shooter

I'm happy to announce I received my iPhone 4 in the mail today, five days before it was scheduled to arrive. After quite a bit of time spent transferring purchases, arranging apps, and checking the appropriate boxes in iTunes, I've activated and synced my new iPhone. Frankly, with a few reboots and trying to manage which apps should be synced and which shouldn't, the process hasn't gone as smoothly as I might have hoped. I even had a period of time where none of my apps would launch at all (gasp!). Fortunately, it's all sorted out.

Now that I'm up and running, I'm immediately noticing a significant speed boost, which is not saying much since I came from the iPhone 3G, but it is still a huge relief. Of course, the best part about upgrading is that I get to use apps I could previously test only on our in-house iPhone 4. Though I will continue to cover apps that work on most iPhones, this week I'm going to focus on a couple of apps that are perfect for your (and my) new iPhone 4.

This week's apps include a utility to give you a bit of light and a first person shooter that's probably the best yet in the iTunes app store.… Read more

As many of you have written to tell me, Steam is having a colossal sale on games this week (and through July 4). One of the real standouts: the Call of Duty Collection for $29.99.

That includes the original Call of Duty and its two expansion packs, United Offensive and World at War. You also get Call of Duty 2 and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Given that the latter sells for $29.99 all by itself, it's like getting four bonus games free.

Other deals I'd definitely check out:

AbstractWar is a fast-paced, top-view, vector-graphics-based arcade shooter, with multiplayer options over Bluetooth.

AbstractWar gives you several interface options, for both your POV and controls, and none of them is particularly good: in the game's Options page (in Spanish only), you can switch between virtual joysticks or accelerometer control (tilting your device to move), and you can choose from various views, including always-centered and stationary ("Classico") modes. "Classico" is often easier because you can see all your enemies, but if you're using virtual joysticks (which are more responsive and reliable than the accelerometer controls) … Read more

Buster Red is a vertical-scrolling arcade shooter with frenetic pacing and a cool and colorful pen-and-ink aesthetic.

Your ship is constantly firing in Buster Red (no fire button needed), and you control movement by touching and dragging around the screen--a system that works surprisingly well most of the time, although occasionally your finger does get in the way, requiring quick repositioning. You also tap the screen to activate temporary or one-off "Buster Moves," such as a forward-firing beam, screen-filling electricity, or a giant, slow-moving fireball. Your ship can hold two "Moves" at once, which you pick … Read more

MiniSquadron Special Edition is the free sequel to the hit game Minisquadron, a 2D cartoony airplane dog-fighting game with excellent gameplay and a ton of new content. Just like the original, the control system consists of an onscreen joystick on the left and a fire button on the right. In the game, you'll need to battle through 12 waves of different types of airplanes to complete a round. Completing rounds unlocks new airplanes (there are 50 new planes to unlock), each of which will have unique weapons, varying flying speeds, and other perks that will help you in the … Read more

StarCannon is a remake of classic arcade shooters of the past, with 2D shoot-'em-up action and challenging boss fights. The graphics are smooth even on the older iPhone 3G. The controls are mostly effective, but can sometimes feel sluggish using a touch-to-move system rather than an onscreen joypad. Your ship fires automatically as long as you are touching the screen so you can play the game using only one finger or your thumb.

You can acquire three different weapons as you play and, just like top-down arcade shooters of the past, StarCannon lets you upgrade each weapon with more … Read more

If you've been reading this column for any length of time, it should come as no surprise that I decided to buy an iPad last week. After reviewing the iWork apps on the iPad Apple loaned us for review purposes, I found that I could use it for both work and play. Now that I've had it for a week, I'm extremely happy with my purchase.

To me, buying the iPad was a pretty easy decision knowing that I would already be reviewing iPad apps for iPad Atlas, and (as I wrote in an earlier post) I … Read more

This week on preGAME we bring in fellow CNET editor Scott Stein to help us take a look at all the stealthy goodness Splinter Cell: Conviction has to offer. We'll chat with Scott about all the week's gaming news and check out a brand-new trailer for Gears of War 3, which is due out in April 2011.

Do you have a favorite first-person-shooter of all time? We'll run down a list of 10 titles--most of which should appear on your roster. Where do games like Half-Life 2 and Doom fall? You'll have to tune in to find out.

Also on today's show we'll chat about Hideo Kojima's recent comment about the inevitable death of the home console. Will these staples of the home theater ever become extinct?

We all know about Conan O'Brein's recent announcement that he's moving to TBS in November, but what would it have been like if he left TV altogether? We'll tell you about a story that had Coco flirting with an exclusive show on Xbox Live.

Finally, we'll discuss the age of the average gamer. Are we ever too old to be gaming? Are you ever embarrassed to play games in public? Tune in and join the discussion!… Read more

Sniper Strike is a first-person arcade game that manages to drain much of the fun out of a time-honored video-game pursuit: shooting bad guys in the head.

This game's main problem is its clunky interface. You see a small portion of the playfield through your rifle's scope, and you touch and drag to move the terrain around--which varies over the game's two built-in maps, a village and a city. When a target moves into the center of your screen, a small reticle appears over it, and then you tap a touch-screen fire button to shoot. The animations … Read more