Zombie Infection HD tries to follow the path 
set by classic zombie survival games like Resident Evil 4, but it falls far short. The graphics are middling, at best. The story is ridiculous. And the zombies really aren’t that scary. The game also features some sloppy programming — like when zombies crawl through the middle of a roof, instead of up the side of a building. The controls aren’t intuitive and don’t react fast enough for a game in this genre. For 99 cents, it might be worth it for fans of zombie films. For anything more, though, it’s not worth it for anyone.
Tag Archives: apps
App review: Face2Face
Face2Face does a good job of compiling a user’s varied 
social networking sites, but it goes a step too far by allowing friends of friends to know users’ general location. A privacy setting in the app’s upper right hand corner can make users invisible to people they’re not already connected with, but it’s not blatantly obvious and will likely be overlooked by many users. It’s reassuring that the app only gives general proximity, but that could still hit a little too close to some people’s comfort zones. While you can make yourself invisible to the world at large or specific individuals, you’ll have to regularly check the app to know if that’s necessary.
Power users of social networks might love the chance to meet friends and make new ones, but parents might want teens to sit this one out.
App review: ABC Maze
Learning how to string together letters to form 
words is tricky — and ABC Maze is a good tool to help kids learn to do so. The biggest challenge for some players will be having the motor skills to use the internal gyroscope to make the ball go where they want it to. While none of the mazes is punishing, some are harder than others. The game offers visual and audible rewards when a puzzle is solved, which encourages kids to keep playing. $1.99 is a bit steep for the app, though. It’s definitely wise to download the lite version and see if your child will enjoy it first.
Read more at Common Sense Media
App review: Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars HD
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.
Apple Declares War on Nintendo, Sony Over Video Games
Apple might have shined its spotlight 
Wednesday on Apple TV and the new iPods, but at the same time, it had a clear message for the video game industry: We’re coming for you—and it’s going to be an ugly fight.
Over the course of the past three years, Apple has stumbled into a powerful position in the gaming world. The iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad were never designed as gaming platforms, but the app explosion that followed opened up the world of mobile gaming —and now the Cupertino-based company seems ready to capitalize on that.
App review: Chaos Rings for iPad
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.
App review: Diner Dash: Grilling Green
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.
Read more at Common Sense Media
App review: HD Marine Life
Marine HD is chock full of information about the sea. Unfortunately, 
none of that information is new or original. Every entry appears to be lifted word-for-word from Wikipedia pages, which are free to anyone with a web browser. What’s more, the app actually makes it more difficult to get information available online. Marine HD presents the information as huge blocks of text that are very difficult to read. The little text that’s not lifted from the free web encyclopedia is littered with misspelled words and sentences that, frankly, make no sense.
For example, the sentence that greets you upon opening the app begins, “Life is not merely around us, there is life even in the most inospitos of our beautiful planet earth, as marine life, a world in which there is also an ecosystem, evolution, biology…” You get the point. If you want Wikipedia pages, don’t pay for the pretty background and information that won’t be updated. Just open a web browser.
App review: Danny the Dragon Meets Jimmy
Danny the Dragon Meets Jimmy is one of the first apps for kids to take the 
needs of deaf users in mind. The ASL interpretation of the book is well done, with plenty of expression on the interpreter’s face relaying the impact of the author’s words. It is, however, much less interactive than other children’s storybook apps, which is a wasted opportunity. And often the entire page’s dialogue isn’t shown at once, so kids choosing to read without narration may inadvertently skip parts of the story by finger swiping between pages instead of using the arrow keys on screen.
App review: Highborn HD
Strategy games are hard to make for a mass audience, 
but Jet Set Games has found the formula in Highborn HD. By blending tactical decision making with a good dash of humor and entertaining characters, it’s accessible to mild fans of the genre, but core fans will find plenty to enjoy as well. The game’s a good looking one, too. It wisely sticks with a 2-D model when you’re moving your forces around the map, but goes into a cartoon-like 3-D during battles. The game has a lengthy solo campaign consisting of eight parts (and another “chapter” on the way) as well as a rich multiplayer element.
Read more at Common Sense Media
Chris Morris: Journalist 