finishing

Mad Skills Motocross is a fun and addictive game that started on desktop computers, but seems much more suited to the iOS. Sort of in the vein of arcade classic Excitebike, Mad Skills Motocross is a side-scrolling racer in which you race against a single opponent on several challenging tracks. The default controls give you buttons for throttle and brakes on the lower left and buttons for tilt control on the right. You can switch tilt controls to the accelerometer in the settings, but both variations proved to work well after a bit of practice.

You will need practice, by … Read more

Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 for iPhone and iPad brings the legendarily gory and addictive fighting game to iOS, and it mostly hits the mark with only a couple of problems. What was formerly a smash hit (and somewhat controversial) stand-up arcade game went through a complete face-lift for the iPhone version. Gone are the stop-motion character animations from the original arcade game, replaced with beautiful 3D animations that re-create all your favorite characters' fighting moves. For the most part, this game looks and plays great, as long as you can get past the limited character set and the lack of … Read more

SmackBots is a button-mashing robot-fighting game that's more than a little reminiscent of the classic childrens' game "Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots."

The interface makes great use of the iPhone and iPod Touch: you tap on the right side of the screen to swing your right fist, the left for your left, and both sides to block, and you tilt your device to move left or right. You fight against one other robot at a time, in two-minute rounds (best two out of three), and you choose your difficulty, either "Just Smacking Around" or "… Read more

FaceFighter is a fairly simple, comically violent fighting game with a goofy twist: you create your own opponents, using pictures from your iPhone camera or photo albums--so that means you can bruise and brawl with just about anyone, whether your boss, your best friend, or a celebrity from a magazine. FaceFighter's foe-creation interface is intuitive and easy: you start with a pic, scale and rotate to line up the eyes and mouth, and then scale and rotate again to determine the face's borders. FaceFighter comes with two built-in enemies (Big Ben and Enemy Mime), but you'll quickly … Read more

The other day I got an e-mail from the folks at Flip Video telling me that on October 14 they'd be launching a new online service that would let consumers design custom versions of the Flip Mino minicamcorder. They were going to send me a Mino with one of the company's new stock "custom" designs on it, but they also said I could take the beta site for a test run and design my own Mino. So, I did.

The process is quite simple. You just upload an image--it helps to have something with ample resolution--and … Read more

If you're tired of the boring facades on average Blu-ray players, the mirror finishes of the new Mitsubishi Electric recorders is guaranteed to get your attention. And pretty faces aside, the DVR-BZ100 and BZ200 also combine versatile DVD Blu-ray recording with hard drive capacities of 250GB and 500GB, respectively, according to Akihabara News. Another notable feature is their touch-screen remotes, which have color displays and flexible softkeys tailored for specific functions. But alas, this is another Japan-only release.

(Source: Crave Asia)

If you've got a hankering for wood paneling on the side of your car, no one says you have to settle for a vinyl applique. It's just that the alternatives are probably neither cheap nor easy.

You could start poking around old barns or, at least trolling the Web, for an old Woodie station wagon or two. Or you could do what Vasily Lazarenko of the Ukraine did: he built his own.

Lazarenko's creation goes well beyond a few strips of wood on either side of the vehicle. He fashioned the entire exterior out of oak, with … Read more