Tag: Joke »

I hope that most of you are finished with your taxes, but let's face it: that deadline is always terrifying, no matter how well prepared you are. The fear of a "friendly" phone call from the IRS—politely informing you that the government needs to squeeze a few more dollars out of your sorry life in order to fund those bailouts—is never a fun one. How often have you wished that you could get your hands around the necks of those wretched tax collectors?

Voodoo Taxman is a gag app. Let's establish that right away. The whole thing was obviously drawn in MS Paint, and there's no purpose to it, per se. But when has that ever stopped anyone? Sometimes all you need is a bit of good old-fashioned stress relief, and torture is the oldest form of entertainment!

The app opens to a blank office-like environment, with a single odd feature: the "I <3 SATAN" sign. (I have to admit that I love the decor.) Wait a second (or tilt your iPhone), and the angry, glasses-wearing, stiff-necked tax collector himself slides into view, along with some money bags. Egads!

From there, you have a few options. You can shake your iPhone or tilt it to smash the taxman against the wall, or you can poke him in the face to break his glasses. Grabbing him by a limb and shaking will yield some money. That's pretty much the extent of the app. The guy collects bruises and scratches as you abuse him (though, alas, there's never any blood), and the money scatters throughout his tiny little office.

Sure, it's a nifty idea. But it's not as if this is a serious app, and the devs obviously didn't shower their creation with loving efforts. As far as I can tell, multitouch isn't supported. The sound effects, while amusing at first, are minimal and repetitive. The graphics are rough at best (MS Paint! The horror!) and the animations are jerky and awkward. To be honest, the novelty of "sticking it to the taxman" (to quote the iTunes description) wears off in about thirty seconds.

So, is this a funny idea? Heck yeah. Would I waste my money on it? Er, well...no. Just...no. Go get one of the other great apps on sale for a dollar. I'm sure you'll find something (I'm thinking of Pocket God, if you want to fill that sadistic urge). In the meantime, have fun with those taxes!

The Oregon Trail is one of my all time favorite games and gameloft did an amazing job of remaking the game for the iPhone and iPod Touch. If you haven't had a chance to check out the game yet, definitely check out our review.

While everyone is still excited about the apps recently launch, gameloft has decided to announce a prequel to their latest success entitled The Oregon Trail: Origins. Here's the quick write-up we've received from gameloft:

Gameloft Announces The Oregon Trail: Origins Featuring Cave Men Going West

Grab your sticks and stones, take your woman by hair, and pray that you make it out West!

Before there were settlers, there were cavemen. Often forgotten, largely ignored, they paved the treacherous roads of the Oregon Trail before there was an Oregon Trail.

Gameloft's newest title brings The Oregon Trail: Origins to all the wannabe Neanderthals of the 21st century. The game will be available for all platforms.

Check out Gameloft's exclusive screens and follow our Twitter feed today for more game detail leaks: http://twitter.com/TheOregonTrail

We're as excited as you are to check out this amazing new title and will keep you posted as more information breaks. We've got two great screenshots of the game after the break, so make sure to check them out!

Apple, apparently still sore from the lashing it took over approving the I Am Rich application has started rejecting application it deems has having limited use. While this is not detailed anywhere in the developer agreements or store agreements, Apple now has the ability to do so. One of the problems with the App Store is that developers are 100% reliant on Apple for everything. They control to the keys to the store.

The app in question is a simple fart sound board application. Stupid yes, but there are hundreds of limited utility applications in the store. So this reason for rejection doesn't make much sense. Seems as though Apple doesn't like fart sounds as there was another application, Whoopie Cushion from developer DoApp rejected for another reason, community standards.

The real risk with this is that developers may spends hundreds of hours on an application and have it rejected for reasons not listed in the agreement -- or worse yet, based on the reviewers opinion.

[via Daring Fireball ]