iPhone Atlas

Call me a sucker for the holiday season, but at this time of year I just can't get into mowing down zombies and blasting TIE fighters. I need games that put me in a more, well, merry frame of mind.

Thankfully, the App Store has no shortage of holiday-themed entertainment. I've rounded up five festive games for players young and old.

Flight Before Christmas puts a cute, Santa-themed spin on Flight Control.

Christmas Match A holiday spin on the classic memory game, this one's designed for younger players. It has falling snow, jingle-bell sounds and music, and, of course, holiday-decorated cards to flip. Price: 99 cents.

Crazy Snowboard--Holiday Special I respect my bones too much to snowboard in real life, but I do love a good snowboarding sim. This one puts you in a Santa suit and sends you grinding down the slopes, where you'll smash past elves, candy canes, and, for some reason, zombies. Kooky, yes, but still great fun. Price: $2.99.

Flight Before Christmas It's Flight Control meets Christmas as you help Santa plot a flight path, delivering presents to all the houses while avoiding other air traffic: jets, helicopters, even UFOs. If you can hit multiple houses without altering your path, you score combo points. It's a great twist on an iPhone classic. Price: 99 cents.

Triazzle Holiday puts your puzzle-solving skills to the test--festively!

Santa's Run The game that Grinchmas should have been (and may yet be--updates are in the works), Santa's Run tasks you with flinging presents to various houses' chimneys and doorways. A power meter controls the strength of your toss, while wind speed and direction can affect the path. Plus, you play across four different backgrounds. Not a ton of replay value here, but it's fun while it lasts. Price: 99 cents.

Triazzle Holiday Remember Triazzle, the classic puzzle game that made a dazzling iPhone debut last summer? This four-level holiday edition adorns the puzzles with Christmas lights, ornaments, nutcrackers, and even dreidels for my fellow Red Sea pedestrians. Price: 99 cents.

Speaking of holiday apps, don't miss the cool Dr. Seuss Camera--Grinch Edition I mentioned a few days ago.

In the meantime, hit the comments and let me know what holiday-themed apps are visiting your iPhone or iPod Touch this year.

(Credit: CNET)

For a friend's birthday the other night, we all went down to his rehearsal space (he's in a band) and played music, often switching instruments to see what we could come up with. Not everyone there was a musician, but with drums, guitars, basses, a keyboard, percussion instruments, and microphones, everyone found a way to get in on the jam. To add to the fun later in the night, my friend also had a cord to connect an iPod or iPhone to the PA system which meant I could try out some of my music apps. Among the apps we tried--all to great success--were iDrum Hip Hop Edition, FingerBeat (reviewed below), and I Am T-Pain (auto-tuning our voices was a big hit).

If you want to create music on your iPhone, there are a ton of music apps in the iTunes app store to choose from, even if you don't have a fancy PA system to hook into. Consequently, Leslie Katz wrote an article today at CNET showcasing a group of University of Michigan students who took the iPhone-as-instrument concept to a whole new level. Using apps they designed themselves, they created an ensemble performance as a way to finish out the semester. Though it's much more serious than playing beats and auto-tuning your voice like my friends and I did the other night, their performance makes me wonder what new musical creations people will come up with in the future as more iPhone music apps are released.

Update: I guess music is in the air, because I just found out Brian Tong and the folks who make the Apple Byte included the I Am T-Pain app in their latest episode (about 3 minutes in). It's definitely worth checking out.

This week's apps include a music app to create your own music and a demolitions puzzle game that challenges you to raze buildings as efficiently as possible.

Play the drums manually or swipe to the left or right for more tools

(Credit: Screenshot by Jason Parker/CNET)

FingerBeat ($3.99) is a music creation tool that helps you flesh out ideas, create multitrack songs, and make beats wherever you are. The primary screen (upon launch) is where the drum pads are where you can sample some of the sounds available by touching each of the pads. Once you've created a basic loop, get into the more serious song-creation tools by swiping your finger to the left. This brings up a visual editor where you can add or erase sounds from your loop and change the pitch of each of the tones. You also can create beats with separate patterns to play in sequence by touching the pattern buttons on the left side of the interface.

FingerBeat offers excellent sounds on its own, but you also can record short samples on the iPhone microphone and include them in your songs. Once you're happy with your song, you can even add a singing part to finish your project. The interface is not incredibly intuitive, requiring a certain amount of trial and error to get to some of the more advanced options and to figure out how to use each tool. Still, once you get used to the various screens and what each function does, you'll be able to create cool sounding beats and save them to your iPhone.

Place the bombs on key supports before hitting the plunger

(Credit: Screenshot by Jason Parker/CNET)

Implode ($1.99) is a remake of an online flash game that translates extremely well to the iPhone interface. The object of the game is to demolish structures so that they fall below a designated height limit and within a certain amount of time. To start you can choose from 3 different skill levels and play through several building types for each level. Just like those buildings that you've probably seen demolished on the news, you're job is to place explosives in key points to blow up walls that compromise the structural integrity of the building. Drag bombs to the precise location you want them before you hit the plunger. You only get a limited number of bombs to place, so you need to make sure they will cause the building to topple before the time runs out.

Implode is surprisingly addictive, and the hand-drawn quality of the levels (like building drawings) makes it fun to move through each of the building types. As you start to get in to the more difficult levels, you'll be faced with huge structures and unique wall types that you can't blow up. As I was playing, I liked how each building presented a new set of problems I had to work out, and getting a large building to fall on the first try is especially satisfying. If you like puzzle games, Implode is a unique option that is really well done both in the way it looks and the intuitive interface.

What's you're favorite iPhone app? Do you have a favorite music app to share? What do you think of the FingerBeat interface? Do you like the unique challenges of Implode? Let me know in the comments!

Update: Shortly after this post went up, the app was removed by the developer.

(Credit: Apple)

File it in the "get this while you can" category. Last week Apple approved a 99-cent application called iRwego that features both the sounds and artwork of the Super Mario series from Nintendo. And yes, it's still up--though probably not for long. Update: the app has since been taken down by the developer.

The app, not blessed by Nintendo, plays more than a minute of music from the Super Mario game while using the iPhone/iPod's accelerometer to take into account any physical movement by the user. In turn, it plays back the same jump sound effect found in Nintendo's Mario games. The idea is to run the app, then stick it in your pocket and pretend to be everyone's favorite plumber.

Along with its accelerometer-powered sound effects, the app also acts as a soundboard, playing familiar sounds like the "worp worp worp" of the green warp pipes, jumping on enemies heads, and hitting the familiar orange question mark power-up boxes. There are also two Mario quotes: "Here we go!" and "Oki doki!" which can be played just by tapping the white, on-screen speech bubbles.

In the app's description, developer Jerome Alves says there's an updated version awaiting approval from Apple that adds extra music as well as vibration for sound effects like breaking bricks. That is, if it doesn't end up in the App Store's blacklist first.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNET. But based on recent IP squabbles over games like Stoneloops of Jurassica, expect action to be swift if Nintendo gets involved. If it does, there are a slew of other Mario-specific apps on the App Store, but most are simply game guides. Though others like Ricky, iMarioSounds and iMario could draw Nintendo's ire, since they don similar use of the company's sound and visual assets.

Here's a demo of what it looks like:

(via the Touch Arcade forums)

I love tools that are all about providing people with information they want, and on Tuesday, the video game industry's official ratings board got my attention with something awfully useful.

The Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) announced on Tuesday its new iPhone app, which is designed to put the board's full written summaries of more than 2,500 video games right at parents' fingertips.

A new iPhone app from the Entertainment Software Ratings Board allows parents to see the full ratings summaries of more than 1,500 video games.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

The idea is that with the app--officially called ESRB Rating, and available now, for free, in Apple's App Store--parents can punch in the name of any game rated by the board after July 1, 2008, and see not just the official rating--such as "M" for those 17 and up, or "E" for everyone--but the ESRB's full written summary of the title. The ESRB began writing the full summaries on July 1, 2008. Users of the app can also search for information about titles from before that date, but they will see only the basic letter rating and a brief content description.

Just over a year ago, the ESRB began making those summaries available to the public through its Web site, and through a mobile site (m.esrb.org). But the Web site isn't convenient to a parent who is actually out shopping for junior, and the mobile site is not something that many people who have standard cell phones will use, especially if they have to pay extra for data. An iPhone app is just so much easier.

Brilliant on-the-fly tools
Add this app, then, to the growing list of tools available for the iPhone and other smartphones that give consumers the ability to arm themselves with the most information about products and pricing while they actually have boots in the Best Buy, so to speak. Others include the brilliant SnapTell, which delivers comparative pricing information about books, DVDs, video games, and other items from sites like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Gamespot, and others based solely on a photograph, and RedLaser, which scans items' bar codes and delivers similar pricing information.

But what makes the ESRB app so terrific, it seems to me, is that it provides parents with exactly the kind of nuanced information they need to properly choose the kinds of games they want to buy for their kids. Sure, the basic letter rating gives some context--if you're concerned about violence or racy content, you probably want to stay away from "M"-rated games--but within a single rating category, there is still a wide spectrum of content.

For example, the hottest game in the world right now is Activision's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The game has an "M" rating, but that just doesn't say all that much. Reading the summary, though, a parent can see much more: "Realistic gunfire, explosions, and cries of pain are heard during the frequent and fast-paced combat. The most intense depiction of violence occurs during a 'No Russian' mission where players take on the role of an undercover Ranger: Several civilians are gunned down at an airport as players are given a choice to participate in the killings (e.g., players can shoot a wounded civilian that is crawling on the ground), or walk by and observe without opening fire."

The app arms parents with the information to make informed buying decisions.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

That's a little more informative than "M," isn't it.

To be sure, kids are going to be able to get the games they want regardless of what their parents buy them. But given that games can cost $60 apiece--at least for the AAA console games--it may be that they don't quite have the means to sneak off with each and every first-person shooter they desire. They may still be dependent on Santa Claus, aka their parents, to get them the bulk of their games.

And, of course, those buyers who don't have an iPhone still will have to struggle to access these summaries, and it's unlikely that retailers will be providing them in any useful form.

But all in all, I find this precisely the kind of thing that puts the power over decisions about which video games to buy right back where it belongs: in parents' hands. We are in an age where so many pundits, politicians, and others are moaning and whining about the breakdown of society, and parents are complaining about the corruption of their children.

Well, complain no more: If you've got an iPhone--and I certainly hope the ESRB puts this app out for Android and other smartphones soon--you can do the research yourself. And then if you're still unhappy about the content in the games you buy your kids, you have no one to blame but yourself.

Corrected at 12:50 p.m. PST: This story incorrectly reported how many games rated by the ESRB would have summaries available through the iPhone app. It is more than 1,500.

Where's the Grinch? In this uninspired game, only his hand appears. Grinchmas, indeed!

(Credit: Oceanhouse Media)

Maybe I'm feeling extra Grinchy today because stupid iTunes keeps timing out when I sync my iPhone, but I don't like Grinchmas.

In this new game from Oceanhouse Media, you're a disembodied Grinch hand that flings snowballs--or presents, if you're in more of a "Merry Grinch" mood--at houses down in Whoville.

And that's it. The challenge, if you can call it that, lies in flinging accurately: you have to swipe at just the right speed and in just the right direction to score a hit.

If I'm any indication, grown-up players will tire of this in about 18 seconds. The littler Whos in your house might enjoy it for longer--the game skews cute, colorful, and Seussian--but ultimately, Grinchmas works so hard at being "casual" that it forgets to be fun. Skip it.

Give your snapshots a fun, Grinch-ian makeover with Dr. Seuss Camera.

(Credit: Oceanhouse Media)

The real Dr. Seuss-inspired fun lies in Dr. Seuss Camera: The Grinch Edition, which uses the iPhone camera to create whimsical, Grinchy holiday cards you can share with friends.

Start by choosing from 20-plus different cards, then point your iPhone camera (sorry, Touch users) at the kids, the dog, cranky Uncle Fred, etc.

Each card has either a face cutout area or an empty space alongside a Grinch-related character (if not the ol' meanie himself).

After you snap the photo, you can decorate it further with stamps and borders, then save it to your Camera Roll and/or e-mail it to friends and family.

It's a cute little app, easy to use, and a perfect slice of holiday fun. Here's hoping that "The Grinch Edition" subtitle means there are other versions in the works. (I've always wanted a photo of myself next to Horton the Elephant.)

Real Tennis 2009 is one of eight games now on sale for 99 cents.

(Credit: Gameloft)

Remember a few weeks back when Konami cut its iPhone/iPod Touch game prices to 99 cents? (They're still available, FYI.)

Now Gameloft has followed suit, offering some (but not all) of its game titles for the appetizing price of a buck apiece--a significant savings in some cases. Here's the rundown (links are to CNET reviews where applicable, otherwise to the App Store):

• Blades of Fury (originally $6.99)
• Brothers in Arms: Hour of Heroes (originally $9.99)
• Castle of Magic (originally $4.99)
• Hero of Sparta (originally $5.99)
• NFL 2010 (originally $4.99)
• Real Tennis 2009 (originally $4.99)
• Shrek Kart (originally $4.99)
• Terminator Salvation (originally $9.99)

These prices are good until Sunday, November 29, so act fast if you want to stock up on some seriously good games for some seriously low prices.

Me, I'm grabbing NFL 2010, Terminator, and maybe Castle of Magic for the kiddos.

(Credit: CNET)

There are a few sales over the Thanksgiving long weekend here in the U.S. with some developers slashing prices on many popular iPhone games. Huge iPhone game developer, Gameloft, is having a 99-cent sale on many of their popular game titles throughout the weekend. EA Games is also in on the action, offering price cuts to several of their big titles. Some games I've talked about here like Madden NFL 10, FIFA 10, and NBA Live are $6.99 for a limited time (usually $9.99) and there are a lot of other great deals. If you've been waiting for the prices to drop on some of the bigger games, now is the time to check out the iTunes App Store--you just might be pleasantly surprised.

This week's apps include a stylish clock app and a new Star Wars game that lets you relive some of the great moments of the original movie.

Choose from many different clock skins

(Credit: Screenshot by Jason Parker/CNET)

PerfectClock (Free for a limited time) lets you display stylish-looking clocks on your iPhone screen that are perfect for when your phone is sitting in an iPhone Docking Station. The app comes with a handful of clocks you can choose from, or you can easily download free clock skins from within the app. Along with the beautiful designs, PerfectClock lets you set alarms, offers a number of different ways to display information on screen (date, month, day of week) and you can disable the autolock so the clock stays visible while you're charging it.

PerfectClock also comes with a number of ambient sound loops like rainforest sounds, ocean waves, and more. That way if your iPhone charges on your bedside table, you can set PerfectClock to play sounds of nature for a set amount of time (and even fade out) while you doze off. Overall, if you would like to use your iPhone as your main alarm clock and want a few more options, or would just like to check out some of the imaginative clock designs, you should download this app.

Try to avoid Darth Vader's crosshairs as you fly down the trench

(Credit: Screenshot by Jason Parker/CNET)

Star Wars: Trench Run ($4.99) lets you relive the moments leading up to the destruction of the Death Star from Star Wars IV: A New Hope. You can play arcade mode and choose between a dogfight with Tie Fighters on the surface of the Death Star, or Trench Run, where you fly your X-Wing fighter down the trench evading Darth Vader and blowing away gun towers. The mission mode lets you fight your way through the ending moments in sequence up to firing your rockets in to the exhaust port and blowing up the Death Star. The controls are fairly simple: tilt your iPhone to steer your X-Wing and touch the right side of your screen to fire your weapons. You also can use a Force slow-down skill by touching the left side of the screen--a great option when the action gets particularly intense.

Though Star Wars: Trench Run is a fun diversion for a little while, the game doesn't offer much in the way of long-term replay value. Once you've done each of the missions and played the different types of game modes a few times, the action gets kind of repetitive. Still, with original sound effects and music by John Williams paired with smooth 3D graphics, this game will appeal to Star Wars fans who dreamed of doing the trench run so long ago (myself included). For more on Star Wars: Trench Run, check out Rick Broida's column here.

What's your favorite iPhone app? Have you found any good holiday app deals? Do you have a better clock app to share? What do you think of Star Wars: Trench Run? Let me know in the comments!

(Credit: CNET)

With more than 100,000 apps in the iTunes App Store and huge success around the world with the iPhone, it would appear Apple has done just about everything right with the launch of its first mobile handset. But as any iPhone app developers will tell you, the app approval process is less than ideal, with some developers waiting well beyond Apple's 14-day waiting period and sometimes longer to get their apps approved. Though Apple has stated it is working on the app approval process, there has been little in the way of progress if you ask iPhone app developers.

Recently, Apple added an automated system for weeding out developers who use Apple's private APIs, a process that may be part of a larger plan to cut down on some of the wait time. Unfortunately, developers are still struggling to get their apps to the iTunes store, finding out at the end of the 14-day waiting period that it was the automated system that turned them down. Hopefully, as more time passes, Apple will be able to figure out a way to make the process more efficient while still being able to provide high-quality and secure apps for everyone. Happy iPhone app developers mean more and better apps, so it's in all of our best interests for Apple to make the process better.

This week's apps include a new (to iPhone) multiservice chat client and a stunt-racing game with beautiful 3D graphics.

Use the tabs at the top to switch conversations

(Credit: Screenshot by Jason Parker/CNET)

Trillian ($4.99) is a popular multiservice chat client on Windows machines that you can now use on your iPhone. Multiservice chat clients are ideal for those who have accounts across several services like Yahoo, Google, ICQ/AIM, and MSN, and want to use just one client to access them all. The interface is fairly intuitive, letting you add your user names and passwords for each service, and then letting you log on to all or specific services with only a few taps on your touch screen. Trillian does not support landscape mode for typing yet, but the developers say it is coming soon.

Once you're logged in, the Trillian interface looks a lot like it does in the Windows client, complete with your buddies' avatars, contact categories (friends, coworkers, etc.), and color-coded icons to indicate which service your friends are using. The way Trillian handles multiple chat sessions on the iPhone client is excellent, with a touch-scrollable tabbed interface, making it easy to switch conversations quickly. Also especially useful (and clever) is the push notification system, that sends you the first message of a chain so you know someone is trying to reach you, but doesn't send a huge list of messages when you don't want them. At this time, you can only stay logged-in (with the app suspended) for a maximum of 24 hours, but the folks at Trillian say it will be lengthened to seven days in future updates. Though the price is a little steep in my opinion, Trillian is a high-quality chat client that will appeal to those who use multiple services.

The screenshot doesn't do it justice, but this game looks and plays great

(Credit: Screenshot by Jason Parker/CNET)

Jet Car Stunts is a stunt-racing game that runs surprisingly smoothly on first gen iPhones on up to the 3GS. Beyond the beautiful graphics, the driving control system is excellent, using the accelerometer for steering and onscreen controls for gas and brakes. What makes the game unique from other racing games are the controls for your rocket boost to complete big jumps, and the braking system that works both on the ground and in the air.

You can choose from two different game types including Time Trial and Platforming. In Time Trial, you race five laps around a track with corkscrew twists, tight turns, and huge jumps, to qualify for bronze-, silver-, or gold-medal times. Platforming has no time limit, but instead records the number of tries it takes you to complete difficult tracks--and they get very difficult in both game types. Time Trial has three skill levels, with four tracks to complete in each to move on the next skill level. Platforming has five difficulty levels, with five tracks in each to pass before moving on. Overall, Jet Car Stunts is one of the more unique racing games and features excellent graphics, extremely smooth controls, and plenty of replay value, with increasingly challenging tracks. I've had the game for a week and I still can't get over both how good it looks and how smooth it plays.

What's your favorite iPhone app? Were you waiting for a big-name multiservice chat client like Trillian before spending your money? Is Jet Car Stunts hard or am I just not good enough? Let me know in the comments!

Having become fairly disenfranchised with all things Star Wars over the years, I didn't really expect to like Star Wars: Trench Run.

And really, the new game from THQ is little more than two kinds of arcade sequences sprinkled with a few familiar cutscenes.

So why can't I stop playing it?

Because Trench Run ($4.99) is a little slice of Star Wars heaven, that's why. It reminds me of the old vector-graphics arcade game from the early 80s--a game that consumed a considerable number of my quarters.

Of course, visually Trench Run blows that coin-op classic out of the sky. And what it lacks in variety, it makes up for with engaging gameplay.

You're at the tilt-sensitive controls of an X-Wing, which you can view from inside the cockpit or from behind. Tapping the right half of the screen fires your guns; tapping and holding the left half engages Force Power, which temporarily slows down the action.

As you might expect from the title, half the game takes place in a Death Star trench. You've got to steer past obstacles, blast turrets, stay out of Darth Vader's gun-sights, and, eventually, "blow this thing so we can all go home."

When you're not racing through trenches, you're dogfighting TIE Fighters just above the Death Star's surface. The only thing that changes from one level to the next is the difficulty.

And Trench Run does get difficult, though a little Force Power goes a long way toward helping you lock in a target or avoid a rapidly approaching turret.

Throughout it all, you're treated to all the familiar Star Wars sound effects along with John Williams' timeless score.

There's not a lot of replay value in Trench Run, and the limited variety means boredom is pretty inevitable. But until then, you'll have a blast.