Put that fly swatter away, kiddo. This ain't no ordinary creepy crawly dirt-dweller. This here is Bug Princess, an old-school shoot-em up from Japan that requires big guns and big bombs to carve your way through a non-stop swarm of hostile insectoids. It belongs a sub-genre of shmup that's been quaintly labelled as "Bullet Hell"; it's not an understatement.
If you've been wondering how Facebook's snazzy new Timeline feature would look like on the iPhone, wonder no more. It's supah snazzy (or as snazzy as its mobile web and Android counterparts)! The latest iOS Facebook app update includes Timeline so you can catch up with your friend's entire history while on the go. Convenient? [iTunes]
I love Poly. This iPad app allows you to draw points on any photograph, turning it into a colourful mosaic of polygons. The effect is really pretty. Sadly, it's optimised for iPad 2 and runs slow on the first iPad.
Look, I am not very good at football, although I always wanted to be. Nor, do I imagine, would I be that effective were aliens to attack. But I've had a hell of a lot of fun getting to do both playing Heads Up with Cristiano Ronaldo. It's a total kick, even if you're using your noodle instead of your feet.
Even by App Store standards, it's been a fantastic week for classic game revivals. Already we've had Chrono Trigger, Grand Theft Auto III, and now the icing on the cake: Sonic CD. Sega's legendary blue hedgehog roars onto the iPhone and iPad in perhaps his greatest platform adventure ever.
Thanks to Facebook I'm able to catch up with friends from high school and uni. Also thanks to Facebook I've learned that some of my friends from high and college are completely bonkers. Fringe political views, multiple photo postings of their doll collection, and so many cat pictures. Instead of leaving aggressive comments in their latest tirade against the UN, I'm shooting them right in their smug face with Face-Invaders.
It wasn't so long ago that GTA III was the bête noire of the games industry. Hysterical tabloid headlines accused it of encouraging everything from gang violence to sexual promiscuity. To see it available in the squeaky-clean environs of the App Store is something of a surprise (but not so much with Android Market). We're reminded of that old saying; "Money Talks, Bullshit Walks".
Google+'s group video chat orgy Hangouts has some nice updates rolling out in the next few days. Most significant among them is that it's coming to G+ mobiles apps. Least significant? Virtual antlers and a red nose for your head.
In the popular imagination, spies and gadgets go together like strawberries and cream. The reality of spying is probably much more mundane, involving stacks of paperwork and the occasional bit of lying to a state official. But when it comes to books, films and games, we've been trained to expect state-of-the-art tech that's also wildly impractical. A Large Hadron Collider concealed in a hair-dryer, for example.
I Just Made Love may be the only free application that you must never download. I mean it—you wouldn't like to have this Foursquarish app any closer to your iPhone than what you would like to have herpes near your genitals.
If you think the whole mobile apps craze is just a fad, consider this statistic: any free app in the iOS App Store's top 10 list is receiving at least 30,000 downloads a day. A DAY! And that's just for the US alone. Madness, right?
Previously, if you weren't on Windows, you couldn't take full advantage of all the awesomeness that was in SkyDrive, Microsoft's neato cloud storage service. Not anymore! They've just released an iOS app that'll let you upload photos, files, documents and manage SkyDrive folders straight from your iPhone.
Ain't no doubt about it, PopCap are one of the most successful businesses on the App Store. With brilliant titles like Bejeweled, Peggle and Plants Vs Zombies to their credit, they're pretty much the market leaders in casual gaming. Therefore, when they decide to do something radical and potentially controversial with one of their key properties, you can bet that we'll be paying attention.
There are some games which you only hear spoken about in a hushed whisper, such is the awe and respect they command. Chrono Trigger is one such game, routinely cited as one of the very best role-playing games ever made. Designed by the developer dream-team of Hironobu Sakaguchi (creator of Final Fantasy), Yuji Horii (creator of Dragon Quest) and Akira Toriyama (creator of Dragonball Z), it presented players with a radical new take on the genre, including multiple endings, character side-quests, and a unique battle system.
Apple has announced that its Mac App Store has provided 100 million downloads since it was launched, just under a year ago. While that sounds impressive, remember that the iOS store shifts almost a billion apps a month, so it's got some way to go yet. [Apple; Image: Shutterstock]
We're living longer than ever, but neurological diseases such as Parkinson's Disease still take their toll on society. Around three-quarters of those with Parkinson's in the UK suffer from speech problems. Boffins from the University of Portsmouth want to use smartphone apps to help them be better understood.
