Halloween Special: Halloween Apps

If you're looking to play some Halloween themed apps then you've come to the right place. Below are some apps that have some sort of Halloween theme to it that I recommend checking out.




Cut the Rope: Spooky Box

The latest update to Cut the Rope brings the all new "Spooky Box" full of ghosts and more. Check it out in the App Store here.

Doodle Jump:

Doodle Jump is back with 10 Halloween costumes available to buy for your Doodle character. Pick it up here.

Halloween Pumpkins:

This is more of a little kids game. It's just a matching game but with pumpkins and a Halloween type themed look to the game. Grab it over here.

Halloween Speical: Angry Birds Halloween

Yes as suspected Rovio is back again for the third Halloween themed update so far for Angry Birds Seasons. So what is new? Ghost blocks that's what! Ghost blocks are these brand new block which, in the name of Halloween, are pure evil. Basically they can hold up other blocks, but if you launch a bird right at it, the bird will just continue right on through. The only way to destroy the ghost blocks are to have them tumble down causing them to split into four which, if they tumble enough, will then finally cause them to disappear.

Other then ghost blocks, though, there isn't really that much that is new. A new pig called Frankenswine is introduced and the other pigs have various Halloween costumes on, but other then minor aesthetics like that nothing has changed. The levels are still fun to play nonetheless and they get you in the Halloween spirit.

If you somehow don't already have Angry Birds Seasons you can click either of these links to pick it up.                                                            App Store | Google Play

Halloween Special: Halloween Recommendations

Tonight's the big night- Halloween! Time for everyone to eat till they feel fat, then drink till they don't care anymore, all the while dressing up in crazy costumes and partying the night away. Since it's Halloween it's only appropriate to give you a couple of recommendations of how to make the night even better.


Have a Bonfire:



If all else fails, just add more gasoline

Having a bonfire in the background of your party makes everything better. Bonfires give you light in the darkness and warmth if you're cold, while also providing a way to cook up some dogs and smores- plus they look really cool and it's always fun to play with fire. Of course if you live in the city this might pose a problem. So I'll leave this as a recommendation for people of the suburbs and for those way out in the boonies.









Costume Contest:

Why not have a costume contest to see who can make the best costume? There's nothing like a little competition and some friendly wagers.

Free Stuff:

Take advantage of it! Everywhere you go free food, drinks, and more are literally being thrown at you! This is one of the few times a year that this happens, so take advantage of it.

Apps Plus Comms- Mass Effect Part 15

 

A democratic run of the original Mass Effect for Xbox 360.

Commentators-

• Lorl
• Hatok
• Ernesto Guillermo
• Bryan, The Cake Loving Artist
• Urdon

Buy this game

Mass Effect is owned by Bioware, a subsidiary of Electronic Arts

Introducing Android 4.2

It felt just like yesterday that I was here talking about Android 4.1.2 and now I'm back again with another update to Google's mobile operating system, and this one is fairly substantial, so called Android 4.2.

Keeping the "Jelly Been" moniker, Android 4.2 brings to the table a few impressive new features. For one we've not got something called 'Photo Sphere' which is Google's own 360-degree panorama camera option which, as implied, let's you take complete panoramic photos. The software behind the feature does all the work for you of stitching together the multiple pictures you take of the 360-degree turn.

Another feature added is 'Gesture Typing' which basically let's you use the style of typing that tonnes have already been using for a while with the Swype keyboard. Basically you just swipe your finger through all the letters on the screen for each word you want to type which makes it quicker to write your messages- it's basically like handwriting but for your phone.

Google also added the whole accounts thing to your device. This has been a big issue recently what with the massive consumerism of tablets these days. People want to have a lock screen with multiple accounts on it just like they do on their computer. For whatever reason no tablet OS maker has put this feature in until now. It should also be noted that Microsoft just released a very similar feature that comes with their Windows 8 tablet- Surface.

As well there is now support for HDTVs using Miracast and an improved Google Now. Google Now is basically the Android version of Siri, except way better. And the improvements bring on new cards for flight information, restaurant reservations, hotel confirmations, and shipping details.

The Google Search app has also subsequently been updated and met with extreme consumer satisfaction. All in all version 4.2 boils down to yet another great improvement on an already amazing operating system. Good on you Google.

Apps Plus Comms- Kingdom Hearts Part 14

A commentary of the original Kingdom Hearts

Commentators-

• Hatok
• Lorl

Buy this game

Kingdom Hearts is owned by Square Enix and Disney

Apps Plus Comms- Week 7 Recap

Videos videos videos! Everywhere you look! We've released a ton of new commentaries this week both on Blip and YouTube. So as always hit up any of the links below to catch up on this week's commentaries. And we'll see you next week as we make more advances in Mass Effect as well as TIE Fighter and Kingdom Hearts.

Apps Plus on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/appsplusblog
Apps Plus on Blip: http://blip.tv/appsplus

Apps Plus Comms- Mass Effect Part 14

A democratic run of the original Mass Effect for Xbox 360.

Commentators-

• Lorl
• Hatok
• Ernesto Guillermo
• Bryan, The Cake Loving Artist
• Urdon

Buy this game

Mass Effect is owned by Bioware, a subsidiary of Electronic Arts

Apps Plus Comms- TIE Fighter Part 7

The Cake Loving Artist does some high flying in his TIE Fighter. Watch for more rebel destroying action!

Apps Plus Comms- Kingdom Hearts Part 13

 

 A commentary of the original Kingdom Hearts

Commentators-

• Hatok
• Lorl

Buy this game

Kingdom Hearts is owned by Square Enix and Disney

Apps Plus Comms- Mass Effect Part 13

 

A democratic run of the original Mass Effect for Xbox 360.

Commentators-

• Lorl
• Hatok
• Ernesto Guillermo
• Bryan, The Cake Loving Artist
• Urdon

Buy this game

Mass Effect is owned by Bioware, a subsidiary of Electronic Arts

The Artist's Picks: Songza

Songza:

http://dft.ba/-songza

Finding good music can be a pain. Some days you're in the mood for certain types of songs, and the next, you'll find yourself craving another genre. Songza solves that problem by boasting a massive amount of playlists, from the works of Mozart to the modern pop hits that are playing on the radio right now.

The way it works is simple. All you have to do is choose a playlist and the app will take care of playing music for as long as you'd like. You can even set a sleep timer if you choose.

To help you choose playlists, Songza boasts of a 'Concierge' feature, which chooses playlists based on the time of day and what you're currently doing. So if it's Saturday evening, it will ask you to choose your activity of these six:

If none of those choices appeal to you, then you can change both the time and day, then the app displays more choices for you. If you're looking for a specific type of music, don't worry--you can browse playlists by genre, artist, time period, and you can even get recommendations from Songza itself based on your history of playlists.

A great feature that the app has is a feature up in the notification bar where you can either pause/play the current song, or skip to another if the song you're listening to right now doesn't appeal to you. However, due to copyright issues or something, you can only skip a certain number of songs per hour.

Songza also has a website: www.songza.com, which offers all the same features of the app, only it's based on your computer, so you can check that out if you want to play songs on your desktop.

So that's Songza. If you're feeling tired of the same old songs in your playlists, go check this app out and try something new. Like always, it's free, however ads are displayed while songs are playing. Fortunately, if you do something else on your phone while listening to the music, the ads don't persist.

Introducing the New iPad and the iPad Mini

Introducing the iPad Mini

Apple made the official announcement of its latest set of iPads yesterday. Wait did you just say set? As in more than one? That's right, Apple announced two different iPads today. Though it was leaked to just about everyone quite a while ago, some of you may not of the news. So what are the new iPads? Well we've got the iPad 4th generation, and the iPad Mini. But before we talk about what's new with these tablets, let's just consider a few things first.

First off if you feel like it was just yesterday that the 3rd generation iPad- dubbed the "New iPad"- was released, well that's okay because it was. The 3rd generation model came out to most of the world in the latter half of March. And yes I'm talking about March 2012. That means that when the November 2nd release date of the 4th generation model comes around, it will have only just passed the half a year mark since the release date of the 3rd generation model. In the past Apple has usually waited exactly one year between releasing new generations of iPads, but this year they decided "naw we'll just pump another one out".

The problem here too is that millions of people are going to buy this new generation of iPad even though they own the previous generation which came out back in the spring. It never fails to amaze me just how deep people get sucked into massive "brand orientated" companies such as Apple.

Now you might be wondering, "hmm maybe this iPad is loaded with awesome new features that would totally make it worth dropping 500 bucks on ($329 for the iPad Mini)", well I'm sorry to say that you're wrong. Though the new 4th generation model iPad is "better" (and I use the term better lightly) it is definitely not worth the upgrade, cost and other things considered. The iPad Mini is a slightly different story though. Since the Mini is significantly cheaper (though definitely not as advanced) it could appeal to a different market of people looking for an iPad who couldn't afford, or simply didn't want to part with, the expensive price tag that comes with every iPad. This new market consists of people who probably don't have tablets, so for them I say that this isn't as horrible a buy as the 4th generation iPad- but if you are in the market for cheap tablets keep in mind others like the Nexus 7 (Google's tablet running Android) are only $200 and, in my opinion, considerably better.

I think I'll just let the stats talk for themselves. Below are all the important stats for the two new iPads and how the stack up against the previous iPad.

Apps Plus Comms: Star Wars TIE Fighter Part 1

A playthrough the 1994 classic, TIE Fighter!

 Commentator: Bryan, The Cake Loving Artist

But this game

App Bites #35: Rayman Jungle Run

Welcome back to another edition of App Bites. Today we look at a relatively new app by Ubisoft Entertainment called Rayman Jungle Run available in the  Play Store for $3.02 (CA) and the App Store for $2.99.

Basically what you do in the game is just run around jumping through these various worlds trying to collect as many of these yellow "sprite" type creatures. The more you get the better of a jewel your awarded. This is one of those apps that you get to keep you entertained at the bus stop, in other words it's short. There are 40 levels in total in the game which span over four different "mode" styles. What I mean by mode styles is that there are, for instance,  ten levels where you can only run and jump, and then ten where you can hover, etc. Each of these levels are extremely short, but like I said it's more about keeping you busy for a few minutes when you have to kill some time.

The only complaints I have about the game is that it is short, and that it's on the pricey side. Three bucks is getting on the high end of the price point for apps, so for that money I expect a bit lengthier of a game. The game itself is great, I wouldn't change much about it except maybe the music- it's just the number of levels that bugs me. But who knows, maybe more levels will be added as is common place for such a thing to happen with apps.

At the end of the day though this is still a fun game, not worth three dollars, but fun nonetheless. Or maybe it's just the warm nostalgic feeling that I get playing this game as it reminds of the good old days playing Rayman.

Brick Wars #43

Don't you just hate it when you say 'you too' to someone? Don't worry, BD-1023 hates it too. 

That's about all I have to say about this comic, but don't worry. Very soon we'll be meeting an old friend, along with some new characters!

Have yourselves all a good weekend, and see you next week!

Brick Wars #42

And BD-1023 is in space! The story is just motoring along now, isn't it? This strip was actually super easy to photograph, as I only had to take pictures of  BD-1023 and the Vulture Droid. The main work came in editing the pictures.

I'm satisfied at the way the pictures turned out, and also the shift in tone that occurs when the droids leave the atmosphere.

Anyways, I'll see you next week, as the story continues!

Apps Plus Comms- Week 6 Recap

Week six of Apps Plus commentaries brought a ton of new video commentaries for our ongoing gaming commentaries series of Mass Effect, Kingdom Hearts, and TIE Fighter. As always if you missed out on any of the videos just hit up any of the links below or click on the page link under the header called "commentaries" where we have links to all the commentaries we've done so far.

Apps Plus on Blip: http://blip.tv/appsplus
Apps Plus on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/appsplusblog

Apps Plus Comms- Mass Effect Part 12

 

A democratic run of the original Mass Effect for Xbox 360.

Commentators-

• Lorl
• Hatok
• Ernesto Guillermo
• Bryan, The Cake Loving Artist
• Urdon

Buy this game

Mass Effect is owned by Bioware, a subsidiary of Electronic Arts

The Artist's Picks: Major Mayhem

Happy Friday everyone, and welcome back to The Artist's Picks!

Today I'm talking about Major Mayhem, an awesome game that's great to pass the time and keep yourself entertained.

Major Mayhem

http://dft.ba/-major-mayhem

I'm not generally a big fan of shooter games, but this one is an exception. For one, it offers delightfully cartoony graphics, an innovative playing style, and explosions to boot!

What happens in this game is that you control Major Mayhem, a soldier (a Major I guess) who is called upon by the President to fight ninjas in the tropics.

Starting off, you get dropped off by a helicopter into an area. To control the Major, you simply tap on the screen where you'd like him to shoot. If you aren't pressing on the screen, then the Major will duck behind cover to avoid enemy fire.

When all enemies in a certain area have been defeated, the Major will run to the next area. The number of areas there are per level is about four to five, though later levels can have many more.

As you progress through the game, you unlock new levels and new enemies, just in case shooting at ninjas was getting boring. There's even an epic final boss fight!

The game is very relaxed, contrary to most shooters. If you're behind cover, then nothing can hurt you, so you can easily take a break from playing to do whatever.

Another awesome thing about this game is that even after you beat the main storyline (which is surprisingly long and rich), you can go back to earlier levels and try and get three stars in them (yes, like Angry Birds). However, you have undoubtedly unlocked new, more powerful weaponry that you can use. Ever wanted to use a rapid-fire plasma gun? Or would you rather use a bazooka to blow up those pesky ninjas? Needless to say, the game is even more fun when you come back to play it again.

Pew-pew-pew-pew-pew!

So all in all, Major Mayhem is a great game to just kill time (and ninjas). Its relaxed nature lets you just pick it up and play whenever, and it also has great replayability, so you can be entertained for hours. Above all, it is absolutely free, so go check it out!

Apps Plus Comms- Kingdom Hearts Part 12

 

 

 A commentary of the original Kingdom Hearts

Commentators-

• Hatok
• Lorl

Buy this game

Kingdom Hearts is owned by Square Enix and Disney