iPod Touch Firmware 2.0 & Free App Store Games Review

by Eric March on July 12, 2008 at 3:01 pm

I took the plunge. I upgraded my iPod Touch to 2.0. Easy? Absolutely! Does it kick Chuck Norris’ ass? Eh, not so much.

It isn’t that the firmware isn’t cool, because it is. The app store is excellent, the new features of the firmware are welcome, and overall it would be a wickedcool upgrade except for one wee detail: App Store apps only work when they want to. Sometimes they’ll just crash back to springboard. Sometimes they’ll run — kinda. Spinner Prologue for example ran fine one minute, then the next it’s complaining that it can’t access the accelerometer, despite the fact that other apps can. Oh, and now that app won’t load at all. Brilliant! And did I mention the iTunes installation problems? Yeah, took me four syncs and a few installation error messages before all of the apps I snagged decided to install.

I’m not sure how this got out the door with such egregious and blisteringly obvious bugs, but — well, there it is, and I have no idea what to make of it. All I know is, Apple’s devs better be stocking up on Visene and slamming the Bawls to get this fixed up right snappy.

Aside from that though the Touch functions just as I expected it would. The new enterprise functions are very nice, the landscape scientific calculator is cool, yadda yadda yadda. There’s nothing I can add here that hasn’t been said on a brazillion other blogs and message boards, although I’d like to point out that I like the fact that the iPod Touch is now recognized as a camera as well. It makes getting screenshots off of the device a hell of a lot easier thanks to direct access to the camera roll from Windows, just like the iPhone. There are still some niceties missing that I’d liked to have seen; landscape SMS and Notepad would be very welcome. And MMS? Steve, dude, this stuff is elementary. And I’m still waiting for my fully customizable EQ, Steve.

App Store bugs aside, I’m happy I upgraded, because being able to check out all the cool stuff on the App Store has been great fun. I grabbed a number of apps that looked interesting to me and have been checking them out thoroughly.

After the break, you’ll find mini reviews of 12 free App Store apps, plus an action-packed video that covers 7 of the those. (I’ll denote which apps are shown in the video with a “(Featured)” tag.) Hit the more link to read on…

Blip Solitaire (featured)
It’s Pong for one. Dreadfully simple game here. You rotate your paddle around the circumference of an imaginary circle and try to keep the ball in play for as long as possible. The graphics just don’t get simpler here: Purely black and white, no fancy backdrops, no sound effects. But given that its genesis is a game designed in 1972, it’s obviously going for retro chic here. Unfortunately it does get pretty dull after a game or two.

iMaze (featured)
Continuing along with the minimalist fare, we have iMaze. It’s … a maze. (Duh) Once again, absolutely nothing fancy-schmancy here. Black and white maze, a blue ball (that would be you), tile-based movement, a simple timer, and a pair of options to choose between easy and hard mazes. Easy mazes are physically larger, and therefore the route to the exit is shorter. The game is played entirely with the acceleromter — but before you think that’s not a bad idea, play it. Once you’ve developed carpal tunnel from all the twisting after the third or fourth maze, you’ll understand where I’m coming from. In its implementation, this is just not a game for the accelerometer. Give me simple directionals any day.

Spinner Prologue (featured)
On the other size of the hedge maze, we have Spinner Prologue. (“Prologue” is actually a nice way of saying “playable demo,” because a larger version with more levels and stuff will be coming out, and it won’t be free.) This right here is a clever use of the accelerometer. It’s a wee bit like Cameltry stripped down to its barest essentials, and with only the walls you can’t touch. The object is to move your arrow-in-a-circle through the maze to the goal. Your arrow is always in motion, but you have no control over him. Instead, you rotate your device around to turn the maze as it progresses. Although it features very simple graphics, it is effectively implemented; the way the maze stays relatively perpendicular to the ground as you rotate the device is trippy, and some of the levels are quite challenging. If you can overlook the threadbare presentation, there’s a pretty good game here.

iPint
Ready for a sponsored game? Here’s one for you, straight from the Carling breweries, makers of Carlsberg and Jutland horses. The game itself is quite simple: Your goal is to get a tall, frosty glass of Carling beer from one end of the bar and into the anxious hands of your thirsty mate at the other. To do this you have to tip your device and guide the beer around obstacles and over coasters, being careful not to let it fall off the bar or smash too hard into an obstacle. There are three levels of difficulty, and each features only one screen, so there are just three levels in all. Once you’ve completed a level however, you’re treated to a dee-luxe Carling version of iBeer — you remember, that “magic” trick that fills a glass with digital beer substitute and lets you tip your device over and pretend to drink it? (Which also had a variant as a level pack for iPhysics by Moo.) This version is actually pretty convincing, with the liquid sloshing around in the virtual glass, making surface ripples and all. Once you’ve “poured” the liquid out, just tap again to either start a new game, pour yourself another pint, or “send to a friend” — whatever that means; I didn’t test it because my friends would never forgive me for sending them a Carlsberg.

Morocco (featured)
Morocco is an Othello/Reversi game that has entered the witness protection program. At least, that’s the only reason I can think of for giving it a new name. Just the same, this is a pretty standard game of Othello, graphics and all. There are three levels of difficulty available, though even on hard, the computer is pretty easy to beat for any halfway decent player. You can also choose whether to enable valid move markers. Not a bad game here, and it’s certainly worth the sticker price.

PangeaVR (featured)
Remember Marco Giorgini’s CubeWorld? It was a pretty cool 360° panorama image viewer, right? Prepare to meet its badass big brother, PangeaVR, courtesy Pangea Software, the fine folks behind the most excellent commercial iPhone/Touch games Cro-Mag Rally and Enigmo. This app gives you access to literally hundreds of gorgeous panoramas, broken down into “portfolios” each containing a bunch of cool panos from various photographers and web collections. Each panorama can be rotated in 360° with your finger, zoomed with the standard pinch method, and will even follow your device’s orientation (like Spinner Prologue) — though if you don’t like the orientation following, you can set a fixed landscape or portrait display in settings, along with enabling/disabling drift (momentum) and setting the drag sensitivity. Sure, there’s nothing practical about PangeaVR — but who needs practicality? It’s just ridiculously cool and the imagery is outstanding.

PayPal
Nothing revolutionary here, folks. This is a simple PayPal app that lets you send money to anyone wherever you are. That is pretty much its raison d’etre; you can check your balance, and choose to send someone money with a note if you so desire. It works as advertised. Now, if the eBay app would come to Canada, I could snipe and pay for auctions right from the palm of my hand. (You ‘muricans already can. Bastards.)

PhoneSaber
Yeah, yeah. I know. Da hell is this? It’s exactly what you’d expect: A phony light saber that uses the accelerometer to detect movement and make appropriate light saber noises. It’s pretty well thought-out though. It can determine how hard you’re whipping your device around and adjust the noises it makes accordingly. A sudden stop will generate a satisfying saber clash noise. Tap the light saber to simulate retracting/extending your saber, and you can choose from a range of saber colours on the left. It’s kinda cool, it a useless sort of way, but maybe that’s just because I just got finished watching the entire series in episodic order. Join me, and together we will rule the galaxy as father and son.

Remote
Control your iTunes with your iPod Touch or iPhone remotely? Don’t mind if I do. Or don’t, as the case may be; while iTunes responded to my Touch’s attemp to connect and I was able to enter the passcode it gave me, it wasn’t able to connect to the library, so uh … not much I can review here until I figure out why it didn’t work.

Aurora Feint (featured)
Why is this game free? It’s full of far too much win to be free. Nevertheless, it is free, and I’ll take it. Aurora Feint is an odd yet interesting combination of role playing and puzzle game. Kind of a Puzzle Quest type game. In the main, the object is to mine for elements by matching three or more like tiles in a similar style to Bejeweled, excepting that you can only move blocks horizontally. Fortunately, the game also responds to the accelerometer, so you can tilt the game board in any direction to reorient the blocks and let gravity take over. Once you have made a certain number of matches, you are eligible for upgrades via “levelling up.” The upgrades allow you to do things like stop time, collect resources quicker, and so on. You pick the blueprints for your upgrade from the store, and then you must go to the Smith (or the tower, dependig on the upgrade) to build the blueprints, which requires that you face another puzzle challenge matching a set number of specific tiles within a given time limit. There’s a social aspect to the game with the ability to add other community players to your party, effectively giving you a team. There’s far too much to explain in a small review here, but I will say that the graphics, animation and sound effects here are absolutely top shelf, worthy of the best commercial games. This is definitely a must for anyone who likes the chocolatey flavour of puzzle games with the peanut-buttery taste of role playing.

Tap Tap Revenge (featured)
Everyone who’s anyone in the jailbreak scene knows Tap Tap Revolution. It was one of the main killer apps to hit the scene lo these many months ago. Now you can get it on the legitemate side of things with its App Store successor, Tap Tap Revenge. I doubt it needs much introduction or description here; if you don’t know what this is, you probably need to resume your journey to throw that evil Coke bottle off the end of the Earth. All of the familiar elements are here, though the biggest difference you’ll notice is that there are no unlicensed commercial tracks here, and no way to download new ones (as you might have expected, given Apple’s restrictions). In fact, there aren’t very many tracks at all. There are 6, in fact, spread across four skill levels. I imagine more will turn up in time, though they will probably be indie tracks if anything — unless it goes pay and can then afford to license some Big Four tunes. Hey, ya gotta pay the piper. Nevertheless, it’s still TTR as you’ve always remembered it, and if that’s not enough incentive, there’s a tournament mode in which the top 3 scores will receive $25 iTunes gift cards. Not too shabby.

WeatherBug
Here we have a relatively simple weather app for the iPhone, converted from their Windows version. I’ve got mixed feelings about this one. On the one hand, it has a nice display of current temperature, highs and lows, rain measurement, wind speed and direction, humidity with heat index, dew point, and of course the forecast with an actual description of what’s going down weather-wise, not to mention a prety cool satellite map and a trio of random cameras from Lakeland Park in Missouri, Clarksburg High School in Maryland, and WeatherBug’s headquarters in Germantown, Maryland. Great if you’re from one of those areas, but generally pointless otherwise. It definitely feels a bit incomplete though. It displays temperatures only in fahrenheit with no option for celsius, the forecast only includes a three-day outlook, and you’re only allowed a maximum of three cities in your list — not that I really need more, but some folks might. Visually it’s pretty basic, with your standard weather icons and a few dashes of style here and there, but by and large it’s kept pretty simple. Nice little app, but it needs a bit more work before it’s good enough to replace the iPhone/Touch’s built-in app.

There you go! Some of the better (or maybe not so much) free apps available through the official App Store. If words just don’t do it for you though, check out the video below for some hot App Store action.

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Posted in Free App Store Review, Uncategorized