Top Gun – iTunes link
Real Racing – iTunes link
Monster Trucks Nitro – iTunes link
3D Rollercoaster Rush – iTunes link
Touch Hockey: FS5 - iTunes link
Homerun Battle 3D – iTunes link
Tiger Woods PGA Tour by EA Sports – iTunes link
Slope Rider - iTunes link
Aqua Moto Racing - iTunes link
Finger Foos – iTunes link
2XL Supercross - iTunes link

I will be writing a review for each game as the days goes by, one game a day, starting tomorrow. I will update this page with scores and links to each review.

Family Guy: Uncensored is a game where, if you do story mode, you go through different levels where each one is a different mini-game, and you are presented with cut scenes in between each one. The game has a sort of 8-bit mixed with new-age graphics feel, which is pretty cool. The problem is that every other thing in the game sucks so bad that the graphics are the furthest thing from my mind.

The gameplay itself is absolutely atrocious. I’m pretty I’ve never played something this bad in my entire life. Each mini-game is completely different, yet each one still finds a way to make me want to kill myself before progressing in the game. I wanted to get through each level to be able to review it, but I only got through 4 out of the 7 because I simply couldn’t take any more of it. In every level, I found myself just trying to get through to the next level. And the mini-games aren’t just terrible, they’re hard; like, really hard. I almost through my phone at one point. Also, the load times are longer than any other game I’ve ever played on the iPhone. You end up spending more time loading than you do playing the game.

On top of that madness, the cut-scenes are terrible. There aren’t any fast, witty jokes or even references to anything (at least enough to make you laugh or happy about anything at all). Actually there was a cut-scene where the greased up deaf guy runs past the screen, but that was the closest to anything funny in the entire game. There are some references in the games themselves, but barely any.

Oh, and the music is TERRIBLE! It’s so bad I can’t begin to explain it. It has absolutely nothing to do

So the bottom line is that this game is the most terrible piece of crap ever made for the iPhone. And Glu Games, the company that made Deer Hunting 3D, made this game. How could they make such an epic, disasterly failure? And the game is $4.99 somehow. There is no way I’d recommend downloading this game for free, not to mention $4.99!

Oh yeah, and I’ve had this game downloaded and played on and off for about 2 weeks, maybe 3. I had to play the game in 5 minute increments to keep myself from throwing my iPhone into the blender. Going back to get the screenshots was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do in my life.

TTR is your typical music game where where circles come floating to the bottom of the screen and you must, in this case touch, the “notes” as they reach the bottom, going along to the music. It includes over 100 free songs to download, the best online play of any iPhone game to date, and tons of other features that make it stand far from its competitors. If you want to read more about TTR 2.6, read my review here.

TTR 3′s biggest new feature is it’s DLC (downloadable content). You can now buy track packs of different bands which include 2 to 6 songs for $0.99 to $2.99, and special themes for each pack. The recent iPhone 3.0 software started allowing this DLC feature, so it seems that Tapulous was just waiting to implement this as soon as they could.

The game also adds avatars that you can dress up and show off online, which I guess isn’t a bad thing, but it doesn’t add too much to the game either. I feel like that may have been them trying to grab the tween audience that play all the Facebook apps. TTR 3 also adds chat support either overall, or in each game lobby.

Weapons were also added to the new version. Certain sections of the notes are stars (star power anyone?) that you must collect to gain a weapon or shield, then you tap it to use it. This addition is actually pretty cool rather than gimmicky. The only problem I have with it is one weapon make the sound crappy, and I don’t exactly enjoy playing a music game when the music sounds crappy.

All in all TTR 3 is an awesome update/sequel and I strongly urge everyone to pick it up. The only downside of the new app is that it costs $0.99 as opposed to the last edition which was free. The reasoning for this is that an app needs to cost money in order for it to include DLC, so they made it the cheapest price it can be at $0.99. It’s still worth it.

Tap Tap Revenge 3 – $0.99 [iTunes Link]

Sportacular updated for (fantasy) football via TUAW

The game is simple, where you just tap the sheep, frog, or pig while it’s in the air to make it go higher, and if you fall to the bottom of the screen then you lose. There will be items along the way that either save you when you fall or make you go higher faster. Like I said: simple. But for some reason it’s so captivating and fun. It’s the sort of game that some people won’t be able to put down, and others will just come back to it time to time again.

Conclusion

Sheep Launcher Plus! doesn’t really have much to it, but it’s still really fun for anyone that likes high score games that you just keep coming back to. It is a definite buy for anyone in my opinion. There is a lite version for anyone that wants to check it out, but if you get good at the game then you’ll eventually see this screen:

Sportacular lets you see up-to-the-minute scores for games in the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, and more, and it presents the scores in an average, but well manner. So Sportacular is a good score-checking app. But what makes it awesome is the push notification support.

You can subscribe to updates for a particular team or game, and within that team or game you can specify whether you want to be notified about when a game is starting soon, when the game does start, when the score changes and what the score is, what the score after each period is, or what the score is at the end of the game. I simply chose to know the score at the end of each NFL game because anything else would be too much, but if you are a huge fan for any sports team then it would certainly be ideal to have the score changing alert on for that team; definitely a great thing to have if you aren’t near a TV.

Conclusion

Sportacular is a good app to see scores, but a must-have app for getting alerts for scores. If you at work or on the go and trying to keep track of the game your favorite team is playing or even if you are at home watching a game but want to be up to date on all games, then this is the app for you. So by that I mean, if you watch sports at all and have an iPhone then you must get this app. There is a free version and a $3 version, but the only difference is ads. So if the ads don’t bother you then the free version is perfectly acceptable.

Now what doesn’t work is that you probably aren’t going to have any Facebook friends using Aardvark, so it’s really not any use unless Aardvark gets a much larger user count. And on that note, your questions really won’t get answered as well as you would want. I never seemed to get an answer to any questions that weren’t common knowledge. But when asked who played Superman in the original movie, I immediately got results. But even if I did get answers to those non-common knowledge questions, they probably wouldn’t be researched at all. There is no moderation as far as I know.

Because of this, I really think ChaCha has a huge advantage over this app/network. ChaCha is moderated to make sure the answers are good and researched, and the answerers are paid (not much, but still paid) which gives incentive for the questions to always be answered. The only limitation is that there is no iPhone app for ChaCha (and looks like there never will be), so you are stuck using text messages, which could be bad for someone without a messaging plan (like me).

Conclusion

Aardvark is a simple, yet spot on application in terms of design, but doesn’t have a large enough user base, incentive, or moderation to keep the questions answered in a timely manner or correctly. ChaCha is without a doubt the overall better service to use if you have a messaging plan (text 242242 or chacha.com), but Aardvark is a decent app if you can’t spare those precious text messages.

LOLcats

I Can Has Cheezburger

First let’s look at what both apps offer. Both have lite versions that display ads and both give you a simple lolcat viewing window to go back and forth between lolcats. That’s all you can really ask for and want from a lolcat app. And that is the biggest problem with the LOLCats app.

Since the latest update, the LOLCats app integrated the OpenFeint platform into its system. OpenFeint is a platform in many iPhone games that integrates achievements, chatrooms, and leaderboards throughout different games. OpenFeint is a really awesome idea. But the problem is that LOLCats isn’t a game. The leaderboard and achievements consist of how many LOLCats you’ve looked at. I didn’t even mind this though, except for that fact that the app initially opens up into a menu contains these things. You then only have to click “Browse lulz,” but that’s just one more step in between me and ceiling cat. I Can Has Cheezburger (ICHC) instead opens directly to the lolcats viewing screen. Simple and how it should be.

The ICHC app also allows you to view their other LOL sites as well, such as Failblog and others. This is a big plus for me since Failblog is equally as hilarious as ICHC.com. One might think that it is unnecessary and just clutters an app that would otherwise be exactly what you want and nothing more. But to access the other sites’ content, you have to touch small button that is wonderfully place and not in the way.

Another feature ICHC offers that LOLCats does not is the ability to upload photos from your camera (either by taking a photo within the app or taking a photo from your library) to their sites. It has roughly the same editor that their site does for creating and uploading LOLz, and you can even save the LOL to your photo album or email it.

One thing though that LOLCats does have over ICHC is that you have a favorites list where you can save the links to LOLz that you like to view later. This enables you to go back to a LOL later without having to save it to your phone. I personally could care less about saving some photos to my phone though since it’s easier to get back them that way anyway, in my opinion.

Conclusion

I Can Has Cheezburger offers a highly superior product than LOLCats, offering a LOL creator/submitter and access to other LOL sites such as Failblog, while LOLCats only offers a cluttered home screen with meaningless achievements and leaderboards.

In TaxiBall you use tilt to move a ball around a world where you pick up people and drop them off at other destinations. What I do like about the game is all of it’s social networking features, such having a profile that shows your stats, awards, and a friends list. What I don’t really like about the game, is just about everything else.

For some reason this game just doesn’t pull me in. The concept sounds great: a Crazy Taxi sort of game created for optimal support on the iPhone. But it’s just a little too bland for me. I feel like much of the fun of the game is probably going back through the levels and trying to get a better score. But I just don’t want to. There simply isn’t enough to make me come back. And for some reason the controls just make me angry. I don’t know what, but I just feel like the ball is constantly not doing what I want it to. Oh and you HAVE to go into the settings and recenter the “neutral position” of the ball. Otherwise when you are tilting forward you can’t even see the screen. I just feel like this default neutral position (despite being truly level) should have been optimized for a normal person without them having to go into the settings.

Conclusion

For a Word Ace and Crazy Taxi fan like me, this game still didn’t do it for me, especially not three dollars worth. As much as I want to support the Self Aware Games studio, I simply can’t recommend this for anyone. But there is a lite version for the game, so definitely check it out and see if this is the game for you.

You tilt to move your character, you tap or hold down in a direction around your character to shoot, you collect keys, and you shoot bad looking things. That’s it. And with the gameplay being all there really is to this game, it doesn’t even work. When you are trying to touch the screen to shoot in a certain direction, your finger is blocking everything you are trying to shoot; so you can’t see what you are shooting/running away from. The art style is really all there is to really like about this game. Somehow, I would even say there is less going on graphically in this then there is in Gauntlet; so there’s nothing even to look at while you’re walking around doing the same thing over and over again. I will say, the game does trying to have funny/intriguing writing on the ground; but it’s far too and between, and most of the time it’s not even that funny.

Conclusion

I wouldn’t recommend buying this game, but there is a lite version; so if you dig the art style and you have a few minute, then it may be worth you checking it out. The art style is unique, but the gameplay is bland and there is nothing to keep you coming back.