Apps you can play drunk.....

In a taxi on the way back from the pub?
Boring train ride?
Back from an allnighter but cannot sleep?

Play one of the following....

Tiny wings
One button, time to think your moves out.

Doodle jump
The ability to sway randomly may help.

Groove coaster
Tap the screen randomly and you might get through it.

Free App Trap

Oh App of new joy show me your uses. Tell me the time, find me a shop, entertain me with jumping shootyness....check my pulse, send me to sleep... Show me the news......

Oh.

Mmmmm.

Told me the time for ten minutes. Found one shop before demo runs out. Shoot and jump my way to the 'pay for more levels' screen. Checked my pulse but didn't compare it to anything. Sent me to sleep but woke me up with a buy me alert alarm. Only showed me yesterdays news.

Sometimes its best to save all this faff and just buy the bloody full app!

Hidden Bonus

We all like extras, freebies etc..... But what about when a certain game or app gives us something way more than even the actual developers never intended. I spoke recently in a blog previous about the joy of Monkey Ball. Now this is a perfect case in point. Monkey Ball has bonus multiplayer games and somehow, through either genius or fluke (i'd say the former..) the fabled 'Monkey Flight' is possibly the finest example of 'finesse' gameplay ever made. Roll monkey filled ball down ski slope, fling off it and split the ball in two to form parachute wings, float to glory onto targeted ground or if an old pro, the floating barrels! It's that simple and played over three different levels!

But here is the clever bit....

You can learn these levels till fully memorised, targets, barrels, bananas...etc. Its possible to be very strategic in a gambling sense as to how far you dare to score. Go for the hard to reach barrels on the easy level, hold back a bit and at least score a little less on the targets when on the harder levels. Doing this saves dropping in the water just next to the tiny barrels as this gives no score (and a slightly creepy animation of your monkey sinking to the abyss). I could babel on about the other dozen or so fine tactical points to the game but its clear that it delivers way more than a bonus game should. A BONUS GAME. The main game is awesome in itself but get a few friends round and watch the hours fly by at the mercy of the mighty 'Flight'!!! I've met many people whoo agree about this and swapped tales f daring feats of skill and all barrel score fests. I bow to the greatness of Sega in giving the player much more than intended. Thankyou.

Drive time Real time

Like driving games?
Like driving games that feel like the real thing?
How the fuck do you actually know what a supercar drives like?

That's an opinion I heard recently that shook me to the core.

Answer

Knowing the reality is not the point, the point is u FEEL as though this is what it COULD be like. Why do most people play games, I reckon escapism and dreaming. If the dream seems real, regardless of its real authenticity, so be it.

The clue is in the word 'game'.

Into dust we trust.......

Note to the oh so lovely world of Advertising people.....STOP FUCKING USING MAZZY STAR'S INTO DUST!!! You cretinous, soul deprived, emotionally starved creativity voids.....aaaannnnd relax..... Seriously I bet u were soaking wet clammy with joy at the total 'genius' of tagging it onto the Advert teenage boys gunplay favorite Gears Of War 3.

I tell you this, why the fuck would I want a song so rooted in life and so subtle in its nature tacked on to a dumb ass war game's death filled originality black hole. Yes I do see the point, I do unterstand the oh so cleaver jux'ing job you did...but as the reviews for the game have picked up on, it's no good just shoehorning emotional content into a game built on explosion filled set pieces. The whole bromance angle in it is really half arsed. Half life 2 managed to do it properly, not to mention Fallout 3's use of period tracks in hopelessness filled landscapes (amazingly effective it was too!). Even gorefest games like Resi 4 had a brilliant use of strangly beautiful ambient mood music in places of rest between the intense action.

Imagine Brian Eno subtle soundtracking the A-Team or bloody Enya warbling over Danny Dyers Stupidist Criminal Face Plants.

Just No.

There is a saying which I don't think gets used much these days.....

'Is nothing sacred anymore?'

Comfort time: a tale of two elbows

Elbow one, Lefty, holds up the left hand with the iPod grasped within it. Righty, elbow two looks over in envy..... The screen then flashes up a new app logo... "yey" says Righty! it's a virtual stick game! at last I am of use". The hours pass, and both elbows begin to grow a bit tired and very envious of the hands above. They tell the hands of their woes and the right hand shouts down to the elbows "damn your lucky, our fingers ache like hell from all this manic glass tapping". Wow thought Righty, sounds like we have it easy down here, I hope for their sake the next app is a tilt game.....

And the moral of the story is... spare a thought for your poor fingers next time u purchase a v pad game, I'm sure my fingertips are flatter than before I had an iPod......

A Square debate

Is Square Enix right to sell there wares on app store at far higher prices than other publishers?.... Do the classic status of the games deserve that return of payment. Yes.

As somebody pointed out in the comments for Final Fantasy Tactics, your paying less for an upgraded (which is the key word here) version of a full retail priced PSP game. Ditto for FF3 remake.

Ten quid for console games used to be a discount, I bet the same people complaining went out and bought a full price console game with out a second thought to it's value. But wait i here you say, console games have more content than apps do........ No.....App prices have been pushed low enough, Squares RPG iOS games give you 30+ hours of gameplay which is close to ten times that of most apps...... The ten quid price tag then makes total and valid sense.

P.s anyone remember how expensive Secret of Mana ALWAYS was on the SNES..... I rest my case.