Created by Shu Takumi, the father of the critically acclaimed Ace Attorney series, Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective combines his signature style of quirky humor, logic puzzles and an intriguing story wrapped in a unique art style. Players take on the role of Sissel, the ghost of a murder victim who has lost his memory and must solve the mystery of his suspicious demise. Gamers guide his blue-flamed soul through dynamic environments, possessing and manipulating inanimate objects found in the world to solve the captivating puzzles he encounters.

The Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective App is available for free from the App Store on iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. The first two chapters are free with the download of the game. Subsequent chapters will be available in three different packs for £2.99/€3.99 each or £6.99/€7.99 for all chapters through In-App Purchase.

As it costs nothing to try it out we recommend that you give it a shot.

Never heard of Word Off! before? Allow us to enlighten you:

Word Off! is a competitive word game with strategy elements. You’ll need to plan a strategy carefully in the 15 turns given for each game. Spell incredible words to gain the most points and territory on the hexagon based gameboards or strategically expand your reach to capture your opponent’s home base for a quick and decisive win. Essentially it is a mix of the classic boardgames Boggle and Risk, but on your phones.

“Word Off! is a true cross-platform experience,” said Evan Gilbert, Lead Programmer on Word Off!. “No matter where you login from, you are playing the same game with your friends no matter what device they use.”

Word Off! was created using the latest HTML5 technologies available. HTML5 allows seamless transitioning between devices and opens the door for friends to play together without having to worry about having the same kind of phone, tablet or computer. Never before has a turn-based game been so easy to play with so few barriers to let the words fly between you and friends.

“With the turn-based, cross-platform gameplay, we can finally put some age old feuds to rest,” said Christian Arca, Studio Director. “Android versus iOS, Kindle versus NOOK, Chrome versus Internet Explorer and others can finally be decided with words.”

As players submit words and plot a strategy, they can use in-game boosts that can aid them in that cause.

Word Off! will be free-to-play and available on iOS, Android, Kindle Fire, Nook Color and Tablet plus HTML5 compatible web browsers.

Stay tuned to newbreview.com for more details as and when we get them.

Game:

Hearing the immortal word… BOOMSHAKALAKA bellowed out in computer game context is something I thought I’d never hear again but 2010/2011 marked the return of basketball cult classic NBA Jam. And it was about time too has it’s been just under a decade since we’ve had a proper NBA Jam and even that was just a Game Boy Advanced port (NBA Jam 2002). Sure, in the mean time we’ve had sub par replacements like NBA Ballers and NBA Street but nothing has been able to match the charm, character and charisma as the NBA Jam series.

Following it’s stunning return on the Wii of all consoles in 2010, two ports swiftly followed to Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, with a further sequel, NBA Jam: On Fire Edition, being released digitally on PSN and XBLA. But 2011 also saw the release of NBA Jam on iOS devices, which added multiplayer support after release via an update and now sits on the App store with a price tag of just 69p.

What’s remarkable off the bat about NBA Jam on iOS is that, even for an iOS game, it still manages to deliver the full NBA Jam experience. Often when established series venture into the mobile market it’s usually through alternative spin-off titles or streamlined ports of existing games but NBA Jam leaves absolutely nothing out, paying homage to a criminally underrated series.

In terms of presentation it’s just nice to see the unique character and charm of the NBA Jam series back in general. NBA Jam on iOS retain all the graphical and audible traits the series has always had. Its basketball players have huge heads complete with hilarious expressions, the incredibly funky, utterly memorable soundtrack returns, even more subtle touches that are essential to an NBA Jam game such as a fully voiced, nutty commentator, hoop fires, huge slam dunk animations and backboard smashes are included. NBA Jam iOS totally looks, sounds and feels a complete labour of love. A nostalgic dream.

NBA Jam brings the unique presentation of the series to all iOS devices.

In terms of core gameplay everything remains unchanged too. NBA Jam on iOS is still the same crazy 2 on 2 basketball experience you’ve come to expect from the series. This experience contrasts dramatically with the majority of modern sports games which seem to be all about creating an accurate simulation. NBA Jam is, was and always will be, centred around being entertaining, fun and enjoyable, that’s what sets it apart from other sports games. It’s ultimately why it holds a special place in the hearts of its die hard fans and with NBA Jam on iOS the ethos of its predecessors is still held true.

That’s not to say NBA Jam iOS hasn’t kept up with the times. Featuring all the teams and rosters from the current NBA season, players can play as their favourite current teams and players, adding a more modern edge to proceedings. It’s also had to implement touch controls which it does with some gusto. Blocking, shooting, spinning, dunking, it all feels very tactile and fluid, a godsend for a touch controlled game. In particular, the way the touch d-pad snaps to wherever you happen to have you finger holding down onto the screen at the time is a genius touch. It’s intuitive and frankly it’s something all touch controlled games should be trying to incorporate into their control mechanics because there’s far too many clunky, touch controlled games out on the mobile market. Simply put, NBA Jam is a prime example of how touch controls should be done. An absolute dream to play.

The adaptation of touch controls is really impressive.

If brilliant presentation, gameplay and controls weren’t enough, NBA Jam also offers a tremendous amount of content too. Game modes on offer include freeplay, exhibition, classic season (totalling 37 games as you play as your favourite team against every other team in the NBA), AND multiplayer via Wifi or Bluetooth. It may not seem like too much variety, but the addition of challenges and unlockables, including retro players (yes, you CAN recreate Bird vs Johnson AGAIN) special characters and teams, game enhancing perks AND different basketball designs is an absolutely genius inclusion.

Whether it’s winning a certain amount of games in a row, hitting a set amount of slam dunks in a game or allowing your CPU team mate to score all the points in an entire quarter, the different types of challenges have lent themselves well to the theory of unlocking more the more you play. This essentially gives you more incentive to keep on playing. At 69p, the value for money, longevity and hours of gameplay in this game is quite frankly ridiculous.

It’s the perfect game for NBA Jam fans, it’s a must buy for anyone with an iOS device. What more can I say? JUST BUY IT!

NBA Jam is an absolute slam dunker of a game.

Review Round-Up

Graphics: 5/5 – True to its roots. From bobble headed NBA stars to hoops on fire and shattered backboards, NBA Jam on iOS is nostalgia at its finest.

Sound: 5/5 – The memorable soundtrack is back and funkier than ever before. And the fully voiced, insane commentator is genuinely quite hilarious at times.

Gameplay: 5/5 – No major changes to the overall gameplay, however the adaptation of the touch controls has been handled wonderfully. Fluid, tactile and intuitive, exactly what you want from a touch controlled game.

Longevity: 5/5 – Boasting more replayability than some full retail games. With plenty of characters, teams, ball designs and game enhancements to unlock, NBA Jam will keep you playing for hours. The game time you get for your measly 69p is quite frankly out of this world.

Overall: 5 out of 5

An essential for anyone with an iOS device. It’s cool, it’s funny, it’s enjoyable and at 69p it’s probably the best bargain you’re likely to see on the App store for quite some time. Seriously, I cannot speak any more highly of the game.

- Kieran Roycroft

For those not in the know, Koozac is kind of a cross between Tetris and Sudoku. Your basic aim to add together the numbers on falling blocks to create the required number.

The fully updated and reimagined Smartphone and tablet version contains three game modes, all-new graphics and a simple user interface that take KooZac to a whole new level.

New Ways to Play

• Puzzle – Play through 60 levels, destroying the silver puzzle blocks and clearing the board by completing the targets.

• Endless – No level, no stage – compete against the world in Endless mode and use multi gems to rack up huge scores.

• Blitz – Complete targets and use boosts in order to get the highest score possible in one minute. By connecting with Facebook, players can compete with others for high scores on live leaderboards.

Koozac should be available on your respective platform’s marketplace within the next few months.

No one likes a smart arse, but to be fair we did call it!

As you may be aware from our glowing review, we are fans of the cool, stylish puzzler that is Contre Jour, and it seems that we are not alone.

Taking the plaudits of iPad Game of the Year 2011 in 14 major markets  (UK, France, Spain, Malasia, Japan and Thailand amongst them) this game shows it not only appeals to it’s European “home” market but transcends language & culture to take this coveted award for this increasing popular form factor.

We only hope this heralds similar quality for 2012, we really could do with more games like this.

Congratulations Contre Jour!

- Richard “Rax” Burley
@Raxous

True to Michael Jackson’s ground-breaking and visionary work, the app allows users to experience the excitement and the magic of game environments, based on his iconic short films, in their own hands. Designed and optimized specifically for Multi-Touch on iPad, users are able to experience a more natural way to play rhythm games by drawing a series of shapes with their fingers according to the beat and choreography of the Michael Jackson avatar. Players can rediscover environments from Michael Jackson’s classic music videos with spectacular high definition graphics and sound.

Michael Jackson The Experience HD is available to download from the App Store for £2.99 and features 13 tracks including Billy Jean, Smooth Criminal, and Beat it.

Game:

Warner Brothers recently released Arkham City Lockdown, a portable prequel to one of the best selling games of the year, Batman Arkham City. This caught many gamers by surprise as no official announcement of the game’s existence had ever been made. Developed by NetherRealm Studios, who are also credited as working with Rocksteady on Arkham City, Arkham City Lockdown is a fighting game in which you take control of the caped crusader and must clean up the streets of Gotham.

Narratively the concept is fairly simple; taking place shortly before the events of Batman Arkham City, a number of high profile villains have escaped from custody, and it is up to you to go capture them. And by capture we mean beat the spit out of them.

The most immediately obvious thing about the game is that it looks fantastic, utilising Epic’s Unreal Engine, which has been used to power other iOS titles such as Infinity Blade. This takes place in a number of recognizable locations, such as the Sionis Steel Mill and the streets of Gotham. In order to select a mission you pick a location from a segment of the map of Gotham City. Each segment is broken up in to four missions, three generic fights against various thugs, and a finale against a memorable villain. Fans of the characters may be pleased to hear that Arkham City Lockdown features the villain Deathstroke, who has never appeared in an Arkham game before.

The boss battles offer up the most variety in terms of gameplay. For instance, when battling Two-Face there are two sections in which you make use of your device’s accelerometer to take control of a remote controlled batarang; simply tilt your device left and right until you reach your target. These short segments act as a nice way of changing up the gameplay, preventing the game from getting too repetitious.

Boss fights provide the most variety in terms of gameplay

The actual gameplay is incredibly simple to pick up and play.  You swipe across the screen to strike, and can string up to four moves together at any one time to create a devastating combo. You do not control Batman’s movements between fights, instead short cut-scenes play between fights showing how Batman moves from one enemy to another. This creates a refined focus for Batman; without any wandering around looking for collectibles or trying to solve puzzles, you can concentrate on what Batman does best – beating the snot out of punks.

Basic enemy attacks can be avoided by simply tapping the screen to perform a dodge. Your enemies are also capable of performing powerful rage attacks, which are indicated by a flashing red icon above their heads. You must dodge these powerful attacks or risk taking a ton of damage, especially from enemies whose rage attack involves pulling a gun on you. If you avoid enough blows the enemies will become dazed, leaving them open to your attacks.

At various points small blue icons will appear on your enemy; simply tap the blue icon to perform a counter.  If you are battling with an armed enemy this will remove their weapon, and leave them open to your fists. Regular attacks can be parried by swiping upwards on the screen, leaving enemies exposed and vulnerable.

Batman's gadgets can be used to give him the upper hand

One of the best points about this game is that the combat is incredibly smooth, and really quite intuitive. It is easy to pick up and play, and can be played in short five minute bursts as well as for lengthy periods of time.

Defeating enemies earns you experience, which can be used to buy upgrades from the Waynetech computer in the batcave. These range from new gadgets, such as the smoke bomb and electric gloves, to upgrades to Batman’s general performance.  This creates a real sense of progression, as you can really see and feel your performance improve when you purchase new abilities.

Upon completing missions you earn extra experience based on how many counters, parries, and gadgets you were able to use. Upon beating the game you move on to a more challenging new game plus mode in which the enemies deal out more damage and require quicker reactions in order to avoid their attacks. In exchange defeated enemies grant you more experience.

In order to fully upgrade Batman to his maximum potential you’ll need to earn an awful lot of experience points. For those that aren’t very good at the game there is the option to buy experience with real world money, but experience is usually easy enough to come by. Even if you die and restart a level all of the experience you earned before dying is retained.

You need to time your strikes in order to do the most damage

Right from the start the game comes with a number of extras including biographies for the main characters, wallpaper for your device’s background, and three issues of the Batman Arkham City comic book. There are also three alternative costumes, taken from the Batman Animated Series, Batman Beyond, and The Dark Knight Returns. These need to be purchased separately for a small fee. The extras menu also hints at the identity of bosses that you will face in future updates to the game.

The voice cast from Batman Arkham City return, including Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill as Batman and the Joker respectively. However, one disappointment is that the in-game dialogue is fairly minimal and seems to have mostly been recycled from the game’s big brother on the consoles. This isn’t too big of an issue, as the quality of the voice acting is still incredibly high, but it would have been nice to see more original content.

Review Round-Up

Graphics: 5/5 – One of the best looking iOS games to date. The game manages to replicate the look and feel of the console Arkham City game, which is a tremendous achievement.

Sound: 4/5 – Mostly reuses dialogue and music from Arkham City. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as the high quality of the game’s music and voice acting remains intact.

Gameplay: 4/5 – The basic gameplay can be a little repetitive, with most fights coming down to repeating the same attack pattern (attack, dodge, attack, dodge, parry/counter, attack) but you will need some skill in order to excel. Boss battles provide more variety, and enemies faced on repeat playthroughs prove to be more challenging.

Longevity: 4/5 – There are 16 missions, not counting the basic tutorial, which will likely take a few hours to complete. Every time you beat the game you can restart with all of your upgrades and fight tougher more aggressive enemies which, when coupled with the game’s lengthy upgrade system, incentivises replaying the game.

Overall: 4.5 out of 5

Arkham City Lockdown sets a new standard in portable gaming with intuitive challenging gameplay and stunning graphics. NetherRealm Studios have created a game that manages to feel very similar to the console experience, while at the same time doing something new and exciting that compliments the other Arkham titles. If you have a compatible iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad then you should be playing this.

- Luke Mears

We’ll be bringing you our full review shortly, but in the meantime here are a tonne of screenshots for your viewing pleasure.

Looks very pretty doesn’t it! Our full review will go live very soon so stay tuned to newbreview.com for our official verdict!

Game:

Mobile games can be a tricky old thing to get right.

How far can you push the platform? How to shoehorn the best experience into the required technical envelope? How to adapt the controls for a touch interface?

Well sometimes, I’m glad to discover, you can deliver quality across all these areas and provide an experience which feels designed for the device as well as providing quality gameplay and sumptuous visuals.

Visuals? Yes, plenty of them. Oh and action, loads of that too...

“Anomaly Warzone Earth HD” (AWEHD from now on) is not only a great mobile game, it is, like so many other great mobile games, just a great game in it’s own right. Not only that but it’s game play style is ideally suited to a touch based device and so it delivers in all departments without feeling “squeezed”.

The credit for this quality of experience must be equally divided between 11 bit studios and Chillingo for the fantastic game concept still requires particular experience and skill to deliver fully on the range of screen, and thus input and output sizes, on which iOS resides. A feat AWEHD pulls off with consistently great aplomb!

The route planner... like manual sat nav... but with extra giant alien turrets of death...

Based on a “reverse tower defense” premise the aim is to guide your convoy through alien protected areas by negotiating their towers / turrets with a mix of correct unit selection, judicious route planning and precise skill based interventions.

It is the superb blending of these three discreet styles of game play which makes AWEHD such a joy to play. All three parts are clearly and intuitively laid out and work beautifully in concert with the others. Each mode feels just right visually and no training or tips are really needed to make the most of them, everything you need is clearly laid out to get you started and it’s gentle in it’s introduction allowing you time to master the approach regardless of the difficulty you select.

OK, the "Troops" screen may not look as exciting, but there's plenty of vehicles & upgrades and such...

Unsurprisingly this is one of the most universally highly lauded games on the platform, and this is with good reason.

Own an iSomething? Buy Anomaly Warzone Earth HD.

Review Round-Up

Graphics – 5/5: Perfect for this game type, and beautiful throughout.

Sound – 3.5/5: It’s all there, it works, and it supports the rest of the game ably.

Gameplay – 5/5: Exemplary throughout. Controls are spot on, engrossing action, great stuff.

Longevity – 4/5: Will easily keep you engaged through its entire campaign, and additional game modes.

Overall – 4 smouldering alien turrets out of 5

A sound mobile investment. Two thumbs up from me, just as soon as they’re done defeating earth from evil alien invaders…

- Richard “Rax” Burley
@Raxous

Game:

Sometimes the advent of a new technology grants us all the opportunity to enjoy anew a past favourite as it is reborn for the new platform.

Often this can prove disappointing, as the halcyon memories of yore shine more brightly than any slickly engineered tribute can today.

It is with this very much in mind that I approached Death Rally on my iPod Touch when I first discovered it on the App Store, but no warning voice of past experience was going to prevent me from jumping on this like a crazed driver with his foot to the floor.

You see Death Rally sits in the pantheon of my classic gaming nirvana (don’t you just love mixing a metaphor!) on a high pedestal alongside GTA 2 as simply the best fun to be had from an overhead perspective in a car.

Wait? Barry? Barry Wheeler? I'd better "Wake" up and contact "The Writer"...

If I thought you’d carry on reading I would pen an ode to the original Death Rally right now… but I’ll put that after the end of the piece!

So, onward and upward with my review.

Death Rally for the iOS is a fantastic example of how to make the best of a technology whilst still respecting a venerable IP. Not only does it feature a full rebuild using a superbly up-to-date graphics engine and fantastic look and feel all round, it also transports you back into the hot-seat of your Death Rally career.

Now, regardless of how fond of / obsessed with Death Rally you were the first time round, this review is about THIS game, not about the original (despite my strong desire to write an opus dedicated to it… ) so let’s crack on and have a good look at it.

Death Rally iOS, as I shall label it for clarity, is a superb top-down racer featuring numerous game modes, challenges, vehicles, weapons and upgrades.

Oh, I'm sorry! Did I accidentally rake you all with machine gun fire! Even tho it was Sunday! Apologies!

With myriad tracks and opponents, over multiple tiers, there is just so much to see and do. As is traditional you accumulate cash for racing well with which you can upgrade your vehicle or even buy a newer, faster car altogether. Where Death Rally differs slightly is in the first part of it’s name, as you also get considerable sums for finishing off as many opponents as possible. Indeed, should you manage to destroy all you’re opponents cars in any one race you will automatically win. An excellent and most enjoyable tactic, if a little unrealistic an aim in your first few races.

The game uses a random race generator which adds considerable variety and freshness to the game, you never know quite what your going to be doing, but you do always have a choice. Level of difficulty of each such race is clearly displayed and you will need to pay heed to this as the excellent multi-touch controls take a few races to fully master. Once you have the control system down you can content yourself with racing & obliterating for fun or you can start stepping it up and push your new found skills against increasingly tougher opponents. Beyond that there are always other players to race against, and that really does up the ante as you would expect. The multi-player is very slick and couldn’t be easier to get into as it’s experience is identical to the single player element, except for the even more ruthless and skilled opposition it introduces!

What's that behind me? Is it the sound of... YOUR CAR EXPLODING! Muhahaha!

This is currently one of my favourite games on my iPod Touch and I just don’t see that changing anytime soon. The good people at Remedy seem determined to continually add cool new stuff to the game and I continue to delight in enjoying it!

I would finally add that the price they offer all this at should be enough to shame most other developers / publishers to improving their offerings and / or lowering their pricing. Jolly well done Remedy!

Review Round-Up

Graphics – 5/5: Ridiculously good. Hard to see where they could be improved.

Sound – 4/5: Revs, explosions, tyre screeches and car horns. Spot on.

Gameplay – 4/5: Once the touch controls are mastered it’s destructive high octane fun all the way.

Longevity – 5/5: Constant updates, random race generation, huge variety and excellent multi-player tempt me to give it a 6!

Overall – 4 burnt-out opponents out of 5

Just buy it already and add me (Raxous, obviously) so I can have some fresh blood to… loose… epically… against!

- Richard “Rax” Burley
@Raxous

The Ode what I promised…
Oh Death Rally! How verily do I love thee?
So very, very muchly… for thou art pretty…
And bringest racing and destruction to me
So good that I must enjoy it constantly…
But wait! What’s this? You are now reborn?
With shiny paint and new car horn?
I rejoice and truly jubilate!
For you arrive never too late.
And so I play, and drive and crash
Happily parting with my cash
But now to win I must accelerate
And trust the tarmac with my fate!

Game: Contre Jour
Format: iPhone / iPad / iPod Touch
Developer: Mokus
Publisher: Chillingo

Have you ever sat down and pondered what might happen if World of Goo met Limbo?

What if they hit it off, found they had lots in common and discovered they enjoyed the same type of movies? Maybe they pop out for a spot of dinner and a gentle stroll down by the river, maybe share a taxi home? What about coffee? A nightcap? It’s late… the weather is terrible… it’s a long way home…

Oh! Good morning! And welcome to Contre Jour!

A gentle puzzler at heart, the rich design and world scape created by those crazy, arty, gaming gurus over at Mokus is a bewitching place to spend some time.

It's like some Goo decided to try Limboing...

Whilst there are points allocated to the amount of time taken to solve each puzzle this is a game best enjoyed slowly with a hot cup of coffee in a french cafe. Funky, beautiful and cleverly designed each puzzle is a joy to undertake and the touch interface again shows just how impressive the “i” series of devices are when it comes to delivering intuitive game control.

With very few faults, other than my usual desire to develop transparent fingers, there’s no reason for you not to add this gem to your mobile games library, that way you can fire it up if you need to look hip / cool gaming on your phone in sophisticated / arty company… nnnnnice!

Review Round-Up

Graphics – 5/5: It’s like Dali meets silent movies, except with sound… or something… Beautiful.

Sound – 4/5: Cute, gentle and French. Like Audrey Tautou in a film noir… or something… Beautiful.

Gameplay – 4/5: A nice easy learning curve progresses just as you’d expect, no surprises here, just enjoyment… or something… Beautiful.

Longevity – 4/5: Regardless of if you like your games short and sweet or long and steady Contre Jour makes you feel better about yourself when you play it. It’s moreish and light single-player fun, just what you want from a mobile game…

Overall 4 sparkly blue things out of 5

Contre Jour is as cool as it sounds like it should be. It’s French (OK, Hungarian, I think…), it’s hip, it’s fun. I’m sure it makes me cooler when I play it. Au revoir, je pars pour jouer un peu plus maintenant!

- Richard “Rax” Burley
@Raxous

Like Poker? Unhappy with the way the Poker dynamic plays out on social / mobile games? Welcome, I just may have a solution for you…

Poker Pals is an iDevice game, covering the Phone, Pad and Touch hardware, which takes a novel approach to delivering a strong poker themed social game.

Understanding, as Aspyr Media clearly do, that the traditional poker experience between friends, or indeed enemies, does not really carry across properly to our busy mobile world they’ve obviously sat down and thought about how it could be best delivered to the myriad “i” devices, how play style might be adapted to suit our asynchronous world, and also how to add something fresh to the mix.

The result of this intellectual labour is what turns out to be a perhaps suprisingly fresh experience, one both perfectly tailored to the “i” series of Apple devices and achieving true stylistically polished quality.

Everything about the game speaks to the quality one expects from the publishers of, amongst other games, Angry Birds and Cut The Rope.

The interface, the visuals, the graphics, the control scheme, the sound and the social aspects are all both fully featured and slickly implemented. With Game Center integration, social options and a string of in-game achievements everything around the core game experience is top draw.

But what of the game itself?

Well, I came in not expecting too much, maybe a very good poker game, but to my suprise I was suprised ( ) . Combining the best of the hugely popular “tile” based social game approach with a strong poker flavour delivers something for everyone, and what at first glance appears to be quite a simple poker style game soon shows it’s depth and complexity as the end game of each round can get seriously complicated as you balance your own point scoring needs against the cynical desire to deny your opponent, be they AI or human, any such success!

Both easy to pickup and play for fun and rewarding to those who want to really tactically squeeze the most out of each game, perhaps it’s master stroke is that the length of each game is absolutely perfect for your quick break / journey between tube stops / wait for bus whilst also being simple enough to enable you to maintain a couple of games live at a time between multiple chums, even if one or both of you needs to take an extended break from the game to, I don’t know, maybe attend a meeting or do some work? *Shudder*

Review Round-Up

Graphics – 4/5: All one could ever ask from both gameplay and interface. It’s poker meets Scrabble, and that’s exactly what it looks like!

Sound – 4/5: Nothing ground breaking, but then this is a poker social game! Melodious and inobtrusive.

Gameplay – 4/5: Other than the brutal AI (Seriously, don’t give up, you will master it!) the game plays well in single player, and does serve as an excellent preparation for the wiles of fellow human players, against whom the game really shines.

Longevity – 4/5: This entirely depends on who you can find to play it against you, but with a large number of achievements and a truly terrifing AI (at higher levels) there is certainly plenty to get out of the game.

Overall 4 of a kind out 5

With most people using their “i” devices to play either poker or a tile based word game of some sort this is everyone’s opportunity to get the best of both worlds!

- Richard “Rax” Burley
@Raxous

Erm, yes! Absolutely! And here’s why;

Gaming owes it’s global transcendence to the leading form of media / entertainment worldwide to many things. But have no doubt that Steve Jobs’ role in this rise is no small part.

A visionary, not just for hardware, software, music & media but for combining them all into mobile gaming...

When you combine his drive of the original personal computing revolution, his leadership at Pixar in the computer animation arena and his genius in pioneering the iPhone “uber-media-mobile”, (which today outsells Nintendo & Sony portables) you can see that he very much has shaped the gaming landscape by truly bringing gaming to the masses. When you look at mobile gaming today you are talking about Nintendo, Sony and Apple, (with Android leading “the rest”), and Apple’s rise and rise to be counted amongst these two gaming giants as an equal, in any form, is quite simply astounding considering the time it has had to do so. The company responsible for moving mobile gaming towards a touch based control method and doing so in such a tiny, pleasing, multi-functional and beautiful package that it was propelled from nowhere to industry leader in, what in industry terms is, little more than the blink of an eye.

Steve Jobs changed the mobile gaming industry, forever and for the better. Fact.

Apple & Gaming? Believe it! The iPhone is the world's "most accessible" mobile gaming platform...

But, today is a day to appreciate not just what he has done for you, but a little more about the man himself, to truly ponder the awesomeness of Steve, so, let’s take a moment to step back and learn about / remember the man behind the myth, the real Steve Jobs…

Steve Jobs was born in San Fransisco on February the 24th, 1955, to Joanne Carole Schieble, an American of Swiss and German descent, and Abdulfattah John Jandali, a Syrian Muslim immigrant. Under pressure from her parents, and fearing scandal, Ms Schieble had travelled to San Francisco to have the baby and give it up for adoption immediately to Paul & Clara Jobs, an Armenian couple. In addition to Patti his adopted sister, his biological parents had married and provided him with Mona, the biological sister he would not meet until he was 27, but of whom he would later say; “We’re family. She’s one of my best friends in the world.”

It was during his later school years that his interest in computing emerged, during which time he spent time working at Hewlett Packard (along-side future Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak), before working as a technician at Atari, the first great giant of computer gaming. Following success at the company he then founded Apple, in 1976, with Wozniak and Ronald Wayne but it wasn’t until 1984 that they had their first major success with the “Macintosh”, the first successful consumer computer with a graphical user interface.

"Think Different"? Never did anyone live more closely by their motto...

Following a period of industry hardship Steve & Apple parted ways, giving him the “space” to once again be “liberated” and allowing him to found “NeXT Computer” (1990) which developed workstations famed for their technical capability, including the first built in Ethernet port, and pioneering object-oriented development environment. He followed this almost immediately with the NeXTcube (also 1990) which featured the first successful “rich” messaging client; NeXTMail, which supported voice, image & video over email. The high cost of manufacture to meet Steve’s exacting standards eventually led NeXT to move complete away from hardware development and into software (1993) by 1996 things had come full circle as NeXT was acquired by Apple Inc, for $429 million, who used it’s WebObjects technology to power the Apple Store, MobileMe and the iTunes Store.

It was in this year, with proceeds from the sale, that Steve bought Pixar for $10 million from LucasArts. Initially a hardware company, Steve moved them into the computer animation space and through a partnership with Disney global success with their series of co-produced CGI family films. Following a less than smooth relationship with Disney Jobs negotiated the sale of Pixar to Disney in 2006 for a cool $7.4 billion. A return of $7.39 billion on his original investment!

Simultaneous with his work with Pixar he now re-took his position at the top of Apple, following it’s acquisition of NeXT, steering them through tough times and completely transforming both their direction and success during the “2000s” by championing the iPod, iTunes, iPhone and iPad, which catapulted Apple to become the most valuable company in the world briefly in 2011, perhaps the crowning achievement for an adopted boy who never let his passion and vision for technology as an agent of positive & life-enriching change dim in the face of the many, many challenges he faced in life…

Steve, you brought so many amazing things, thank you for helping us game in meetings!

Steve, we salute you, perhaps this age’s greatest innovator, but also never afraid to lead as a maverick, industrialist, polymath, visionary & businessman… Oh, and the dude who finally let us play proper games on our phones… finally!!

You will be missed… and we think more than anyone yet realises…

- Richard “Rax” Burley
@Raxous

Game:

Have you ever wanted to push somebody down the stairs? I have, lots of times, especially when they are walking down them really slowly in front of me… that kind of behavior is just asking for it. Well, now you can, over and over and over in this appropriately named title.

Stair Dismount is a simple bit of genius. It is essentially a 3D ragdoll simulation game where your aim is to score as many points as possible by pushing a mannequin down a flight of stairs and injuring him in as many ways as possible. It’s one of the few mobile games with a convincing 3D psychics engine, contributing to a much more enjoyable overall mobile gaming experience.

Playing Stair Dismount is easy - using the touch pad you select a part of the body where you would like the force of the impact to hit. At the bottom of the screen a power meter fluctuates in power level, much like in a golf game. All you have to do is tap the push button once you’ve made your decision – so, sit back and enjoy the show.

The game comes with an initial 15 levels and a dozen more are available to download if you really can’t get enough of this ragdoll purgatory. You’ll have your typical staircase of course, with added ramps, jagged rocks, spirals  and other breakable objects placed in your path as well. Destroying these objects awards you bonus points of course, and makes the carnage that much more interesting. It’s free, it’s fun and a nice android title that appeals to lots of people for only 12 of your megabytes.

Its surprising really how many times you can push a mannequin down the stairs without it getting boring, the game has been designed very well in thatrespect. The satisfying breaking of bones and joy that comes from beating your own personal high score adds a lot of replay value, making it a great game to kill some time.

Further enjoyment can be found in the way the game utilises social networks: you can add photos from your mobile phone onto Mr. Dismount, like some sort of voodoo doll, then share photos of the destruction on Facebook, and Twitter (just in case you have had an argument over who pays the bill or who cleans the toilets this month).

Review Round-Up

Graphics- 3/5 One of the few games available on android with fully 3D environments. Graphics are simple but generally quite satisfying.

Sound- 3/5 Stair Dismount has some relaxing elevator music which, for some reason, seems quite appropriate when you pushing people down the stairs. The bone-cracking and skull-crushing sound effects are also an aural pleasure.

Gameplay- 3/5 Overall, the gameplay is repetitive and not particulary diverse, but it is a lot of fun. Sure it lacks depth, but it all works perfectly and never fails to bring a smile to the face.

Longevity- 2/5 The game is surprisingly addictive. You’ll come back time and time again to add photos of your friends to a voodoo doll then push them into stair oblivion. As this is a free game the selection of levels is a bit disappointing, however there are more available to download at a price.

Overall- 3.5 out of 5

Stair Dismount is a sadistic little game that is perfect for killing time, although it can be quite repetitive. While it is a shame there aren’t more levels available available for free, the neat features the game brings to the table make up for its shortcomings.

- Adam Radcliffe

Game:

Based on a failed late 80s cartoon pilot, Konami’s X-Men Arcade Game was one of the most requested classic titles to be re-released. Taking note of the huge demand, last year Konami and Marvel reached an agreement to re-release the game on Xbox Live Arcade, to much fanfare.

The console version of the game came with an abundance of modern features, including online mutliplayer, while also preserving the original game’s quirky dialogue, including such amazingly poor translations as “I am Magneto, master of magnet!” and “Welcome to die!”.

With a roster of five well known X-Men, Wolverine, Cyclops, Colossus, Nightcrawler, and Storm, as well as one not so well known X-Woman (hands up everyone that has heard of Dazzler),  Konami has brought this fan favourite arcade game to the App Store, potentially exposing it to millions of people across the world at a budget introductory price of 69p. But should you rush out and buy this game now before the price inevitably goes up?

Make no mistake, this is a pure port of the original arcade game, as it forsakes some of the additional features included in the console version of this game. The 360 version of the game came bundled with the original Japanese arcade game, which included collectible power-ups, and boasted a decent online multiplayer component, allowing you to play with up to five other gamers across the world. This version of the game only has local multiplayer, which allows you to connect wirelessly with up to three other devices.

In some regards this is a great feature if you happen to have four other friends nearby that have apple devices, as it goes some way towards recreating that old arcade game feel, and allows you to argue in person over who gets to play as Wolverine. Nonetheless some users may feel let down by the lack of any sort of online multiplayer.

As Apple devices do not have buttons there are digital buttons on screen for jumping, attacking, and performing each character’s unique mutant ability. These are devastating super moves that deal out massive amounts of damage in exchange for a little bit of your health. On iPad there is plenty of room for these buttons, however the iPod and iPhone versions suffer for having a small screen. More often than not your hands will end up obscuring the action, leaving you exposed to enemies that are behind you.

Fortunately the game has unlimited lives and continues, meaning that it doesn’t really matter how many times you die. Unfortunately this necessary decision also takes all of the challenge out of the game – with infinite lives why wouldn’t you just spam your super moves during challenging sections? As such you can probably finish the entire game in about 20 minutes. The fact that the game starts all over again once you complete it does little to extend its longevity.

Review Round-Up

Graphics 3/5: Featuring some large, bold, character models, the game’s art style is let down slightly by some uninspired level design.

Sound 3/5: Some of the greatest awful in-game dialogue can be found in this game. The other sound effects and music are decent enough for late 80s/early 90s arcade games.

Gameplay 2/5: Your basic side scrolling beat ‘em up gameplay. The use of special moves in the form of each character’s unique mutant abilities can too easily be abused when things get even remotely difficult thanks to the game’s infinite continues system.

Longevity 2/5: While there are six different characters to play as, and four player local co-op, you can still blitz through the game in about twenty minutes. It is a fun enough distraction to warrant multiple playthroughs, but it is not the sort of game that’ll keep you glued to your apple device for any great length of time.

Overall 2.5 out of 5

As far as inexpensive downloadable games go, there is plenty of enjoyment to be found in X-Men. However, it is a fairly shallow experience that is marred on the iPod and iPhone by the on-screen buttons obscuring your view. For the low introductory price of 69p (99 cents in the USA) it is still worth a shot, particularly if you are a fan of side scrolling beat ‘em ups and/or the X-Men.

- Luke Mears

Game

In recent years the only major wrestling video game series out there, Smackdown Vs Raw, has moved further and further away from wrestling games’ arcadey roots and instead focuses on being more of a simulation. The series’ publisher THQ, realising that they were missing a trick, have tried to fill this gap (with varying degrees of success) with more simplistic wrestling titles such as Legends of Wrestlemania and WWE All Stars.

With the prospect of two WWE Wrestling games out per year it would be easy to think that they were the only promotion in town. However, one promotion that is quickly gaining steam is Impact Wrestling. Having only recently changed their name from TNA Wrestling to Impact Wrestling, the timing of this game’s release is a little unfortunate. Their television show airs on Tuesday and Saturday nights on Challenge in the UK, and boasts more wrestling focused action and less soap opera. This is reflected in the way their game plays – less storyline, and more action.

The large roster is made up of recognisable wrestlers, from home-grown TNA talent such as AJ Styles, Abyss, and Samoa Joe, to former WWE wrestlers Kurt Angle, Jeff Hardy, and Mr Anderson, and iconic wrestling legends such as Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, and Sting. There are a few notable omissions from the roster, such as Kazarian and Mick Foley, and a few wrestlers are included that are no longer with the company, such as Jay Lethal and Kevin Nash, but for the most part the roster is a diverse one made up of all sorts of different types of wrestlers.

As with every wrestling game these days, TNA Wrestling Impact features a create a wrestler mode. As you would expect, this is fairly basic but decent enough. You are able to choose the body type (including skin colour, and body frame), hair style, and make a choice from a small selection of items of clothing, including knee pads, gloves, masks, and wrestling trunks. Once your appearance is set you can select what type of wrestler you want to be, such as a power house, or high-flyer, pick two grapple moves you want to have, and select your finishing move.

Meet TNA's hottest new star, Barry!

The matches themselves are pretty straight forward, especially if you’ve ever played a wrestling game before. There are a number of buttons on screen that perform your basic moves, punching, grappling, running, and actions such as climbing the turn-buckle or exiting the ring. The simple control scheme makes it very easy to pick up and play. Each attack can be countered by pressing the corresponding button: for instance, just before a punch connects a prompt appears on-screen telling you to press the punch button to counter.

Landing successful blows in quick succession allows you to fill up your finishing move metre. Once the metre is filled your finishing move can be used at any time. Once an enemy is suitably beaten their energy bar will flash red, indicating that you can guarantee victory by pinning them or making them submit. It is a very straight forward system that is evocative of the early games in the Smackdown series, before things became so bogged down in the minute details of everyday wrestling life.

One slight issue is that the hit detection can sometimes be a little out, especially when performing running moves; I’ve lost count of the number of times I have managed to hit an enemy whilst running, despite the fact that they have been several feet away from me. Speaking of running, your wrestler can only run in one of four directions, and as such I tended to avoid using the run, because it took away too much of my manoeuvrability.

The roster is made up of recognisable stars, including Samoa Joe, Kurt Angle, Jeff Hardy, and Mr Anderson

As well as your standard exhibition mode, in which you can fight against any wrestler on the roster in any sort of match, there is a fairly large Single Player mode. This consists of has three paths, one in which you pursue the TNA World Heavyweight Championship, and the other two focus on winning tournaments for the Tag Team Titles and the X-Division Championship. Of the three modes the only one with any real substance is the World Heavyweight Title, as it has a reasonably long story mode with multiple branching paths.

You take the role of a new wrestler in TNA (even if you choose well established TNA talent) and must earn your spot on the roster. Early battles pit you against lesser known wrestlers such as Rob Terry and The Pope D’Angelo Diniro, before you work you way up the ranks and face off against the likes of Rob Van Damn, and eventually face off against the World Heavyweight Champion. Between matches you are treated to the exchanges of colour commentators Mike Tenay and Taz (who comment on just how amazing you are) and are given advice by Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff.

The on screen buttons are easy to use

There are a number of match types to complete in the Heavyweight title career; your standard match, which can be won my pinfall, submission, or count out; Ambushes, which can only be won if you perform your finisher on your impromptu enemy; Submission, which require you to force you enemy to give in; and Cage matches, which can be won by pinfall, submission, or by climbing up the steel cage and making it out. It is a little disappointing that TNA’s trademark match, the Ultimate X match, is not included in the game, but that is only a minor issue.

Each of these match types can also be played in multiplayer, both locally through you Apple device’s blu-tooth, or online, which is surprisingly fun. When playing the game online I did experience a little bit of lag, but fortunately this game does not require split second timing, so it was not too much of an issue.

Review Round-Up

Graphics 4/5 – Featuring an accurate recreation of the Impact Zone, with decent looking crowd members, overall the graphics are pretty good. Some of the faces on the wrestlers (particularly Samoa Joe) look a bit wonky, but overall the character models are instantly recognisable.

Sound 3/5 - There are a very limited number of sound effects, but the few that are used are decent enough. Wrestler entrance tracks play briefly when they enter the ring and when they win a match.

Gameplay 4/5 – Despite the wrestlers having a fairly limited move set (one punch, two grapples, a charging move, a submission, and a finisher) combat is satisfying and diverse enough to maintain interest. There are a wealth of match types to choose from, and each of them can be played in single player, local multiplayer, and online.

Longevity 3/5 – While you could play the multiplayer mode forever, the single player content is a little lacking. Only the Heavyweight Championship career has any real story, and while it does have branching paths, it is disappointing that the X-Division and Tag Team careers do not have any story associated with them.

Overall 3.5 out of 5

This is an old school wrestling game, with a diverse roster made up of plenty of characters, and a wealth of gameplay modes. There are a few minor issues, mainly some slightly off hit detection and a few notable omissions in the match types and roster, but if you are looking for a portable wrestling game that focuses on wrestling, then why not give TNA Wrestling Impact a try?

- Luke Mears

Square Enix Ltd., the publisher of SQUARE ENIX® interactive entertainment products in Europe and other PAL territories, today announces the worldwide simultaneous release of FINAL FANTASY® III for the iPhone® and iPod® touch.  Available from today, the game can be downloaded from the Apple® Store priced €12.99/£9.49. In addition an iPad® version will be available for download in April 2011.

Originally released in 1990, FINAL FANTASY III was the first title in the series to become a million-seller. The full 3D remake released for the Nintendo DS in 2006 duplicated the original’s success, selling over a million copies worldwide – and now this classic RPG is available for the iPhone and iPod touch.

The iPhone/iPod touch version of FINAL FANTASY III features fully-remade 3D graphics, taking full advantage of the platform’s capabilities. Smooth, intuitive touch-panel controls – a product of Square Enix’s previous iPhone RPG experience – make the game easier to play than ever before.

FINAL FANTASY III was the first in the series to feature monster summons and a job-change system – and now players can enjoy this classic adventure all over again with the launch of the iPhone/iPod touch version.

About FINAL FANTASY III

When darkness falls and the land is robbed of light, four youths are chosen by the crystals to set forth on a journey to save the world…

Product Features:

• New and improved 3D visuals and story sequences exclusive to the iPhone/iPod touch
• Smooth, intuitive touch-panel control specifically tailored to Square Enix’s iPhone RPGs
• Quicker browsing through the monster bestiary and other game records
• New visual designs for the Job Mastery Cards
• Retina Display compatible

Product Overview:
Product name:    FINAL FANTASY III
Platform:    iPhone /iPod touch
Genre:        RPG   
Release date:    24th March 2011
SRP:        €12.99 / £9.49 each (available worldwide via App Store™)

Several months ago, Epic Games released a tech demo of Unreal Engine 3 running on the iOS and the result was thousands of game savvy iPhone and iTouch owners drooling over their screens. The graphics, lighting and sound shattered the preconceptions of what could be done on the Apple devices. When Epic announced that they were already working on a game in the engine, the world awaited its arrival.

And now we have Infinity Blade, the first Unreal Engine game on iOS. Your standard swords and sorcery affair, IB starts you in the shoes of a lone hero travelling to fight an evil god king, who then promptly stabs you in the chest, killing you dead. Not the best start, but don’t worry, this hero had a sprog, who grows up and sets off on a similar quest to avenge his father.  When he reaches the god king, he… well he gets killed as well, and here is IB’s storyline twist; you play through the same quest each time, and if you die on the final boss, you start afresh in the shoes of your previous hero’s son, with all the experience and equipment carried over.

Don't let him show you his "third" horn

Technically, IB is a perfect game. The environments glisten in their high definition shine, and the lighting effects are amazing. The game runs at a fairly good pace, with slight hints of slow down here and there, but generally it works well. The gameplay involves moving from duel to duel with enemies, and each fight is relatively formulaic. The enemies will aim a left or right attack and you can dodge, block or parry their attack. The battles go through three stages, where the enemies attack chains get longer and require faster moves. You also have super attacks which stun the enemy and magic which causes high instant damage. Both of these can be used at anytime, but require a recharge.

The fights have quite an exciting feel to them. When you successfully dodge a swipe you feel like a real sword-swinging adventurer and coming back with a successful swipe and knocking a chunk off your enemies life bar feels very rewarding. However, the camera angle used often prevents you from seeing exactly at what angle the incoming attack is from. Later in the game, a lot of the enemies resort to cheap attacks, like kicking you in the face after you dodge their attack. A few times, the touch screen stopped responding entirely and I found myself left defenceless as an angry troll punched my legs off. After about two runs through of the castle, I got pretty tired of the same three styles of enemies, and their identical death sequences.

The Lord of the Bling

The sections in between the fights themselves boil down to little more than briefly looking around the admittedly well designed locations and choosing the next fight or location. There are also hidden items, like potions or gold, that can be picked up during these inter-fight segments. The gold is used to purchase more powerful weapons and armour, and the RPG elements in the game work well. You also gain experience in your weapons which allows you to eventually “master” them, although what that actually entails is left vague.

Sound design in the game is relatively standard, with some good musical cues as the battles progress, but like a lot of other parts of the game these begin to repeat themselves after a time. If there was to be one criticism of this game it would be its repetition throughout, and I think I know why the developers have made the game this way. Chair have pushed the engine to create some fantastic locations and sequences, but they have done so at the cost of the gameplay itself. The game is so repetitive that the storyline itself has been written to make the repetition make sense. Sure, the game looks pretty, but as we all know, graphics aren’t everything. I think if the game was taken down a notch graphically, with some more exploration or even enemies to fight, it would easily make this a must have app.

Review Round Up

Graphics: 5/5 It’s an App Store game, and it could easily pass for a current generation console game, with the graphics surpassing the Wii.

Sound: 3/5 Your standard epic music store, although gets a tad repetitive after your second playthrough

Gameplay: 3/5 Good as long as it works, a lot of twitch skills are required, but pretty rewarding. Occasionally completely breaks down, but for the most enjoyable.

Longevity: 3/5 About three playthroughs in, the game turns into a grind and you’ll only be playing to finally kill the God King.

Overall: 3 Ridiculous helms out of 5

[starreview tpl=16]

The first Unreal Engine game on the App Store shows so much potential and yet falls so short. The game can’t be faulted on looking the part, but there could be so much more gameplay. Chair have put a lot of work into creating a very good looking game but have sacrificed enjoyable gameplay to do so. Hopefully, we will see some great games using the Unreal Engine, but for the time being, we will have to make do with Infinity Blade.

- Ed Johnston

“Hey Adam, why don’t you check out this game called ‘Cut the Rope”, it’s mega addictive. “

Obviously, being the stubborn sort of male, I presumed that i was immune to the raging affliction that was following this game around. A game that thrusts its gameplay on you and then ties you up in its charm net and refuse to let you go. A game can’t be like a cigarette was the final statement I made as the game slowly downloaded to my phone. However, I was wrong, and they don’t sell patches for this addiction.

A simple premise is the key ingredient to make a game addictive. In ‘Tetris‘, drop the blocks in the gaps; ‘Peggle‘, hit all the orange pages; ‘Cut the rope‘, you basically cut the rope.

Cutting the ‘featured rope’, causes the candy that is attached to it to fall, hopefully in the mouth of the protagonist, a cutesy alien character that can only live off candy. However feeding Johnson (peep show reference) is easier said than done as the small green sack manages to locate himself in 4 different boxes each with increasing difficulty. It’s like Princess peach all over again constantly being unable to stay un-kidnapped, get that woman a bell or something.

Game Engine

Battling with the physics of a piece of candy on a string is not enough for Chillingo as they throw a whole variety of obstacles at you. Obstacles such as spiders that climb down the rope to towards the candy with the ultimate intent to eat the candy and destroy your iPhone (it fell out of my hand and hit a wall) as it sends you back to the start. Or how about electrical wires that intermittently spark on and off, ready to destroy your precious cargo.

The control system is very simple and utlisises the iPhones’ multi touch technology enabling you to do multiple screen movements, which can be important when the screen starts to get busy with multiple ropes attaching themselves to your precious cargo. A slice through the rope with your finger will cut it, but a press on any of the custom objects, will cause it to ask differently. Touch an air cushion to cause a sharp gust of wind to breeze across the screen. The control system is very tight but when the levels start to get a tad hectic, then there can be conflict where you mean to cut by end up popping the bubble. A problem like this is forgivable though as it is not a regular occurrence.

Starry Eyed Surprise

Added to the mix are stars. These stars increase you score depending on how many of them you can get, so to max out your score, you have to collect them all. The collection of these stars increases the repetition values of each stage, honing in on those gamers who are achievement whores and it is not easy as the stars are located in hard to reach areas, which sometimes requires you to use all your physics know-how to collect.

Overall

This game deserves all the plaudits that it is currently getting, as it is puzzle perfection. It is a through-back to the days of Puzzle Bobble on how simplicity can reign supreme, especially in the current market where superior graphics are put ahead of the general gameplay in games. there are many exceptions to this, but as the iPhone keeps trying to prove that it is a serious gaming contender, graphics are sometimes being put first and the user is getting a pretty looking tampon. Good looking, but you throw it away after one use.

I can’t recommend this game any more, especially as it only costs 59p/99c.

-Adam Roche

Gameloft have reached an impressive 20 million downloads on the app store, which is a staggering amount.  They’ve released 47 titles this year alone 42 of which have reached the top 5 best selling games, with 25 hitting the coveted #1.

Congratulations Gameloft, may your success continue for a long time to come.

Rise Of The Resistance

People are lazy… Very lazy. But this laziness isn’t written into our genetic code or as a result of our upbringing; it is the consequence of our ever-growing intelligence and the utilization of that intellect to create more and more gadgets and gizmos. The sole purpose of these are to make our lives a whole lot lazier.

Take the iPod for example, or in fact anything that Apple has ever ejaculated from the “enlightened” mind of Steve Jobs. If I were a little more wealthy I could, and probably would, buy everything with an Apple on it… I’d buy some pink ladies as well; that’s my favorite variety of apple. Then I would hire some ladies wearing matching pink uniforms to eat them while I observe from a balcony.

It would however be hard to keep my attention focused on these “pink ladies” because I would be more interested in the tweets on my iPad and the download speed of the new Biffy Clyro album from iTunes.

Were these Steve Jobs' idea!? I'm not sure of anything anymore...

However, as a man I am skilled in the art of multitasking; a skill the opposite sex has yet to master, and with this skill I would be able to play my Xbox while maintaining Skype calls to the fellow members of the future resistance around the globe.

What I am trying to say is; society is constantly forming ways to keep us locked inside our houses. This will be the cradle of our destruction. For you see, while you sit at your chair sifting through the loose filaments of my mind, robotic engineers and scientists are constantly developing new technologies to advance our civilization, albeit with very little funding from the government.

I believe that eventually we will construct sentient robots, and if the all knowing teacher that is Hollywood has taught me anything, it’s that our greatest creation, upon realizing their superiority, will turn on us.

That, fellow humans, is the dawn of our downfall. Only the strong, the brave and the good will survive. Staying in groups of four won’t work this time though folks; this isn’t going to be a walk in a zombie filled park.

Molotov’s and vials of puke will most likely prove to be an ineffective weapon against the adamantium infused bodies of our synthetic adversaries. They will most certainly be equipped with more than two arms, and more armaments than you as well. In fact, it’s safe to say we’re pretty much fertilizer.

A vision of the future. But I'm pretty sure it'll be robots instead of zombies.

But don’t worry! Carry on with your life as you normally would. Just keep in mind that the games industry is producing a mass of educational source material secretly designed to subconsciously train the gamer to survive the war between man and machine.

Case in point: Mass Effect. This is Survival 101 people because it contains essential man-versus-machine training modules. It contains everything you’ll need to know, ranging from how to hack a robot sentient to how to use the biotic powers that we will inevitably gain as a result of future scientific research.

Ever seen Terminator 2? apart from being the greatest film ever made (FACT) it’s actually a premonition. It is going to happen people! I have seen it in my dreams and my dreams never lie.

Terminator 2 is the greatest movie of all time. Anyone who says otherwise will be the first to go.

I wouldn’t be surprised if my gospel compels you to go jump out of a window… the truth is harsh I know. But there are equally positive forces dedicated to making us more like J.C. Denton (25 gamer score if you know who J.C. Denton is) than ever before.

Soon we will be more metal than matter and we may even have a fighting chance, just make sure that when you go to the club this weekend you practice the robot dance. The droids made by Microsoft won’t be as smart or as deadly as the ones from Japan or Europe so you may even be able to trick them provided you can pop and or lock to a fairly decent standard.

But have you heard of a little arcade game called Darwinia+ by Introversion? This stylishly retro RTS’esque game is just another example of how games are doing their best to train you up for the inevitable robot uprising set to occur in 2012. It serves as great way to teach your children some basic warfare strategy. Get your kids practicing in the playground and gather up your sprites, because we will be fighting a lot of viruses… Viruses in our computers… Viruses in our bodies… Even viruses in our freaking kitchen appliances.

Throw away those Nintendo Wii's and buy your kids Darwinia+. The future depends on it!

Oh, and you know those quick time events that seem to be freakin’ everywhere since Sega made Shenmue? Well, the little improvements QTEs make to your reaction time are an essential part of your five a day: caffeine, sugar, alcohol, QTE and weapons training. Fruit and Vegetables will be in short supply after the Cybernetic Organisms carpet bomb every farm in England, so get used to life without them.

I am telling you this so that when the robot revolution begins nobody can say I was wrong. Crazy I may be, but wrong I be not. I implore you to go out into the streets and tell as many as you can, “play more games! Or you might soon be subject to severe stab wounds, laser burns and anal probing”.

Tell them ItsActuallyAdam sent you… then tell them to plug their anus.

Hey Steve,

It’s Tom, sorry iTom (I keep forgetting about the new employee naming convention), from the Apple design team here. With the media storm around the iPad it’s clear that now is the time to push forward with the plans for the rest of the product line. Massively increasing the size of the iPod Touch and selling it at a marked up price is a ‘touch’ of genius.

We’ve had some thoughts about future projects you might consider. Generally they are along the same vein as the iPad, and we can guarantee success with your now proven formula:

So for example, when applied to the new iPad you can see how this works:

In a time when electronics developers are fighting to create small and innovative new products, Apple are daring to be different; and we salute you for your vision. With the right marketing we can become the World leaders in rehashed-old-tech-made-larger. So without further ado, I give you the new range of Apple products code-named “The Big Apple”.

1. Mac Mini

Everyone loves the Mac Mini, but sales have been dwindling and it’s time for a revamp. I therefore give you the Mac Maxi, retailing at £1530.
Fig 1. Concept for Mac Maxi RRP: £1530

Applying your formula for the iPad has brought us this 66cm x 66cm x 8cm desk top beast. You’ll notice we’ve taken away over half of the USB ports from the old model; this is to fit in with the loss of features prerequisite for new ideas. If you think we need to lose more features, we could also get rid of that (entirely unnecessary) disk drive. I’m afraid the conventional port sizes (USB, Ethernet etc) have had to remain the same, but the box itself is four times as big. You can bet sales figures will be four times as big as well!

2. iPod Shuffle

This was a difficult one. The Shuffle had such little functionality to begin with it was difficult to see how we could ultimately make this a successful product, but then genius struck once again. With the new iPad Kafuffle, not only can you not select the songs you want to listen to, now you can’t listen to them either because we’ve taken away the headphones port.
Fig. 2. Concept for iPad Kafuffle with advertising slogan “BIG is the new big”. RRP: £180

And remember, engraving will cost four times as much as we increase the size of that too!

3. The MacBook Pro

This is the design we are most proud of. We’ve taken the puny 17” screen of the MacBook Pro and quadrupled it to give us the new 68” MacBook Pro XL. By reducing the processing speed and slashing the memory capacity, we’ve also been able to keep the weight down to equal that of the previous model whilst reducing the functionality, as per your formula.
Fig. 3. MacBook Pro and prototype for MacBook Pro XL. RRP: £5667

We think there is a huge, untapped, unthinking target market out there for these products, we’re so confident that you’ll like them that prototypes are already in production and should be ready by the time the iPad is launched.

Kind regards,

iTom
Lead Design Consultant
Apple Inc. UK

the iPad,

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