N.O.V.A. for iPhone looks and plays like a certain console classic.
(Credit: Gameloft)Will we ever see Halo for iPhone? Let me be the first to say: who cares? We've got N.O.V.A.
Short for Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance (as if that matters), Gameloft's first-person shooter borrows heavily from the Halo playbook.
You're the sometimes solo, sometimes squad-based hero out to save mankind from the alien threat du jour. The game's 13 single-player missions span five environments (from bunker to jungle to spacecraft), each one dripping in console-quality graphic goodness.
An excellent tutorial acclimates you to the controls, which are always a challenge for any iPhone/iPod Touch shooter, but here are some of the best I've seen. Dip into the settings and you can choose from three control schemes or manually arrange the onscreen d-pad, fire button, and other controls exactly how you like them. Nice.
If you like kicking alien butt, you'll love N.O.V.A.
(Credit: Gameloft)Once you've exhausted the single-player campaign, you can engage in two- to four-player deathmatches--either locally or online. (One small gripe: online play requires a Wi-Fi connection, so you can't get your frag on just anywhere.)
I could say more about the game, but I really don't want to spoil the fun of discovering it on your own. N.O.V.A. really is something special (and that's saying something in a year chock full of special games). Don't take my word alone: the Download Blog's Jason Parker named N.O.V.A. one of the 17 best iPhone games of 2009.
How would you rank N.O.V.A. among first-person shooters for the iPhone? Is it better than Modern Combat: Sandstorm? Better than Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies? Share your FPS faves in the comments!
Time to play with your new toy.
(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET)If an iPhone awaited you under the tree this Christmas, we understand if you're a bit excited. Reception woes aside, the iPhone is a remarkable device in many respects. It offers a great multimedia experience, efficient e-mail integration, a spiffy Web browser, and thousands of third-party apps that do everything from helping you choose a seat on an airplane to guiding your way to the airport. And now that it has multimedia messaging, we're no longer waiting for any basic cell phone features. Granted, those pesky network issues won't go away soon, but you may get lucky and have no problems. And even if you do, at least you have a shiny new gadget, right?
If you've never used an iPhone before, getting started can be a bit overwhelming. With so many apps and accessories available, it's not easy to separate the wheat from the chaff. And even if you're a veteran iPhone user who's graduating to the newest model, exercising discretion, particularly when purchasing apps, is wise. You might say, "It's just 99 cents!" but 99 cents multiplied scores of times can result in a hefty iTunes bill. ... Read more
On a recent trip to the California desert, with access to both a BlackBerry Storm and an iPhone 3GS, I had a chance to test Verizon's vaunted claims about better coverage.
Anza Borrego Desert State Park, about two hours south of Palm Springs by car, is California's largest state park and covers roughly 1,000 square miles of desert. In other words, it's mostly raw, but stunningly beautiful, wilderness. Over the years, I have often made day trips (alone or with friends/family) to boulder up washes (aka arroyos) in the surrounding mountains (see photo).
Anza Borrego Desert State Park: looking east towards the Salton Sea: good coverage even here.
(Credit: Brooke Crothers)The largest town in the area, Borrego Springs (the 2000 census put the population at about 2,500), is famous for having rock-solid 2G (and increasingly 3G) coverage for most major carriers. In fact, in the spot shown in the photo (embedded in this post), which was taken after an hour of bouldering up a wash just west of Borrego Springs, there is no hiccup in service.
But Borrego Springs, surrounded by a desert (figuratively) of dead zones, is the exception. Outside of town, in places like the outback of Coyote Canyon or in the desert east of the Shelter Valley area (part of Julian, Calif.), it's very hit or miss. ... Read more
Tired of Guitar Hero? Try jamming with your iPhone or iPod Touch and Shimon, an autonomous, marimba-playing, octopus-armed hipster robot.
Gil Weinberg, director of music technology at Georgia Tech, is developing Shimon as a socially dynamic band mate. He says the robot "listens like a human and improvises like a machine" thanks to complex algorithms that allow it to perceive and improvise a groove.
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Credit: Video screenshot by Tim Hornyak/CNET)
Weinberg is also behind ZOOZBeat, an app that turns your iPhone into an instrument and sequencer, letting you remix and loop your own music by shaking, tilting, and otherwise getting down with it. Beats come bundled with the app, but you can also download packs with vocals, hooks, and instruments.
If there aren't iPhone-only bands out there already, ZOOZBeat will probably start a trend. But as I mentioned in an earlier post about the exciting new Eigenharp, electronic music concerts can benefit from a more dynamic physical performance, and that's where Shimon, with its bobbing cyclops head, comes in.
As the vid after the jump shows, Shimon can take your ZOOZ loop with a Wi-Fi flick and run with it. Here, it repeats and improvises on a jazzy loop, playing in a variety of styles resembling jazz greats like John Coltrane or Thelonius Monk.
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(Credit:
Device Daily)
Thanks to Saygus, a small firm that specializes in video-calling software, Verizon will be the first to carry a two-way video-conferencing phone complete with a large touch screen, a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, and a 3D accelerometer.
They're calling it the VPhone, which may outshine its brother, the Droid, and its rival, the iPhone.
VPhone will be the first mobile device approved through Verizon's Open Development initiative, a program that encourages developers to build technologies to run on Verizon's network. So far, the company has only approved nonconsumer products.
Utah-based Saygus walked away with the Best of Innovations award in the wireless handsets category at the 2010 Design and Engineering Awards on November 10.
And it was deserved. Besides two-way video calls at 24 to 30 frames per second, the phone can serve as a wireless access point for up to eight devices. There's also a rear-facing camera with flash and a 5-megapixel lens, FM radio, and compass. Just for kicks.
Unfortunately, you won't find the VPhone in ... Read more
The free Point Inside app maps your favorite malls, showing you both stores and services.
Shopping is supposed to be fun, dangit! But it's invariably a hassle-filled experience, especially at this time of year.
That's why I never walk into a store without these three iPhone apps at the ready. They're all free, and they make shopping faster, easier, and sometimes even a little less expensive.
CardStar Newly updated with an improved interface and support for 75 additional merchants, CardStar replaces various discount, reward, and membership cards in your wallet. To digitize a card, just enter a merchant name and your barcode number. When you get to the checkout, pull up the onscreen barcode and hand over your phone for scanning. Just don't toss your actual cards until you've done some trial runs, as some scanners have trouble recognizing the iPhone's screen.
pic2shop Suppose you're at Borders, about to plunk down your cash on Brendan Benson's "My Old, Familiar Friend" (good call--best album of 2009, IMHO), but ... Read more
Let's just come right out and call this the Year of Resurrected PC Games. So far in 2009 we've seen iPhone recreations of Civilization, Command & Conquer, Doom, Myst, and even the ancient Lemonade Stand. Earlier this month, Gameloft brought back one of my favorites: Driver. I know, I know, the game first appeared on the PlayStation, but it's the PC version I remember. Set in the '70s (with a funk-a-licious soundtrack to match), Driver casts you as an undercover cop trying to expose a national crime ring. That, of course, is simply an excuse to get you behind the wheel for madcap missions across four cities. Driver is like a playable version of the classic car-chase scene from "Bullitt"--and you're Steve McQueen.
(Credit:
Magellan)
Following the launch of its turn-by-turn navigation app for iPhone, Magellan has released its Premium Car Kit for iPhone and iPod Touch. The Premium Car Kit features an amplified speaker for spoken directions, a Bluetooth speakerphone for hands-free calling, a built-in GPS receiver that should improve positioning compared with the iPhone 3G's built-in GPS as well as adds GPS positioning to first-generation iPhones and the iPod Touches.
The mount lets you rotate the iPhone to portrait and landscape views, and has a built-in charger. Essentially, it will behave exactly like TomTom's Car Kit; however, the Magellan kit has an adjusting arm that will let it accommodate an iPhone or iPod Touch with a protective case.
The Magellan Premium Car Kit will cost $129.99. When TomTom's kit debuted for slightly less than that price, it was universally regarded as too expensive, so we can already guess what sort of reception Magellan's kit will get.
Magellan's Premium Car Kit for iPhone is available now for preorder.
The Need for Speed series returns to the iPhone with NFS:Shift.
(Credit: Screenshot by Antuan Goodwin/CNET)
EA Mobile has released the second iPhone game in the Need for Speed series: Need for Speed Shift.
You may remember that we took a look at Need for Speed Undercover not too long ago and found it was a fun, arcadelike take on racing with a decent number of fully customizable vehicles. Shift is an evolution of that game but with more realistic racing physics in place of the hokey storyline. Also new to Shift are customizable racing views. Users can now select between chase-cam, hood-cam, bumper-cam, and cockpit views. The cockpit view is unique to the vehicle you're driving, but unfortunately there are no working gauges. The cockpit view is also the only view that features damage modeling in the form of a windshield that gets more messed up the as you hit things.
This Nissan Z features an accurate interior, but no working gauges.
(Credit: Screenshot by Antuan Goodwin/CNET)On your first outing with Shift, you'll be treated to a quick tutorial that teaches you how to drive with an iPhone. Shift pretty much plays like Undercover, but with a few key differences. Its steering is still controlled by tilting. The vehicles still auto-accelerate and brake when the screen is tapped. However, the race-breaker, slow-motion feature is gone and the controls are supposedly more realistic. In practice, this means that you can no longer win races without touching the brakes and that the transmission is now manual, which can be frustrating for novice users who just want to drive.
Fortunately, there are driver aids that can be activated that automatically brake and shift for you and assist steering that make your ham-fisted inputs smoother and more accurate. Users who want an easy to play, arcade-style racer can turn on the driving aids and win a few medals on the bus ride to work; and users who want more of a racing-sim experience can set all systems to manual for more control over the game. Driving aids or not, drifting is maddeningly difficult this time around. I prefer the drifting mechanics of Undercover.
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In this week's preholiday edition of the Digital City Podcast, we all get ready for our one long break of the year, accompanied by special guest smartphone guru (and new CNET East Coaster) Bonnie Cha.
Scott and Joe have seen James Cameron's "Avatar"; Bonnie and Julie haven't. We also discuss Intel's new Atom Netbooks, 3D Blu-ray on the PS3, holiday smartphones, and upcoming laptops and phones at CES 2010. Best of all, Scott gets a chance to show off his one and only Batjew T-shirt. Watch it on video or you'll miss it.
Plus, don't forget to enter a comment to win a 16GB Zune HD of your very own. Happy holidays!
Related links:
>>3D Blu-ray standard outlined, includes PS3
>>New Atom Netbooks: Strange timing for shoppers?
>>CES 2010 Preview: Cell phones
>>CES 2010 Preview: Desktops and laptops
>>Watch the Digital City live every Monday at 3 p.m. EST on CNET Live!
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