iPod Apps - Wild West Pinball

As the name suggest, Wild West Pinball is a recreation of those old classic 3D pinball games with a Wild West theme. Sounds pretty simple. Well, overall the game itself is very simple. There's your usual flippers, your little ball ejector thing and lots of cool ways to get points. The first version of the game was a little buggy and suffered from jagged edges. The new update, however, has improved the frame rates and softened the edges considerably. The main issue, however, with high scores has not been fully addressed. You still can't see all your scores whilst in offline mode.

The major features of the game are also a little sparse. You only get one map or theme to play and the points bonuses are sometimes difficult to get. For 59p it's not bad, but it could be a lot better.

Final Thought Byte : If you have money to spare, then buy this game. It works like it's meant to and does keep you entertained, but lacks real longevity.

Tags : iPod Apps, Wild West Pinball, Games

iPod Apps - Storm8 Strategy Guide

Since a new game has been released by Storm8, called "Rockstars Live", we thought we would give a general guide to people.

Considering that all the games are the same, this strategy guide can be applied to all of Storm8's games. So far, their list of current games is "Racing Live", "Rockstars Live", "Kingdoms Live" and "Vampires Live". Because we have already done a review on "Racing Live", we'll use the same terminology. The layout of each game is the same, just with different names for things.

1. Getting Started
When you first start the game you will be asked to type in your nickname and to chose a type of proffesion. Each profesion will give you a certain attribute. Bankroler for example, gives you more money, whereas Gearhead and Speeder gives you quicker replenishing times. The first thing you'll notice when playing Storm8 games is a lack of crew, a lack of money and a lack of levels. The first problem can be easily solved. On the main screen near the top right it will say something like "Crew Code : Z3QSP". In other games, such as "Rockstar Live" it will be your Band Code. This is the code that you need to give people to invite them to your crew. The easiest way to do this is to write down your code and then go to the "Racing Tab" at the bottom. Instead of racing people, just click on their names, scroll to the bottom and leave your Crew Code as a comment on their profile. Some people like to leave personal messages, but no one is likely to care. Try going to as many profiles as you can to get your code out. You also get 10 invite slots a day that you can use. So every time you leave your own code, make sure to take someone else's and to invite them to your crew. Over time you will get a lot of invites from people to be in their crew/band or whatever.

2. Supporting Yourself
In all of Storm8's games, making money is very important. You need money to buy new items, and to support your current items, whether they be cars, car parts, amps, guitars, weaponry and vampire sort of stuff. Being in a 'negative cash flow' is a bad idea. So whenever you get a bit of money, try to spend it on Real Estate first, or advertising in "Rockstar Live". This will create an income that can support all the items that you need later on. If you ever have a bit of money left over, always put it into your bank, this will keep it safe from other players.

3. Playing the game
The first time you begin to play, you will notice that you have a set of numbers at the top. It usually comes in the form of Money, Fuel, Intergrity and Focus. The money tab speaks for itself, but the Fuel , Integrity and Focus doesn't. They all go by different names in each of Storm8's games, but they all do the same jobs. Your Fuel is what you use to do jobs, missions or street races. Each job requires a certain amount of fuel or energy. Integrity is your health and your Focus is your energy, both which apply to racing and battling other players. The easiest way to level is to do jobs or street races to get experience points. More levels open up new jobs, new items and new ways of making money. More levels also allows you to increase your attributes. Once you have done a few jobs and leveled up, go back to the main page and click on your profile. From there it will give you a small description of what each Skill or Attribute does. The general rule is to increase the top two each by one, because they represent your Attack and Defence skills. And then you can spend the left over Skill Point on anything else. I usually spend it on Max Fuel.
Generally speaking, doing jobs is the only way to level and to make money. However, as you progress you will notice that you need certain items to do certain jobs. As you get money, buy the necessary parts to do the jobs and then buy the real estate to match. At least for the first few levels.

4. Winning the Game
So hopefully by now you have a routine of levelling, spending the skill points, buying new gear and items and supporting yourself with real estate. As your level becomes higher, you will notice that more and more people will be racing/fighting you. Doing Races or Contests against other crews is another way to make a little money and to gain some experience points. The danger of not doing this part of the game is that others, usually called 'Hunters', will find you and take all of your money. When doing races there are a few attributes you need to keep your eye on. Firstly is your Integrity, which is your health. Once this goes below 26 you have to go to your mechanic/therapist to fill it back up at a cost. Your Focus or energy is also very important. When attacking other players it will use some of your focus, but only when you are attacking, not when you are defending. To stop people from stealing all your money you need to match your gear to your crew to get the best possible attributes. What that means is that every time you get some money from jobs you should spend it on gear that doesn't have an upkeep. Each person in your crew can race one car, which in turn can use one of every corresponding item. There is one car which costs around $5,000 and doesn't have an upkeep, try to buy as many of these as possible. Add the corresponding equipment to it and you will have boosted your overall attributes. The more crew you have, the more cars and items you can buy and the less money you will lose. Having lots of cars/items will also allow you to win nearly all the races against other players. When racing others, try to look out for people that have lots of money. If you win a race you will get a fraction of they money they have. Be careful though, because people can put you on their Payback list. This will let their crew know that you have a bounty on your head.

Final Thought Byte : That is all you should really need to know for playing and winning Storm8 games. Don't forget to put your money into the bank and to spend it wisely. The games are a bit like a modernised Top Trumps. Except you can sort of cheat by getting all the cards at once. In the later levels, spending skill points on the Speed and Handling attributes doesn't really matter because your cars and items will far outweigh them. Spending your skill points on Integrity is also a bad idea because if a Hunter does find you, he will get more out of you. So it is probably an idea to boost your Max Fuel attribute so that you can do more missions at the same time. Please feel free to post your Crew/Band codes in the comments.

Tags : Storm8, Racing Live, Kingdoms Live, Rockstar Live, Vampires Live, iPod Touch

iPod Apps - Racing Live Review

Sometime in April a company called Storm8 began releasing a series of online strategy games. So far Storm8 has around 4 games which are basically exactly the same, but only two actually made it big. Racing Live hit the number one spot after a relatively short time, only to give way to it's younger brother Kingdoms Live.

Just for pure ease, we will only be reviewing Racing Live, instead of every single variation of the same game. Generally speaking Racing Live has everything you would expect from an online strategy game. The aim of the game is to increase your level and your wealth. You can easily achieve this by do Street Missions or by racing other players to gain experience points. There is no actual racing, but more of a Top Trumps sort of thing. If you have lots of cars and lots of car parts, you're more likely to win.

The game itself is very easy. The key to being the best is to have a big crew. Unlike Facebook Mafia or other web browser based strategy games, you don't actually need to know the person to have them on your crew. Every player has a unique Crew Code which is linked to their iPod. Players can then pass this code around on other players profiles or on the Internet in the hope to get multiple crew invites in return. 

Having a larger crew will allow you to buy and use more cars and therefore more car parts. By having more car parts, you can increase the Speed and Handling attributes, which are basically your Attack and Defence points.

The size of your Crew and your Level also affects which Street missions you can do. In addition to Level and Crew size, every action that you undertake costs either Fuel, or Integrity and Focus. Each time you level up you get Skill Points to spend on either Speed, Handling, Fuel, Integrity or Focus. However, it doesn't really matter how you spend them because the added bonuses of a large crew far outweigh the normal character attributes.

All of Storm8's games follow the same general layout, just with different names. Unfortunately, the games stop being free soon. There is already an added cost for Prestige Points which can be exchanged for refills or for cash.

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Final Thought Byte : If you have some spare time, then download this App whilst it's free. It follows all normal conventions so shouldn't be too difficult to pick up. The key is to spread your crew code as much as possible. If you need a crew member, just type in Z3QSP

Tags : iPod Apps, Games, Review, Storm8, Racing Live, Kingdoms Online, Crew Code

iPod Apps - Glyder Review

To further open our ever increasing myriad of knowledge and opinions, we are now introducing a new category. Because we both of iPod Touch's and because it is relatively cheap to buy the Top Games (and because some are free), we're starting to review some iPod apps. Hopefully this will provide people with an idea of what they are buying before they buy it.

So, to start the ball rolling we will be doing a review on Glyder. This game was developed by a company called Glu and was posted on the 5th of April 2009. Generally speaking it hasn't made it has big as Pocket God, but it has been hovering near the top since it was released.

The game itself is very simple. The aim is to fly around and collect crystals. Unlike most games, you don't need to have a certain ammount of crystals to be able to move to any of the other areas. In terms of graphics, the game is beautiful. (See our screenshots below taken from the iPod Touch directly). The controls can be a bit jittery sometimes, but I suppose you could put that down to realism. 

Compared to some of the other apps that are currently at the top, Glyder offers people mindless fun which doesn't get tedious. It's large playable area can give hours of fun and lets people explore at their own pace. It would be better, however, if Glu would do some updates. I'm sure there is room for improvement and some tweaks wouldn't go unoticed. 

Final Thought Byte : All in all, Glyder is a 'Must Have App'. Although it is simple, it still looks pretty good. The price currently stands at 59p, but this is probably going to go up. So get it while you can.

Tags : iPod Touch, Glyder, Apps, Apple, iTunes,