World of Tanks Blitz | I Played That

Game Profile: World of Tanks Blitz

• Genre: Slow Motion Multiplayer Team Deathmatch Arena (Online 3rd person shooter)
• Developer: Wargaming.net
• Publisher: Wargaming.net
• Service Requirements: Online connection, Game Center or Wargaming.net account
• Available For: iOS
• ESRB Rating: Not rated. No blood (or even people) are present. No swearing.
• Price: Free
• Amount Completed: 8 hours. Tier III for all nations.
• Played On: iPad 2

 

Personal Bias:

Played a bit of World of Tanks on PC. Didn’t like it, but I could appreciate the game.

 

In a Nutshell:

World of Tanks (WoT), the slowest online deathmatch arena in the world, beloved by old men, Russians, and old Russian men, comes to mobile. The Blitz variant of WoT scales down the action to smaller (yet still large) maps, 7-man teams, and a single capture point in brisk, seven minute matches.

 

Explore All The Sounds On Earth

That’s right, All The Sounds!

GlobalSoundScapes.org is the pet project of one Dr. Bryan Pijanowski, a soundscape ecologist (Yeah, I dunno either, but Wired seems to think it’s a real thing) with Purdue University. Dr. Pijanowski’s dream? Gotta catch ‘em all! Sounds, that is.

The good doctor explains his latest plan in an interview with Wired:

“I’ve been on a campaign to record as many ecosystems as possible, but there’s only so many places in the world I can be. I thought about how I could get more recordings into a database, and it occurred to me: We have a couple billion people on this planet with smartphones!”

Enter the Global Soundscape Project and its associated smartphone app, the Soundscape Recorder.

By crowdsourcing the work of recording and geotagging Bryan hopes not just to categorize the world’s soundscapes, but create a living database that will provided scientists with mountains of information about various ecosystems and their dynamics as well as a historical record that could be used to track changes to those ecosystems.

Even if you’re not looking to chip in on the project, why not take your ears on a vacation around the world, three minutes at a time, using the Global Soundscapes interactive map. This being GUO and all, I’ll just refer you over to the happy sounding trains in Osaka, Japan.

“We should get a sense of whether and how we’re making this a noisier planet, which I think we’re doing,” Pijanowski continued. “And it should increase awareness of sounds. Hopefully it will make people stop and listen.”

That’s sound advice!

Free and Spectacular! Plants vs Zombies 2 is Out for iOS

I was going to wait until I got through this one and write up a full review but, judging by the player numbers, no one is really waiting for a critic’s word on this one. And you shouldn’t either! At least if you have iOS. PvZ2 will be arriving on all other platforms soon.

Plant like it’s 2009! Crazy Dave now has a talking time machine and a taco. Upon eating the taco, everyone’s favorite seed supplier wants to take a trip backwards along the timeline to eat it again. With nothing better to do, you’re tagging along for the ride to turn all new mummy, pirate, and cowboy themed zombies into fertilizer. With sharper graphics and phenomenal animation, PvZ 2: It’s About Time delivers that same addictive strategy fun that made it a smash hit with both casual and hardcore gamers alike.

Skeptical of free-to-play titles on mobile? Yeah, you should be. At first blush PvZ2 looks like just another shameless cash grab from EA. Buy buttons featuring outrageous prices are everywhere and a shop offers your old vegie buddies from PvZ1 for several dollar apiece. Folks sensitive to microtransactions are going to pop their corn over this one!

Surprisingly, none of these purchases are required to enjoy the game. There are more than enough new plants to replace the few missing from the previous title. Keys used to access side areas for bonuses and minigames are random (if rare) drops while playing. Coins used for delightfully fun and effective touchscreeny power-up moves like flicking zombies off the screen or pinching their heads drop every time you play. Only the most impatient or time constrained players will ever feel the need to trade moolah for mayhem.

It’s been a long time since the holy trinity of Sunflower, Peashooter, and Wall-nut took on the armies of cosplaying undead and It’s About Time they did it again. The plentiful weeds of cash-nags can’t drain all the nutrients from this garden of delights. Highly recommended!

Plants vs Zombies 2: It’s About Time is available now for iOS and coming soon to anything with a CPU and screen.

Review: Ultima Forever (iPhone/iPad)–Quest of the Keymaster

Boy did I oversell this title in a recent post…

While Ultima Forever does an admirable job of bringing players back to the long lost land of Britannia, the trip is fraught with the perils of laggy gameplay, repetitive dungeon grinding, and a pay-to-open-lottery boxes-and-hope-you-win scheme so offensive it could only exist on mobile.

Let’s deal with the 50-foot dragon in the room first. Ultima Forever’s (UF) economy runs on one thing: Keys. You got yer copper keys that you’ll find everywhere, silver keys that are created from crafting 18 copper keys into 6 silvers, and gold keys that represent you premium currency. Apparently in you absence from Britannia, the shopkeepers have decided that actually buying and selling items is bad for business. The only way to gain items is via treasure chests that dot every town and dungeon. What type of key you use to unlock the chest determines what loot table you’ll get goodies from. And we’re not just talking one key per chest opening. You’ll need six copper or silver keys just for a chance at mediocre gear or quest required items (yes, really), and a whopping eight gold keys for a pull on the high-roller slots for a shot at the good stuff. Get something you didn’t need or want? Your only option is to put it in the trash. No selling, no crafting, no refunds.

iOS MMO Ultima Forever: Quest of the Avatar Brings Morality Back to Gaming

EA Mythic has just launched their latest endeavor to the gaming world in the form of Ultima Forever: Quest of the Avatar. This title is notable for two very important reasons: It is an open world, MMORPG for Apple’s iPhone (4s and newer) and iPad (2nd gen and newer). Secondly, this title, the first RPG bearing the Ultima name in, well, forever, harkens back  to the legendary Ultima IV which put the players on the path not to kill, but to master the eight Virtues and become a shining example to the people of Britannia.

While there is still a good bit of monster thumping to be had, the goal of Ultima Forever is to become a role-model. Mastering the eight virtues of honesty, compassion, valor, justice, sacrifice, honor, spirituality, and humility will take players on a trip around the fantasy world to save folks with traditional ‘hit-with-stick’ methods as well as moral conundrums to challenge your ethics. Your mastery of the Virtues in turn drives character advancement. In Ultima Forever, the path to power lies with being a good person. And free-to-play microtransactions.

It’s great to see an RPG emphasize something other than mayhem and bloodshed. Although the original morality-based goals of Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar originally appeared back in 1985 on another famed Apple platform, the Apple II, its emphasis on being a model citizen rather than a thug is something very, very few games have attempted (perhaps the only recent example being the Fable series).

Ultima Forever is available for free from iTunes.

Apple’s 5th Anniversary of the App Store Means Free iOS Apps and Games for You

In case you hadn’t heard yet, Apple is giving away software for a couple more days. Click on over to this link and pick up five apps and five games in celebration of five years of destroying all concepts of what software should cost.

Inside you’ll find great stuff like How to Cook Everything, Day One Journal, and Barefoot World Atlas. If you’re feeling twitchy, there’s a selection of highly praised games like Infinity Blade II, Tiny Wings, and Sword & Sworcery. Some of these apps go for big money (in app store terms), so even if you don’t have the space to download them all now, it’s a good idea to let the download fail so they get tagged as purchased on your iTunes account and you can try them out when you get around to deleting some stuff or get a bigger iOS devices.

Review: Haunted Hollow (iPhone/iPad)–Half-Dead Monster Mash

Firaxis Games is no stranger to strategy titles. The house that Sid Meier built is home to some of the most compelling exercises in tactics known to gamers like the Civilization series and the recent reimagining of Xcom. The strategy game powerhouse has something a little more intimate in mind than a globe conquering Incan Empire or an Earth threating alien invasion for their this original foray into the iOS games space. This time you’ll be recruiting a team of Hollywood monsters and racing against a single opponent to scare to bejeezus out of the local townsfolk while battling the horror of overpriced in-app purchases.

Haunted Hollow is a board game styled experience that pits you against a friend, or a rather weak AI, in the role of the dark lord of a spooky mansion. Each turn you’ll draw and build a random monster lair from your deck and spend Fear Points (actions) as you see fit to add extra lairs to your haunted house, create monsters, move, attack, and activate special abilities. Monsters come in three types: Scary monsters used to gain ground, Fighty monsters to put the smack down on your opponent’s minions, and Special monsters that usually do both. The goal is territory control as your monsters race to Scare (claim) every house in town. As more houses are claimed and frightened townies flock to the local church, a tough, neutral third party enters the fray in the form of a torch-wielding mob that burns everything, monsters and houses, in its path.

Review: Sid Meier’s Ace Patrol (iPhone/iPad)–Strategy Versus The Red Baron

Turn-based tactical depictions of aerial combat have long been a mainstay of miniature wargamers’ tabletops for decades. Armed with millimeter rulers and protractors, armchair air commanders have fussed over tiny miniature planes on fiddly adjustable bases for decades. Strangely, this form of gaming has never garnered much attention in the digital space, and all but vanished since Windows stopped sporting double digits on it’s splash screen. Enter legendary game designer Sid Meier, whose past credits include some of the most loved flight simulators of the DOS era like F-15 Strike Eagle and F-19 Stealth Fighter, with this latest mobile title that brings the high-flying heroics of World War I aces to a touchscreen near you.

Sid Meier's Ace Patrol (SMAP!) gives you command of a squadron of pilots during the first War to End All Wars tasked with a variety of missions including bomber escort, blowing up supply trains, gunning down observation balloons, and generally furballing it up with opposing aircraft. Ace Patrol takes a number of cues from Firaxis’ recent rebooting of the vaunted Xcom franchise and features both the engrossing tactical action of the air duels themselves and a strategic metagame that sees your best pilots and planes improving while your worst ones sit grounded for healing and repairs.

Free App Allows PCs to Charge iPods, iPhones, and iPads Twice as Fast

Ever try charging an iPad off of your computer’s USB port. Yeah, that doesn’t work well. Usually your best bet is to bite the bullet and hook up the wall charger. Enter this great little app for Windows systems from PC manufacturing powerhouse Asus. The Asus AI Charger is a memory resident application that adjusts the amperage on computers with programmable voltage output USB ports (most of ‘em in the past several years) to double the power when iOS devices are connected.  Best of all, this little miracle worker is complete free of charge (no pun intended) and works on any PC with supporting hardware. Don’t know if you have supported hardware? Give it a shot. It simply won’t work if your USB controller is missing programmable voltage.

So, how good does Asus’s AI Charger software work? Matthew Hunt over at Scotch Tape and Duct Whisky put it through it’s paces and created the chart below showing the results.

While I haven’t done my own tests, I can tell you that my iPad 2 now displays the “I’m charging” lightning bolt when turned on and plugged into a USB port, where before it would not.

Ditch your wall charger with Asus AI Charger available for free here.

Google Glass? Build Your Own iOS Glass for About $300

Like it or love it, wearable computing is now trending on a futurist hipster near you. Trust the guy whose been wearing an armful of iOS gizmos for the past few years. Obviously the device generating the most buzz these days is the wearable webcam/Android HUD Google Glass. While the Big G has been trickling out $1500 prototype versions of the device, DIY hobbyists have taken matters into their own hands. And those hands are full of dremels and soldering irons!

Give it up for Instructables’ user XenonJohn who took a Myvu Crystal Media Viewer and combined it with a gaming headset and a whole lotta the ol’ measure-twice, cut-once to create a wearable heads-up display for his iPod Touch for about $300. While John’s “Beady-I” device may appear to obstruct the user’s vision in one eye, he claims to still have perfect stereo vision when looking ahead . The iOS display is visible only when he glances down.

Check out the full story with step-by-step build instructions over at Instructables.

Flex Your Creativity Every Day With DrawQuest

Remember me, art? I’m baaack!

From the mind of Chris Poole, perhaps better known as 4chan’s moot, comes this free iPad application that challenges users to get their doodle on each and every day. In DrawQuest you’ll be provided with the challenge of filing in the blanks of a picture. For example, an empty outline of stick figure wearing a cape with prompt you to “Create your own superhero” and set you free with the app’s robust and easy to use art tools.

Unlike social games such as Draw Something, there is no scoring mechanic in DrawQuest. Eachdail picture, or ‘quest’, you complete will earn coins that can be used to unlock additional colors to paint, pen, and marker with. Drawing on tablets is always a satisfying experience, but I was genuinely surprised as to how good dialing through the color wheel feels. DrawQuest does require users to sign up with either a Facebook account or email address. Completed pictures can be shared across your social media empire via Twitter or Facebook with the tap of a button. Each quest also allows you to browse the gallery of your fellow questers’ creations. These can be starred to shared as desired. This gallery even includes the rather amazing feature of watching a playback of how the selected picture was created, stroke by stroke.

If you enjoy doodling but are daunted by a blank canvas, DrawQuest is just the creative outlet you’ve been waiting for.

DrawQuest in available for iPads running iOS 5.1 or later. Get it free from iTunes.

Nintendo Brings Official Pokémon App to iOS with a Side of Pain to the Pocketbook

Released to the Japanese iTunes store last month, The Pokémon Company’s official iOS version of the legendary pocket monster guide, the Pokédex, comes to North America for Apple’s mobile devices. This iOS version of the Pokédex supports Retina display for it’s cavalcade of 3D rendered critters, search functions using multiple criteria (Egg Group, Ability, type matchup, and learnable moves), and a ton of stats for planning your perfect party.

Sadly, this first official iOS release for a Nintendo affiliated company comes with a whole list of caveats. Pokédex for iOS, a $2 app, only includes the latest batch of Pokémon (#494 to #647). Other Pokémon are broken down by region and come via in-app purchase at an outrageous SIX BUCKS PER REGION. Want the original, classic Pokémon like Pikachu? Kanto region (#1 to #151) is $5.99. What about those Johto adventuring buddies like Togepi (#152 to #251)? You guessed it. ANOTHER $6. Want to complete your Pokedex? Duh. Gotta catch ‘em all, right? That will cost you a nickel short of $26!

Even moving past the price tag, Pokédex for iOS can’t help but be a disappointment for those expecting a real-life version of the the legendary encyclopedia prominently featured in so many games, television shows, and movies. This app eschews the traditional bright colors and personality for a bog-standard presentation that only the most generic of app construction kits could produce.

Finally, a quick warning of the system requirements is in order. This seemingly simple encyclopedia of childhood delights states that your Apple device needs to support and be updated to iOS 6.0 (or later).

Nintendo has finally brought one of their biggest IPs to a platform other than their own. It should be a joyous time for both the young and young-at-heart. Unfortunately a bland presentation and outrageous pricing scheme makes us wish they hadn’t bothered.

Pokédex for iOS is available now from iTunes for $1.99. Or you could just point your web browser at Bulbapedia.

iPad Mini, Kindle Fire, and Nexus 7 Blend Test

The rash of affordable tablets are sure to have put these new touchy computers on the top of many people’s holiday wish lists, but which one to get? Sure you can look at speed tests, browser tests, and even drop tests, but Tom Dickson, founder of Blendtec and star of one of the greatest viral marketing campaigns to ever grace the Internet, has a better idea. After all, it’s what’s on the inside that counts.

For those of you unfamiliar with the online antics of Blendtech, yes, the Wildside blender is very real.

As Software Adapts and Changes, So Must Our Criticism. Scribblenauts Remix (iOS) Re-Reviewed

Software is much more fluid and organic today than it used to be. Developer updates pushed to an constantly connected audience frequently changes a program from it’s initial form in response to fan feedback or developer inspiration. Critical analysis of software must adapt to these new rules of the road in order to maintain relevancy and usefulness. Fortunately documents on the Internet can have their ones and zeroes rearranged to keep pace with the medium and continue to provide pertinent information.

With this in mind we have appended our article “Review: Scribblenauts Remix (iPhone/iPad): Wet Stinky Angry Birds vs Lazy Zombie Robot Ninjas” to better reflect the current content and price point of the title. We have also changed our original score of 4/5 to a 5/5.

Apple’s Steve Wozniak is Stabbin’ Suckas with Danny Trejo in Vengeance: Woz With A Coz

Well, this finally happened: Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has taken to the “mean streets” to pump bad guys full of lead in his first video game appearance. Not bizarre enough? He’s teaming up with the terrifically terrifying giant Mexican movie man Danny Trejo (Desperado, From Dusk Till Dawn, Machete, and…er, Spy Kids) for the iOS video game tie-in to Trejo’s upcoming film, Vengeance.

In this 16-bit styled runner game, The Wizard of Woz must shoot, stab, slide, and jump his way through the many levels of Fusion City to recuse his wife, J-Woz, from the clutches of Ricardo White. Armed with his trusty translator app, Woz fully voices his own character with authentic Spanish exclamations upon death such as “Tortillas!” or “Chihuahua…” So… not only is one of the founding fathers of home computing now a violent video game character, but a racist one. Yay?

Vengeance: Woz with Cause boasts a storyline written by Steve himself, multiple upgradable weapons, secret crosses to find, big boss battles, and the ability to swap between Wozniak and Trejo during your revenge fueled murder spree across Fusion City.

Vengeance: Woz with Cause is $0.99 on iTunes.

A New New iPad with Twice the Performance Only Six Months Later and No One’s Mad

This week’s reveal of the 4th generation iPad really took me by surprise. That’s saying quite a bit considering Apple seems to have utterly failed at keeping a secret for the past year. Unfortunately, it was the worst possible surprise.

Launching a mere six months following the debut of the “New” iPad 3, this ‘New New’ iPad 4 sports a brand new CPU, the A6x, that combines the processor from the latest model of the iPhone with a snazzy new graphics processor. Apple promises twice the number crunching and graphics performance of the still fresh off the assembly line iPad 3. In fact, the iPad 4 is everything the iPad 3 should have been. Considering the lead time on designing and producing these machines, Apple knew EXACTLY what was coming before releasing that half-step of a device to the public and happily taking their $500+.

Review: U.F.Oinkers (iPhone/iPad/Windows Phone 7)–When Pigs Fly

At first blush, the charmingly named U. F. Oinkers looks like a mash-up of popular genres that could only have been spawned in the darkest boardroom of a mega-publisher’s designed-by-committee ‘idea’ factory. Mix two parts block-dropping puzzle game with two parts physics puzzler. Stir in one part bridge builder and frost with characters the mobile crowd are unable to resist: Pigs and zombies, . Half-bake for 30 days and POOF! Instant app store success! Imagine my surprise when I discovered UFO was not only created by Serendipitous Bits, presumably not a division of Capcom or EA, but also packed with a ton of wonderful gameplay mechanics. It’s a shame it wasn’t done being playtested. And that U. F. Oinkers ultimately sends you to a pink piggy purgatory where death would be a sweet release.

Your goal in UFO is to make pigs fly. A chain bridge runs across the bottom on the screen and all manner of stuff, including pigs, drops from the top. Your job is to assemble flying contraptions by tapping and dragging the physics enabled items around in order to make 10 pigs fly off the top of the screen without putting so much weight or stress on the bridge that it snaps. This is easy going in the early levels with simple combinations. Attach wings to a pig and it flies off, netting you points. Each segment of the game ups the ante in terms of the number of items that need to be combined to turn your ground hogs into porcine paragliders . You’ll go from dressing piggies up as witches to assembling multi-part aircraft and rocket ships as the game progresses.

Happy 1st Birthday to Apple’s Siri! | Weekend Watchlist

October 4th marks the date that Apple’s snarky little personal assistant made its public debut with the iPhone 4S. The Siri application is designed to answer questions, make recommendations, and generally fetch data from a number of Internet sources using a natural language interface that let’s people talk to their pocket computer. While perhaps not the perfect implementation of voice recognition people have dreamed of, Siri gave us a real life handful of magic previously only dreamed of in science fiction.

In this edition of the Weekend Watchlist, we take the time to celebrate one year of this wondrous little piece of software in traditional birthday roasting fashion. We’ll coo over videos of baby Siri, tell stories of its most embarrassing moments, and parade around celebrities.

Frist up, we’ve got baby pictures! Like many people, Siri lies about its age. The original Siri app from Siri, Inc., launched in February 2010, a far cry from Siri’s October 2011 claims. Siri was a smash success leading to acquisition by Apple in April of 2010. The original Siri app would be pulled from iTunes on October 15th, shortly after its debut as an iOS 5 feature . The servers required for the voice translation were shut down on the same day, meaning that even existing owners of the app were left Siri-less. While there was no technical reason, Apple refused to include the new version of Siri in the iOS 5 update, reserving it as a ‘killer feature’ of its iPhone 4S and newer devices.

Here is a Siri, Inc.’s video overview of that original application.

Aw, so cute! It hadn’t even learned to talk yet.

Review: Lili (iPhone/iPad)–The New High-Water Mark for Mobile Gaming Graphics

Releases don’t come much bigger in the mobile world than BitMonster’s debut title, Lili . Pictured onstage at the unveiling of the iPhone 5, Apple’s calendar girl for the platform’s “Great gaming experience” has a lot of hype to live up to. Is Lili the latest pint-sized powerhouse to put predisposed Playstion prudes in their place, or is she just another pretty face?

In Lily you’ll take control of the titular lead as she sails out to the abandoned ruins of Geos in search of mystical flowers to complete her Vegi-Magical finals project. Much to her surprise, the isle of Geos is neither abandoned nor in ruins. She must have been using Apple’s new maps app. Soon after arriving, Lili is befriended by the wooden Constructs of Geos and joins the underground movement to overthrown their tyrannical creators, the Spirits. Fortunately for Lili, bumping off Sprits makes use of her expertise in magical flower picking as removing the Spirit Flower from atop the Spirit’s head will banish it. Thus Lili sets off on the adventure of her lifetime to deflower the Spirits and free the wood. Why are you giggling?

Deal: iPhone JRPG Adventure Bar Story is Free Today

Looking for a good Japanese RPG for your iOS device to curl up with with over the weekend? Boy, are you in luck! Adventure Bar Story is now on sale for the low, low price for free (down from the very worthwhile cost of $3).

This is a full featured RPG ported from the PSP with a neat twist. Rather than saving the world, you’re out to save your sister’s tavern from a hostile takeover. During the day, you’ll venture forth slashing up monsters in search of ingredients. In the evening, you’ll take all those tasty monster parts and mix them together to make the tavern’s products to sell the next day. You’ll also need to save a few dishes for yourself and your companions as character progression is tied to the food you cook and eat.

I’ve spent a good deal of time with this one over the past several months and while it never quite lives up to the full potential of its concepts, it is an enjoyable romp with very nice 2D artwork. The game doesn’t have native iPad support but, aside from an oversized virtual button, looks great on Apple’s tablet.

No required in-app purchases and a 40 hour RPG for free? Get it now on iTunes.