Ordinary Superhero » android

App Review: Bubble Defence

Brian Sargent — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:53:29 +0000

Bubble defence is a tower defence game. There are several of these available on the Market and this is one of the simplest looking, if no less addictive for it.

The basic concept is to build up defence towers along a path to try to defeat wave after wave of increasingly armoured bubbles which follow that path.

There are four different kinds of towers:

The Basic Tower – shoots a single shot

The Six Barrel Tower – shoots 6 equally spaced shots at once

The Flame Tower – melts ice balloons

The Transporter – transports balloons back to the beginning of the track

The variety of enemies isn’t huge but it’s an elegant solution. Shooting each enemy removes 1 “layer” of protection until you finally get down to the last layer and destro them

You earn money foe every hit but, unlike many of these games there’s no interest to be earned by saving your cash

These towers are used to defeat the 7 different kinds of enemy. Most of these are basi

There are 7 different path layouts and Five levels of difficulty.

Bubble defence is available as a free ad-supported version or as a full version for 1.99. One thing that annoyed me after buying the full version, and is something I’ve seen in several upgrades of that kind, is that your history of high scores isn’t imported to the full version. It might be a bit of extra work but it would be rewarding for those of us who’d played enough of the free version to cough up the cash.

Battling the Bubbles on the Icy Road

Bubble Defense is a tower defense game. There are several of these available on the Market and this is one of the simplest looking, if no less addictive for it.

The basic concept is to build up defense towers along a path to try to defeat wave after wave of increasingly armoured bubbles which follow that path.

There are four different kinds of towers:

The Basic Tower – shoots a single shot
The Six Barrel Tower – shoots 6 equally spaced shots at once
The Flame Tower – melts ice balloons
The Transporter – transports balloons back to the beginning of the track

These towers are used to defeat the 7 different kinds of enemy. Most of these are basically the same, with different colours and speeds, all nested in one another. Shooting each enemy removes 1 “layer” of protection until you finally get down to the last layer and destroy them. The most difficult enemy shoots back though, so be careful

Some maps have more than one entrance for bubbles

You earn money for every hit but, unlike many similar games there’s no interest to be earned by saving your cash, so feel free to splash out.

There are 7 different path layouts and 5levels of difficulty, leaving quite a lot of variety and replay value.

Bubble defense is available as a free ad-supported version or as a full version for 99 cents. One thing that annoyed me after buying the full version, and is something I’ve seen in several upgrades of that kind, is that your history of high scores isn’t imported to the full version. It might be a bit of extra work but it would be rewarding for those of us who’d played enough of the free version to cough up the cash.

Bubble Defense Free

Bubble Defense Ad-Free

Solution: Mail Sync failing on G1

Brian Sargent — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:16:16 +0000

Fail Road by Fireflythegreat

I’ve had a problem with my G1 for the past week or two and today I found a solution. My Gmail wouldn’t sync with the device in the same way that it had before. It seemed to be stuck in the past and I couldn’t send or receive any new email using the Gmail app. There was always a big button at the end of my inbox saying “No Conection” with a “Retry” button that didn’t seem to help.

Today I found the solution for the problem on the Google help pages, via the androidcommunity site, and it simply involves clearing the app’s storage.

Android Update: I rooted my G1

Brian Sargent — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 16:19:38 +0000

Tree Roots by Aaron Ecobar

Having toyed with the idea for a while I was really excited to see the “one click root” that appeared this week. Having installed the app from the Android Market (I’d like to see Apple allowing yellowSn0w onto the App store) I ran it, a few times before I worked out the whole system then updated to the CyanogenMod.

I don’t have any benchmarks but my perception is certainly that it’s faster and sleeker than the system I had before, and that’s very exciting. Having also heard the rumours that the next version of the Android OS might not fit onto a G1 I’m delighted to have the freedom to upgrade past the point that others might see as necessary.

Lifehacker has a nice guide for those interested in following suit. The only thing that caught me out was that the firmware was reset to the standard after a reboot – I had to re-run the hack software then reboot.

App Review: Guitar Hero World Tour Mobile

Brian Sargent — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 18:54:28 +0000

I’m under no illusions that android is not (yet?) a gaming platform. I’ve found precious few games which are worth keeping on my phone. However I do have some standards and Guitar Hero World Tour Mobile (Demo) fell far below those standards.

The game weighs in at around 7mb which, for a phone with only 74mb for all applications and operating system, that’s a sizeable chunk. I could forgive this rudeness if it weren’t for the absolutely useless gameplay.

I’ve played Guitar Hero on the PS2 and the Wii, as well as Tap Tap revenge on the iPod Touch so I know what the deal is. The problem with this version is that it’s so jerky and jumpy that it’s impossible to be in time. I tried several times and never made it past 30 seconds into a track. I’m no genius at Guitar Hero but I can usually complete a track on the first few difficulty levels. I made sure that I had nothing big running in the memory and went back to try again – to no avail.

I’d much rather shell out on independent games that are more fun (and significantly cheaper)

Do yourself a favour and don’t bother with this turkey.

*~~~~~~~~~ (1/10)

App Review: Flood It!

Brian Sargent — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 08:27:17 +0000

Me on an advanced level

One of the first really good free puzzle games I found for the iPod was flood-it (free iTunes download). It’s a simple concept. Your aim is to make all of the board one colour by changing the colour of one segment. For example if the first square is green, and the one next to it is red then you make the first square red and the blocks become a whole. On your next colour change any squares of that colour directly next to your block are added to the whole and it grows and grows.

I may not have explained it very well but it works very well, It’s also a good one handed “thumb” game. the only section of the screen you use is the six coloured circles at the bottom, and there’s no real speed. you can play it while walking around, or sitting on the bus and not worry about jostles and other issues.

It was also one of the first games available when I got my new G1 phone, and it’s just as addictive there. Some people have found it frustrating at higher levels but the easier levels are enough to keep me quiet.

The game is ad supported but there is a premium version available for the iPod for 79p (buy from iTunes), which I bought having spent so much time playing the free version. The pay-for version allows you to undo a move, upload online scores, retry a board, etc. Of all of these features I only really find the undo useful and it’s a pity that it doesn’t import the play history form the free version.

If you’re looking for a simple but deep strategy game to while away a couple of minutes (or even a couple of hours, then this comes highly recommend.

Something New is Coming

Brian Sargent — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 21:26:18 +0000

Well technically it arrived last week. My phone contract came to an end and I called up to see what my options are. I’ve had a qwerty keyboard on my past 2 phones and really like it so I’ve plumped for a T-Mobile G1. I’m not sure what I think of it so far. I’m enjoying geting used to it but I feel that it’s still in “beta” – not quite finished. Anyway, we’ll see what happens