Category Archives: Common Sense Media

App review: Jaws

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As a film, Jaws was a masterpiece of its time. As an app, it’s a bit toothless and, frankly, boring. Playing Roy Scheider’s character of Chief Brody is not particularly exciting — and it’s hard to work up any sympathy for the dozens of swimmers who stay in the water after the shark attacks. Less than perfect onscreen controls make the game even more exasperating.

The fun of Jaws is Bruce the shark. And you never get to play as him. While there is plenty of diversity in the levels, none are particularly engaging. The developers did do one thing perfectly, though: They made certain that the classic Jaws music plays heavily into the game — acting as an audible clue for players.

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App review: Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars HD

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While Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars HD is absolutely not a game you want children to play, it’s a very good game for adult action fans. The world is lush and filled with interesting characters and has over 50 challenging missions. Like most GTA games, it’s filled with sidequests that extend the amount of playable hours considerably. An iPhone version of the game has been available for a while – but the graphics are notably better on the iPad version. This is, arguably, the best looking version of the game to date. (It has also been published for the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP.) Players can also use any iTunes music they have on the iPad as one of the in-game radio stations whenever they’re driving in the game. Even better, the iPad version does not charge extra for these features.

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App review: InCrowd

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InCrowd is a useful social media tool that hopes to make use of Facebook’s new Places functionality, but it faces an uphill climb. Foursquare is the reigning king of the location-based app hill and users of that platform don’t have a lot of reason to make a change. On its own merits, though, InCrowd is a different enough take that it will likely find a substantial audience. Its clever use of rewarding players who constantly check in and penalizing people who don’t (you lose popularity points if you don’t check in at least once per day) makes it a compelling game. Also, users can have fun customizing their avatars. Figuring out how to post your location is incredibly easy and user reviews and comments about those venues can act as a good filter. For example, if you’re unsure about a restaurant, you can quickly access the thoughts and experiences of people who have been there — both friends and strangers (though there are more established ways to do that, as well).

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App review: Chaos Rings for iPad

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Square Enix, the company behind RPG giants like the Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts franchises, knows a lot about the role-playing genre — and with Chaos Rings, it shows that it can transfer its knowledge into the mobile market too. The game is playable in bite-sized chunks, which is hard to pull off in this sort of title. The pace is quick, but steady, never significantly penalizing players for mistakes, keeping them engaged.

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App review: Diner Dash: Grilling Green

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The Diner Dash franchise has been a hit among casual gamers for years – and for good reason. It’s an upbeat, enjoyable strategy game that makes you smile. Diner Dash: Grilling Green follows in those footsteps, keeping you on your toes, but never overwhelming you completely. The game, which was developed specifically for the iPad, takes advantage of the hardware’s capabilities, with a real focus on multitouch. As you enter the middle and later stages of the game, you’ll need to use both hands to keep up with demanding customers and help cook the food. A multiplayer mode lets you share the workload with a friend, though — one seating the customers and handling orders, while the other assists with food preparation. It’s something that wouldn’t be possible on the iPhone, but that works wonderfully on the iPad. The only disappointment is the game’s length — 20 levels instead of the 50 that came with Diner Dash on the iPhone — but they’re all masterfully done.

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App review: Vacation Mogul HD

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Building simulations often run the risk of becoming repetitive, but Vacation Mogul HDavoids this by peppering in a decent story and a pair of mini-games that are woven well into the story. The game holds players’ hands through the early stages to make sure you grasp play concepts, but not in an annoying manner. Novice players won’t feel any pressure to hurry – and there’s no “losing” a round, since there are no time limits. Veteran players of the genre, though, will enjoy the challenge of winning gold cup rewards for finishing within a time limit.

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App review: Can You Find It?

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Can You Find It? doesn’t offer a lot of innovations in the hidden object puzzle genre, but it doesn’t need to. The game uses a smart hint system, eye-popping photos, and a local high score board to keep players captivated and challenged. Fans of Where’s Waldo and Little Things will feel right at home, looking for a hypothetical needle in a haystack. It will take a while to figure out all the puzzles, but once you do, there’s not a lot to keep players engaged. Until that happens, though, it’s a great diversion.

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App review: Textfree Unlimited

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Today’s phones are often used more for texting than calling — and the costs of those SMS messages can add up quickly. TextFree Unlimited lets people text as much as they want without causing a spike in their phone bill. The reliability of the app is pretty solid. We didn’t encounter any “dark” periods when testing, regardless of time. Receivers always got their messages promptly and their replies were just as speedy. The volume of ads is annoying, though — and tacking on a recurring annual fee to a free app feels a bit iffy. (The app used to carry a one-time charge of $5.99 for no ads.) Parents will still need to monitor who their kids are texting and what’s being said, but for the budget conscious, this is a good alternative.

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App review: Mother Goose Interactive Nursery Rhymes

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Mother Goose Interactive Nursery Rhymes strives hard to bring the joy and magic of the classic children’s tales to life, but misfires on a few key points. While the art and illustration are gorgeous, the app only tackles a small number of nursery rhymes — certainly not enough to justify the price. Worse, the narration of the rhymes often doesn’t match the words onscreen, which will be unhelpful to kids who are trying to learn to read via the app. (For example, in “Three Blind Mice,” the text reads “they all ran after the farmer’s wife, who cut off their tails with a carving knife,” but the narrator skips the word “off”.) The extras — a puzzle and a freeform art pad — are fine, but are done better elsewhere for less.

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App Review: Touch Maze

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Touch-based maze puzzles seem like a great idea for products like the iPhone and iPod Touch, but in order to be fun, the touch sensitivity has to be flawless. Unfortunately, that’s not the case with TOUCH MAZE. All too often, the screen will fail to keep up with users’ finger drags, taking players’ minds off of the solution and focusing it on getting the on-screen marker moving again. That’s a problem when playing a time-based game. The iPad two-player version of the game is a nice twist — and adds to the enjoyment of the app, but ultimately suffers from the same flaws.

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