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CNET)
Back in March I wrote about a skee-ball-type game called 10-balls 7 cups that was surprisingly fun. It had great sounds and graphics, and the gameplay consisted of a flick of your finger to send the ball down the alley and a tilt of your iPhone to redirect the ball into the cups. I said at the time that the only problem I had with this simple yet fun game was that the silly prizes you could buy at the end with your points didn't have pictures.
I just received word that longtime Mac gaming publisher Freeverse has gotten onboard with this unique title (and apparently worked out the licensing) to publish an upgraded version, appropriately named Skee-Ball (99 cents). Some flashier graphics have been added, but for the most part the gameplay remains the same with a couple of notable changes. You can now buy custom balls with your points; challenge friends and view score tracking, achievements, and leader-boards on the Plus network; and they've added an entirely new prize system with (you guessed it) pictures of every prize in a nice-looking loot room. Though not as involved as some of the other games I review here, this latest version of Skee-Ball is a great casual game to kill time and collect funny prizes.
This week's apps include a new image capture app and a 2D survival shooter with all the right stuff to keep you playing for a long time.
Use the level aid to make sure your shot is lined up correctly.
(Credit: Screenshot by Jason Parker/CNET)Snapture ($1.99) offers a unique way to take pictures with your iPhone with some added features to make sure you get the perfect shot. Instead of a button at the bottom of the interface like the iPhone's regular camera, you can simply touch anywhere onscreen to take a shot. An onscreen level aid helps you make sure your shot is perfectly level. You can choose between four image sizes (800x600, 1,280x960, 1,600x1,200, or 2,048x1,536) before you take your picture. The zooming feature lets you reverse-pinch to zoom up to 5x. You can also toggle between single shot or multiple shots so you can take three consecutive pictures with only one touch of the screen. When you're done, you can quickly send your picture to a friend with an integrated e-mail option or just save the picture to your photo library; images are only saved when you're happy with the shot.
I think part of the charm of Snapture is the unique interface. Once you take a photo (or multiple photos) the last four shots show up as thumbnails on the left side of the screen. You can touch and hold a thumbnail to make it zoom to its original size (with a smooth animation) or you can slide the image across the screen to bring up options for e-mailing or deleting the image. The zooming feature is also a nice touch, letting you pinch or reverse-pinch to zoom to just the amount you need. Overall, Snapture might be a little too precise for regular picture taking, but if you really want to perfect specific shots, this app has some nice features to help you make it happen.
You'll need to switch weapons quickly to handle the onslaught of meteors.
(Credit: Screenshot by Jason Parker/CNET)Meteor Blitz ($1.99) is a challenging 2D survival shooter arcade game with smooth graphics, tons of cool power-ups, and great gameplay. Like many games of this type on the iPhone, Meteor Blitz uses dual onscreen joysticks, with the left one to move your ship and the right to fire your weapons. A double tap on the left joystick gives you a momentary burst of speed to help you get out of particularly sticky situations. Just over the right joystick is a button to switch between three weapon types: regular cannons, a flame thrower, and ice bullets--all of which can be upgraded by spending rings you collect in the game. Each weapon type is more effective against specific enemies (ice bullets for red meteors, flame thrower for ice meteors, etc.) so knowing how to quickly switch between them becomes part of the challenge as well.
Meteor Blitz has two game types. An arcade mode challenges you to fight your way through several levels of mayhem with a boss at the end of each level. In Survival mode your mission (obviously) is to stay alive as long as possible as more and more aliens and meteors try to take you out. But in addition to the incredibly intense gameplay of both game types, I really liked that I could watch my global ranking rise as I played the game. Knowing where you are in the global high-score list as you play gives you even more incentive to survive the endless onslaught of aliens and different types of meteors. Overall, Meteor Blitz is an excellent game for fans of this classic arcade genre with plenty of power-ups unique enemies to keep you coming back for more.
What's your favorite iPhone app? Do you like the simple, but challenging gameplay of Skee-Ball? Is Snapture the photo-taking app you've been looking for? How high in the global rankings have you gotten in Meteor Blitz? Let me know in the comments!
Make sure you know exactly what you install with AIM.
(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET Networks)The new update of AOL Instant Messenger, the AIM 6.8 Refresh, came out Tuesday with a new feature that allows you to send photos to cell phone users. I decided to try the new version out, mostly because I wanted to get rid of the annoying update notification.
Once the installation was done, I found out that the neat-sounding feature is limited to people using certain types of cell phones within the T-Mobile network.
None of my buddies meet the criteria so I didn't get to try it out, but I am not terribly impressed with the idea of this new feature, especially when cell phones these days can be used to easily check e-mail or receive multimedia messages. If anything, I am concerned.
The installation of the new AIM, much like that of any other instant-messenger app, still wants to significantly change the settings of your computer, including installing the terrible AOL toolbar, change the default home page to AOL.com, and change the default search engine to that of AOL (which is also terrible).
Make sure you pick the custom installation and uncheck all the boxes of features you don't wish to install before proceeding.
A LOLdog I made using PicSay.
(Credit: CNET)PicSay's stated purpose is to e-mail or text annotated photo messages to friends, but there's nothing stopping you from using the free program as a makeshift photo editor.
PicSay is a simple application made especially for Google Android, but it's nevertheless the most customization-focused application I've reviewed today. You start by choosing a picture from your photo album or the image you most recently viewed (this won't work if your Android phone is in mass storage mode.) Then press the Menu key to start adding in the special effects: word balloons, colorful headings, cartoony images, and zany photo distortions.
There are more sober embellishments, too. You'll be able to stamp an image with a time and date, and can click into Effects to adjust hue, saturation, sepia tones, and color balance.
PicSay's biggest drawback is that it doesn't take photos from within the application, it only edits them. It also misses the opportunity to upload images to the social networking mainstays of Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, MySpace, and any other blog you own; however, it's early days and perhaps this is all yet to come.
Read more CNET news and reviews on Google Android, Android applications, and the T-Mobile G1 phone.
Of the photo solutions mentioned in the BlackBerry forums I've been visiting lately, SplashPhoto and Ascendo Photos were the two most-often mentioned. That's just the kind of head-to-head challenge I like, and I threw in one more, ITookThisOnMyPhone, for flavor.
Ascendo Photos Desktop ($29.95) gathers JPEG, GIF, BMP, TIFF, and PNG photos on your PC in a crisp, smart interface. The photo organization is reminiscent of Picasa--sibling images in a folder are horizontally arranged, with folders scrolling vertically. Photos drag and drop into an emulator, which you use to center the photo and perform basic editing--rotation, flipping, and color correction. Three sizing choices determine if photos appear cropped, shrunken, or alarmingly large. A button click transfers photos from desktop to device.
On the BlackBerry, Ascendo Photos shows transfered images clearly, but not quite cogently. It requires a click too many to see your photos, and the app wastes an opportunity to corral snaps taken from the cell phone. However, there's good file information; options to save to phone or SD memory, add galleries, and assign icons; and the ability to e-mail photos.... Read more
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Once I've taken care of installing security software on a new a PC, one of the first programs I end up downloading is an image editor. Whether I'm using it to make a quick edit to a screenshot, convert a digital photo to a more Web-friendly image format, or even something as mundane as cropping an image for a desktop background, an easy-to-use image editor is a must have. Those of you with recently acquired computers probably have a lot of holiday photos you've resolved to go through, so this little collection will definitely come in handy.
Obviously, Photoshop is the heavyweight champ in the image-editing category, but most people don't need such an advanced toolset for everyday image-editing tasks. Also, $650 (for Photoshop CS3) is not exactly pocket change for most of us. Fortunately there are a lot of options available at a fraction of the cost, and some of the best downloadable image editors are completely free. For those who just need a tool with a modest feature set for everyday tasks, I've rounded up my three favorite free image editors.
For the most lightweight and nimble editor, IrfanView is the best choice
(Credit: CNET Networks)IrfanView is longtime user favorite for its simplicity. It was the go-to for free image editors a few years ago and remains as one of the best for quick image editing. Basic features such as cropping, resizing, and file conversion are all part of the toolset, and if you want more options, there are IrfanView plug-in packs you can download from the IrfanView developer site. This one doesn't have the prettiest interface of the group, but for basic tasks it gets the job done.
FastStone Image Viewer's easy-to-access full-screen mode lets you view and edit your images without distraction
(Credit: CNET Networks)FastStone Image Viewer is the program I use to crop and resize screenshots here at work. I even have Photoshop on my hard drive, but it just can't beat the speed and convenience of FastStone Image Viewer. An intuitive interface lets you browse your image folders and select what you want quickly and easily. But my favorite thing about this free program is the ability to double-click an image to bring it up in full-screen mode for closer inspection. You can then mouse to each side of the screen for pop-up tools for editing and basic effects, file management, and image info.
Paint.NET gives you more effects to play with along with a layer manager and history window.
(Credit: CNET Networks)Paint.NET is a free alternative that is closer to Photoshop than the rest in this collection. Complete with Photoshop-like toolbars, a layer manager, a history window, and more image effects than the others, Paint.NET offers just about everything you might need. Though the feature list is not nearly as long as Photoshop, you can't beat what you can get for free with Paint.NET. The only caveat is you'll need to download Microsoft's .NET framework to run this program.
If you're a digital camera enthusiast or like to scan or collect images, you need a good image editor. These apps are definitely great for the basics and some offer extra features that make them an even better value. As always, if you have a favorite image editor which is not listed here, let me know in the comments!
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CNET Networks)
Recently Power Downloader received an e-mail from Kitty Kilobyte who was away at school. Apparently Kitty had amassed a huge amount of digital photos by taking her camera with her wherever she went. She had pictures from birthday parties, school events, and concerts she had attended, and also simple shots of friends at school and other scenery in her life. She had thought about putting them into albums or posting them online, but wondered if Power knew of something new and exciting she could do with her photographs.... Read more
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Almost everyone takes pictures when traveling so they have something to bring back the memories once their vacation is over. A few years ago I went to several countries across Europe and took a ton of pictures with my digital camera. When I flip through the albums now, in some cases I'll forget where some of the more nondescript or interior pictures were taken. Today I found a program for Mac which not only solves that problem, but makes it more fun to view pictures from around the world.... Read more
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