blast

Bubble Blast Easter 1.0.6 Review

A common trend with mobile games is to take classic mechanics, combine them with a one-minute timer, and challenge users to get as high a score as possible. It's immediately addictive, easy to compete with others, and makes the "freemium" upgrade model easier to implement. That said, Bubble Blast Easter manages to make it work in many ways with only a handful of drawbacks to an otherwise finely-structured, free app.

The goal of Bubble Blast Easter is to shoot colored eggs at a pattern of eggs above you to match and destroy the old eggs. It's … Read more

Marble Blast is a unique bubble-based puzzler

Similar to probably a hundred other games in the Android Market, Marble Blast requires you to shoot monochromatic bubbles at other monochromatic bubbles. Create a cluster of three or more, and all of them pop and disappear. The object, of course, is to clear your screen of all of them.

What makes Marble Blast unique, however, is that the bubbles, or marbles, actually travel around your screen in a single-file line. They aren't stationary targets anchored to the top of your screen as they are in other bubble-based games like Bubble Blast 2. Your job in Marble Blast is … Read more

Smiley Pops is a new take on match three

Smiley Pops offers yet another take on the match three like-colored bubbles game concept. Open it up, and it may feel familiar, but take a closer look, and you'll notice that the bubbles are oriented in a unique way. Smiley Pops' bubbles are not stacked in perfect columns and rows the way they are in many other games. They're staggered, with one wedged between the two below it.

To play, swipe around three bubbles to rotate them. If the new arrangement results in at least three matching colors in a row, on the same line, they'll all … Read more

Blasting barrels of monkeys

Take aim and blast the monkey in a barrel in Blast Monkeys, an arcade puzzle game from Yobonja. Almost like a simplified 2D version of Super Monkey Ball, your objective in Blast Monkeys is to safely launch Moki the monkey through moving obstacles and floating bananas into a goal portal.

Gameplay Remember playing Donkey Kong Country's barrel-blasting segments? Those who grew up playing this 16-bit classic will recall the timing and precision it took to skillfully launch your monkey from barrel to barrel while avoiding rotating walls, obtrusive enemies, and pitfalls. Blast Monkeys reproduces this experience with a series … Read more

Bubble Blast 2 for Android

Bubble Blast 2 for Android is a free puzzle game that, yet again, pits players against poppable, monochromatic bubbles. Choose from two game modes: Puzzle and Arcade.

In Bubble Blast 2, each level is covered in a different configuration of bubbles, with some bubbles being more difficult to pop than others. In order to advance, you must set off chain reactions of bubble-poppage to clear each screen. The game is not only fun and addictive, it's also quite a brain teaser, as it forces you to weigh several different courses of action when attempting to clear each level.

If … Read more

Blow away asteroids and play as a giant worm: iPhone apps of the week

Hey, iPhone gamers, I received a press release just yesterday that plenty will be excited about: Real Racing 2 is coming soon for the iPhone. As one of my favorite games for 2009, the original Real Racing might be the best in its class for graphics, gameplay, and realism (as the name suggests) among auto-racing games on the iPhone.

Though there is no information beyond the announcement (here is Firemint's cryptic info page), I'm personally hoping for new tracks, new cars, and maybe even an accelerometer-based motorcycle racing mode. I admit that last wish is probably far-fetched, but it never hurts to dream, right? It almost seems impossible to improve upon the original, so I'm excited to see what Firemint will add in the sequel.

Though I can only guess at a release date, the timing of this press release seems to suggest that we could have this product on our iPhones in time for the gift-giving season. I'm crossing my fingers!

This week's apps are both arcade games: an advanced Astroids-like title and a game where you play as a man-eating giant worm.… Read more

Old school shoot-'em-up action

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

B-52 crews pull shades on nukes

Having your shadow scorched into the wall is one drawback to detonating a nuclear weapon; being blinded by the flash (PDF) and not being able to drive away in your B-52 Stratofortress is another.

Now engineers at the 540th Aircraft Sustainment Squadron's B-52 Communications Navigation and Weapons Flight have designed a thermal curtain that could protect aircrews from that blinding light (PDF).

The curtain resembles a common windshield sunshade used in passenger cars, except these cost $2,500 for a seven-shade set. Measuring about a tenth of an inch thick, 40 inches to 50 inches long, and 30 inches … Read more

WiiWare and Virtual Console releases for this week

This week brings us the debut of Bomberman on WiiWare, along with a sci-fi shoot-'em-up from the Super Nintendo era.

WiiWare Art Style: Orbient (Nintendo, 600 Wii points): Art Style: Orbient has you testing gravity and anti-gravity through 50 stages of galaxy exploration fun. Merge with existing stars and watch out for black holes. Bomberman Blast (Hudson Entertainment, 1,000 Wii points): Bomberman Blast is a brand new game in the franchise that allows for up to eight players at once. Also compete online over Nintendo Wi-Fi and post your top scores to worldwide ranking board. Virtual Console Super … Read more

Samsung Blast in pictures

It's been a while since we've seen a new, exciting cell phone for T-Mobile, so when Samsung announced its SGH-T729, we took notice. Also called the Blast (yet another crazy Samsung nickname), the SGH-T729 offers a thin slider design, Bluetooth, a megapixel camera, and a QWERTY keyboard modeled on the SureType technology found on some BlackBerry smart phones. On the whole, the Blast is a solid effort for a messaging phone. We liked the design and the simple interface, but T-Mobile's lack of a 3G network is beginning to put it behind its rival carriers. The Blast … Read more