There are a lot of awesome games on sale in the Because We May event going on this weekend, but of the titles I've picked up so far, League of Evil 2 is probably my favorite. It's a platformer title, in the vein of Super Meat Boy, in that it's basically a quick and simple romp through a series of quick levels. But while a lot of platformers don't work all that well on the iPad's touchscreen, League of Evil 2 works great. The virtual buttons are not only big and easy to hit, but they're very responsive, and great character and animation designs make it easy to move around the level quickly in very precise ways. Each level is pretty quick to get through, but there are hidden briefcases to find in each one, and you're also timed as you go, with a max three star rating to earn. There are over 100 levels to play, and with the game on sale for just 99 cents, League of Evil 2 is the best way to spend a buck this Memorial Day weekend. Don't miss it! Read More
As noticed by The Verge, Apple has started to promote apps in the iOS and Mac App Store using an "Editors' Choice" branding. The first apps to receive this distinction are Deus X Human Revolution and Cobook in the Mac App Store as well as Facebook Camera and Extreme Skater in the iOS App Store. Also, Apple is offering the 99-cent Cut the Rope: Experiments game for free as part of its "App of the Week" series. This is apparently the first time Apple has discounted an app specifically for this promotion. Read More
I don't really care who you are or what kind of games you like. You should go to the App Store and buy Burnout Crash for 99 cents because it's on sale right now. Done? Great. Now I'll tell you what the game's about. Criterion Games typically makes console games, most notably the Burnout series, in which cars are mashed up in incredibly gorgeous ways across races and other modes. Recently, the company released a downloadable console game called Burnout Crash, which was a top-down arcade version of one of Burnout's destruction-based modes. Burnout Crash isn't a shabby port. Criterion clearly considered how to best adapt the game to Apple's touchscreen. The result is a lot of fun. You swipe cars around the screen to blow them up, earn points with combos and multipliers, and enjoy the chaotic fun. The sounds in Burnout Crash must be heard to be believed. Not only are the crashing sounds perfectly implemented, but the arcade-style sounds are reminiscent of a casino slot machine. They ring out gorgeously as you play with various spinny wheels and jackpot game mechanics. And at 99 cents during EA's big sale this weekend, this is absolutely a must-play game. Which is why you already bought it at the beginning of this post, right? Read More
It seems like it's been a while since we had a big holiday weekend full of app sales, but the wait is over: Memorial Day is coming up in just a few days, and app developers are bringing down prices all over the store to celebrate! Man oh man that's a lot of great, really cheap games. Especially that Because We May sale -- seriously, go look at it, both for iOS and Steam. Read More
Man, Halfbrick's just not giving up on Jetpack Joyride. We just recently had a huge gadgets update for the game that added all sorts of tweaks to the jetpack action, and now here's another big update, out today, that gives Barry Steakfries a canine pal to run around with. Flash the Dog is coming to the update, and as you can see in the trailer below, he's cute as all get out. Flash will help grab coins and break piggy banks for you, and he'll even ride along, both in his own little jetpack, and by hopping on the various vehicles Barry can acquire during his run. There are a few new other gadgets as well, including headphones that remix the game's music, and a "turbo boost" gadget that will add rings to hit for an extra burst of speed. Jetpack Joyride was a really high quality game when it first launched, and Halfbrick has really gone above and beyond the call of duty with all of these updates since then. Read More
The two bestselling astronomy apps, Star Walk and Solar Walk for iOS, can now find and track the Space X Dragon, the first commercial vehicle to visit the International Space Station. The Dragon was launched Tuesday. When you search for the spacecraft, you'll see it's current position. As I write this, it's in orbit next to the ISS. Using the augmented-reality feature, you likely can find the Dragon when it is in a good position overhead. I didn't try to find Dragon in the night sky, but it was easy to find on my iPhone. I could use the search command to find by name, or I could look on the last 30-day launches list. It appears centered on the screen in the correct orientation to the ISS and the star background. You also can get some specifics on the Dragon position and a bit of history. Use AirPlay mirroring and an Apple TV, and you can get it on the big screen, great for teachers or sharing with friends. I was interested in how the spacecraft was added so quickly to the app, and the developers told me they were contacted by the Space X people and wanted it added. Space X helped with the math and collaborated with Vito Technologies to get the 3D model correctly displayed. Star Walk is available for US$4.99. Solar Walk is a $2.99. Some screen shots are in the gallery below. Read More
What do you do after spending a billion dollars buying a popular photography app? If you're Facebook, you then release your own branded app that does the exact same thing. Yes, Facebook has just launched the Facebook Camera app. The app allows you to take photos or select current photos from your iPhone's camera roll and upload them directly to your Facebook Timeline. Like Instagram, Facebook camera allows you to apply filters (though there are only 16 for now) before uploading your pics. Besides filter support, the app also allows you to crop and rotate your photos, batch upload them (something the current Facebook app can't do), and follow your friends' photo feeds. All in all, if you're an Instagram fan, you won't be too impressed with Facebook Camera because Instagram can do much more (such as hash tag, tilt-shift, etc). And fans of Instagram, worry not. The Instagram app is still alive and kicking on the App Store and shows no signs of going anywhere. Read More
If you're looking for an app-based TechCrunch experience on your iPad, here it is. The iPad app is a streamlined experience over the site in Safari, presenting a simple list of categories to choose from, and 3 basic feeds: the main river (which can be narrowed using those categories), trending stories and curated tweets. There's a lot more under the hood, however. Commuters will be pleased to know there's a "Save for later" option when clicking the "Share" icon. You can, of course, also share stories via email or social media, and the app allows you to tie your Facebook account in (TechCrunch uses Facebook comments, primarily). My favorite feature is the easy access to Crunchbase data alongside each article. While it's easy to click into more info, the app never goes too deep to get you lost. I can't stand when apps just layer interfaces on top, over and over, and you have to "flip" the pages just to get back to the main screen. The TechCrunch app uses a familiar "back" and "next" system, although it is often labelled in context (Saved Articles takes you back to your list but Explore may take you further down the rabbit hole of data). This makes reading articles a breeze, and makes it easy to find out more information without being overhwhelmed. About the only problem I encountered was with the curated tweets. When jumping to a story on The Next Web, the smallish webview that takes up the lower half of the screen was overwhelmed by a slow cover-up from TNW urging you to register, or something, and it happened to cover the article I was trying to read! Aside from things beyond the app's control, such as annoying web design habits, it's a great way to read TechCrunch on your Read More
How do you launch a social networking site in this day and age, long after the likes of Facebook and Twitter seized the world? One answer is "micro-social networks": designed with a clear and specific purpose in mind, they can fulfill that purpose better than any of the generalists like Facebook. Platter is a new micro-social network app dedicated home cooking. It allows you to take pictures of food you make and upload them to show the world, tagging them with the you used ingredients. You can then search through those ingredient tags, finding inspiration for something to make with the ingredients you have to hand. As you'd expect, you can also do the usual social networking things, like follow people whose food you find interesting, and post comments and "likes" on pictures. "Why do I need this?" you might ask. "I have Instagram and Twitter, Facebook and Foodspotting. Why do I need another app?" Well, the Platter team cleverly identified that in fact none of these apps are exactly what you need if you're a home cook looking to show off. Instagram has plenty of food pics, but lacks the ingredient tagging feature. Twitter and Facebook are more general purpose. Foodspotting is designed around the idea of taking pictures of food when eating out, not for home cooking. Platter is complementary to these services. To underscore this, it has (as you'd probably expect) the ability to cross-post pictures to Facebook and Twitter. These cross-posts are in the form of links to Platter's attractive web interface (self-promotion alert: that's my own Platter page), from where you can drill down into individual pictures. This web view feature is already fuller-featured than Instagram's pared-down approach, as you can navigate from users to pictures and back again, and the Platter team are planning on Read More
Daily iPad App: League of Evil 2 proves platformers and touchscreens can play nice - TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog
Apple adds free App of the Week to iTunes, Editor's Choice to Mac and iOS App Store - TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog
