Manufacturer’s Description

Sleek and minimalist, the iPhonic offers smooth and superior sound quality, adding a new audio dimension to your device. The compact speaker dock doubles as a recharge station ensuring your iPhone or iPod is always fully juiced. Lightweight and easy to use, the iPhonic can also be used with other audio players

Our Review

When using this device you realise that the manufacturers spent alot of time thinking about the rounded, hitech design elements. It is exactly how described “Sleek, Minimalist and Smooth”, offering consumers  a practical charging solution for their iphones and ipods. The speaker quality is not as superior as the previously reviewed Edifier unit however it still packs a punch and stands out above many of its competitors.

• Compact & stylish minimalist design
• Rich, vibrant sound that takes your iPhone or iPod audio to another level
• Plays music, but also recharges your device
• Allows hands-free use of your iPhone or iPod
• Features auxiliary jack for use with other MP3 players
• 2 year manufacturer’s warranty
• Compatible with: All iPhones, iPod Nano all generations, iPod Touch all generations, iPod Classic all generations, iPod Video all generations, iPod Shuffle all generations, all MP3 players

When using the iPhonic unit I noticed a couple of flaws;
1) The manufacturer boasts handsfree use of your iphone or ipod yet there is no remote control with this device.
2) On a few occasions when placing my iPhone onto the device my playlist started to play automatically. (This scared the living day lights out of me one night at 2am let me tell you!)

All in all the iPhonic dock resembles many other well thought out docking stations. If you are looking for a device that looks the part then at approximately £45 to £50 you cannot go wrong.

My Score: 80 /100

If you wish to buy the Cygnett iPhone you can purchase it through us by visiting the below;

Thank you for supporting the We Do Network.
Regards, Stephen Joell-Ireland

Did you ever wonder what it would be like to be fat? Well they’ve only gone and made an app for it haven’t they! Fat Booth is a fantastic little application that magically transforms you into a Rick Waller impersonator. It really is a fantastic piece of kit which is well worth your time and your money. It’s only cheap at 59p also! If you have any funny photo’s using Fat Booth why not share links to the images in the comments section!

Not so much a game as an absolute hilarious application that is for the iPhone – we couldn’t help but take a look at this one. The game distinctly changes your age and makes you look as if you have had 60 cigarettes a day for 30 years and discovered an addiction for alcohol. The game nets in at 65p which is an absolute bargain – but do not expect it to sit within your apps as a much used product, we found it rather boring after a while. Check our video review below;

Ice cream, ice cream! – If a fortune teller came up to me and told me that Bitmap Brothers iconic classic Speedball 2 was finally going to get a remake that did the original justice and that that would happen on the iPhone and iPad, I would have murdered his children and told the police that he was an imposter fortune teller. Within hours he would have been kicked off the boardwalk at Brighton beach and he’d be mourning the next week because his two sons were bludgeoned by a big metal ball bearing reminiscent of the very game has predicted to prophecised about. The reality is the fortune teller was right – his name was Nostradamus! With that rather decrepid analogy aside I hope it diecasts your brain into believing that great things can actually happen on the Apple platform and with the culmination of Tower Games, Vivid Studios and Bitmap Brothers coming together to see this game good – it is little surprise to see why Speedball 2: Evolution is the best incarnation of the game since it was released in it’s heyday.

For the benefit of those whom have never played the game before – Speedball 2: Evolution is basically a blood sport which uses similar rules to Handball, except its choc-loaded full of combat and that the scoring system is a milion times better. For each goal you score you are awarded 10 points but on the side of the arena there are multiplyer lock-in wheels which increase the score by an additional five points for every ball you lock in – essentially you can end up scoring 20 points per goal scored. This doesn’t sound particularly special – but throw in a scenario that at half time you are 52-34 down all of a sudden your tactics will change immensely – lock in two balls and score one goal and win – or try and beat an inform keeper and score two goals, you do the math!

That isn’t where all the points come from either, you have two button areas which if hit with the ball will give you two points and also on the side of the arena again there are stars which can be lit up to award you more points too – so it’s not all about scoring goals. There are two different modes in Speedball 2: Evolution, you have Career Mode which basically throws the league and cup system from the old game into one fully fledged season affair, then you have the challenge mode which basically strips out the league and cup system into individual tournaments. These systems are very well implemented with every match giving you a league table to work towards leading. There is a big difference though, this isn’t all about winning matches – this is also about scoring big as your leaderboard will reflect the amount of points scored in a match. If you plan on winning games with a low score total, then think again about winning the league – it just will not happen. Success will be granted if you are prepared to shop. The game has a currency system which can be spent on upgrading your team players, everything from their stamina, speed, power and aggression can be tweaked with but you can also improve their armor too to prevent them from getting knocked out during the match. To compliment the release it has enabled you to quickly assign upgrades to single players or specific areas such as defence, midfield or attackers or if you have the coinage absolutely everyone.

Given the game is on the iPhone my biggest fear was the control system and with thios release you actually have two you can play with. You can either play the game using a digital touchpad which will immitate a joystick and attack button or alternatively using the tilt controls on the phone. To much major surprise the tilt controls worked fantastic and became my firm favorite, it meant that I could enjoy the whole screen without any overlays for controls – it yielded the best experience without a shadow or a doubt. Before each match the iPhone gets quickly calibrated to ensure that the tilt controls work at their premium and it works very well indeed. Graphically the game has stepped itself up a notch and is the best looking iteration to date, but what they’ve done is add in some more detail rather than trying to overhaul the look of the original game – something that Speedball on XBLA failed with. There is also some great retro nostalgia with the game – the game pretends to be loading itself up as if it was the Amiga/Atari version with the sounds of the hard disk drive booting away, for those that grew up in this era – it will bring an instant smile to your face.

Everything feels distinctly as your remember it, tackling is as crunchy as ever, the ball can be given a slight bit of aftertouch and you can reflect high and low balls with a longer or shorter touch of the button. It really has worked superbly well. Matches only last a few minutes so it’s ideal for commuting around and before you’ll know it you’ll drop your 40″ TV in favour of playing this game, a testament then that Speedball 2: Evolution will actually overule being consigned to as a portable game to be played on the move. The game is getting updated with free updates but I do wish the push notifications to invite your friends would only happen once and then never happen again – that is a little disconcerting. The game now features a St. Patricks Day team, a nice touch for the 1.2 update and whilst that update has fixed some initial launch bugs we have still found that the game very rarely (but still does) crash out from time to time and we also noticed a bug in the league system where on one play Brutal Deluxe (your team) was shown twice on the league standings for an unknown reason. We are sure these very minor issues will be resolved though.

The game also features an absolute trunk load of trophies and achievements which can be unlocked through play and the game features the iPhone Game Centre so you can get a sniff of what your friends are playing. Unfortunately despite the game does have multiplayer – we’re having to skip over this element in our review as we’ve not had anyone available to play with. We’ll certainly attempt to bring you our opinions on that at a later date. One last word on sound, it’s fantastic – all of those bangs and whistles you remembered are retained just remastered at a higher bitrate. Nice! Speedball 2: Evolution is the very best iteration of the game since Speedball 2 – heck you could even go as far as saying it is better! Time to limber up and kick Super Nashwan’s ass!

Tatem games released a very entertaining match three puzzle game recently and Matt Fitzgerald reviewed it over our community YouTube channel: TheGamesNight. Take a look as he plays the game and gives his personal review of the iPhone game and what he would score it. Match three games are extremely oversaturated but RoboSockets throws a nice couple of tricks into the mix which will make you consider giving this game a spin.

It’s so apt that I review this game on a day that happens to be so cold outside that I saw a dog get snapped off a lamp post and that when I put my trousers on the radiator to cool down an ice cube melted and farted. As much as I would like to be in the cold at a Ski resort, I don’t have that luxury, instead I’ve been out in the cold with icy fingers checking out Metro Ski Challenge by GreenTube in a concrete jungle. Don’t get me wrong though, experiencing this game whilst your fingers are close to dropping off is about as real conditions as you can give this game, it even adds the condensation of my breath into my eye-sight to accentuate just how cold it would be out in the Alps.

So as you have gathered by now it is a Skiing game. It features the iPhone accelerometer measuring your tilts and forward direction and just two buttons. You can press a stop button to slow down or an arrow symbol to crouch and speed up by becoming more streamlined. I find too many accelerometer games perhaps too overly sensitive or never sensitive enough but thankfully with Metro Ski Challenge 2011 you balance is perfect. Sometimes motion controls can be somewhat the down fall of a game, but not here. The controls feel well suited to the title and are pretty entertaining to use.

When you start the game, you’ll be presented with one track with others opening up later on in the lifespan of the game, the last of the tracks to be released is on the 26^th January, so by the time you read this, you’ll have access to all of the tracks on offer. According to the developers these tracks are realistic depictions of famous Ski resorts and from the ones we’ve played it does look like good attention to detail has been made here. The iPhones graphical processor prevents the developers from being able to give that location realism the depth they’d like to, but all the corners and turns seem very accurate to the resorts after doing a video search on YouTube.

Once you’ve mastered the course you can step online and take on the world. You can even win real prizes, there however is a downside. Prize events take place on specific days, so you won’t be able to compete all of the time, secondly it’s the registration that is required. Online registration for games can be annoying and having to do this on another game is a tad frustrating. It does serve a purpose though, being entered into those competitions that are being held. I can’t vouch where your personal data goes to, or whether it goes to third parties, it’s something worth bearing in mind before you step online.

There are several different ski’s to choose from which go from easy to hard to control or you can custom your ride settings between grip, carve and speed. These can be tweaked as and when you wish and I felt this was a nice addition especially when attempting to beat my ghost times, modifying these settings can have a real effect and I guess that is where more than anything the addictiveness comes from. The game isn’t all praise though. There are a number of imperfections with the game which I’ll get into on the next paragraph. The game hits in around £1.20 which for an iPhone game does set it in the medium band price range.

So where does this game fall down. Firstly there is a couple of frame rate issues which slows the game down temporarily, experiencing this with motion controls can really screw your racing line up temporarily, whether this is because I played the game on the iPhone 3G I’m not too sure, we’ll be sure to check it out on the iPhone 4 later this year. Secondly, the crash animations are extremely poor. You get no bail, no rag doll, the skier just stops abruptly and that’s not fun to watch! Lastly is the games audio, whilst the music and sounds of the ski’s and bells for sections sound fine. The constant moan of your character is enough to make you turn the audio off, it was not a clever move. Sometimes your character sounds like he’s trapped his nuts in a vice. Other than that though there is nothing really to snipe this game with.

On balance I’d say that Metro Ski Challenge 2011 is worthy of your coin, if you’re a fan of the sports genre as a whole it is a no brainer.

If you ever needed anymore of an example to run a free or cut price promotion on a game you have developed then Cover Orange is the best example of it’s success. FDG Entertainment have pulled off a marketing masterstroke to put it’s exceptional physics puzzler Cover Orange into the spotlight. Now in the Top 10 downloaded list on the Apple App Store, Cover Orange is amassing an impressive download rate and is now becoming as a house hold name as Angry Birds. So what is Cover Orange like?

The concept of the game is very easy to understand and levels can be completed in 20 odd seconds. A good thing then that there is well over 100 levels for Cover Orange and more added in title update. The aim of the game is to use droppable objects to cover your orange and protect it from being attacked by acid rain. The acid rain cloud will move over the whole level area and if your orange gets hit by the rain you’ll be asked to replay the stage until you complete it. You can drop various objects such as wheels and barrels, sometimes only presented with one or two objects to cover the orange itself.

The reason why Cover Orange is so addictive is because it is not as simple as building cover, sometimes you will have to trigger environmental objects or time your item drop to change the direction of the Orange as it moves. This means you’ll have to plan and strategise before every level or start a trial and error approach to be successful. Rather than skill being the way to completion like Angry Birds, this is more about logic and using your brain to find the answer. The game reminds me a little of a PC physics based game called Armadillo Run and that’s probably why I love it so much.

The levels as stated can be completed in a matter of seconds, harder levels can take you several minutes of trial and error but either way, for its price it is an absolute bargain. Hitting in at around £0.59 it is one of the best value games on the iPhone that money can buy and its graphical art style and presentation will compliment the whole experience. The environments are colourful and pretty hand drawn landscapes of cottages, forests and country and you cannot help but light up when the Orange animates with its big bulgy eyes and smiling face. These are exactly the type of games the iPhone is made for, quick morsels that can be consumed between short journeys or a nice way to eat through work break.

FDG have made a cracking game, a game that will propel the company financially and enable them to push a bigger budget into future projects. Do not be surprised to see Cover Orange making its way to other platforms either, it’s popularity will continue to propel and increase, we’re looking forward to more levels and more cuteness and hopefully any new levels that get released will make us deep in thought as we try and find the solution.

Please see the below press release from Bulkypix.com   “A review of this release will be coming soon…”

STORYLINE

At the dawn each new millennium, Astrolunia sees its Moon die and the world is thrown out of balance. The goal of the game is to safely loft a new moon to take its place in the heavens. It may sound simple enough, but, well, like all good physics games, the challenges in store for you will keep you coming back for more time and again.

A Moon for the Sky is a pick up and go game, fun to play either when you have a few minutes to kill, or to take on the 18 level saga. The game has two qualities that make it very addictive to play: it’s simple and it’s aggravating.

As you progress through the 18 fun levels you find more and more obstacles around which you have to maneuver through to secure the new moon into its orbit. Or, take on the Endless Mode to challenge and track the progress your friends or even the whole world on the leaderboards to see who is the best at raising the Moon up to the sky.

FEATURES· Simple gameplay mechanics and easy and funny gameplay
· High quality graphics and unique physics
· 18 fantastic levels and progressively difficult missions
· A zen and relaxing atmosphere mixed with sweet melodies
· Endless mode for relaxed gameplay to see how high you place the moon in the sky
· Many elements to unlock
· World ranking through Game Center

WHATS NEW- Unlock new moons priority for the new Winter environment
- 5 new levels
- Menus are faster
- No more loading when you restart your level
- Small lines drawing are more precise
- Better fps for iPod 1G and iPhone 3G.

Radiant is a fantastic little arcade game for the iPhone and it’s FREE; awesome game; awesome price of FREE.

FRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEE

Right, so, this game is brought to you by the folks over at Hexage and it’s a revamped mash-up of Asteroids and Space Invaders. The story pretty much starts off with you flyin’ around being all bad-ass and like “Hey, remember those stupid Aliens that tried to kill us back in the 80’s?” queue impression of said Aliens, and then they arrive.

The controls are incredibly basic, there’s no fire button your ship will do so automatically, all you do is tap the left or right side of your screen to move accordingly. At times you’ll have to maneuver through an asteroid field or in one case the remnants of your destroyed home planet, and this is where the semi-Asteroid’s feel comes in. Thankfully you don’t have free movement it’s still the same stuck-at-the-bottom controls just shoot the asteroids or move out of the way of the big fuckers.

Kinda reminds you of Alderaan

After a few waves of enemies you’ll blast off to upgrade your ship and/or weapons depending on how many credits you get. Credits and weapons will fall from certain enemies once you destroy them, just grab it before it’s gone. You can also just buy weapons but often you’ll acquire them through killing.

What are ya buyin'?!

The weapons are as followed:
Your standard Vulcan Cannon which through upgrading you’ll increase its fire rate and shoot two off at the same time from the sides of your ship instead of the front.
Bio Blaster is just a single green blast of shit from your ship. It’s slow but strong, nothing special here.
Plasma Gun fires from both sides of your ship, arcs upwards and sort of falls back down and to the left and right of the screen, if it didn’t hit the first time it’s sure to hit the second.
Disrupter Laser will destroy most enemies in one hit and travel until it reaches the other end of the screen making it a slow but incredibly useful weapon. This will go through many rows of enemies at once.
Seeking Missiles are self-explanatory. If you need a description I can only wonder how you are able to use the intarwebz.
Smart Gun acts in the same way as the Vulcan Cannon but has a slight homing feature to it, making it more accurate.

Aside from Credits and weapons, items occasionally drops from fallen foes as well. Rarely a Megablast will appear, picking this up destroys whatever enemy is left on the screen and other times a Shield will drop and it just projects a purple wave in front of your ship, protecting you from damage for a little while.

Upgrading your ship is just buying extra lives.
You can take a few hits but you will run out of lives so this isn’t a big deal unless you’re down to 1. Pressing onto your ship will pause the action and bring up a small inventory like screen and this is where you equip your weapons, press your ship again to pause the game entirely. Lose your last life and it’s game over. Start from scratch. Stock up on those lives if you suck.

The sound effects are very soothing, nothing is over done for the sake of theatrics or to try and make it appear high budget. The music is a very jazzy techno beat with enemy explosions and enemy explosions vary between two to four different sounds which is either a low pitch basic explosion sound or something along the lines of a techno or metallic chime.
The colors are very bright and neon against an ordinary black star splattered space background making it incredibly gorgeous and easy on the eyes.

With its pixilated graphics, wonderful sound, and classic style gameplay, this game would be well worth a price tag of 1, 2 or even 5 dollars but it’s free which makes it an incredible download and a must own.

Quicklik is a gorgeous little Korean puzzle game in which you match corresponding images to whatever you’re tasked with.

The game has two modes; Classic and Crazy Mode. The second comes with a warning that it is meant for experienced players only and starting this mode you’ll see why.

Classic Mode is slower paced than Crazy. Atop the screen will be a bar with a Kitten’s face or a picture of a Peach with “x X” where X is the number you have to reach to move on to the next level. “Kitten x5” obviously means tap 5 kittens, just thought I’d explain that for you slower folk.

The classic mode will try and throw you a curve ball occasionally and instead of showing a picture it will just give the word. When you tap an image, it’s removed from the board but always replaced with another, sometimes the same image.

Crazy Mode is a little more intense. It will do things such as show a color and you must tap everything with the requested color to move on. Sometimes the word will pop up but with a letter missing, it isn’t hard to figure out the word but if you’re going on a diminishing time limit, it can throw your concentration off. The more common ones are just a word like “Animal” or “Glasses” and well, you know what to do.

It IS a puzzle game, which means there will be items both good and bad.

Time will do just as it says, gives you more time.
Find will show you the images for the current mission.
Arainbow star will reduce the number of images, making that round easier.
A skull and cross bones with a red X will remove any bad item.

What are the bad items you ask?
A cloud will show up on the screen and you’ll have to drag it away in order to continue.
Blackened graffiti will cover areas and you’ll have to quickly rub it away.
Ice is probably more annoying as you’ll tap this item several times to finally break away.

As fun as this game is, its cutesy art style, music, and sound effects will make you feel like a prepubescent Japanese girl when playing. Besides the art direction which will throw your gender into question, the simplicity of the game is what makes it so addicting.
The images will shake and dance as you tap them out leaving a cloudy effect and a satisfying “Combo!” with each match and “Lucky!” when you complete a match. Continuing a chain will cause the overly cute voice to shout out “Nice!” or “Excellent!” It’s nice to play a game that’s actually boring without the sound.

At only $1, this is a great buy and is one of my favorite puzzle games on the app store. I’d highly recommend it if you’re looking for something fast paced with little learning curve to just pick up and stop whenever you’re on the go.

Fitting right into the addictive ‘match-3’ puzzler mould, Pantheon is easy to play, fun and unputdownable. I may have created a neologism there but it does accurately express my feelings for this game. The concept of the game will be nothing new; match coloured diamonds into patterns by tapping them to get rid of them. What sets Pantheon apart from other generic puzzle games is its sheer number of combos and power ups. The power ups and combos keep the game from slowing down, there’s always something eye catching and interesting happening on screen which helps to keep the fast flowing race-against-the-clock gameplay fresh.

Set in various Asian inspired gardens and landscapes the backgrounds provide a pretty and easy on the eye backdrop to the main action on screen with plenty of vivid colours and animations which can also be said for the diamond grids themselves. Menus and on screen displays are all presented in a beautiful ruin style, the overall effects of the aesthetics are very pleasing and are one of the many factors of Pantheon’s success.

The audio also fits into the Asian theme permeating the game; brilliantly catchy sitar riffs which I found rather relaxing add another layer to the games façade. Pantheon is simple to play, offers a challenge and is wonderfully presented. It’s a game I recommend anyone owning an iDevice to check out; casual or hardcore; old or young, lots of fun is to be had with Pantheon.

The tower defence genre has been exploited a million times already but developers Handy Games have managed to create a game which brings innovative new ideas to the genre and a twist on what you’d normally see from a Western styled game. If like myself you’re bored of always being the good guy and seeing a happy ending then you’ll be pleased with what the creative minds at Handy Games thought up. The tide gets turned in their latest game Guns’n’Glory which has you controlling the bad guys, in this case a bunch of blood and money thirsty bandits in the Wild West whose goal is to stop helpless settlers from travelling through the canyons you reside in. Gunning down peaceful men, woman and horses could be seen as a controversial issue by some and therefore if you’re one of these morally correct people, go and plant some trees instead of enjoying this fun game.

Starting off with a small amount of Gold, you must select which units you wish to control by paying them a certain amount of Gold and waking them up from their nap. There are 5 different types of units to control throughout your experience with Guns’n’Glory and the more effective units will require you to splash out more of your hard earnt money to acquire their services. Normal gun shooting bandits cost 75 Gold, with dynamite throwing Mexicans costing 100, fire-arrow shooting Indians costing 125 Gold, Cannons costing 150 Gold and finally the lethal Gattling Gun breaking the bank balance. Dispersing of your enemies (the good guys!) rewards you with more Gold so you can wake up more units and defend the canyon more effectively. You can also upgrade your units in the later levels of the game and therefore decide between buying more units or making your existing units more deadly.

Each level in the game contains a number of different spawn points that the settlers can come from and thankfully a red arrow indicates which area you must defend. However, more settlers often start spawning from other entrances of the map throughout levels and therefore you must re-position your units or wake up new units using your Gold to effectively cover all areas of the map. The ability to simply move your units around the map by clicking on them and tapping on the area you want them to move too adds a strategic element to the game that many tower defence games lack. Trying to find the perfect balance of your units to defend certain areas can be a nice challenge at times; do you evenly spread out your units around the map or strongly protect one area and risk getting over-run at another area? The choice is yours.

You will fail the level if you allow 50 lucky settlers through the canyon without ending their lives. The settlers will tell the local Sheriff who will come and lay the smackdown on your gang, and you certainly don’t want that. The game spans over 10 different levels/canyons you’ve got to defend and this will consume around 2 hours of your time. Unfortunately there isn’t any reason to come back to the game after finishing the levels unless you wish to replay them, and this may make some gamers question when the $2.99/£1.79 asking price is a bit steep. The map which you select which level to play display “Mississippi… Coming soon…” and this suggests that download content and new levels might be coming in the future.

Apart from the lack of replayability and possibly the limited amount of units you get to operate, my only other issue with the game is the lack of a fast forward feature. After the settlers have spawned from all of the entrances in a level and you’ve set up your units for maximum effectiveness, it would be nice to be able to speed up and level instead of having to wait and watch the inevitable happen. This isn’t a huge issue but a fix in a future update would be welcomed. The graphics in Guns’n’Glory certainly won’t let you down as the Wild West is themed brilliantly with sharp, colourful graphics, nice character and level design and with a catchy soundtrack to boot.

If you’re looking for a new tower defence game or simply enjoy wild west themed games, you should check out Guns’n’Glory. I highly recommend at least trying out the free version which is ridden with advertisements, and if you enjoy this version which I think you will, I encourage you to support Handy Games and buy what is an well done and addictive tower defence game.

If you were unfortunate enough to go see Piranha 3D you may be wondering what else can I get out there that can soften the blow for the £10.00 I paid for my cinema ticket. Fortunately on the iPhone there is a game that is much better than the film and takes some of that sting away nicely. More akin to JAWS than Piranha Shark or Die is a nice little twitch game on the iPhone that is absolutely free. The Ad-supported game is very easy to play, your job as the shark is to kill humans, chow down on them and keep yourself a live by consuming huge amounts of clitoris all-sorts and tasty balls. Well, that’s not exactly the case but I’m sure if the director of Piranha 3D got his hands on this game he’d embed a penis being chewed off somewhere. The game is level based, with you pitching yourself against more difficult waves, humans have the ability to save themselves by climbing aboard a boat but most of the time they simply are not fast enough.

Shark or Die is very quick and fast to play, each wave lasts around 30 seconds, so this type of game is very good for a quick boredom fix. One of the dissatisfying areas of the game is that your finger is often over the shark when you want to see the humans get mauled, an unfortunate downside for those with sausage fingers like myself. The game has an online scoring system and a VIP area which is my favorite part of the game. If there is someone you do not like, name them as a VIP. When you play the game they will come up as a human sunbathing on a lilo in the sea, it’s all the more satisfying seeing a shark eating them.

Graphically the game is sound, the music is pretty good too, with the voice-over work having a punch of comedy to it. Not enough gore for me but that’s a personal preference. If your lust for gore isn’t satisfied enough, being a free game HandyGames have sought to make some money from the game with mini add on packs. There is a pack to add more blood and gore, a pack to add more bikini girls and a pack to add more sharks. If you can find yourself craving for more then these add-on packs will satisfy your hunger for human flesh. Personally the game is very much a passing thing, it doesn’t have the sticking power of the likes of Paper Toss and it’ll soon be deleted off my phone. It’s not a bad game in the slightest, but it isn’t addictive either.

FDG Entertainment, makers of Parachute Panic and the extremely entertaining Japanese action-rpg Across Age, this week have released Beach Bowling 3D in an attempt to cash in on summer time app store customers in search of a fun game with a peaceful tropical setting.

Beach Bowling 3D is a solid bowling game for the iphone or ipod touch, with another version for the ipad being released next month. It has great physics and is fairly realistic in the way the ball and pins interact with each other. You find yourself sometimes leaning in your chair in an attempt to will a pin into falling over for a strike or picking up an important spare.

STRIKE!!!

There isn’t a lot of variety in the game though. It’s just straight bowling, get your score and move on. I thought the addition of a competitive A.I. would have been nice but there wasn’t any. There aren’t any real difficulty settings either. There are five different trophies you can select to go for, each one requiring a higher score to achieve, with the most difficult one requiring you to score 180, which isn’t that difficult. It is fairly easy to learn how to roll just the right way to get a strike almost every single time. On my third game I rolled over a 200 and I really doubt anybody would have difficulty doing the same thing.

One thing that really annoyed me in this game was that it only has a random starting position system set in place. Before each roll you are placed into a random position on the boards with no way of selecting where you would like to stand. I don’t know what the developer was thinking when they did this, but beyond this being a feature on an easy difficulty setting it really has no place in the game.

The graphics are what to be expected from an iphone bowling game. There is some pixilation around the edges of objects and the best looking part of the game is the wooden boards. There is also a pair of lovely ladies on the sidelines cheering you on every time you succeed with a spare or strike. The game also features a real time day/night cycle. The majority of the sound you will hear in the game is the same exact background music over and over again.

Overall Beach Bowling 3D is a mediocre experience at best. I played about three games and got bored with it. Though I suppose I could see myself coming back to it in the future if was really bored.

“Please, Don’t bump us off Apple”

Apple holds an emergency press conference and theres all of us thinking they might have fixed the stupid signal problem within there new iphone unit. NOT!

Most of us would have brought the new iphone for its slick slim looks and ultra fast capabilities but if you were told that you now had to conseal the phone in a stupid bumber case you just wouldn’t believe it, would you?

Well, it’s time to start believing because Apple have done just this by saying to purchasers of its unit “You’ll be able to order a free case from Apple’s website soon, and if you have already bought one of the £25 bumpers, you can apply for a full refund. However, if you bought a third party case not made by Apple, no refund for you”.

The Bumper case comes in 6 different colours but warning stocks are running low!

App Of The Week:

Osfoora is a twitter client very similar in style to Tweetie / Twitter for iPhone. For this weekend only the iPhone app is free and the iPad’s ‘Osfoora HD‘ has dropped to £0.99. The App is very nicely presented and has several nice features including the ability to post a song from your library or the song that is ‘#NowPlaying’ complete with hashtag. Hop onto the App store and download it for free… it’s worth a try, surely?

The tweet your music function.

An example of the slick menus.

The tweet composer.

The timeline layout.