Friday Five: May 21st, 2010
Posted by Bonnie Eisenman on May 21st, 2010
Fridays at 148apps mean a new Friday Five post, and here we are! Below are five apps that we've chosen to highlight from the past week's releases. Some are silly, or functional, or simply fun, but we hope that all of them are interesting.
Remember coloring books? Color&Draw takes that experience and attempts to translate it to the iPhone's screen. You can draw on a blank screen and use it as a sketch app, or pick from the 50 included outlines, including various animals and cute things. Color&Draw even lets kids open up an existing photo and doodle on it. (Want to give Uncle Joe a mustache / wacky eyebrows / devil horns? No problem!) The limited color palette and the absence of a "paint bucket" filler option help bring Color&Draw even closer to the classic crayons-and-paper coloring books we all loved so. The app's interface is clean and it appears well-designed, but naturally its best feature is the delight of the kids using it.
Pocket Creatures starts you with an egg and lets you raise your own adorable cartoon critter. In this 3D sim, you spend your time caring for and interacting with your creature. Don't be fooled, however; your creature isn't normal, as it can do things like summon lightning. How you interact impacts its personality: make it sweet or mischievous, devilish or gentle. The various achievements unlock costumes for your creature, from Ninja to Viking to Gladiator. In short? It's a little 3D garden with you and your pet, and plenty of playthings to torment. (Exploding anteaters, anyone?)
Splitting a check in a restaurant isn't easy—a seemingly endless litany of complications can turn a simple division problem into a mind-numbing headache. Bistromath is an app that aims to eliminate that exact problem. Normally I'm not a fan of "tip calculator" apps and the like, but Bistromath goes much further. You can enter each item individually, then specify who pays for it, even assigning an item to be split between multiple people. Bistromath also calculates the sales tax and tip, and takes care of tricky division (like dividing 10 by 3). Whether you need such a complex focus on fair paying in your life is your prerogative, of course, but if you do, Bistromath should be a great help.
Backflip Studios' other games have been met with acclaim—the hugely popular Paper Toss, Ragdoll Blaster, and Harbor Havoc 3D games among them—and now they've released a new game, this time for free. Strike Knight is a puck bowling game with some arcade flair. The scoring system is different and places a focus on timing, but if you've ever played shuffle-board bowling, Strike Knight's setup should be familiar. The game is great for quick sessions and even supports pass-and-play for up to four players. Of course, Strike Knights is ad-supported, but that's a small price to pay for a polished, free game.
X2 Soccer 2010 succeeds X2 Soccer 2009—a solid foundation by anyone's reckoning—and adds plenty of improvements. The controls are sharp and snappy, the computer AI is well-tuned, and with over 150 club teams you'll have plenty of variety. The included modes are Quick Match, Penalty Shootout, Training, Tournament, Dream Team, and Multiplayer; Multiplayer includes both local and online options. But while I could go on and on listing the game's bullet-point features, perhaps the simplest one is this: it simply works. Fans of X2 Soccer swear by it as the App Store standard, and it's certainly an excellent, realistic soccer game. Soccer fans should be very, very interested in this new release.