Reckless Racing

Reckless Racing by Polarbit software was the winner of the 2010 best racing game of the year for Android awarded by Pocket Gamer. They are a British website and video game magazine with a very loyal following in the UK.

The game costs $4.99 on the Android Market, it is not available in the Amazon Android Marketplace. I have included the link above to the Lite version so you can try it out for free and decide if its worth spending the money for the complete game.

This is a very fun racer with excellent controls and beautiful graphics, they really went all out with the attention to details. The physics model is what sets the game apart, crashing and flipping the car or breaking through a fence and watching the splinters fly about make for realistic mayhem.

Single player mode only has five tracks and once you complete a course you can then play it in reverse, there are also a few different modes to keep things interesting. If that were all there was to the game then I would never recommend it, after a few hours and beating all the tracks there really wouldn't be any replay value.

What would make it worth buying? Multi player is where its at. Playing against other real humans has always been the best reason to buy a game where you would normally be pitted against artificial opponents. Reckless Racing allows you to play over wifi via the Internet. Choose a user name and click internet and you enter the game lobby, within seconds you can join a game or host your own.

So give the trial version a shot and if you enjoy it then you can probably justify buying it just for the multiplayer action. Hopefully you have an Android with at least a 1GHz processor, anything less than that may have a hard time rendering the graphics in this processor hungry game.

The original title for the game was Deliverance and if your old enough to remember the movie you'll understand why when you hear the theme music as the game starts. This game could just as well have been called redneck racing lol, so give it a whirl and as always enjoy!

PAC-MAN

I mentioned a few days ago that the Amazon Android Market has a free app each day, PAC-MAN was one of those just a week ago. If you were to buy it today on Amazon it costs $4.99 but you can buy it cheaper on the Google Android Market for $2.99. The question is, is it worth it?

PAC-Man for those of you that don't know has been around for just over 30 years now, it was a huge hit in American arcades during the 1980's and has seen countless sequels and revisions ever since. The simplicity of the game was its greatest strength, using a single joystick you move the character around the screen eating dots and avoiding the bad guys. You can power up four times in each round by eating a big dot turning the enemies into ghosts which you can then eat for a limited time. Each level gets progressively harder and the baddies, Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde move faster and faster.

Bonus points for collecting fruits that pop up periodically near the middle of the screen and for eating them when they are turned to ghosts. That's all there is to it, simple yet addictive. The Android version as well as the iPhone port are exactly the same as the original version that helped start the video game craze back in 1979. The secret to making a successful copy of PAC-Man for any device is the controls and they did it right for the Android.

I've seen the game done using the gyroscope and having to turn and twist the handheld device to move the character, this made for a terrible gaming experience. The game makers, Namco in this case the original developer of PAC-Man chose to use an on screen touch joy pad and it works extremely well.

Using your index finger you simply press down once and move your finger in any direction to make him move, he responds immediately and precisely to your gestures. This is the most important part of making this game enjoyable, the graphics are the same as the original game so all the work went into the control aspect of the game.

I'm very happy to see PAC-MAN on the Android, its still a very fun game and highly addictive. I'm not too happy people have to pay $2.99 to own it, 99 cents would have been a better price point. Why a two dollar difference between the two Android Markets is another weird one, I can only guess the high price to begin with is name recognition. Still it is an old game and they should be happy to make any money off of it all these years later, I would hold off spending the money until another deal surfaces.

In the end I do recommend it and if you can't wait for a price drop then by all means go ahead and buy it, you can always try it out online if you've never played it. There are many flash versions of the game you can try for free to see if its even your cup of tea, now if they would just bring Donkey Kong to our phones. enjoy!

Kindle - Android Market

I've read how popular ebooks are such as the Amazon Kindle, Sony Reader and Barnes & Noble Nook. The Kindle has the most users of the three and it is their software app that is available to Android owners enabling us to read their selections on our devices. Studies say less than ten percent of Americans read books in digital form yet it is still a multi billion dollar industry and this app is worth a look.

The Kindle app is pretty easy to use, once installed you sign in with your Amazon account (you can create one free if you don't have one yet.) The main page lists the books in your library, it comes with three free books. Aesop's Fables, Pride & Prejudice and Treasure Island. I chose to read some of Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice to get a feel for the reader on my Samsung Intercept with its 3 inch screen. There are only a few settings to choose from to change or enhance your view, they are white, sepia or black backgrounds and you can choose from 5 different font sizes.

Even on my small screen the text was easy to read at the default font size, I did however change the background from white to sepia for a softer look. You could easily read in the dark while in bed without any light as the screen gives off plenty. I can only imagine the reading experience would be even more enjoyable on an iPad or Android Tablet or of course the Kindle itself.

However this is a good little App to have if you find yourself stuck somewhere and feel like reading a classic novel for free, the Amazon store has thousands of free titles available and you can download them directly from within the app whenever you wish.

There are several helpful tools you can use while reading, press on a word and a menu appears with choices to bookmark the page, look the word up in the dictionary or jot down a personal note to be stored in your note log. I can see the last function being helpful to a student, teacher or researcher that needs to refer back to some piece of information in the future or perhaps the average reader just wants to remember a great line or passage.

All in all its a free app with tons of free content available so theres no reason not to have it on your Android.

Amazon Appstore For Android

I want to talk a little about the Amazon app for Android and its store on the internet. We may as well discuss the Android Market and app as well.

As most of you know the Google Android Market has been around since the beginning and Amazon opened their store in March of this year.

I prefer the Google Market that comes installed on all of our devices but I do visit the Amazon store each day for one reason, they give away a paid app for free. This app can be something you will never use or the next Pandora, so far the best one I got was the 99 cents Angry Birds Rio full edition.

In order to install Amazon's app on your phone you have to sign in to Amazon.com and enter the Appstore for Android. Then you request the app and they email it to you, once you click on it in the email it installs on your phone or tablet.

Like the Apple App store you have to open an account with a credit card even if you want to get free apps. Whereas with the Google Market you don't need a payment method on file. So I don't think many kids will sign up for Amazons service unless thier parents help them out.

Buying a paid app is definitely a much easier process with Amazon, it works just like Apple. You get an email confirming your purchase even if its a free app. Amazon app also keeps track of all of your installed apps as long as you got the app through their service. Google's Android Market works the same way.

I think most people myself included peruse apps through their phones and install them the same way but you can log into either market online from your PC and install them that way as well. The apps are sent immediately to your mobile device and begin installing. When your in the market it even shows which apps you already have installed although it doesn't have an online uninstall option.

So take the extra couple of minutes and sign up for the Amazon Appstore for Android, its worth checking out the free paid app each day and both stores have apps the other does not.

Oh one cool feature Amazon has that I forgot to mention is the ability to try certain apps on your computer before you decide to purchase whether its free or paid. Not all apps have this feature but it definitely is cool and helpful. Enjoy!

Music - Android Market

Music - Android Market



I'm listening to James Durbin right now, you might remember him from American Idol this past season. The neat thing is I'm using Googles new Cloud Music service, I'm not sure what to call it exactly. On the computer it's called Music Manager, on the web it's Google Music Beta and on the Android the app is simply called Music.

My guess is it will be known as Music or Google Music after the beta is over and its Googles answer to Itunes except it does something Itunes doesn't, it streams all of your music to any Android device through the internet.

At the moment you must get an invite to use the streaming cloud service, I signed up a week ago and just received my invite this evening.

After installing the program directly from the email invite the program asks you what directories to include for your music library. It then uploads everything to your cloud, you get twenty gigabytes of free storage (very nice) for your music on Google's servers.

The Music app on your phone from Google works as a normal player with music thats on your phone but once you join the cloud based service it will automatically add the streaming functionality.

Normally I would spend more time with an app before writing any review but I'm very excited about this program and once its out of Beta this will be the number one app to have on your phone along with the accompanying software on your pc. The music player actually doesn't reside on your computer but opens in your browser, still from the few songs I've played my first impression is wow.

It is clean and polished looking and has just the right amount of choices to listen to your music without any hassle. There are thumbs up and down buttons, shuffle and playlist creators. Also the Google dashboard is up top as with any Google app online so you have one click access to your Gmail, maps, photos etc.

When you sign up Google even gives you a bunch of free music and were not talking no name musicians but depending on how many genres you tell them your into such as rock, jazz or rap they load you up with music from Santana, John Mayer, Harry Connick Jr. and a host of others.

I uploaded one directory with 300 songs and it did everything in the background while I watched a movie on Netflix. I got on my Samsung Intercept and tapped the Music app and sure enough it had the new streaming feature ready to go, it just asked me if I wanted to sign in with my existing Google account and then all of the content I uploaded to the cloud based Google music server was now available to play on my phone.

There are several settings such as if you want to stream only when you have wifi or only upload when you are also in wireless range. The app also will cache songs so there aren't any pauses during streaming playback.

Google really hit it out of the ballpark with this one! My advice is to sign up for the Music Beta asap because I'm not sure what date it goes live to the public. Also Google aquired a company called Pushlife a while back for 25 million dollars and their technology enabled the new google uploader to upload your Itunes library to your cloud based locker! Yep you heard me, you can upload all of your Itunes music and stream it to any Android device you own and your laptop or computers.

The music player on the Android is nice and simple and very easy to use, it also has a widget so you can use it right from the homescreen. The mobile player also has most if not all the features that the browser version has.

While I was waiting for my invite I tried the already released Amazon cloud based version for use with the Amazon mp3 player for Android and was sorely disappointed. After uploading some music which took forever the player kept force closing my phone and when it did play I would get network errors and many pauses in music playback.

Google on the other hand has worked flawlessly from the moment I hit play. Well thats it for now folks, I could go on and on about this. It is very big news indeed for us Android owners and we have been a patient bunch indeed, so sign up and enjoy the sounds of music.

DropSnap - Android Market

DropSnap - Android Market


Just a quick post, I didn't do a single review last night because I added a top 10 list which took quite awhile. So I'm trying a new Google Chrome extension that allows me to post from within any webpage and automatically adds the link and title, so this post is a bit of a test.

I did however review dropbox the other day which is that great app that lets you share files among all of your devices so you might want to look into this app DropSnap. This program will automatically upload your photos from your phone to your Dropbox, so check it out. I plan on giving it a spin later today.

I have tried several apps that automatically upload my photos to my Flickr and Picasa accounts, none of them were very reliable. Maybe one of them has ironed out the bugs and I hope to review one later this week after another tryout. Btw the extension I'm using is called Blog This by Google, if your a fellow Blogger I think you will love it. Goodnight!

Android Top 10 list

Please check out my current Android Top 10 List, just click the link on the left under pages or click the title.