At E3, video games shift their aim to casual players (USATODAY.com)

USATODAY.com - This year's downscaled E3 video game expo drew about 4,500 gamemakers, analysts, retailers and journalists to L.A. last week - less than a tenth of E3's size two years ago - even as the industry grew from $10.5 billion in 2005 to $18 billion in 2007.

OpenCL gets touted in Texas

Attendees at the SC08 high-performance computing conference in Austin got a progress report on OpenCL, the the Apple-spearheaded parallel computing API that figures to be a prominent new feature in the upcoming Snow Leopard update to OS X.

'Fallout 3' is a no-brainer for game of the year

Review: "Fallout 3" is a deliciously mutated role-playing game, fitting given the game's post-apocalyptic fiction. Add a healthy dose of twisted humor and one of the richest game worlds ever created and “Fallout 3” becomes a no-brainer for game of the year.

Macintosh/iPhone software update round-up - October 22, 2008

Section: Software + Apps, Miscellaneous, Third-Party, iPod + iTunes, iPod touch, iPhone + Communications, iPhone, iPhone SDK & Apps, Mac + Computers, SoftwareMacintosh and iPhone software updates and announcements for October 22, 2008: 99Games has made its debut with the games Chess Lite and Chess Pro for the iPhone and the iPod touch. Both editions make use of a professional strength Chess engine with playing strength over 2750 ELO. Intuitive controls make the user-experience a lot more electrifying thus gripping the user to the game totally! Highlighting previous move, next move and legal move hints are user-friendly; while options like save, load and resume allows users to play the game on-the-go or during their spare time. seyDesign and Vortex Themes have announced the OS Designer RapidWeaver theme for RapidWeaver 4. OS Designer, from Vortex Themes, captures the Mac OS X experience with a window and several desktop backgrounds that feel like the real thing. The simple grace and beauty of the Mac OS X desktop can now be applied your webpage. With many OS flavors to choose from, there will be one that is just right for you. MileBug, the premier iPhone mileage log application, helps those driving their own vehicles for business, charity, medical, or other reasons receive their reimbursement and/or tax deduction. In the U.S., IRS business rates are up to 58.5 cents/mile. MileBug for the iPhone/iPod Touch helps people track their miles and provides emailed reports for easy submission to employers, accountants, and the IRS. FurrySoft has announced their College GPA Calculator for iPhone and iPod Touch. This first of its kind, College GPA application makes predicting GPA easy for the student whose future depends on their college success or students on probation. College students predict GPA by entering cumulative GPA, grade points, current term courses and predicted letter grade. College GPA does the rest to calculate predicted cumulative GPA. The latest release of The Big Mean Folder Machine adds the ability of making the creation of deeper hierarchy levels dependent on the number of files per level. It is an essential tool for anyone who works with large file collections, including digital photographers, content creation, post-production, system administrators, and other creative professionals. Easily merge files from several folders into a single folder, or split files into several folders according to a wide variety of criteria. 24x7digital has introduced PhotoCopy 1.0, their iPhoto to Flickr mirroring utility for Mac OS X Leopard. Designed specifically to help protect media assets, PhotoCopy combines iPhoto’s ease of use with the great sharing features of Flickr. It uploads all of the photos in the selected album(s) to Flickr and arranges them in matching sets. PhotoCopy also copies important image information from iPhoto, such as title, date, time, rating, keywords and description. Arriving in time for Halloween, Phelios, an independent Mac and PC game developer, has released their second game for iPhone and iPod Touch, called Whack the Dead, which is also available for Mac OS X. Whack the Dead was created with the PTK game engine. Readdle has just announced the release of A.I.Disk, a new and much needed iPhone application that lets MobileMe subscribers access documents on the iDisk online storage service, and save them to their iPhone and iPod Touch. A.I. Disk allows people to view saved files and documents on the go and even email friends and colleagues. equinux has released CoverScout 3, the ultimate software to complete album covers in iTunes. With its sleek and intuitive user interface, CoverScout searches the Internet to find missing album art and can automatically apply its findings to your music library. CoverScout’s integrated editor and automatic workflow complete every music library. Smule has released their newest complementary product, Sonic Boom, on AppStore. Sonic Boom turns your iPhone into a virtual firecracker that can be ignited using your finger as a virtual match or a second phone running Sonic Lighter. Strike the match, ignite the fuse, wait...boom! IGG Software has announced iBank 3.3, the latest upgrade to its flagship application for personal and small business finance management. Among the most important changes in iBank 3.3 is improved migration of Quicken data for new users making the switch to iBank. iBank 3.3 also improves keyboard-based transaction entry to be faster and more efficient, and direct consultation with Apple has restored full functionality to iBank’s iPhone/MobileMe integration. After an afternoon shopping at the mall or catching a game at a baseball stadium, it can be a hassle or even a challenge to find the car. For women especially, knowing where the car is parked can turn into a matter of safety in a dark parking lot or on an urban street. With these two considerations in mind, iPhone 3G application developer Su Lee embarked on creating Car Spotter—an easy-to-use vehicle locator that uses the iPhone’s navigational GPS system. It is one of nine iPhone applications that Lee’s company, GP Apps, has released this month. Full Story » | Written by Kirk Hiner for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

Appletell review - Mystery Mansion Pinball for iPod

Section: iPod + iTunes, iTunes, iPod, iPod nano, Features, Review Genre: Pinball sim Format: iPod game Developer: Gameloft S.A. Minimum Requirements: 3G iPod nano, iPod classic or 5G iPod (video), iPod Software v1.2, 42.9MB disk space Retail Price: $4.99 Availability: Out now Fact: In movies, whenever there’s a battle against the devil, the heroes will be Catholic, and a good portion of the confrontation will take place in a beautiful church or some sort of holy ground with all manner of decorative crosses and windows and a life-size corpus with bleeding eyes. Another Fact: In video games, it’s okay if that same battle takes place in a mansion over a game of pinball, and your religion is irrelevant. Although, considering this game is constantly telling you, “I am the devil,” I wonder if Catholics aren’t maybe better equipped to hit multiple jackpots? Regardless, pinball fans may get a kick out of Mystery Mansion Pinball, as may iPod owners looking for a quick way to kill some time with a game that fits quite well within the iPod’s capabilities and control scheme. Pinball games generally require only two buttons, after all, and the iPod has two buttons. Well, you need three, actually; although you can use the left and right flippers simultaneously with the iPod’s fast forward and rewind buttons, you can also do this by hitting the center button on the click wheel. The center button also comes into play in the video mode mini-games, which I’ll get to in a bit. The board itself is fairly well designed, featuring items that could very well be found on an actual pinball machine. Aside from some electrical effects on the bumpers, everything about the gameplay is fairly realistic. Of course, there’s no plunger on your iPod, so the center button puts the ball into play, with the force determined by a sliding power meter (as you’d find in a golf sim on the computer). Game play itself is somewhat entertaining, with challenges are that aren’t too hard to reach. This is due in part to the decent board layout, but also to the easily identified targets, which make good use of lighting to call attention to them. Considering the iPod’s small screen, this is very important; a muddier layout with too much going on would’ve been unplayable. Game play is also both helped and hindered by the scrolling camera, which moves up and down to follow the ball. This scheme is used pretty much across the board in video pinball sims, as widescreen (and even full frame) displays simply aren’t conducive to the portrait layout of pinball tables, but it’s not always done well. Here, the ball sometimes moves too quickly and disappears from view before the camera can catch up. Therefore, you’ll often be hitting the flippers blindly, hoping your ball is actually nearby. Even worse, the camera mostly keeps panning during multiball, making it extremely difficult to see all the balls and therefore hit most of the targets (especially considering there is a third flipper at the top of the screen). When the ball does get moving too quickly, a ghost trail appears to help you follow it. This bugged me at first, but without it the ball could get completely lost on the screen, so I’m glad it’s there. I wonder if it doesn’t screw up the ball physics, though, as there were times when my flippers seems to hit the ghost trail, not the ball. The physics aren’t that good throughout, for the most part, as the ball takes some impossible bounces off flippers and bumpers. It also seems to have a mind of its own when deciding which lane to drop down, although this usually works in your favor. I’ve played extended games without a single drain down an outlane; good for scores, bad for realism, especially when the ball visibly hops from an inevitable drain over to the inlane. There were also a couple of points where my flippers stopped working completely for a few seconds. I’m assuming this is a programming error, as there’s nothing in the game to indicate why this would happen on purpose. As mentioned earlier, the gameplay is broken up by “video” games that play out as if on a pinball machine scoring screen. They’re well implemented and look cool, but a couple of the games are quite confusing. One in particular tells you to use the click wheel to position a beaker under the appropriately colored drop of fluid, but how do you use the click wheel? Spin it? Click in the direction you want to go? Click the button in the position of the beaker you want? I don’t know...I never got it to work. The final problem has to do with the audio. This “I am the devil” voice gets annoying very quickly, because it never quits saying it! After a couple minutes, I was just thinking, “Okay, I get it, you’re the devil. Now either shut up or go outside!” And the annoying laughter/cackling throughout the game is even worse. It comes in three or four variations, each of which is equally annoying (and loud). Pinball machines, by and large, always try to sound sexy in an effort to entice players to drop their coins. If this were a real pinball machine, not only would they keep their coins in their pockets, they would flee the arcade for protection. And so, in Mystery Mansion pinball, we get a well-designed board with some fun mini-games that’s hampered by bad ball physics and some incredibly annoying audio. What’s worse is that the two work together to prolong your agony...the bad ball physics make each game last too long, forcing you to listen to the audio for much longer than the human brain can withstand. Maybe that’s the terror of the Mystery Mansion. There’s only one way to find out for sure… Appletell Rating: Buy Mystery Mansion Pinball See other iPod game reviews. Full Story » | Written by Kirk Hiner for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

Macintosh/iPhone software update round-up - September 15, 2008

Section: Software + Apps, Miscellaneous, Third-Party, iPod + iTunes, iPod Accessories, Cases, iPhone + Communications, iPhone, iPhone SDK & Apps, Mac + Computers, SoftwareMacintosh and iPhone software updates and announcements for September 15, 2008: CardScan, a leading provider of contact management systems, today announced the availability of CardScan Executive for Mac, comprising a contact management software and business card scanner. CardScan for Mac software features automatic synchronization to Address Book, allowing users to keep data the same across devices and applications. The company also announced that all CardScan Executive Version 8 systems will include software for both Windows and Mac. The assignment is daunting. The “thinnest” and “funnest” iPods ever created. But the challenges are nothing new to the designers at Speck Product’s innovation lab in Palo Alto, California. Fast on the heels of last week’s new iPod announcement, the team is fiercely on task delivering fresh designs for the arrival of at least five new iPod cases between now and the upcoming holiday season. Just days after the official release of the new iPod touch and iPod nano, MacCover offers the matching protection covers on their site. The covers are made in 3mm thick, shock absorbing felt in 9 colours, and are made to fit the new models exactly. There is also a D-ring attached for keys or personal gadgets. 21 Pro: Blackjack is the ideal blackjack game for every player, novice and expert alike. With life-like high-resolution graphics and authentic game play, 21 Pro provides a genuine casino experience. If you have never played or have been intimidated by sitting at a blackjack table, this is the perfect game to learn how to play. If you are an experienced player, and want to take your game to the next level, the 21 Pro’s card counting will help you fine tune your skills. Marware has announced its latest leather holster case for the Apple iPod touch 2G, the C.E.O. Premiere. The classic design offers textured, perforated leather, an ultra-slim belt clip and elegant contrast stitching. Providing a sleek, upscale look, the C.E.O. Premiere is a stylish premium hip case that works with both the new iPod touch 2G and the original touch. They’ve also announced the new executive flip-top leather case, the C.E.O. Flip Vue for the new iPod touch 2G. Designed to provide the perfect balance between all-around protection and easy access, the C.E.O. Flip Vue is a sleek, elegant holster case. The C.E.O. Flip Vue allows for all iPod touch functionality while providing elegant leather protection. And because two announcements in one day just isn’t enough, they’ve also released the C.E.O. Sleeve for the Apple iPod touch 2G. The C.E.O. Sleeve is a slim, attractive Nappa leather sleeve that combines elegant protection and quick access to the new iPod touch. This case is uniquely designed to appeal to the more discriminating, style-conscious wearer. The C.E.O Sleeve is a premium holster sleeve that works with the new iPod touch 2G and the original touch. Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. announced today that World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, the second expansion for its award-winning subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), will arrive in stores on November 13 in North America, Europe, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and Russia, and November 14 in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand. The expansion will be available in Korea and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau on November 18. Details regarding the launch of Wrath of the Lich King in mainland China will be announced at a later date. Plyxim, LLC. has announced the release of Exibia 1.3, their broadcast scheduling application for Mac OS X. Exibia allows clients in a multi-user, multi-platform environment to upload and schedule QuickTime-compatible videos to a centrally-located server. Media Atelier has released GrandTotal 1.0, its invoicing application for the Mac OS X Leopard platform. GrandTotal is ideal for freelancers, small- to mid-sized companies, and any organization that needs to generate personalized, invoices, estimates and account statements. GrandTotal sports an easy to use, sophisticated interface that will have you up and running in minutes. A wide range of word processing and layout tools makes creating handsome, customizable documents simple and quick. Full Story » | Written by Kirk Hiner for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »