Swinging, Clinging & Frustrating.

We were all young once, so i guess everybody that reads this review can relate to the following:
You were walking down the street, minding your own business, when suddenly something catched your eye; it was a beautiful, shiny, filled-to-the-rim-with-goodies Toy vending machine! Aww the excitement!  In my case there was only one thing to be done: secretly taking a quarter from my mom’s wallet (in the future they would end up calling this “Stealing”), inserting the 25ct into the machine….rotating the lever….wait for it to click and then….what could it be? A delicious gumball, toys, maybe even a real tattoo?
Even the thought of these days makes you wonder: why isn’t there a game about it?
And thus, with these thoughts in mind, the creative team of IUGO Mobile Entertainment created Toy Bot Diaries: Entry 1; an iPhone/iPod Touch game that’s all about a little Toy Robot that has lost its memory. It’s up to the player to guide Toy Bot through a number of levels while solving puzzles and collecting Memory-chips to recover your memories.
Toy Bot is equipped with Magnetic Boots so he can cling to any metallic object he sees fit, and can use his Electric Grappling Hook to activate switches or move objects, or just to pull a “Spiderman” and swing about.
Toy Bot Diaries: Entry 1 is the first chapter in a series, and this game features 3 levels and one Boss Battle. So this isn’t a complete game you ask? True, but that’s a bit justified by its price (€2.39/$3.99), although it remains to be seen if this first part is even worth the low price, so let’s break it down and see where we end up!

Sound:

As i first started playing this game, i was actually impressed by the crisp sound coming out of my iPhone. Unfortunately, the music in Toy Bot Diaries is very repetitive and boring, and can really get under your skin if you let it. It’s just the same beats over and over again, and although each level has different music, this really spoils your fun-gaming experience.
There are some good things to mention though; Toy Bot actually does a very cute “Yippee” everytime he comes across a checkpoint, and the effects such as the sound of your Electric Grappling Hook really sound convincing.

Graphics:

The graphics in Toy Bot Diaries are good, nothing special though, just good.
The menus look good, same goes for in-game action, but there’s just nothing that really comes through as “wow”.

As you regain your memory, you unlock illustrations that tell you a little bit about what has happened to poor Toy Bot, these do look cool by the way.

All in all, Toy Bot Diaries looks fine, but there’s plenty of room for improvement in a future enstallment.

Gameplay:

Toy Bot Diaries was specifically made for iPhone and Ipod Touch, and so is the control scheme. You can make Toy Bot walk by tilting your iPhone (when playing you always hold your iPhone sideways) in the direction you want him to go. You can use your Grappling hook by tapping any metallic object on your screen and by tapping Toy Bot himself, you can activate his Magnetic Boots.

It is your task to maneuver Toy Bot through any of the levels by walking or swinging your way through, while solving how to get past the many obstacles that get in your way. In addition, you must collect all 50 memory-chips so you can finally get to know what has happened to you in the first place.
When it comes to controls, Toy Bot Diaries is a bit of a mix-up, sometimes the controls work really wel, you can swing your way through some parts of the levels with ease, only to get stuck on parts of the level where the controls suddenly don’t seem to work. In some cases you can tap all you want but the Magnetic Boots won’t do a thing. Sometimes Toy Bot just doesn’t walk, even when you tilt the iPhone all the way to the left or right. These flaws are a real setback in a game that so far seemed to be quite okay.
In some parts of the level you drop down and can’t get back up, so if you missed a memory-chip and want to collect them all, you must retry the entire level or sector, depending on any checkpoints you’ve found. Some say this adds replay value, but i disagree. Speaking of replay value; it’s very limited. When you’ve found every chip in the game, there’s not much left to do but to wait for Toy Bot Diaries: Entry 2.

Round-up:

Toy Bot Diaries: Entry 1 is a good example of a game that could be great, but simply isn’t.
Sure, the level-design is good (some obstacles really need some thought before you get past them), but it’s the glitchy controls and repetitive music that prevent this game from being a classic. On the other hand, this is only part 1 in what may become a work-in-progress game-series where every new part contains improvements over its predecessor. If Toy Bot Diaries Entry 2 features the same fun as Entry 1, manages to fix the glitches and offer some variety in music, it might just be the game you want to keep an eye out for!

Verdict:

Graphics:               7/10
Sound:                    6/10
Gameplay:             7/10
Replay Value:       4/10
Score:                    6/10

After all the negative press lately concerning the connectivity problems with the shiny iPhone 3G ( not to mention the iPhone being slow as hell, the frequent crashes and so on)

The improvements mainly concern the bugfixes, but there are also reports that after the update you will have a new Jessica Alba icon and once you press it she somes out of the phone and, I quote: ‘ Does nasty things.’

Interesting.

Go over to Ismashphone to check out the list and see how many you already knew. 

Via [iPhoneMatters]

“Over 20 world exclusive Sneak Peeks. Complete tutorials to all things iPod, iPhone, iTunes, and Apple TV. Beautiful reader-submitted art and photos. And big announcements from iLounge’s publisher and editors. It’s The Free iPod + iPhone Book 4—the latest edition of our multi-million-downloaded Book!”

Go over to iLounge to download the book.

First Look - MagicPad from Apple iPhone Apps on Vimeo.

Via [Gizmodo]

I am talking about these high tech, square, pixelated barcodes.

The website p8t.ch offers a product and a service;  you can buy a patch and link it to your own website, youtube video or whatever. Wear it on your favorite jacket, jeans, backpack and share whatever you want to share with same-minded people (the geeks who know what a p8tch is ;)) With iPhones/smartphones equiped with high-res cameras and internet are becoming increasingly popular, faster and easier to use, this service has potential to become big.

There is an app on in the iTunes app store called 2D Sense which can be used to ’scan’ the patches of a photograph made with you iPhone.

Via [core77] via [boing boing]

iPhone Copy and Paste from lonelysandwich on Vimeo.

Via [MacRumors] via [MacNN]

Well, for advanced article writing I’d still have to go to my computer. Copy paste, downloading and uploading images and other media isn’t one of the features (yet) in the iPhone. Generation 4.0 will, or perhaps the Macbook touch

Well, I am out!
(and yes this is the first post written and published on an iPhone!!! Isn’t it great!!)

Will they go at it any differently? Hopefully. So that we, the end consumers, will have a broader choice from devices that, well, that will just work well, without any features because cell phone carriers want those features, and with user interfaces that are easy and a pleasure to use. So Nokia, Samsung, SonyEricsson, HTC, RIM, Google?, Motorola?, Philips?, hopefully you have assembled some kind of special Skunkworks project team with the brightest people on board that are passionate to make a drastic change to your product line up and your corporate strategy. A change that will be better for your clients, US, and not them, the cell phone carriers. 

Link to the article on Apple Matters