: Recommended
App Store Link
App Shopper Link

[All About Quick Looks]

The 99 cent Smorgasbord

This group of titles has nothing to do with each other except for the fact that I picked them all up for 99 cents.  Now, I know you’re thinking “aren’t pretty much all games 99 cents?”  True, but at least one of these was just that price for the sake of a sale.  Speaking of which, our first game is…

Cake Mania 3

I played Cake Mania and its expansion on the Palm, I played Cake Mania on my DS, and now I’m playing Cake Mania 3 on my iPhone.  The irony is that aside from visual face lifts and a few added amenities, the games are virtually the same from one outing to the next.  That doesn’t seem to matter to me, however, as I sat down to play two or three days (in game time) just for the sake of playing and now find myself having almost completed the first of 5 story arcs.  For those who haven’t sampled the goodness, the basic idea is that you run a series of bakeries, and each day you have a target amount of money to earn by baking cakes and making customers happy.  The keys to winning are making smart choices about what to upgrade and learning how to handle certain customer types (make sure you serve the more impatient ones first).  One thing I appreciate about the iPhone version of Cake Mania – that I actually thought at first would annoy me – is that when you click certain items like the oven or frosting machine you get an enlarged version of the object.  This makes it easier to select the right cake to bake or frosting color to use.

This Cake Is Done!

Graphically I think Cake Mania 3 is the best yet in the series.  The characters are much more interesting this time around, and I’ve only visited the first time zone.  You’ll encounter everyone from the hunchback to Napoleon, and their facial expressions as they get impatient are wonderful.  Each person even has their own type of money bag that they leave.  Aside from the sounds / voices that go with the characters themselves, which of course are new to match the diverse range of characters, all the other effects sound like they are recycled from previous games.  That’s okay, though, because they still work well and help the atmosphere come to life.  The music is decent but inconsequential, as things are so hectic in the later levels you’ll notice the music is there but won’t really be listening to it.  Now if you’ll excuse me, Napoleon is waiting impatiently for his heart shaped cake with plaid frosting.

Final Verdict: Recommended
App Store Link

Catacombs

When I saw the video of this game, which is basically a modernized Gauntlet, I knew it was going on my list of games to have.  When I saw that it was being released for 99 cents, it was an immediate purchase.  I’m not disappointed at all.  You can choose between a warrior, wizard and archer, each of which has a slightly different main attack in terms of speed and strength, and each of which has their own special attack.  The base game comes with 24 levels of dungeon crawling fun, and there is also an in-app purchase that will give you an extra 24 levels of frolicking (I mean slaying) in the forest.  Catacombs uses the dual stick method of one control for moving and another for attacking, both allowing 360 degrees of freedom.  The controls suit this type of game quite well.  I’m a bit sad that they chose to go with limited reuse bad guy spawners (in Gauntlet the spawners wouldn’t stop churning out nasties until you destroyed them), but I’m thankful that they also left out the ability to accidentally shoot food and treasure.  Overall they’ve done a great job in recreating one of the original and still one of the best mindless hack-n-slash games.

Did We Interrupt Your Dinner?

Graphically, Catacombs is quite nice.  The creatures look really good, and your characters aren’t actually too shabby, which is a hard thing to do in a top down perspective game.  There are plenty of details all around, whether it’s a glowing torch on the wall, cracks in the floor or a table complete with tablecloth and settings for an obviously disrupted dinner party.  The sound effects are nothing special, but they all serve their purpose and nothing sounds out of place.  And at least each of the creatures makes a different noise when you’re inflicting pain upon it.  The music sounds good and has a bit of an epic feel to it.  In general Catacombs is an fun game that’s easy to get into, but I definitely recommend it if you’re an old-schooler who enjoys the likes of Gauntlet and other such games.

Final Verdict: Recommended
App Store Link

Devil Invasion

There are two major ways to vary a successful style of game and make it your own: change the theme or alter the mechanics.  Devil Invasion does a bit of both to create a goofy yet likeable game.  This is a castle defense game, but you defend your castle by playing match 3.  It’s been done before, but so far I think this is my favorite interpretation.  The premise appears to be that some weird alien like creatures are invading your territory, and you must stop them.  Along the way you can buy and upgrade skills to help in your attack, and the skills get powered by matching certain colored gems on the board.  There are also attack tiles that will do direct damage when matched, and money tiles that will earn you gold to buy skills.  The main down side is that you can only earn gold by matching money tiles, so you have to make sure that in your haste to slay monsters you’re also trying to gather some loot.  As monsters get tougher and attack in larger quantities you’re going to want some strong skills.  The match 3 board also uses hexagons instead of squares, which is a nice change of pace.

It's Fire Time!

The graphics are really good, though some might argue in a quirky sort of way.  Visually it almost feels like the game should be called Doodle Devil Invasion.  That would probably sound a bit childish, though.  Unfortunately you don’t get too much time to admire the varied array of creatures as you’ll be spending most of your time staring at the match 3 board.  That looks pretty good too, by the way.  I do like how they render a tag above the playing field with a small animation when either you’re casting a spell or a critter has let loose the final blow to one of your towers.  The sound effects are good and the creatures all sound different, which is definitely a plus.  Even if you can’t watch the attack you know what’s happening by the sounds.  The music is also very well done.  Devil Invasion is very polished aesthetically.

Final Verdict: Recommended
App Store Link

Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed this Saturday’s summary of some of what I’ve been playing this week.  Next week we’ll take a look at some of the lesser known Chillingo / Clickgamer titles.

Slug Wars is one of those games where you start at one side of the screen, the opponent starts at the other, and the goal is to get a certain number of troops over to your opponent’s side of the screen.  In this case the magic number is three.  It doesn’t seem like a very daunting task, except for the fact that it seems to be one of those deals where it’s not going to happen unless you get that one line that’s configured in just the right order to keep the opponent at bay.  Then, it seems like there’s no stopping it.  There doesn’t appear to be a middle ground where you get 1 guy in over here and another guy in over there.  And when you’re on the receiving end of that attack where the opponents are so close together you can’t squeeze a troop in between attackers, you pretty much just sit back and watch your team lose.  At least with most strategy games you can crank troops out until the bitter end, even though some of them might not actually make it out onto the field before you’ve been conquered.

Slugs Get Thirsty Too

So how do you place troops into battle?  It’s simple: you just press the row where you want the troop to go.  Assuming you have enough money the troop will be placed and start slithering its way towards the opponent’s side.  There have been a couple of times where I’ve been unable to place a troop for no apparent reason, but there’s nothing to indicate that you can only have a certain number of troops out at once.  In fact, the help is quite basic.  It simply explains how to place a troop and what you need in order to win.  It doesn’t elaborate on the different troop types or on the different game play modes.  When a slug is killed a flower appears in its place.  Your slugs have to eat the flowers in order to gain money to buy more slugs.  It’s like some weird form of recycling.  Basically you just keep placing troops on the tracks until you run out of either space or money, then wait for some fighting to commence, then repeat.  It’s kind of fun for a while, but then it just gets monotonous, especially with the lack of a fast forward button.

There are three different modes: campaign, skirmish and slug-it-out.  Slug-it-out is two humans on the same device, which means picking someone you’re not afraid of being close to, since this is a real time game.  Skirmish mode was pretty much senseless, because you start off with way too much money and after a while it doesn’t feel like it’s ever possible for there to be a winner.  Campaign mode offers a series of small levels, at least in the sense that they take less time than Skirmish mode.  The problem here is that other than a label saying “Level X” for whatever level you’re on, there’s really nothing tying the levels together.  A story with some cut scenes would be nice.  Of course, it would also be nice if there were some point to the levels besides just “get to the other side”.  The one nice thing about Campaign mode is this is where you can unlock additional troop types, since you only start out with two.

The game starts out with a basic “foot” soldier and a bazooka soldier.  The grunts are cheap and fast, but they have to be right up against the enemy to do any damage.  The bazooka soldier is slower, but can shoot the enemies from somewhat of a distance.  So far I’ve managed to unlock the Kamikaze slug, which destroys itself and its opponent in one fell swoop by pouring salt on both of them.  As an added bonus it leaves a pile of salt that blocks both sides until it has disappeared.  Unfortunately I haven’t seen the other unit types yet, because it seems they’ve been pretty creative with design of the units.  The game just hasn’t held my interest enough to keep pursing it.

Gotta Love The Salt Shaker

Slug Wars is aesthetically pleasing.  Each unit has its own personality visually, and the units have a distinct cry when you unleash them on the playing field.  The actual combat noises are pretty standard, though it is kind of amusing hearing a salt shaker when the Kamikaze attacks.  The slugs also make a weird squishy / watery noise when they bite the bullet.  It almost sounds like they are dissolving into a pile of goop.  Sadly, there is no music playing in the background during combat.

I think Slug Wars has a lot of potential.  It was nice to see a strategy game centering around creepy crawling creatures that wasn’t a Scorched Earth clone.  Plus, the unit types were interesting (while there were a couple that I didn’t get the chance to use yet, they looked cool).  As the game stands right now, though, it just isn’t that interesting.  The campaign mode somehow needs some variety.  I think a fast forward button might help a bit as well, though that could ultimately interfere with the game play.  Slug Wars just needs something to pick up the pace a bit.

Final Verdict: Not Recommended
App Store Link
App Shopper Link

[All About Quick Looks]

In Meltdown you play Emgee, a maintenance droid for nuclear power plants.  Your job is to travel through a series of plants, deactivating each of 5 reactors within a given plant to ensure that the plant doesn’t go into meltdown.  To deactivate a reactor you must press all the red switches that exist in the reactor.  The task is simple, but the execution can certainly prove to be a challenge.  Each level is timed, and your only respite to the timer are cooling rods that you pick up in some levels, though these rods only add 5 seconds to your time.  You also earn a rod for each reactor you successfully shut down in a plant, and these rods can be used in subsequent plants.  Rods found within a level can be used in the plant you’re currently working on.  The down to the rods is that they are automatically used when your time runs out, so if you’re on a level you know you aren’t going to complete anyway – too bad.  That’s one caveat I wish they would have changed from the PocketPC version.

Give It Some Thurst

Besides the time limit, timing plays a major factor in Meltdown.  Emgee is in constant motion, and the only thing that can change his direction is colliding with something.  While you can’t directly affect his left / right movement, you can provide him with some upward mobility.  Emgee can jump, and when he’s already in the air he can use a jetpack to get some additional lift.  Both of these actions are initiated by pressing the screen, and the longer you hold the more powerful each action becomes.  Keep in mind that the jetpack can only be activated while you’re in the air, however, so if you start the meter with the intention of using the jetpack but don’t let go until Emgee touches the ground, you’ll simply jump instead.  It’s also important to remember that just because you can fill the meter, it doesn’t mean you should.  Learning how to judge jumping / jetpack strength will be key to solving a lot of these levels.

You didn’t think that would be all that’s standing in your way, did you?  In the beginning you can flip the red switches in any order you want.  As you get further along in the game, however, you must start flipping switches in a particular order.  Additionally, there are electric barriers that must be deactivated, pools of reactor coolant that must be jumped, and nuclear gremlins that can’t wait to take a byte out of your circuitry (sorry, had to be punny there).  It certainly won’t be a breeze walking through some of the later levels in this game, but what fun is a game without any challenge, right?

Gremlins Are Everywhere

Meltdown has very nice graphics if you look in the background.  The foreground layer is actually kind of blah, but there are some nice details in the parallax levels scrolling behind you.  Emgee himself is pretty cool looking, and I still think he’d make a great mascot.  The nuclear gremlins aren’t too shabby either.  The sound effects compliment the atmosphere perfectly.  I especially like the voice of Emgee, though I wish he’d say more.  The music has a nice rock beat to it which fits perfectly with the frantic pace of the game.

I was happy to see Meltdown finally get ported to the iPhone, and I’m not disappointed at all by the translation after having spent some time with it.  There’s plenty of challenge as you progress through the plants, and it amazes me how they can make such a playable game with basically one button for control.  There are two difficulty settings that determine how many reactors you must deactivate to save a plant, and Crystal integration gives you a bunch of nice achievements to work towards.  Meltdown is certainly worth adding to your iPhone collection.

Final Verdict: Recommended
App Store Link
App Shopper Link

[All About Quick Looks]

What I have come to enjoy recently are energy bars. Not just any energy bars but energy bars that are all natural, contains no fillers or man made additives. I am referring to the NATURAL plus ENERGY bars which are really tasty and convenient to carry. These are energy bars that contain only the RAW ingredients listed for example:

Almond bar contains:

• Almond
• Honey
• Orange blossom water
• Lemon juice

There are 8 different flavours available.

When I first tried one I was truly amazed at how great the bar tasted, especially when the nuts are RAW. The company that manufactures these bars understand that RAW food contains the highest level of nutrients and the conbination of the ingredients makes each bar really tasty. I really like the almond, pecan, cranberry and the granola bars.

These bars are great for those days when I am hungry between meals or I am looking for a late night snack to munch on. These bars are made in Canada and currently available in some markets in Canada and the US. If you cannot find these bars locally, you can go to www.naturalenergy.han-d-solutions.com.

The energy bars are small like most mobile devices and easy to put in your pocket or carry case. As with many of us that utilize mobile devices on the road, it is a good idea to carry with you an energy bar too for those times when a good sit down meal is not readily available. Be careful when you are looking to buy just any energy bar though.

Many bars contain:

• salt
• preservatives
• additives
• man made sweeteners
• fillers

These bars are pretty much “what you see is what you get” with none of the above ingredients.

NATURAL plus ENERGY bars

After the initial launch of the BlackBerry version of BugMe!, the company began work on the next version in response to user requests. The most significant new features include:

 *       Reminder Alerts (nags) for notes so they will repeatedly alert you until acknowledged.

*       The ability to schedule BugMe! alarms on a monthly basis – both on the same day of each month and “First Tuesday” style.

*       Alarms set to repeat on a recurring basis will now display their next scheduled alert time.

*       The option to set a snooze time, which is ideal for those who use BugMe! to wake them up or who may not be able to act on an alert right when it sounds.

*       A daily email summary of notes with alarms for the next 24 hours.

*       Auto-backup of notes to SD card (if present).

*       Automatically checks for app updates, with a link to download the latest version.

For well over a decade, PDA and smartphone users have been using BugMe! to create notes and set reminder alarms to keep them on-task and on-time. BugMe! for BlackBerry makes it easy to quickly jot notes, ideas and tasks on-the-go and set any note as a reminder. BugMe! will automatically sound an alarm and pop-up an alert at the exact moment a reminder is needed.

BugMe! for BlackBerry is available for US$4.99 at BugMe.net.

About Electric Pocket Limited

Electric Pocket is a privately held company offering leading-edge mobile and wireless computing solutions and services from its base in the Wye Valley, UK. The company’s product portfolio includes a rich set of wireless media and messaging applications and solutions. For more information, visit www.electricpocket.com.

Sometimes if you are lucky, you might get a close up shot of a snow clump in focus in front of the lens with the rest of the image out of focus. This is a very hard shot to take but can be exciting when you do capture one and edit the image for maximum impact.

Here are the details of the image:

F-stop: f/3.2

Exposure time: 1/850 second

ISO speed: ISO-400

Both images do not really convey how hard it is actually snowing outside. To make these images a little more interesting I decided to enhance them using Photoshop CS2. Below are the enhanced versions.

Photoshop Menu Option: Filter/Brush Strkes/Sumi-e

Sumi-e Option:

Strke Width – 3

Stroke Pressure - 3

Contrast – 0

Now the scenic image looks as if it was taken through a frozen window.

Photshop Menu Option: Filter/Distort/Glass

Distortion – 4

Smoothness – 6

Texture – Frosted

Scaling – 100%

As you can see with these examples, you can take an ordinary image and add some impact using Photoshop or some other photo editing tool that has some interesting effects included.