posted by Marcus Nguyen on Sunday, February 5, 2012 at 12:30 pm. It has stood the test of time and lives on. It is regarded as one of the best, all-time fighting games. It is timeless. This is Soulcalibur. 12 years ago, Namco developed and released the first installment of Soulcalibur as a sequel to Soul Edge to continue the long, ever-lasting story. Since then, the game has received quite a few ports to newer devices including Dreamcast and Xbox. However, it wasn’t until January that it has iOS seen its port. Soulcalibur allows players to relive, once again, the great aspects of the legendary fighting game. Read on for the full review: Soulcalibur is a 3D, arcade fighter. Offering 5 total modes of gameplay, it gives players multiple ways to warp into their nostalgic past: The gameplay becomes more strategic since character having his, or her, own strengths. Along with those come their own unique combos. Using your character’s strengths and avoiding their weaknesses is as important to executing the most powerful combos to winning a battle. The fights are fast paced and can become quite the addition. Like all Namco ports, this game uses a virtual D-pad and on-screen buttons. Normally, I hate the controls on a Namco game, in this case however, the controls do feel natural and simply disappear. Customization plays key roles here allowing players to add buttons to the screen, move elements around, and adjust transparency. We saw with GTA3 that porting a really old game can result in damaged graphics for older devices. This is entirely not the case with Soulcalibur. Although they don’t quite reach the levels of an Unreal-powered game, the graphics themselves do hold their own. The entire game has the arcade feel to it. Improving from its 12 year Read More
posted by Jacob Penderworth on Friday, February 3, 2012 at 8:48 am. We’re back with another weekly installment of iFans Weekly Deals, which highlights the best app, product and accessory deals that you can get your hands on for a limited time only! As always, we’ll update this post throughout the weekend if there are any new additions, so check back frequently. This week’s edition has an iPad 2 sale, many iOS apps, 15% off Griffin Technology products, and more! Read More
posted by Jacob Penderworth on Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at 12:03 pm. Last week, Valve released a Steam Mobile app as a companion to the desktop app for Android and iPhone users. Sadly, the release was a closed beta and users were quite disgruntled because they couldn’t access their accounts or do anything through the app. But we have some great news for you today: Valve has opened up the Steam Mobile service to all users — no more closed off beta testing. It only took them five days to polish the app a bit and release it publicly — which is pretty fast, considering how long betas usually take to debug. Hopefully it doesn’t have a lot of bugs or anything, but it’s up to you to try it out and report them, so head over to the App Store to download your copy free here. Read More
posted by Marcus Nguyen on Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 4:00 pm. Android 4.0’s new web browser has been hailed for being one of the fastest and most intuitive offerings on the market. However, like its competitors, it isn’t perfect. An XDA user took matters into his own hands and decided to add a couple tweaks to the stock browsing experience. Some of the main features this tweak will add include the option to get extra “Quick Controls”, the ability to set the user agent, the option to use volume buttons for faster scrolling, and the ability to use Gestures for various customizable functions. Let’s start off with Quick Controls. In the stock browser, enabling this feature will replace the default on-screen buttons with a small hemispherical menu that pops up when you touch the edge of the display. You will be given 5 options that enable you to quickly open a new tab, switch tabs, access the address bar, view your bookmarks, or open the browser menu. Beansoft took this idea and implemented additional controls like forward, back, refresh, and close tab. These refinements are small, but make Quick Control navigation much more pleasant. For example, you may now close your current tab without having to enter tab view to do so. Another important modification is the ability to set the current user agent. By tricking sites into thinking you are on a desktop or tablet, this feature allows you to avoid the retched mobile version of a site. You may have noticed that the iFans chat feature goes missing on mobile devices. When the user agent is set to “Desktop” in ICS Browser +, the dialog boxes show up. Lastly, Beansoft has added two other features to further streamline the browsing interface. The first is the ability to Read More
posted by Jacob Penderworth on Friday, January 27, 2012 at 11:30 am. We’re back with another weekly installment of iFans Weekly Deals, which highlights the best app, product and accessory deals that you can get your hands on for a limited time only! As always, we’ll update this post throughout the weekend if there are any new additions, so check back frequently. This week, there are several awesome iPad apps that are being offered for half-price, plus a Griffin Explorer case for iPhone 4S for more than 65% off. You can’t miss this week’s edition… Read More
posted by Marcus Nguyen on Friday, January 13, 2012 at 2:12 pm. Just about everyone knows what a F1 car is. Even in the media, children’s books, and other sources, a generic racer is generally depicted as some variation of an F1 body-wise. As many racing enthusiast know, F1 racing digs so much deeper into the car and driver alike; F1 2011 by Codemasters aims to recreate this experience on the iOS platform. Even though it has a few problems here and there, the game still does have some good features that make it a well-played-out sim. Read on for the full review: F1 currently holds 2 modes of gameplay, time trial and grand prix, with the addition of the upcoming season mode: With a wide variety of cars and tracks, F1 offers racers the most versatile, simulation racing available to an iOS device. With a good set of real tracks and cars, it allows you to follow the full racing week, from the first practice all the way up to the entire race, of any given F1 driver. Rules and restrictions are still enforced, so illegally blocking a driver or cutting a corner will hurt you. One major downside of the game is the lack of customizability of the cars’ settings along with the poor collision detection. Both of which can really cripple this game somewhat. Although there are multiple ways to control your vehicle along with many driver aids, the controls are something that really destroys this game. Sensitivity of the steering is really tough to get down, even after hours of practice; I still find it either too sensitive for this corner and not sensitive enough for another. F1 2011 offers clear and distinct graphics that lie somewhere between those of NFS and RR2. The graphics have Read More
posted by Jacob Penderworth on Friday, January 13, 2012 at 9:15 am. If you’re curious, the purpose of iFans Weekly Deals is to inform you, and other readers, of the best app, product and accessory deals each week. Our current schedule involves one deals post per week and will usually be posted on Friday of the week, but may vary depending on which day offers the best amount of deals. We’ll update this post throughout the weekend if there are any new additions, so check back! Lastly, if I happen to know anything about the app and would recommend it, then I’ll write my thoughts in italics, so check for that before buying! Check after the break for this week’s deals! Read More
posted by Trey Trawick on Friday, January 13, 2012 at 1:38 am. OnLive Desktop, a service you may have heard about earlier this week that streams a full-blown copy of Windows to your iPad, is now available to download through iTunes. OnLive uses the company’s classified compression algorithm to render movies, games, and more over the internet with minimal lag. The Desktop service allows iPad users to instantly “boot” into a Windows 7 cloud desktop and work with the full Office Suite—perfect for stiffs in suits who need to use Excel on the go, and students who don’t have access to a PC. Free accounts are limited to 2GB of storage, but that should be more than enough to baffle your friends. Read More
posted by Marcus Nguyen on Wednesday, January 4, 2012 at 6:00 pm. The US is under attack, KPR forces have taken control of American cities, and as an American soldier, you must fight to reclaim your country and take out the enemy’s leader. Sound familiar? Well it should sound a lot like the Modern Warfare series, except with KPR thrown in to replace Russian Ultranationalists and Zakhaev wherever needed. That’s exactly what this game is in a nutshell; Gameloft’s take on a series that Infinity Ward isn’t planning to port to mobile devices. Read on for the full review: Like Call of Duty, the two main parts of the game are Campaign and Multiplayer. Gameloft doesn’t fail to impress with either. In the campaign, you’re told that a coalition of Russia, Pakistan, and Korea (KPR) have planted dangerous weapons in American cities and must stop them in the shoes of Cpl. James Walker. The storyline isn’t very well thought out, as the connection from MC2 and MC isn’t explained and the events that occur as you play all seem generic and shallow. There is no character development or any other background to the situation. You’re just a silent protagonist that does whatever he is told. However, the in game experience is great. As you play, you’ll be put through various well scripted cinematic scenes, which give you control as you complete near impossible tasks in slow motion. There is even an AC-130 level which meticulously resembles a CoD 4 mission. Additionally, the maps give you somewhat more freedom to explore than its predecessors. Once you consider the AI, the game starts to fall apart again. They seem to be the exact same AI as the ones seen in Black Pegasus, and they adapt poorly to the diverse new environments given. Read More
posted by Jonathan Kizer on Wednesday, January 4, 2012 at 1:32 pm. Ever played Halo? Heard of Bungie? Roughly five years before Halo, Bungie was known for entering the first-person shooter market with Marathon on the Mac (as well as the Apple Pippin, the doomed gaming console of yore). They followed that up with Marathon 2: Durandal, a game which took place seventeen years after the original. However, the rest is history: Macintosh sales slowed drastically in the mid-to-late 1990s, Apple almost went bankrupt, and Bungie decided to open-source the games years before they started work on Halo and were snatched up by Microsoft. Thanks to an enterprising community dedicated to keeping the game alive, Marathon 2: Durandal is now available on the App Store for your iOS device, along with three in-app purchases: high-res textures, enhanced reticules, and a “Master Chief Mode.” The game itself is available for free. And free is a great price for a sense of ’90s gaming nostalgia, isn’t it? Read More
