I came across this game randomly last night whilst browsing the AppStore. Took a look at the screenshots and for $1.19 I thought, what the heck and purchased it. Minigore is a 3D survival shooter about a square headed fellow named John Gore who gets attacked by furry black creatures, our job is to protect him at all costs.

The game is easy to play, humourous and addictive. I find the voice overs pretty funny, a mix between the commando from the original Command & Conquer game and John McClane (Die Hard). The soundtrack is pretty decent, it is a adventurous theme but at the same time keeps the intensity going. However, if you find it too kiddy, you can simply play some music from your iPod library. Graphics are simple and designed in a comic book style way, but are nicely done.

The menu buttons need a bit of polishing in my opinion, they look a bit too bland but I’m assuming v1.0 is just an early release and things will improve. Also, the game play can get a bit boring as there is only 1 included level at the moment, but hopefully with future updates we’ll see new characters, voice overs and levels. Check out a game play video →.

While I’m far from an expert, here are some of my tips:
- Always keep moving, don’t stop or you might unexpectedly get crept up on.
- Keep away from bushes and trees as you won’t see a furry sneaking up on you.
- Save the 3rd green clover leaf for when you really need it; hover around it in case you start becoming overrun.
- Further into the round, keep shooting the furries from a small distance whilst moving in a circular pattern.
- Never move into a corner; if you get stuck in one, try to get out as fast as you can.

My highest score so far is 16891 on expert mode.

Sometimes when I open up the Apple AppStore to check what updates may be available for the items I’ve purchased, i’ll have a quick look what new ones are available that might actually be worth purchasing. Without fail, i’ll see one in the Top 50 lists that should not be there, or is what I consider to be a rather pointless application.

One that would have to stand out to me would be the moron test. Now seriously, what kind of moron would pay $1.19 to find out they’re a moron?
Another app which comes to mind is one that displays pictures of women in lingerie. How awfully exciting, hardly worth paying $1.19 for when you can open up a web browser on your phone and see naked women for free.

Perhaps you want an app that is going to make various fart noises? so you can laugh yourself to death, without the smell. I think there were 5 different ones last time I counted.
If you get tired of the farting, you could always cheer yourself up by watching videos of cute puppies! Oh my, that’s always what I wanted when I felt down.

I could go on and on with lots of stupid apps that are on the store. Which leads me to ask why does Apple approve them? Are the people that have to sit there and review them thinking the same thing I am? Do they sit there and cringe at the sight of stupidity, ultimately having to approve the application because it fits in with the guidelines?

Then it goes onto the developers of these apps. Are they looking to make a quick buck or did they have an idea that someone else has already implemented and are simply going with their second best idea?

Either way, there needs to be some sort of filter put in place. Simply deny the application and tell them it’s stupid or put it in a brand new category called stupid.

I admit it, I’m an iPhone game junkie. So today when I had a browse through the AppStore, I came across iBomber, which is an arcade styled bombing game based in the Pacific Ocean during 1943 where you are tasked to bomb key targets.

I initially watched the game preview on YouTube → and was intrigued by the style of game play. From there I proceeded to immediately press the purchase button in iTunes. This game doesn’t disappoint in my opinion. I love the graphics and animations, the style they remind me of is the XIII game → from a few years back which I thought was unique at the time. The loading screens are cool too, very WWII style. The soundtrack is enjoyable, a mix of military style with a touch of funkiness similar to the Great Escape movie tune.

The game play takes a bit of adjusting to.. a whole, I dunno.. 5-10 minutes? After the first mission you’ll get the grasp of it all. You can speed up or slow down your bombing runs, upon destroying specific objects you get various bomb power-ups which all require a different speed to accurately hit targets, so this makes it challenging. My only gripe so far is the controls/movement in relation to the iPhones accelerometer position. Sometimes you really need to be at an awkward angle to pull off a manoeuvre, unless I’m just holding the phone wrong. Hopefully a setting will be added in the options menu in a future revision.

I’ll be looking forward to further missions and power-ups in the future. You can grab iBomber on iTunes →

Do you remember playing that epic plane fighting arcade game, 1942?

If you do.. a company by the name of EpicForce has released a similar style game for the iPhone entitled iFighter →. They initially released a lite version which had 1 playable level but lacked a real soundtrack. Regardless, it gave a good indication of what the final release would be like and it looked very promising.

Today I was browsing the iTunes store and saw iFighter in 4th position for Top Paid Apps. For the introductory price of $1.19 I was sold.

This game does not disappoint. The addition of soundtracks for levels has made the game much more enjoyable. The power-ups are pretty good, you get 2 different gun fire bursts and you can also get 2 wingmen for support which help immensely. I’m looking forward to additional levels and power-ups in future updates.

Grab iFighter from the AppStore →

I was browsing the AppStore this afternoon and surprisingly came across Catcha Mouse 2, one of my favourite games for the iPhone. Less than one minute and $1.19 later, I was enjoying the Ahhh, a wise guy eh? sound the mouse makes whenever I get the best of him and pass the level. I can’t help but laugh every time I hear it.

Whats the gameplay involve?Quite simply, there are holes placed in various locations on the map and you need to block the mouses escape by laying down mouse traps. It’s a fun and addictive.

Grab Catcha Mouse 2 or try the original Catcha Mouse → from the AppStore.

I can’t stand GPS devices and refuse to use them in general, why? Well, my reasoning is pretty simple. If you have lived in Sydney more than a couple of years, you should be competent enough to know what main roads connect to the major suburbs and have a general sense of direction.

If you don’t, you should be on public transport in order to free up the roads a bit and prevent possible accidents whilst you are staring at your GPS device, and believe me I’ve seen more than a few clueless drivers gazing at their GPS.

In saying this, I actually downloaded xGPS → for my iPhone over the weekend as I was going to pick up something in a suburb I don’t usually travel to and it was a significant traveling distance. xGPS is a GPS application that feeds off Google Maps → and quite well at that. Best of all, it’s free from the Cydia application repository if you have a Jailbroken iPhone.

The set up of the application was quite easy indeed, I think it took a total of 2-3 minutes. There are also lots of other settings you can adjust, for example: automatic map rotation, adjustment of route if you’re going the wrong way, night mode, prevent iPhone sleep mode and many more.

Best of all, I found out that the developers of xGPS also have a desktop application → available for both Windows and Mac which allows you to download areas of maps that you select from Google Maps and sync them to your phone, this is great as it saves you a few Mb (I downloaded a total of 143Mb which covers all of Sydney in high detail).

Issues? For one, some streets weren’t accessible as indicated on Google Maps (left or right turns that were blocked off by median strips) and the voice directions aren’t loud enough, hopefully this will be adjusted with future versions. The desktop client also has a few issues with downloading large maps from Google.

Today’s big news, well yesterday’s is that Apple publicly previewed the new version of their iPhone OS. I would say that this is the version many people have been awaiting, especially considering the new functions are things that should have been implemented from the start.

Some of the new functionality includes
Cut, copy and paste — copy text and pictures, then paste them in any application on the device. If you change your mind about the newly pasted data, just shake to display a menu asking if you wish to undo the paste.

MMS — you’ll be able to use MMS on your iPhone 3G (yes, 1st gen iPhones will not get the fortune of using MMS due to the use of a different cell radio). The new Messages application will be taking the place of the SMS app and will allow you to send voice memos and pictures to your friends.

A landscape keyboard option is now available in all iPhone applications, including the infamous Mail.app.

Source: The Unofficial Apple Weblog

While most of the new features don’t make me super warm and fuzzy inside, it’s great to see Apple is finally building these functions in natively. However, at the same time it makes me wonder how developers who made similar applications available through Cydia will be effected. Some that come to mind are the developers of Clippy, which is a very good copy/paste app and SwirlyMMS, a feature rich MMS app. Then again, unless the owner has jailbroken their phone they wouldn’t have access to these applications anyway.

Engadget the lucky ducks somehow got their hands on a beta version of the 3.0 operating system and subsequently took some screen shots. The implementation of the new functions definitely looks good. Now, if only Apple would release a theme manager I wouldn’t have use for a jailbroken iPhone.