This little ad supported game is a city-wide destruction derby that takes the player through many different situations with lots of different goals and absolutely no sense of traffic laws. In Crash Mayhem the player takes control of their car and uses their finger to point out the direction on screen where they’d like the car to accelerate. Missions are varied and change from level to level. Sometimes players will have to crash as many cars as they can in a single intersection. much like a very watered-down version of Burnout CRASH! at a much lower price. In other levels, players will have to run rampant through the open city in search of items to collect before the time runs out.

The simple finger controls in Crash Mayhem work pretty well and the cars handle well too, depending on which car players are driving. As the game progresses, players gain control of faster and more responsive cars to take around on their destructive missions. The AI on other cars is virtually non-existent and they more or less run on tracks until they are hit or hit something in their path. The claims that this game is an “open world” game are a little misleading. It’s true that each level takes place in a different section of a larger sprawling city, but the action is broken into levels with no way for the player to explore the city by themselves with no pressing mission or goal to worry about.

The design of the cars and city is simplistic, but it really works for what this titles is. With such a large environment and many different things to see in each level it doesn’t matter that the city and cars aren’t rendered in super high quality 3D models. There is a certain charm to the visuals of Crash Mayhem that lets the player enjoy the gameplay.

Crash Mayhem basically boils down to a mini-game collection that brings together many of the gameplay elements and mechanics made popular in other iOS driving games. The game is ad supported which can be very annoying when ads are shown almost constantly and sometimes even cover buttons or gameplay. Still there is an unlock available via in-app purchase to get rid of the ads for players who really end up loving this title.

Most of those living in big cities know that it can be tough branching out from the tried and true, regional way of life. Living or working in a specific section of a big city usually influences dwellers to play in those areas as well. How do folks find the cool new places to go? Word of mouth, usually.

Urban Dig aims to provide even more of this kind of recommendation, via experts on local culture and places, called Curators. These experts create lists like Best Dive Bars, Art in the Streets, Vintage Shopping, Food Trucks, and the like, then pass them along to users of the Urban Dig app. In addition to lists of cool places to go and things to experience, Urban Dig provides Curator Notes, to give users a richer understanding of the places and things they’re being directed to.

Urban Dig is available for free now in the App Store. The cities included are Los Angeles, San Francisco and Vancouver for now, and will add New York, Chicago, Austin, Portland and DC by the end of 2011, with more cities promised in 2012.

With our recent review of Empire Builder: Ancient Egypt HD, listing some city builders that we believe are the best of the best on iOS seemed like a good idea. And iPhone owners rejoice, because for once we didn’t include any iPad only games!

SimCity
I grew up playing SimCity games and absolutely love them. The iPhone and iPad versions of SimCity hold true to the original games. Excepting scenario modes, SimCity is a city builder with a great free play mode. It truly is free play more than almost any other iOS city builder. There’s a grid and things to build on that grid completely at the will of the player. SimCity is probably my favorite city builder on iOS.

Civilization Revolution
The Civilization Games aren’t really “city” builders so much as they are war strategy games; but the basic gameplay has similarities enough for me to include this game (with the exception of battling other empires). The Civilization games include building up an empire on a grid. Maintaining that empire and each of its cities are an important part of the games and what makes it similar to maintaining the various parts of an individual city in SimCity. Civilization Revolution isn’t as feature-filled as its desktop equivalent but neither is its price as high. I love Civilization games and I’m hoping that they port an older favorite of mine to iOS eventually as well, Alpha Centauri.


The Settlers
The Settlers is a rare gem. Normally games ported over from consoles or PCs don’t feel quite as good as games made specifically for touch-screen devices. The gameplay for the Settlers has a unique polish that only seems to be possessed by games that were created originally for a touch screen. The game is more focused on gathering resources than many other city builders. Also, unlike many city builders, the player is directing actually people in the city (or village) instead of just building and maintaining. The Settlers is one of the better city builders I’ve played.


Virtual City
I stumbled on Virtual City in the last few days when I was looking around for a new city builder to play (it’s one of my favorite genres). I believe fellow 148apps writer, Jennifer Allen, made a great point about Virtual City in her review, “It’s a much friendlier version of SimCity and one that feels more enjoyable and less spreadsheet management- ish than other behemoth city management games.”

While there are hundreds of travel and city guide apps for iPhone, it looks like mTrip will blow them away with its unique spin on the traditional tour guide app.

While mTrip offers users the default sightseeing tips and direction tools for a location, it goes one step further helping users plan their trip itinerary. Better than that, the app can even create an itinerary for you based on your preferences, trip duration and accommodations. Daily schedules can be edited at the user’s discretion and the app is even intelligent enough to list attractions based on their opening hours and proximity to the user.

Once you arrive at your destination you can make use of augmented reality to see where sites are in relation to your current location as well as point out restaurants, bars, hotels and other points of interest. Travelers can also swap tips on locations via the app by adding notes and viewing those of others.

All of these features make mTrip a very useful and fully featured tool but its ability to function offline is the real jewel in its crown. Your itinerary can be customized and reworked without an internet connection and augmented reality also functions in the absence of a network. Pretty much the only feature that requires the internet is the fun little postcard tool that allows users to send messages to friends from their vacation via email or Facebook.

mTrip travel guides are currently available for London, Paris, Amsterdan, Berlin, Rome, Barcelona, New York, San Francisco and Chicago in a choice of five languages. Many more locations are also planned with more information available here.

If you’re heading to one of the above locations, tack another $5.99 on to the cost of your trip for the ultimate travel experience and do it quickly before the app returns to its regular price of $9.99