AppCraver » Casandra Armour

All Out of Love for Travel Karaoke

Casandra Armour — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:00:50 +0000

Lassiquendi’s Travel Karaoke and Sing-A-Long is a well-meaning app, but overly ambitious in including either “travel” or “karaoke” in the title. Both are a bit limited. I can give Travel Karaoke and Sing-A-Long some credit, though: Lassiquendi, is aware of its weaknesses and clarifies in the app’s description that it is taking steps to manage shortcomings in future versions.

Offering around 100 songs, Travel Karaoke does a fair job of including both top 40 and random fun hits like Grease’s “Summer Loving” or ABBA’s “Mamma Mia.” New songs will be added on a weekly basis as well. However, most tracks are “sing-a-longs,” the original song and artist plays, with lyrics provided line-by-line from the app. The developer notes that more strictly instrumental tunes are being added weekly to the server — a much needed improvement for a karaoke app.

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Clue: No Longer a Boring Board Game

Casandra Armour — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 18:00:08 +0000

An update of the classic Hasbro board game, Electronic Arts‘ Clue is a killer modernization of the old-fashioned who-dunnit. The pace is fast, the women are faster, the men and the weapons are cool.

Slick graphics seem to mimic the Rockstar Grand Theft Auto franchise’s signature character styling with smooth outlines, shadows and highlights. Art Deco blocks on a red and grey background slide across the screen as a simple, cool, jazz loop set adds the finishing touch to a James Bond style interface. And, that’s just Clue’s opening.

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Viva Vegas Slots! Fast-Paced, Picture Perfect, Gambling

Casandra Armour — Tue, 12 May 2009 15:30:51 +0000

With unsurpassed precision, Electron Hut’s vice city inspired Vegas Slots puts five 3-reel slot machines on the table for those who are tickled by taking a chance.

Bell Fruit, Double Jackpot, Double Jackpot 3-Line, Triple Sevens and Triple Sevens 5-Line offer an exciting selections of odds and options. The realistic casino controls are fun and quite easy to manage. The user simply shakes the iPod to bet the maximum allowance, scrolls to view the pay table.

A touch stops the reel, tap to skip payout and a drag or flick of the finger spins the individual reels (though the developer of Vegas Slots warns that’s only for fun and cheating isn’t encouraged.)

Read the rest of Viva Vegas Slots! Fast-Paced, Picture Perfect, Gambling or discover more iPhone apps.

Ouch! is Fun to Play, but Even More Fun to Set Up

Casandra Armour — Wed, 06 May 2009 01:00:52 +0000

Hondune Games’ Ouch! is a combination of merriment and masochism featuring a customizable “rag doll” character to be abused in a multitude of scenes and scenarios with realistic physics and sounds.

As you play through the scenes in Ouch!, a score is awarded based on how much damage the character has taken. The basic control of Ouch! is to utilize the tilt to guide the character into as many objects as possible, with variations such as “nudging” him into motion and interacting with prop items to create maximum damage.

“Nudges” are finger swipes across the screen, to guide him a bit in a different direction. The instructions note that some rounds will limit the number of nudges available. Impact with objects will cause your character’s body part to flash red. Don’t forget that when playing Ouch! physical damage is the goal!

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Monkey Around With Primate Plunge

Casandra Armour — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 20:00:22 +0000

Hand-drawn backgrounds provide a beautiful backdrop for a jaunty little top-hat wearing wild thing, in Aelius’ Primate Plunge. As Monkey drops through obstacles such as thorny branches or bouncy ropes, tilt and tap to guide him safely through potential peril. The screen is constantly moving so if Monkey lags on a branch for too long spikes at the top of the screen will spell disaster for our hero.

It isn’t all struggle for our simian friend. Primate Plunge offers power-ups — hearts to gain new life, parachutes, jetpacks and jumping beans to give him a boost — that can be collected and redeemed by tapping the icon in the bottom corner. A jade toned jungle leads into caustic canyons, wily waterfalls, a volatile volcano and a scary cityscape, giving Monkey bigger challenges and more intense play in later levels.

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Dummy Up Your Photos With Say What!?!

Casandra Armour — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 00:30:25 +0000

With a developer named Marmot Kilt, it has to be good. Say What!?! is a unique photo manipulation app that allows iPhone and iPod touch users to make a photo “talk,” like a ventriloquist’s dummy. Select a photo to play with, chose edit from the bottom of the screen to cut a mouth into the pic and go to settings or select random to bring it to life with quirky, funny pop culture phrases and sounds. A great set of features also allows users to import their own photos and record audio to personalize the photo fun.

The sample photos built into Say What!?! include two babies, a two fish, a cat’s face, a goat, and a frog. As well, a black and white photo of a very proper old fashioned lady in a hat with a brooch, a very “Queen Mum” sort, which was my favorite to manipulate.

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Staying Alive in Zombieville USA

Casandra Armour — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 20:00:40 +0000

The campy graphics and theme are killer in MikaMobile’s Zombieville USA. A little man in a trucker hat and a fishing vest is on a mission to kill some zombies and you, the user, are his guide. Weapon drawn, he wanders along a sidewalk of suburban scenery and scattered houses, encountering crazed zombies feverish to dig at his face, along the way.

Arrows in the bottom corners of the screen move our hero forward and back, touching the bottom of the screen fires his weapon.

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Doodle Jump Entertains By Leaps and Bounds

Casandra Armour — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 15:30:47 +0000

Doodle Jump by Lima Sky appeals to simplicity in name, game design and play. Mimicking the appearance of actual doodles on graphing paper, the sketchy-sketch of a main character dons a suspiciously Qbert-like facade. He is green instead of orange, but the upside-down U shape, armless body, little legs and trumpet-shaped nose are as uncanny as daytime soap opera “twins.”

Game play in Doodle Jump is extremely similar, the character is constantly being propelled, bouncing, from one platform to the next while avoiding obstacles and trying not to fall.

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Tap Tap Coldplay Showcases The Speed of Sound, Indeed

Casandra Armour — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 20:30:16 +0000

Tap Tap Revenge: Coldplay Edition is the hottest new partnership in the Tapulous universe, following smashes like Tap Tap Revenge 2 and Tap Tap NIN.

Whereas, in Tap Tap 2, I was blown away by the sleek, futuristic look of the orbs floating toward the tap targets, more subtle bars of light stream toward them in the Coldplay incarnation. The photo in the tutorial achingly reminds me of the platform and light effects when a character teleports in old-school, William-Shatner-era, Star Trek episodes.

The newly softened effects also include band photos that float through the background, viewed as if through an aquarium. All are fair changes to soften and refine the game to accommodate the energy and style of a band like Coldplay.

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TopVideo Sounds Good, but Misses The Point

Casandra Armour — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 23:00:27 +0000

TopVideo by Akinwale Ariwodola is a an application that aims to provide the user with the most popular videos from sites like YouTube and more.

However, TopVideo doesn’t truly provide videos, plural. It offers one video in each of five categories: New, This Hour, Today, This Week, This Month. I certainly expected to be offered even the top five or ten for each one of those categories. In particular since, on a day like today, the most popular video for New, This Hour and Today were all the same.

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