NBrid

It's been awhile so I felt I needed to add something to this long lost and now totally pointless site. What to add... Well, it is at heart a gaming site. In the past six months my Wii has seen Guitar Hero(s) and World of Goo. Fun, but pass. PS3? While I really like Little Big Planet (and so should you), I still use it more for non-gaming functions. I could mention how pointless Home seems, but then again except for LBP all the recent betas I've tried (R2, KZ2) have disappointed. DS? What's that? Wait, I've got it. My iPhone! I have used it more than anything else since I got it in July. Even for a few games...

Sure, much like PS3 I use my Apple iPhone for mainly non-game functions (about 95% of its use is non-gaming, way higher than even PS3). Besides the obvious phone and Safari use, there are some useful apps. Pandora, AOL Radio, Last.fm for internet music. Now Playing for movie times. Wikipanion for on-the-go debate ending. Evernote since my memory is gone these days. AIM, Fring, Shozu, Twinkle, LinkedIn, Facebook for all my social networking needs because all the cool kids are doing it. Simplify to stream my iTunes library anywhere. Google apps since Google owns the world, and me. Esteem Aid for that pick-me-up when I'm down (it's been a rough year, but you can read about that on my MySpace page... that's a joke).

I could go on with all the stupid crap I've tried too. But I won't. I've played around with my iPhone quite a bit because well, it's damn fun. So instead here's a quick run down of various games I've tried.

Monkey Ball: I love Monkey Ball. Love it. So I had to get this game since to be honest, it was one of the reasons I got the iPhone in the first place. Mobile Monkey Ballin'. While I can have some fun with it (because I am such a big fan), more often than not it just frustrates me. It is very hard to control. The last update added an onscreen indication of how far you are tilting the iPhone which helps. Still, if you're a huge fan of Monkey Ball get it. Otherwise, skip it. C+

Topple: I paid $1 for this app and don't regret it. Not the greatest thing ever, but for a buck it was worth it. Combining Tetris with Jenga and fun cartoonish graphics offers a nice, fun challenge. It even uses the tilt sensor so you can attempt a last second save of your tower. Though it rarely works. I still can't pass level 8, but so what. I can work on getting the achievements instead. B-

Enigmo: This is another really hard game. A puzzle game where you have to use platforms to redirect and even bounce a stream of water to its destination. A few times I couldn't shake the feeling I was doing it all wrong even when I managed to pass a level. But that's what makes it fun. Great for any engineering mind looking for something else to do. Something pointless but fun. It's also cheap (I got it for a buck, like most games I've bought.) There are some control issues, but unless you're going for time and a high score it isn't a huge issue. B

Mouse About: Stupid IGN. Stupid, stupid, stupid IGN. I saw a review on IGN for this game that gave it a good 8.0 rating, but the kicker was it compared it to ChuChu Rocket. Sold! Problem is it has NOTHING in common with ChuChu Rocket. Seriously. WTF was IGN talking about? A fun little game (that has a demo now) moving a mouse in straight lines collecting food. Think those ice puzzles in Zelda games. Very well polished, but also too hard. After about 15 levels the time limit is just too short for you to think out a plan of action. I only paid a buck for this too, so I can't complain. If I had spent anymore on it though... C-

Subway Shuffle: What's that? Another game I spent $1 on? Yup. This is an interesting puzzle game made by a MIT student, or so the legend goes. Slide pieces around so you can move your piece to the goal. Think similar to the classic Traffic Jam game, but here using different colored dots (subway trains) that can only move along paths of the same color. Early on it isn't too hard since you don't have too many choices in your moves, but fairly quickly that changes. There are 85 puzzles in all in the newest version, and the last one takes over 500 moves minimum to complete! Yeah, good luck. There's a demo. Try it because I really like this one and so it comes recommended. B+

Dizzy Bee: I like game sales and spending $1 on games as good as this. The App Store has to have well over 1,000 games by now and most probably suck. This isn't one of those. Try the demo and 'nuff said right there. It's cute (especially the sound effects), but like almost every iPhone game, it's also fairly challenging. But in a good way. Just passing a level often isn't too bad, but you will want to go for the gold to unlock all the bonus stages. Rotate your phone to roll your bee around to collect all the fruit while avoiding "baddies". Simple idea, but just very well done. One of the few iPhone games that puts the tilt sensor to good use. Right now this is my iPhone game of the year... A-

There are plenty of other good games I've played including MazeFinger, Tap Tap Revenge (download the Weezer and Offspring tracks for added fun), Trace, Kitten Jump that I all got free. Or decent games I got free but normally cost something like 2079, Asterope, Aqua Forest, Inside Trader, Mancola+, Pathways. However, above I wanted to focus on games I spent my hard earned money on (well, all except Monkey Ball and Topple I got using the $15 iTunes gift card that came with my purchase of Guitar Hero World Tour:).

I've also tried several others I didn't mention above (some of which flat out sucked, I'm looking at you Pink's Funhouse...). And keeping in mind gaming only accounts for 5% of my iPhone use, you get a good idea how much I use this thing Apple created. I don't know how I ever lived with out it. I can even check my work email from everywhere I go now... Err, scratch that one.