Zenonia

iTunes Link

Zenonia is a RPG game by Gamevil. $5.99

A modified post from TheAppEra

The long awaited RPG by Gamevil has finally made its way onto the App Store. Zenonia has sold extremely well in Korea with it being download over 600,000 onto various mobile phones. With over 40 hours of gameplay, it was interesting to see if it is a step above the competitors. After just 30 minutes of playing the game, I can safely say YES! Zenonia is an amazing game that provides some big aspects that RPG games have been lacking on the App Store.

The best graphics in a RPG game on the App Store before Zenonia would have to be Chronicles of Inotia: Legend of Feanor by Com2Us. Zenonia blows those graphics out of the water with a game that would do a DS game proud. The anime characters are superbly done with many animations and cheerful nature. The many environments coupled with the great day/night feature in are super detailed and the graphics department in Gamevil definitely deserve a huge high five for their work. Gamevil has done well to make sure the game is very stable with no lag what so ever. In previous builds before its release the game was super unstable and lagged quite a bit, but has been fixed. The animations in Zenonia are quick and with the way they have incorporated some fighting tactics makes it alot easier for the player.

At the moment the controls in Zenonia would be its achilles heel. The D-Pad is very easy to use but at times a small finger flip will send you walking in a totally different direction. Double tapping the D-Pad in one direction gives you a ’short’ boost of speed that can throw you into opponents. I found out the hard way but it eats up your SP very quickly, which I will get to later. To attack you just press the attack button over and over again to use whatever weapon you currently have, no matter whether you are an Assassin or another type of character. The smart thing in Zenonia is that you will turn and attack your nearest opponent which is a very handful this to have when the D-Pad hasn’t been perfected. Special moves can be added to quick slots below your status bar and when touched unleash the special move of the particular icon. This works well but the icons are very small and is obviously brought straight over from the mobile, like the menu screen.

With Zenonia being a surprisingly 10mb download you can’t really expect much sound in the game. There is a Pokemon like tune that runs throughout the whole game and Regreat (The Character) makes a high pitched squeal when he attacks. There isn’t much sound obviously and this is a game to play silently or just jam to your own tracks.

A great storyline that is almost Fable-like where you can choose whether to be good and fight for the Guild of Light or evil and fight for the Guild of Dark. The graphics remind me of the well known Zelda games and the city travelling has a Pokemon aspect in it. The storyline is prominent in the game for the entire time, and seems to be better than Chronicles of Inotia, Dungeon & Hero and Vay. This game just feels easier to pick up and play than the other RPG’s on my iPhone. There seems to be more quests and less time grinding for no purpose in the game, something that threw me off other RPG games. Zenonia is more casual gamer friendly, but may become a bit dry in later hours of the game. I better put down the game so I can actually write this review already!

The basic storyline in Zenonia is you fight for either the good or evil Guild and need to help fight against the opposite clan. You (Regret) wakes up and a dragon had come to your town so you flee to the town of Adonis. There you must do many main and side quests to what I assume is defeat the Clan. I have only played through 5-6 hours of Zenonia as a Good warrior and have no idea what is to come ahead.

Most RPG’s have a game style of Grind, Grind, Grind, Mission, Grind, Grind and Grind. Zenonia put the fun back into grinding as the many side quests don’t even make you realize that you are in fact grinding. Having many cities between the various areas means that it feels more like a Zelda/Pokemon game rather than a basic RPG. The storyline is strong and really grows on you.

I’m not sure if the original writers were Australian, but if not they sure should be. The game is absolutely hilarious with some of the things said in this game. Some saying heard from various characters are:

• “It would never work, I’m just a NPC”
• “I’m sure this side quest is some crazy story from one of the developers”
• “How would I know what that was, I only just started playing this game”

They aren’t the exact words, but time and time again these one liners give me a little chuckle. This certainly lightens the mood of the gameplay. Most of the time you will be whacking and smacking all of the monsters and various creatures that come and attack you. It is sometimes quite hard to fight back as these anime characters are just so cute! Everytime the big cute teddy bear attacks me I run away so I don’t have to see it die.

I could go on for ever about some of the things in this game, but they are better experience for yourself. An amazing game that is not only a true RPG for serious gamers, but will also provide long lasting entertainment for those more casual gamers. For $5.99 this is incredible value, probably being one of the longest games on the App Store with Puzzle Quest, which is $7.99. The amazing graphics, animation and gameplay of Zenonia will bring you back time after time. This game could put alot of RPG’s on other devices like the Gameboy and possibly DS to shame with how good it is. Seriously guys, if you don’t buy this then you are missing out!

Gameplay- 10/10

Graphics- 10/10

Sound- 8/10

Overall- 9.5/10

I would recommend this game if you enjoyed- Chronicles of Inotia: Legend of Feanor

Tell me what you think about this review at Twitter- http://www.twitter.com/iPhone_Reviews next up is Leaf Trombone: World Tour!

Thanks- iPhone_Reviews

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Another List for WWDC First-Timers

Attending WWDC for the first time is sort of like getting a diagnosis from a doctor: it's a good idea to get second opinions because not everybody has the same experiences. Here's another list of suggestions for first time attendees from Mac and iPhone developer Jiva DeVoe.

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Part 6

Just a quick warning. For the last several weekends, my weekend ritual has been to write an installment of the OpenGL ES From the Ground Up tutorials. The sixth installment probably won't be coming out this weekend, however.

I'm backlogged on my current writing project, plus my daughters are in four dance performances this weekend, and I have relatives coming into town. The chance that I'll be able to sneak off and geek out writing about OpenGL ES are slim to none. But never fear, more installments will be forthcoming.

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Tap Tap Coldplay

iTunes Link

Tap Tap Coldplay is a music game by Tapulous. $3.99

Everybody knows of some of the most downloaded on the App Store by Tapulous called Tap Tap Revenge (Now TTR 2.5). I was a bit skeptical when the paid versions came out, with complete track lists for different themes or artists. Tap Tap Coldplay is easily the biggest band Tapulous has got on board, with this top selling game being in the charts for a very long time. Coldplay is a great band, but for some reason I had never bought one of their albums before, staying closer to my punk rock genre. This game succesfully made me buy Viva la Vida or Death by All His Friends by Coldplay as I enjoyed the thirteen hit tracks that were in this game. Apart from the brand new content added to the special Tap Tap versions, a kind of 'career' mode is made with boss levels and superb added graphics. A while ago Tapulous announced on Twitter that Tap Tap Coldplay owners MAY be getting more songs as well, which would be a great addition as most of the Tapulous special editions games don't have the replayability factor that Guitar Rock Tour has. The update came out as I was writing this. Violent Hill and The Scientist were added to the already great track list. The one area Tapulous have fallen in compared to Guitar Rock Tour is that GRT has 17 well known tracks from different genres and times, while TTR has upcoming artists, some top class ones and specialized payed versions. I'm not saying its a bad thing though!

Each special Tap Tap Revenge version has an altered theme to suit the songs at hand. Tap Tap Coldplay is the first game to move away from well known circles that you are required to tap. Instead there are glowing rectangles of light that travel down the screen. The graphics are absolutely beautiful, with flowing colors all over the screen that warp into new colors as your multiplier increases. For each album that the songs come with special graphics that appear on the screen, really making it feel like a surreal dream. Many times I have lost where I was tapping so I could get a look at the images appearing on the screen. Each difficulty level also features a 'boss level' that has special graphics to suit the mood of each song. These are very cool levels that also feature the rectangle tapper. My favorite boss level in the TTR games would be Technologic by Daft Punk on Tap Tap Dance.

The controls in the Tap Tap Revenge series have always been quite simple. As the rectangles come down the screen you must tap them once they are on top of the black rectangles at the bottom of the screen. You can get more points if you touch the tapper at the perfect time and obviously less if it is a bit off. If there is a trail of light behind the tapper then you are required to hold the tapper to get more points from the trail. If two or three tappers come down at the same time you can to hit them at the same time. When arrows come down the screen you are required to tilt the device in that direction to hit them. I find these quite hard to master, but thankfully they can be turned off.

Obviously the sounds are great in this game. The music is very crisp and is the original music from the actual artist. In Guitar Rock Tour some of the songs do not sound as if there sung by the artist who originally sings it, and can get annoying at times. Tap Tap Revenge does not cut corners by just buying the rights to the song, but instead works with the bands to bring the best music possible to their games. If you are a fan of Coldplay you will absolutely adore this game, while the tunes do catch onto people like me who haven't particularly listened to Coldplay much.

The gameplay is very addictive, but the special versions also give you a bit more of an incentive to play the game. The basic aim of Tap Tap Revenge is to play songs and try and get a high score, but the game is mostly for fu instead of achieving something. In Tap Tap Coldplay there are five difficulty levels, Kids, Easy, Medium, Hard and Extreme. Kids mode lets kids tap anywhere on the screen to play, instead of focusing on where to tap they just have to try and get the timing right. Easy mode has less tappers coming down during the song and it is alot easier to play. It goes right down to Extreme where the tappers are coming flat out with many multiple tappers coming at the same time. Each of the four real difficulty levels have certain tracks in each one. Half of the tracks must be completed with an accuracy of 85% or higher and the boss track for that difficulty level is unlocked. All tracks can be completed in Two player mode, but not Online mode at this point in time.

Tap Tap Coldplay has converted me to becoming a Coldplay fan. The amazing theme doubled with smooth gameplay and 13 amazing tracks makes this the best Tapulous game by far. I would seriously recommend this game to anyone who enjoys the Tap Tap Revenge series or those Coldplay fans. One of the 13 tracks is available for download on Tap Tap Revenge 2.5 with the ordinary Tap Tap Coldplay theme to try as a kind of lite version. This game is absolutely superb and well worth todays sale price of $3.99 in celebration of the two new tracks that were just released. Seriously, buy this now!

Gameplay- 9/10

Graphics- 10/10

Sound- 10/10

Overall- 9.5/10

I would recommend this game if you enjoyed- Dave Matthews Band Revenge

Tell me what you think about this review at Twitter- http://www.twitter.com/iPhone_Reviews next up is Zenonia!

Thanks- iPhone_Reviews

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Siberian Strike

iTunes Link

Siberian Strike is a top down shooter by Gameloft. $0.99

Siberian Strike has totally changed the way old ports are successfully brought onto the iPhone. Time and time again we see ports off various devices that sometimes work (Assassin's Creed) and sometimes don't. Siberian Strike is a totally revamped mobile port, that has become my favourite top down shooter. This game is an amazing pick up for just $0.99, especially when I thought it was a great deal at it's original price of $5.99.

The storyline is pretty basic, and doesn't actually have much effect in the game. You are pilot Eliot Freeman in the 1940's, Russia wants to invade Europe and you get to stop them by destroying everything in your path. To be honest when I received this game I was not expecting to even enjoy it at all, especially since I am not a 'retro' gamer and do not enjoy these old school type games. Siberian Strike actually surprised me alot as it provided me with great graphics and enough action to suffice a more modern gamer as well as you retro gamers. The gameplay is pretty simple, but definitely surprised me. I was expecting tilt left and right and shoot everything in your path. Your plane flies all over the course and there a few special 3D levels that take a different approach to the game, splitting up what could be quite dry gameplay. There are great graphics and voice acting to go along with the game, providing an excellent flight as you will find out.

From what I can tell the graphics have been remastered to look alot better than the mobile version. The screen can get quite busy with power-ups, planes and all sorts of attacks going all over the screen and I haven't encountered any lag or freezes what so ever. There is alot of detail that has gone into this game, especially in the 3D levels. For a now $0.99 it is right up there with other great games of the same price like iDracula.

The voice acting in Siberian Strike is superbly done in the cut scenes. I would probably call it better than Assassin's Creed, but then again there is less of it. It is very professional and the accents used are quite cool. The sound effects in the actual game are what I have come to expect with stuff blowing up and shots fired etc. It was quite a good effort, especially since it has come from a mobile port where sound certainly isn't used as much as it should in those games.

There are two control methods available to use in Siberian Strike, but one is far easier than the other. The hardest system was actually the tilt method, where you tilt your iPhone to move your plane around the screen. This not only looks REALLY weird watching someone do it, but is hard to actually watch where you are going. The easiest system is the touch controls where you move the plane by moving your finger, while being on top of the plane. Some people don't like this game as you can't see when planes are coming from behind, but it is certainly alot easier than tilting the iPhone around. Shooting is very easy and the whole game just requires you to be moving for the entire time, as there is no ammo limit. Power ups can give you special shots and the shooting process is the same, except they run out after a certain time limit. In the 3D mode you are required to fire missiles at certain items, and a fire button is used for that. To use a bomb you press the bomb icon and it blows up all enemies near you. This is useful in tight situations.

There are three different game modes that all revolve around the main story mode. The three modes are Story Mode, Multiplayer and Free Mission. As with other Gameloft games you are only able to play these modes in Easy or Normal to start with, and completing the story mode unlocks hard. With only 7 levels in the game, Gameloft gives you another challenge and beating the game on Hard gives you the difficulty level of Ace. While the storyline doesn't give much to the gameplay and is more of conversations. It is there however, using simple text instead of cut scenes we are used to. I find it quite annoying and after a few levels didn't even read the conversations as it wasn't necessary for the game.

Story Mode is the mode that you will spend most of your time playing. The jist of the mode is to survive through 5 2D Top Down Shooter levels and 2 3D Levels. This is done by shooting everything in site, collecting powerups and other great items. The way to win the game is by surviving all the levels without dieing. The way to lose however is actually quite easy, but doesn't sound it. You have 3 bars of life, once these are all lost you lose one of your 3 lives, which may be replenished by collecting 100 stars. Once these lives are lost then you get the option of an arcade continue, so basically you can complete this entire cycle three more times. Even on easy I managed to lose alot of lives and was happy just to survive the game.

The top down shooter levels throw planes, ships, cars and other wonderful Russian designs your way, forcing you to blow up as much as possible and avoid getting hit. These levels are often hectic and fast paced, with more new enemies coming in later levels. At the end of each level there is a massive Boss stage, where you must blow up certain parts of the boss before it can be successfully destroyed. These bosses shoot out multiple shots are once, forcing you to take a strategic approach at destroying them. The 3D levels are a bit of a gap between all the hectic levels, giving a kind of iFighter style gameplay. The aim is to fly around dodging all obstacles while blowing up guns that shoot missiles at you if you don't hit them. There are three planes to use with different stats, as well as unlockable colors. Sadly you can't unlock more planes.

Free mode lets you replay any of your already completed missions. The missions can be played in any of the unlocked difficulty levels. Multiplayer mode lets you play through any mission you want with a friend over Multiplayer WiFi. This is a great mode and works perfectly without any lag what so ever.

Siberian Strike has changed my opinion on Top Down Shooters. Being a genuine modern gamer who does not particularly like games with old concepts like this, it surprised me. If this game had seven levels of action instead of breaking it up with the 3D levels, it may not have been as good. The hectic action provided is addicting and makes you want to progress to the next level, with a bit of thrill and danger involved.

The great graphics actually make it look like a new game, instead of being restricted to the old shooter graphics I see time and time again on the App Store. The sound effects and cut scenes are a good add in, even if it doesn't provide much to the actual game. A great game, that while most people were skeptical of the game at its original price of $5.99, this is an absolute bargain at $0.99. Those who like true top down shooter games may not enjoy this as much as it has kind of 'progressed' away from that. I absolutely adore it and once again Gameloft have delivered.

Gameplay- 9/10

Graphics- 9/10

Sound- 8.5/10

Overall- 8.5/10

I would recommend this game if you enjoyed-Galaga Remix

Tell me what you think about this review at Twitter- http://www.twitter.com/iPhone_Reviews next up is Tap Tap Coldplay!

Thanks- iPhone_Reviews

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WWDC Session Data Now Available at Attendee Site

If you've got a ticket for WWDC 2009, you can now get to the "official" times and dates for the sessions, including an iCalendar you can subscribe to, by going to the WWDC 2009 Attendee Site.

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WWDC Session Data is Gone

Well, that didn't last long. Apparently, Apple didn't want us having access to the session date, time, and room information yet. The JSON feed for the session website has been changed so the previously posted scripts no longer work.

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WWDC JSON Credit

I've been remiss. I included proper credit in my tweet, but not in my blog posts. The fact that the JSON data underlying Apple's WWDC session page includes dates, times, and room information was not my discovery, it was Glenn Seueira's. Thanks Glenn, and apologies for leaving that off the earlier posts.

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Another iCal Script

The Big Nerd Ranch Blog has a more elegant script for converting the WWDC session data to iCalendar format. But, though the code is more compact, they missed the time zone, which would cause a problem for me.

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WWDC Session Times for iCal Import

Here's a quick-and-dirty hack of the WWDC session script to create an iCalendar file that can be imported into iCal.
Again, this is public domain, feel free to hack away and improve it.

#!/usr/bin/env ruby
#
# This program will download the latest session JSON data 
# from the WWDC website and turn it into an iCal
#
# Sorry about the cheezy HTML formatting; I am not a designer.
# If you'd like to contribute a better looking design, I'll
# incorporate it.
#
# Requires one of the following two gems to be installed:
#
#   gem install json
#   gem install json_pure
require 'rubygems'
require 'net/http'
require 'open-uri'
require 'json'
require 'date'

output = <<OUTPUT
BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//hacksw/handcal//NONSGML v1.0//EN
OUTPUT

r =  open("http://developer.apple.com/wwdc/data/sessions.json").read

parsed = JSON.parse r
data = parsed["SessionsData"]

data.each do | oneSession |

  upperTime = DateTime.parse(oneSession["time"][0]["upper"])
  lowerTime = DateTime.parse(oneSession["time"][0]["lower"])
  output << "BEGIN:VEVENT\n"
  output << lowerTime.strftime("DTSTART;TZID=US/Pacific:%Y%m%dT%H%M%S\n");
  output << upperTime.strftime("DTEND;TZID=US/Pacific:%Y%m%dT%H%M%S\n");
  output << "DESCRIPTION:#{oneSession["description"]}\n"
  output << "LOCATION:#{oneSession["room"]}\n"
  output << "SUMMARY:#{oneSession["title"]} (#{oneSession["id"].to_s})\n"
  
  # output << "<TR>"
  # output << "<TD>#{oneSession["id"]}</TD><TD>#{oneSession["title"].to_s}</TD><TD>#{oneSession["focus"].to_s}</TD><TD>#{oneSession["level"].to_s}</TD><TD>#{oneSession["type"].to_s}</TD><TD WIDTH = \"200\">Start: #{lowerTime.to_s} <BR/>End: #{upperTime.to_s}</TD><TD>#{oneSession["room"].to_s}</TD><TD>#{oneSession["description"].to_s}</TD></TR>\n"
  # 
  
  output << "END:VEVENT\n"
end
output << "END:VCALENDAR"

File.open("sessions.ics", 'w') {|f| f.write(output) }

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Better Session Script

Ryan McCuaig sent me a kick-ass re-write of my WWDC session script. This one outputs the information with much, much better formatting.

Here's the very fine script:

#!/usr/bin/env ruby
#
# This program will download the latest session JSON data 
# from the WWDC website and will parse it into a plain 
# HTML table so it can be viewed.
#
# Requires one of the following two gems to be installed:
#
#   gem install json
#   gem install json_pure
#
# Also requires installation of Haml/Sass:
#
#   gem install haml
#
# This script was written by Ryan McCuaig, based on a script by Jeff LaMarche

require 'net/http'
require 'open-uri'
require 'rubygems'
require 'json'
require 'haml'
require 'sass'

JSON_FEED = 'http://developer.apple.com/wwdc/data/sessions.json'

class Session
  attr_accessor :title,:focus,:start,:description,:type,:identifier, :room
  def initialize(array)
    @title = array["title"]
    @focus = array["focus"]
    @type = array["type"]
    @start = Time.parse(array["time"][0]["lower"])
    @stop = Time.parse(array["time"][0]["upper"])
    @description = array["description"]
    @identifier = array["id"]
    @room = array["room"]
  end
  def when
    start = @start.strftime("%l:%M %p")
    stop = @stop.strftime("%l:%M %p")
    [start,stop].map{|x| x.strip}.join("-")
  end
end

json_data = open(JSON_FEED).read
parsed_data = JSON.parse(json_data)["SessionsData"]

sessions = []
parsed_data.each do |array|
  sessions << Session.new(array)
end
sessions.sort! {|x,y| x.start <=> y.start}

class Array
  # group_by doesn't exist before Ruby 1.8.7, drat
  def group_by
    hash = {}
    each do |element|
      key = yield(element)
      if hash.has_key?(key)
        hash[key] << element
      else
        hash[key] = [element]
      end
    end
    hash
  end unless [].respond_to?(:group_by)
end

sessions_grouped_by_day = sessions.group_by {|x| x.start.strftime("%A")}

html_template = <<HTML
!!!
%html
  %head
    %title Session Times
    %style= css
  %body
    %div#content
      - %w{Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday}.each do |day|
        %h1= day
        - days[day].each do |session|
          %h2
            %div#when= session.when
            %div
              = session.title
              %span.type= session.type
              %span.focus= session.focus.join(", ")
              %span.identifier= session.identifier
              %span.room= session.room
          %p= session.description
HTML

css_template = <<CSS
!indent = 150px
#content
  :width 800px
  :margin-left auto
  :margin-right auto
h1,
h2,
p
  :font-family Helvetica Neue, Helvetica
h1
  :font-size 21px
h2
  :font-size 16px
  :margin-left 0px
  div#when
    :position relative
    :bottom -3px
    :width = !indent
    :float left
    :font
      :weight normal
      :size 13px
  span
    :font
      :weight normal
      :size 13px
    :padding 0 0.5em 0 0.5em
    &.type
      :color red
    &.focus
      :color green
    &.identifier
      :color blue
    &.room
      :font
        :weight bold
        :size 14px
      :color grey
      
p
  :font-size 13px
  :line-height 21px
  :margin-left = !indent
CSS

html_engine = Haml::Engine.new(html_template)
css_engine = Sass::Engine.new(css_template)

File.open("/tmp/wwdc_sessions.html",'w') do |file|
  file.write html_engine.render(Object.new,
    :days=>sessions_grouped_by_day,:css=>css_engine.render)
end
`open /tmp/wwdc_sessions.html`

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WWDC Session Times

Okay, the session times have not been officially released for WWDC, but the underlying data used for the sessions website contains time and room data. Of course, since this hasn't been released, it's completely unofficial and likely to change, but for those who have been asking for WWDC session times, I give you... not the session times, but a script that will fetch the latest data and format it into a HTML table for you.

It's a ruby script, so it should run on any stock OS X machine. This is public domain code, do with it what you will. If you improve it, I'd love a copy of your version.

#!/usr/bin/env ruby
#
# This program will download the latest session JSON data 
# from the WWDC website and will parse it into a plain 
# HTML table so it can be viewed.
#
# Sorry about the cheezy HTML formatting; I am not a designer.
# If you'd like to contribute a better looking design, I'll
# incorporate it.
#
# Requires one of the following two gems to be installed:
#
#   gem install json
#   gem install json_pure
require 'rubygems'
require 'net/http'
require 'open-uri'
require 'json'


output = ""
output << "<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN\"\n\"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd\">\n<HTML><head>\n\t<title>WWDC Session Times</title>\n</HEAD><body>"
output << "<TABLE WIDTH=\"100%\" BORDER=\"1\"><TR><TH>ID</TH><TH>Title</TH><TH>Focus</TH><TH>Level</th><TH>Type</TH><TH>Time</TH><TH>Room</TH><TH>Description</TR>\n"

r =  open("http://developer.apple.com/wwdc/data/sessions.json").read

parsed = JSON.parse r
data = parsed["SessionsData"]

data.each do | oneSession |


  lowerTime = oneSession["time"][0]["lower"]
  upperTime = oneSession["time"][0]["upper"]

  
  output << "<TR>"
  output << "<TD>#{oneSession["id"]}</TD><TD>#{oneSession["title"].to_s}</TD><TD>#{oneSession["focus"].to_s}</TD><TD>#{oneSession["level"].to_s}</TD><TD>#{oneSession["type"].to_s}</TD><TD WIDTH = \"200\">Start: #{lowerTime.to_s} <BR/>End: #{upperTime.to_s}</TD><TD>#{oneSession["room"].to_s}</TD><TD>#{oneSession["description"].to_s}</TD></TR>\n"
  
end

output << "</table></body>"
File.open("sessions.html", 'w') {|f| f.write(output) }
exec 'open sessions.html'

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