Apple’s iPhone 4 has become one of the world’s favorite cameras over the last year. A cursory look at the photo stats from Flickr shows just how popular the iPhone 4 is when it comes to taking snaps, with huge numbers of photographs uploaded daily.
If you’re a budding iPhone photographer and have a hankering for the good old days when photos had timestamps then you’re in luck. A new Cydia tweak, Stampr, brings timestamps to the iPhone’s camera app. Not only can you now have a handy reminder of the date and time you took the photo, but you can also add custom text via the app’s settings. Also in there you’ll find options for changing the text size and color – plenty for you to make your timestamps look just the way you want them for the maximum shot of nostalgia.
One nice feature that may get overlooked is the way Stampr actually saves two photos to your camera roll – one with the timestamp and one without. Useful for those that might want a pristine, unaltered version of their photos for editing, printing or distributing later. You will, of course, need to have a jailbroken iPhone, iPad or iPod touch to install it. Follow our step by step guide to jailbreak your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch on iOS 4.3.1 with Redsn0w, PwnageTool 4.3 (untethered | tethered) on Mac, or with Sn0wbreeze on Windows, or on iOS 4.3.2 with Redsn0w, PwnageTool 4.3 (tethered), or with Sn0wbreeze on Windows, or on iOS 4.3.3 using Redsn0w, PwnageTool, Sn0wbreeze if you haven’t already. Stampr is available from the iOS jailbreak store, Cydia and costs absolutely nothing. Bargain! Check out our iPhone Apps Gallery and iPad Apps Gallery to explore more apps for your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.
‘The coming of the Apocalypse had been announced for centuries, so we were not to know that it was so close. The dead have risen from the ground and destroyed everything in their path. You have managed to survive until now, but you are alone and cut off… How long will you be able to survive?
Features:
Experience fear and stress in a battle for your survival.
Enjoy being in an entirely 3D-modelled environment with impressive graphics.
Take on the hordes of dozens of zombies coming to drink your blood. A totally new scenario for the iPhone/iPod Touch.
Let your weapons do the talking as you drive back your assailants.
While Rolando 2 has only been out for a few days, an official review of the game seems to be more a formality than a necessity for much of our audience. It seems clear that fans of the original title scooped up the new release the moment it arrived, and the early response has been overwhelmingly positive. The strength of the originalRolando title was clear. It was one of the first original iPhone-native platformers designed specifically for touch and tilt controls. Rather than mapping existing controls to some strange virtual D-Pad equivalent, Handcircus sat down and imagined how a true iPhone-platformer might play, and… they did it with style.
The music, art, and humor throughout the original production were really amazing. From our original Rolandoreview:
The most striking part of the game, however, is the level of polish and production of the entire title. The style, music, and humor that is delivered adds as much to the experience as does the gameplay. The Rolandos will frequently address you at the beginning of each level to progress the plot, and you will genuinely feel bad when one gets killed.
Rolando 2 takes all that was great from the original and expanded on it, making it bigger, better, and Rolando-ier. The same charming art style is preserved while adding a modern flare with some 3D level-effects. Mr. Scruff returns to provide a wonderful soundtrack that is also available for individual purchase via iTunes. The game offers larger levels and expands on the individual Rolando characterization while introducing new Rolandos throughout the title. The overall package results in an amazing experience that rivals franchises on other platforms. Rolando 2 also adds a number of new elements to the gameplay with the introduction of underwater scenes, vehicles, new weapons and new Rolando skills. Weapons include the bow/arrows, laser beams and the all powerful "boom finger". Levels are larger, and in many instances, you have to coordinate a large squad of Rolandos to successfully navigate each level.
Based on our impressions, the gameplay of Rolando 2 seems slightly easier than the original. As best as we can remember, there appear to be the fewer purely dexterity-based levels which required avoiding a number of enemies while navigating around treacherous levels. Understandably, these levels could cause some frustration for more casual players, so we suspect this shift was intentional. Simon Oliver had told us at WWDC that other design changes had been made to make it more accessible to casual players. This includes the ability to choose to a number of different levels at any given time as well as the ability to skip particularly frustrating levels. While there are puzzle elements to the game, it'd be hard to call this game (or the original) a real puzzler. It's unlikely you'll find yourself stuck not knowing exactly what to do next, as most level solutions are pretty straightforward. The long term joy of the game does not come in the difficulty of the levels, but in your ability to navigate them completely and speedily.
Ngmoco has integrated their Plus+ network into Rolando 2 which offers global leaderboards as well as a nice new system to challenge your friends. I've always been of the opinion that online components to games are what make them the most interesting, and this online head-to-head competition adds a lot of long term value to the game. In addition, Ngmoco also announced in March that Rolando 2 will receive up to 20 more levels in subsequent free updates, much like the original. In terms of negatives to the sequel, there are very few objective ones. There have been reports of Rolandos getting stuck in certain parts of the level requiring a level restart. While a few other minor bugs reported here and there, nothing that greatly impacted gameplay. As in the original, there can still be some control-system frustration with the Spikey Commando when navigating sideways and upside down, though, again, less-so in this sequel. All in all, we are really impressed with Rolando 2 which does justice to one of the few classic iPhone originals. Like the original, the art, style and music come together in a wonderfully immersive package. And with the addition of Plus+, you'll find yourself working to perfect your scores on individual levels in order to challenge your friends.
Rolando 2 offers a really well rounded iPhone platformer experience from music to art to controls. Fans of the original will be particularly pleased with the upgrades to the franchise which still retains much of the feel of the original. The sequel comes highly recommended to both old fans and newcomers.
Two Tribes' long awaited iPhone version of Toki Tori [$4.99] has finally arrived in the App Store tonight. The game was originally released for the Gameboy Color back in 2001 and has since been updated for the Wii and now the iPhone (published by Chillingo).
Toki Tori is a puzzle platformer in which you control the actions of a cute chick across 80 levels. The goal of each level is for Toki Tori to free his siblings who have been mysteriously kidnapped. Each level has a number of eggs that much be rescued and a certain inventory of tools to accomplish that task. The levels consist of a side-scrolling platformed environment with ladders, obstacles and enemies. Solving a level involves finding a way to collect all the eggs without getting stuck or killed by an enemy. Judicious use of your special tools is the only way to succeed. Tools come in a variety of shapes and sizes including: a telewarp, bridge builder, freeze-o-matic and more. You are only given a subset of tools and a limited number of each to solve the levels and you will find yourself starting them over to get it right. The game is beautifully animated and offers a wonderfully polished experience. I found the controls to be very well adapted to the iPhone touch-screen. Simply tapping on a location will move Toki Tori to that spot. The final version's controls have seen significant improvements in sensitivity over the early beta version we looked at in February. In the end, the controls stay out of your way and let you focus on the game itself. In the past, I've criticized iPhone puzzle games for being too easy and too short. Balancing level gameplay is an art and Toki Tori clearly benefits from being a long established game. While I haven't yet completed the 80 included levels, I found the difficulty ramped up nicely and provided some particularly imaginative challenges. Unlike some games the solutions to the more advanced levels weren't always immediately obvious which make for a much more enjoyable and rewarding experience. This gameplay video shows two levels: an easy and a more difficult one.
The game is divided into four distinct worlds. Once the normal levels in a world are complete, you may proceed to the next world. Meanwhile, a number of "hard" levels from the completed world are also unlocked and can be played at any time. Overall, Toki Tori is a wonderfully challenging puzzle game that has been very well adapted to the iPhone and comes highly recommended. App Store Link: Toki Tori, $4.99
We got our hands on EA's upcoming Need For Speed: Shiftthis week, and after spending the last few days playing through the game I'm confident in saying that EA has succeeded in bringing yet another amazing racing game to the platform. With in-game options to tune the difficulty to the point that your car is almost driving itself, Shift is not only an extremely accessible racing game, but also can be a very technical driving experience for veterans of the genre with all of the assists turned off and the manual transmission mode enabled. Believe it or not, Need For Speed: Shift is the thirteenth in the Need For Speedseries which originally debuted all the way back in 1994 with Road & Track magazine heavily advising on both the sound design and vehicle physics. Since then, the Need For Speed saga has been through many iterations covering everything from super cars to underground street racing to police chases.
With recent Need For Speed games taking sharp turns towards the arcade racing genre (Such as Need For Speed: Undercover [App Store] for the iPhone.) it's nice to see EA getting back on course with what feels much more like an actual racing simulation in Shift. The 20 included real licensed cars can have both their visuals and performance upgraded. In the visuals department you can add a body kit, change paint colors, buy ridiculously huge spoilers, and change out your wheels. If you care more about your car actually going faster than looking cool, you can upgrade its top speed, acceleration, nitrous oxide system, as well as tires and suspension. Each of these upgrades come in multiple stages and once you've hit a car's limit to remain competitive in races you will need to buy new cars.
Cars in game must be bought with winnings from races, and available cars are slowly unlocked as you progress through the game. Initially, Chicago is the only locale you have access to, but both London and Tokyo are eventually unlocked granting access to all 18 different courses included in the game. In each locale you can participate in seven different types of events which range from standard races to drifting competitions, time trials, and the driver duel which pits you against a single AI opponent. Each event has an associated set of stars that can be earned while racing to unlock additional events. You will always earn stars for being in the top three, with additional available stars for doing things like being in first place for an entire lap, never going off the track, and beating the track's lap record. These stars go hand in hand with the in-game score system which tallies points for both "precision" and "aggression" based on different actions. Doing things like following a perfect racing line or taking a corner well will earn precision points, while actions like riding an opponent's tail or bumping them out of the way earns aggression points. At the end of each race, these points are totaled on your persistent driver profile that the game is constantly building along with a custom racing emblem which gets an additional component added to it as you level up. While overall the whole aggression/precision system doesn't have much impact on anything in the game, it's still fairly cool that two people will likely never have the game build the same emblem based on their career. Currently I've been towards the precise side of the spectrum, and my emblem is a target with a pair of crossed spark plugs. If my racing style focused more on bumping in to people, my emblem would consist of things like crossed axes and other more aggression-oriented objects. Aside from your driving style, "badges" also can be earned which act as Shift'sachievement system. Badges come in multiple ranks, and are upgraded over time based on your performance. For instance, the Iron Man bronze badge is earned by placing first in three consecutive events, and can be upgraded to silver by placing first in five consecutive events. Need For Speed: Shift features several different control options which should satisfy the needs of most racing fans, unless you prefer virtual joysticks to tilting to steer– an option that is notably absent. In rookie mode, the game practically plays itself. Your car accelerates automatically, brakes automatically, and there is a racing line made of arrows on the track for your car to follow. In rookie mode, it also feels like it's difficult to not follow this racing line, almost like your car falls in to some kind of groove that is difficult to steer out of if you want to overtake an opponent. The next control option is the professional mode, which turns off all the assist options and actually allows you to drive your car around where you want. Unless you are just really bad at racing games, I'd recommend just immediately turning on the professional mode before you even start your first race. The next step up is expert mode, which takes professional mode and adds a manual transmission and there's also a custom mode where you can enable/disable each control feature as you see fit. Swiping up or swiping down on screen shifts the gears of your manual transmission, and while I'm sure there are people out there who will be in love with this game because of this functionality, I've never been one for changing gears in racing games. Regardless of which control mode you choose, acceleration is handled automatically and touching the screen applies the brakes. If you've upgraded your car to have a nitrous oxide system, tapping a button in the bottom right corner engages and disengages the nitrous. There's also a button on the top of the screen for changing the view from cockpit, hood, first person, and third person views.
With so few truly high quality 3D racing games on the App Store, comparisons are inevitable, and we've already had some heated debates on our forums regardingNeed For Speed: Shift versus Real Racing [App Store]. In my opinion, both games are worth owning. Shift edges ahead of Real Racing due to the inclusion of real licensed cars instead of generic sports cars and Volkswagens as well as having a better career mode. But, on the other hand, Real Racing seems to have better, more realistic, and much more aggressive AI opponents. Shift seems to fall victim to the same problem as many other racing games on the platform with opponents that just seem to want to follow their own little racing line and generally just ignore you entirely. Also, while I can't completely confirm the existence of irritating rubberband AI in Shift, I been in a few races where I've pulled very far ahead of my opponents only to see them zooming up behind me on the mini map from out of nowhere. I suppose it's always possible they decided to dump their nitrous tanks to catch up to me, but it does seem suspect. Both games include local multiplayer, although I haven't been able to test this functionality in Shift. In the multiplayer mode, you're able to select both WiFi and bluetooth as connection options, as well as choose from many of the different tracks and included game modes. Online multiplayer would have been nice, although it's not unexpected to see EA preferring to stick with local multiplayer. At the end of the day I thinkNeed For Speed: Shift's greatest flaw is that it shares the same title and likely a lot of the same expectations of the XBOX 360 and PS3 console versions of the game. Having spent a great deal of time in the XBOX 360 game, what I was looking forward to most on the iPhone wasn't tons of cars or tracks, but only the insanely immersive sense of speed. On the 360, as you go faster and faster the edges of your screen slowly start to blur along with other visuals that make you feel like you're going very fast sitting on your couch– Also, there are all kinds of great visual effects when you crash. Out of all this, the only thing that made it to the iPhone is a vaguely reminiscent red tinge to the screen when you hit something. Regardless, Need For Speed: Shift is a remarkable iPhone racing game. With licensed cars, control options that should make most people happy, and a very cool yet mostly superfluous driver profile and performance tracking system, Shift is a must-have for fans of the genre. Looking to the future, and seeing how much EA has tweaked and refined the racing experience between Need For Speed: Undercover and Need For Speed: Shift, I doubt I'm alone in being very excited to see what's next in the Need For Speed series on the App Store. Need For Speed: Shift is coming soon.
