The gaming world is growing into an ever increasing expensive wasteland of shovelware, new gadgets, yearly console replacements, and free services going to the profit dark side. Yet, as gamers we will happily shell out money to support our habit.

Just look at the iPhone. When it came out people were skeptical if Apple had the balls to play in the big leagues. Four revisions later, we now see every company and their sister trying to duplicate what Apple has done. Where does this put iOS gamers?

The world is a funny place. When the iPhone went from iPhone slowass to iPhone 3G within a year, original iPhone buyers cried foul. AT&T saw a nice opening to snag some money and let customers upgrade at the cost of an ever-growing phone contract. Customers happily slapped down over $200 for a phone upgrade. Let us not forget the monthly pillaging of your wallet at $100+ a shot.

Next, we saw the iPhone 3GS hit the Internet and people went crazy yet again. Customers once again cried out with a fury even Kratos would be envious of. AT&T and Apple happily took more money from consumers to upgrade yet again. Another $200 for a phone, and another contract extension all in the name of shiny new toys.

We also saw the introduction of the iPad. To many this was just an overblown iPod that had a really stupid name. Yet, like the sheep we consumers are, we flocked to this new toy. Salivating at the mouth, we bought this new iPad device in massive hordes. The base price for this new toy was $500 just to get the low-end model. Do we even think that for $500 we could get a computer that does so much more….NOPE!

Consumers will drop a small fortune on gadgets at the drop of the hat. $200 every year to upgrade a phone is no big deal. $800 for a device that can’t even do everything the $200 device we have in our pockets is like buying toilet paper on a weekly basis. We have needs, and those needs need to upgrade every year.

We drop all this money, yet we piss and moan like little babies over a bad $0.99 app we bought. Really? Dropping $500 for an iPad was no big deal, but that $0.99 will have customers up in arms demanding their money back? Where did we become such whiney little kids?

It is time to take a step back and realize just what we are bitching about. If a measly buck is going to cause you to grab your pitchfork in anger, it might be time to reconsider you priorities. If this rambling didn’t put things into perspective, then maybe this comic will.

If you play a lot of video games, you’re probably a little wary when it comes to those that are based upon movies – on top of that, if I had to choose one movie that would make a bad video game, there’s every possibility I’d have chosen one from the 70s about a big shark. However, in the case of Jaws on the iPhone, it’s actually quite a treat. Let me tell you a little more.

This game takes the top-down view that’s been tried and proven on this platform and puts you in charge of rescuing helpless swimmers from the clutches of Jaws’ jaws. Whilst the first stage simply requires you to swipe at the flailing figures in the ocean and guide them to shore, the game introduces several new ideas as you progress. For example, the open water levels require you to guide rescue boats of varying sizes by drawing a line on the touch screen. You then swipe the swimmers towards the boat and continue to guide the boat off-screen. Dock levels are much the same, with the rescue being completed when you guide the full boats into landing bays.

The varying levels really keep things fresh through all 10 stages in the game, while also revolving around the same gameplay mechanics to ensure familiarity and a nice learning curve. What really sets this game apart, though, it the way it puts across the feeling that you’re the one floating out in the sea, hoping not to be mistaken for a seal. The frantic nature of the game mixes with the classic “da dun, da dun” of the Jaws original soundtrack, cueing an imminent shark attack – and if the swimmers on-screen start to panic, you’d better panic too, as it’ll only attract the Great White to attack sooner.

Even once they’re aboard a vessel, you can’t deem them safe – if you misguide one boat into another, both will be sunk and everybody on board will be back in the drink with that dorsal fin ever circling. For those that are rescued, you’ll be awarded stars dependent on your performance. If you don’t save enough people, the mission is failed. Just scrape through and you’ll pass, but will only be awarded a single star – which won’t be enough if you want to unlock all stages.

This adds a little to the replayability by returning to previous levels for more stars, as do OpenFeint scoreboards and achievements. But, on the other hand, it would have been nice to see a few more included as once you get into it there’s every chance you’ll finish them all rather quickly. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though, as there’s a real treat to be had in the last level, but I shan’t spoil it – and do bear in mind that at a price of just $0.99, you’ll be sure get your money’s worth by just playing through the once.

It’s a nice little game, which takes the tension that was felt in the original movie (those sequels never happened, right?) and puts it upon the player. Achieving the full three stars on each level will take some working on, but simply finishing the game itself can be done in a short space of time. Which is refreshing to see in a way: with all the “endless” iPhone games hitting the App Store of late, it’s nice to get that feeling of “completion” for a change – and you’ll have a whole lot of fun getting there.

Star Wars featured one during Revenge of the Sith, while episode 76 of South Park delivered the somewhat more obscene “It” – now, it’s the iPhone’s turn to get one, by which I am of course referring to a “monowheel” or “monocycle.” The game is Monorace from Craneball Studios, putting you into the seat of one of these single-wheeled driving machines. Let’s see how it fares.

Basically, what we have here is a rather fast paced side-scrolling game in which your monowheel will continually be moving from left to right. Your job is to ensure that it gets to the finishing line, avoiding all manner of obstacles from deadly spikes to the edge of the screen itself (if it catches up with you, you’re done). This is all performed by the simple means of a single input. Due to a monowheel’s nature, it’s capable of driving both on the floor and ceiling – simply tapping the lower half of the screen will cause the wheel to jump, alternating between the two.

In order to progress through the game and unlock more stages, you’ll need to collect stars. These are awarded based on the time it takes you to complete a level. Before starting, the game shows you three different times, awarding you one, two or three stars respectively. Your finishing time can be manipulated not only by getting to the end as fast as possible, but also by collecting stopwatches along the way which decrease your overall time score. There’s also a nice little mechanic which means the timer counts faster if you’re lagging behind on the left half of the screen but slows if you’re on the right half.

In addition to hazardous objects such as pits, spikes and the landscape itself, other things to take into consideration are the speed up/slow down arrow sections, as well as a sort of physics mechanic. This means that driving uphill will slow you down, and that’s obviously not a good thing at all. You can, of course, counter this by simply jumping up these sections, but be sure to mind your head.

As well as an endless mode with high-score based gameplay and OpenFeint’s online leaderboards, there are two career modes to play through: “beginner” and “racer.” The latter mode raises the bar as far as difficulty is concerned. These both offer up forty stages each, meaning there’s a lot of replayabilty in there if you plan to finish them all. That said, some levels will offer a mass of replayabilty themselves as you repeatedly crash and watch your monowheel explodeing into a rather spectacular ball of fire.

However, despite the explosions looking rather spectacular, as do the menu screens and character designs (of which there are three), the actual levels in the game are a little lacklustre in terms of visuals. The landscapes are all made up of a rather dull brown or grey texture; though it obviously doesn’t affect the gameplay, it would have been nice to see the same effort put into this aspect as was put into the design of the characters and visual ephemera.

It shouldn’t put you off, though, as there’s definitely a lot of fun to be had with Monorace. It’s one of those games that (in the later stages) will frustrate you to the point where you’re about to throw you’re iPhone out the window – while at the same time you’re unable to put it down, attempting the level “one more time” in your determination to get to the end. If you can’t finish it, though, the character’s witty and humorous remarks will do just enough to keep you smiling. It’s certainly a whole lot of game for it’s $0.99 price point and shouldn’t be overlooked when your’e browsing the App Store.

Do people still play board games? I know, it all sound a little 1980s, right? So, how about a board game on you iPhone? That’s exactly what Magic Cube have done with their latest title Slime Race, a rather charming little game that’s based upon the traditional Korean board game known as “Yut”.

As with many board games, the basic idea is that you roll a die (with only five sides in this case) in order to move your pieces, or “Slimes”, with the aim to make them reach the goal before your opponents. Each player can have up to five slimes on their team, which are moved one at a time – land on the red arrows in order to take a shortcut, roll a 4 or 5 to be granted another roll, land on your own Slimes to combine them into a single piece and finally, land on an opponent’s Slime to send them all the way back to the start, receiving another roll at the same time.

That’s hardly the greatest description of how the actual gameplay works, but it’s certainly in line with the instructions you’ll receive in-game. Upon loading up the game for the first time, I read them through – leaving me nothing but confused. However, once you start up a game, it’s all very much self-explanatory and you’ll know exactly what you’re doing after just two or three rolls of the die.

There are three different maps to play on, each using the same gameplay but a different layout. Which, to be fair, isn’t a lot – and while I feel there should be more, the maps really don’t make an awful lot of difference. You wouldn’t expect to buy a real board game with three different boards, I guess. That said, you also wouldn’t expect to buy a board game with a slightly unresponsive control system either, I’ve often found my self tapping a Slime three or four times before it finally decides to start moving.

Playing Slime Race alone will unfortunately soon wear thin. With some fairly some average AI the game will hang you the win more often than not. However, the multiplayer mode offers something that may interest you a little more. If you can handle the thought of passing your precious iPhone into the hands of another, up to four players can take turns playing on one device. It’s a nice idea that really makes for something social, and is particularly nice to see on this platform – especially as playing games on your phone when others are around is mostly deemed as an “unsociable” thing to do.

At the end of the day, though, this isn’t a game for everybody. It’s quite obviously aimed at the more casual gamers out there, but without a friend or two around to play with it’ll soon become repetitious. It’s bright and colorful styling works very well on the iPhone’s screen and I love the encouragement to play with others. However, the style of gameplay would really be best described as an acquired taste.

Hello everyone this is Michelle from The Portable Gamer with your iCasual report for The Incident from Big Bucket Software for all devices running current iOS software. The Sky is falling, the Sky Falling… OK maybe not but there is a whole metric butt load falling and you need to avoid it.
Welcome to The Incident, kind of sounds like a new TV show, but I assure you, its a game. The goal is to not let the falling objects hit you by tilting your device to move your character. A bar on the top of the screen tells you where the items are coming from and what size they are. But regardless of what comes down, if it lands on you, you still get hurt. Watch the meter on the bottom to see how close to death you are. As the debris piles up, you need to tap the screen to try and jump on top of it. Tilt, jump & repeat, catching the occasional floating extras along the way. These extras can sometimes lead to more lives, goodies and even some bad stuff you should try and avoid. As long as you don’t get stuck, you will eventually get to where all the stuff is coming from which means you can then move on to the next incident.
Each of the 7 levels are similar, just with different backgrounds and difficulty, which did seem to feel a little tired after a while. Its a lot more fun in short sessions, too long at one sitting got a little boring. But when you do eventually die, you can re-live your deaths in the trophy room and see some achievements to shoot for, but no online leader board, a little surprising. The graphics are retro 8 bit goodness with an 8 bit score that sometimes gets annoying, thank god for the the mute button. This $1.99 game is universal so its great you only have to pay once to play on any devise but since its so short, you may not need to. Hopefully this 1.0 version is just the beginning. I would really love to update my Facebook status with “death by soda machine at 60 meters”. Until then, its a fun yet short diversion that with a little work could be even better.

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Remember when you first took ownership of your iPhone or iPod Touch? No doubt you just sat and admired it for a moment or two upon first removing it from it’s minimalistic packaging. Then you began to use the super responsive touch screen and I bet you’d have killed for an excuse to touch it over and over, sometimes several times a second — if so, Detonation could be the excuse you were looking for.

Here, you’ll be tapping frantically in order to detonate a series of speedy bombs. They’re heading for the core of a planet and if they reach their destination, the aforementioned planet will soon be turned into nothing more than a meteor shower in the skies of a distant land.

You'll wish you could skip these parts.

During the story mode, the exact reasoning for this occurrence is made crystal clear and you’ll hear no end of details about “the wave” — especially since these narrative sections cannot be skipped the first time around. Not usually an issue for me; backstories are a good thing. However, in this case it’s just unnecessary. I don’t need an explanation, just let me get on with the game!

The complaints end there, though. The story mode will take you through several planets, one by one — each time introducing new types of bombs and sometimes even a friendly power-up or two. Bombs vary in color and style, some travel faster, some explode with a greater velocity, some do more damage and bombs of the armoured type will require a few taps to detonate (but my is it worth it when they finally go). Power ups range from extra health to a decrease in bomb speed. But, if you let them reach that fiery hole, they’ll have the opposite effect — proving for a very tricky time indeed.

As you detonate the bombs, causing a score multiplying chain reaction of explosions, panic, mayhem and chaos ensue, particularly in the later stages and waves. There’s a really nice difficulty curve implemented to help ease you into it all, though, with the more difficult planets sometimes requiring many attempts before you get that perfect run to save the day. Sure, it’s frustrating at times, but you’ll soon be back to try again, which offers a boat load of replayability.

That’s something that continues far beyond the story mode by way of two “endless modes” known as Time Attack and Score Attack, with the primary objective of scoring as highly as possible. All modes offer an online leaderboard for each planet via OpenFeint’s tried and tested platform (achievement’s are also included, of course).

The only other issue I’ve noticed on my 3GS is an occasional drop in framerate when things really start to get hectic. It’s totally worth putting up with, though, as the the sheer amount of fun you’re having will keep framerate issues in the very back of your mind.

To sum it all up, let me put it like this: for somebody that’s regularly reviewing games on their iPhone, they tend to adopt a kind of play, review and delete policy on their devices. Detonate, on the other hand, will be firmly implanted within my iPhone’s memory chip for a long while yet. As well as on my own memory chip (my brain… I think it’s called) — I just cannot get enough.

148apps rating note – Over too soon

There was once a time when sliding a virtual race car around a track’s corners was seen as a sure fire way to increase your laps times; however, somewhere between The Fast and the Furious movies and a progression in physics development, it became the right thing to do – many video games will now reward you for “drifting” around a corner and that’s certainly the case with Drift Mania Championship.

Designed in partnership with the Drift Mania Canadian Championship, this particular game sees you participating in the only motorsport that isn’t won by crossing the finish line first. Instead, your job is to impress the judges with your rubber melting, tyre screeching drifting abilities – it’s nicely demonstrated during the games’ opening video sequence. A “real life” video montage taken from the championship gets you raring to rev your engine, with footage of speeding cars in dangerously close proximity to one another. Of course, there’s also a few scantily clad women hanging around the race track – which for some reason have become infinitely intertwined within the world of fast cars.

Once the video’s over, you’ll reach the main menu screen, with two options as far as playing the game is concerned, Drift or Practice – I’d definitely recommend you pick the latter on your first play as these cars can be a little tricky to handle. You’ll soon become accustomed to their tendencies for driving sideways, though, and will be moving onto the real deal in no time. In terms of actually controlling the car; tilting your device will steer, a button on your left thumb applies the handbrake and a variable bar on the right controls the throttle. This method of acceleration is much appreciated, with many iPhone racers adopting either an auto-accelerate or single button setup. It’s extremely helpful in this scenario to have full control over just how fast your car is travelling.

Once you’ve familiarised yourself with the controls, it’s time to take on the championship. To begin with, you’ll have only one car and one circuit at your disposal, but as you improve your scores and achieve podium finishes, more will be unlocked. To do just that, you’ll be required to complete a number of laps whilst earning as many points as you can. Points are, quite obviously, awarded for drifting around corners; being marked for speed, style and precision. You’ll also gain extra points for combos and drifting in bonus zones. The target scores seemed unachievable during my very first round, but it really wasn’t long at all before I surpassed them, leaving me with better cars and an even higher score. It was at this point that I began to wish there was more than three circuits to race on.

Ultimately, that was a feeling I got several times whilst playing Drift Mania – there simply wasn’t enough of it. As far as the look and feel of the gameplay itself goes, there’s not an awful lot to complain about. The inclusion of a couple of songs from upcoming bands was also a nice little touch. But, it would have been even nicer if there’d been a few more circuits, perhaps a different game mode or two and even maybe some more songs. It’s a nice little racer and a fresh alternative to simply crossing the line first – unfortunately, it just doesn’t last.

Written and Recorded by: Michelle Lopez

iCasual is a free audio podcast that we deliver to you!
Click HERE; to subscribe in iTunes | Click HERE; for the RSS Feed.

Hello everyone this is Michelle from The Portable Gamer with your iCasual report for Wrecking Ball from Alternative Visuals for all devices running current iOS software.
Do you have a lot of bent up frustrations? Maybe somedays you just feel like breaking something. Well than Wrecking Ball may just be for you. In this physics based puzzle game, you are sent to a work site to destroy a frame of a building. At your disposal is a wrecking ball with a limited amount of gas. You touch the screen to move your rig and then you swing the ball by tilting your devise. If you smash the sweet spot your building will fall. If not, you will have to move and swing again until you either bring it down or you run out of fuel. The one oddity of the game is that tilting only effects the ball and not the building. I found myself trying to coax the structure to fall but it was unaffected by moving the device only by hitting it with the ball in just the right spots.
This 1.99 mind bender comes with 30 different worksites all designed to make you stop and think before you make a move. Each site gives you a different height to be reached and other obstacles to add to to the difficultly. You have a time limit, but you will really need to be careful how you wreak or you will damage other buildings or the environment depending on the site you’re at.
Once you’ve completed the included levels there is a editor to create and share your own. Plus, the developer promises in app purchases for expansion packs later in the year. This game doesn’t have very detailed graphics it stands more on skill than beauty. It was made for the small screen but looks and feels good on the iPad as well. If you fancy yourself a mindful player of any age that also enjoys destruction this is the game for you.

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Written and Recorded by: Michelle Lopez

iCasual is a free audio podcast that we deliver to you!
Click HERE; to subscribe in iTunes | Click HERE; for the RSS Feed.

Hello everyone this is Michelle from The Portable Gamer with your iCasual report for Chuck Gnome from Movable Sprites LLC for all devices running current iOS software.

Before even looking at the app I mistakenly assumed that this would be a game where you would be playing a Gnome named Chuck. Well, not quite. I’m not sure what their names are but In this game you are actually Chucking as in throwing Gnomes at moving targets. You have a slingshot and a seemingly endless supply of Gnomes that you need to shoot at carnival style objects within a time limit. The controls are simple enough, drag the gnome back and release. The further back you pull, the farther the Gnome will fly. Hold the shot for a second and a trajectory line will give you special Gnome vision to give you an idea of where your headed. Most of the time though, you’re just gonna shoot as quick as you can so you’re able to unlock the next level.

The uniquely layered environment gives this simple game an added challenge that will keep you coming back for more. The graphics and sound in this $1.99 cutie are playful and funny which should appeal to kids of all ages. There is even a lite gnome version with one level just to get you hooked.

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Written and Recorded by: Michelle Lopez

iCasual is a free audio podcast that we deliver to you!
Click HERE; to subscribe in iTunes | Click HERE; for the RSS Feed.

Hello everyone this is Michelle from The Portable Gamer with your iCasual report for Plunderland from Johnny Two Shoes LLP for all devices running current iOS software.

A’hoy Matey and welcome to Plunderland, where you control a ship of Pirates bent on plundering all the worlds treasures. To set sail, just tilt your device in the direction you want to travel. The more you tilt the faster you go and of course to stop just straighten up. Your ship comes equipped with cannons to destroy your enemy. When you touch the screen you get a helpful dotted line which shows if your aim is true, simply let go to shoot. Sink the ships to unlock the treasure and tap to collect. Each level has a goal to be reached in order to unlock the next, but you should try and collect as much as you can because you use the money for more powerful upgrades.

This stylish original game, might look like it’s for the little ones, but with the blood and violence, I would keep this puzzle game for us big kids. For 2.99 you’ll get hours of enjoyment and a promise from the developer of Free updates and extras coming soon.

If you downloaded it early you may not have been able to play it on some of the newer devices but the programers worked tirlessly and pushed a new version out that is now fully supported buy all our new shiny toys.

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