SlapApp.com » Review

pic2shop

Steve — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 03:04:59 +0000

Here’s a really handy app that actually let’s you shop by barcode! How many times have you been at the store and find a product worth purchasing but you’re just not sure if the advertised price is actually a good deal? Even if it’s a “SALE” item, in the back of your mind you are saying to yourself “hmm, I wonder if I can find this cheaper online???” Well wonder no more!

Pic2shop by Vision Smarts is a clever application that allows you to actually scan the barcode by using the built in camera in your iPhone (Please note this app will NOT work on the iPod touch because it does not have a built in camera). Simply download the free application, point the camera at the barcode until the red line turns green, then instantly find out if the product is a deal worth taking or if its cheaper somewhere else. The app runs a price check on Amazon and other competing sites so you can be a savvy shopper on the go and get the best deal possible.

Now for someone like myself, I find the concept of pic2shop quite practical and convenient. I’ve always wanted the ability to QUICKLY run price checks on specific items that I come across while out shopping. A lot of times you just simply take the stores word for it, (even if the product is on “sale”) and purchase the item, only later to find out that you could have gotten the identical item for much much less. Thankfully with an application like this you can run the price check and see just how good the deal is.

The app comes with an important additional feature that allows you to manually type in the barcode numbers in case the camera scanner has trouble reading the UPC. This was something that I definitely had to go to on occasion as I experienced some difficulty with certain products. Some items scanned instantly, while others just wouldn’t read and had to be input manually, which takes a little longer but still gives you the same end result.

Putting pic2shop to the test, I discovered that even though the app has some room for improvement, it’s an app that I want on my phone. I see most people getting real use out of something like this. Yeah, there were times when I had trouble scanning and had to manually type (lighting, phone position and distance from the product all play a part in getting good results), and there were also a few times when I had to re-enter the UPC code to get the app to run the check as the first time it came up with “no results”. But more often then not the app worked as advertised and I got the information I needed. The app is running ads at the top, but that’s a small price to pay for a FREE app that gives you usability. There are similar apps in the app store that are priced around $1.99 so pic2shop is definitely a value in itself. I’m quite sure that all my shopping experiences will be different from this point forward now that I have pic2shop. Pick it up today if you want to save a few bucks on your next shopping spree.

FEATURES:

ALL IPHONES: Not just the 3GS, scans barcodes on the 2G and 3G too!
GLOBAL COVERAGE: Pic2Shop is in more than 30 countries around the world!
ONLINE SEARCH: Thousands of online retailers help you get the best prices
LOCAL SEARCH: Don’t want to pay for shipping? We can tell you if the store down the street has it.
LIBRARY SEARCH: Why pay when you can check things out? Pic2Shop searches local libraries for what you are interested in and will even tell you if it’s checked out (and when it’s due back!).
EMAIL: Send the last entry… or the last 20 entries to yourself or a friend via email
FAST: Identifies barcodes faster and more accurately. We’re not talking jogging vs. running fast, we’re talking Cheetah with a Jet Engine strapped to its back fast.
COMPATIBLE: UPC-A and EAN-13

Proactive Sleep Alarm Clock

Ryan Johnson — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 15:18:49 +0000

I don’t know about you but I work pretty long days and typically hit the hay between 1-2 AM most nights. I know for a fact that I’m sleep deprived and could use a little help to keep me on track. In steps Proactive Sleep Alarm Clock by Proactive Life. This app isn’t just a replication of the iPhone’s built in alarm function, it has a handful of useful extras that help you get more sleep and wake up on time.

Proactive Sleep Alarm Clock has been developed with sleep and behavioral science in mind, and focusses most of it’s energies on the amount of sleep you get compared with the circadian component. These two components are the biggest indicators as to whether or not you’re getting a healthy amount of sleep. Circadian component is basically sleep relative to time of day and sunlight. There are chemicals in your eyes that even when shut can detect sunlight, get your melatonin pumping, and naturally try to wake you up. So basically, if you’re sleeping with sunlight tickling your eyelids then you’re not getting the same quality of sleep as you would in the middle of the night when it’s pitch dark.

So how does Proactive Sleep Alarm Clock help you sleep better? Well, it basically keeps track of your daily sleep habits and over time provides you with feedback as to whether or not you’re getting the amount of sleep you need. It does this by keeping a sleep diary for you. All you do is set a daily sleep goal, say 8 hours, and then each night when you set your alarm it starts recording the amount of time you sleep. The moment you stop the alarm from sounding in the morning you’re sleep total is logged. Because it’s a sleep diary you can easily record any other sleep you get during the day as well. So if you need a nap, set yourself an alarm, make a note that it’s a power nap, and it’ll add the time to you daily total. Depending on the amount of sleep you get Proactive Sleep Alarm Clock provides you with green, yellow, and red feedback. Green means you got the sleep you needed, yellow for when you’re under your goal by less than an hour, and red if you’re more than an hour under. Give yourself a week with this app and you’ll start to get an idea of how close you are to getting the amount of sleep you need to function at your best.

Something else I like about this app is that it has a feature that helps you wake up. Because I don’t get enough sleep, I have a heck of a time getting out of bed. Proactive Sleep Alarm Clock comes with a game to help you wake up in the morning. If you elect to turn the game mode on, then the moment you press the button to stop the alarm the game starts up. All you have to do is touch a sun image that appears on the screen serveral times. I realize this may sound pretty dumb, but it really does work. There’s an easy, medium, and hard setting, and in each case the game lasts just long enough to make you fully awake. Additionally your game performance is automatically tracked which helps give you a read on how groggy you are when you wake up, which is a sure sign you’re not getting quality z’s. Each morning that you’re more and more coherent when you play the game, your scores will increase, and it’ll be clear that you’re sleeping much better.

Overall I found Proactive Sleep Alarm Clock to be a great app. In addition to what I described above there are additional features built in to help you sleep and wake up easier. There’s a setting to play ambient music while you sleep, the standard alarm clock sound is pleasant, and you can choose to play your favorite song from your iPod as your alarm. You can even track your sleep on days that you don’t want to wake up to an alarm. There’s a “wake naturally” setting that’ll track your sleep time quietly and when you wake up just press the “permanently awakened” button to stop the timer. So no matter what you sleep preference is you can track your sleep adequately and by setting goals can improve your sleep habits and your overall health and fitness. If you’re in the market for an alarm clock/sleep improvement app I encourage you to give Proactive Sleep Alarm Clock a try.

Pros:

Works very well and is easy to use
Sleep diary and wakeup game are great features
I can definitely see this helping people improve their sleep habits
Option to track sleep without setting an alarm is nice
Set alarm to be your favorite song on your iPod definitely a plus

Cons:

Minor Bug: When on the Settings page if you press the Info tab it doesn’t do anything
The interface could be improved upon, especially the Info page

Version Reviewed: 1.2

Requirements: iPhone or iPod Touch; iPhone OS 3.0 or later

Chop Chop Ninja

Steve — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 03:38:27 +0000

Chop Chop Ninja by Gamerizon is a 2D side-scroller game with rich and colorful cartoon style graphics, slick animations, and unique controls. Move your character with no joystick or buttons. All you need is a finger to run, jump, and fight! These intuitive controls are really a joy to use, and you’ll get the hang of them real quick. Not only that but navigate through the levels by interacting with your environment and the enemies around you. See the video in action above for an overview of the application.

Chop Chop Ninja Features:

2D platformer adventure
Beat-em-up with frantic fights
Fun & Easy touch controls
Colorful cartoon graphics
Hidden objects to collect on each level
Replay levels to beat your time and score
Ten different environments to explore
Special attacks & power-ups
And many more surprises…

Hypertension Pro

Ryan Johnson — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 16:44:37 +0000

If you practice medicine and have been looking for a convenient pocket guide for diagnosing and treating hypertension then you may want to checkout Hypertension Pro. Created by SoftPsych LLC, this medical app provides physicians with clinical information regarding hypertension such as blood pressure and important factors related to hypertension, who’s most likely to suffer from hypertension, treatment overview, medications including dosage and side effects, lifestyle changes and more. It’s possible if you’re a physician that Hypertension Pro could quickly become your best friend.

I’m no doctor, but I did share this app with a friend of mine that’s in med school. Her reaction was, “I can see how it’d be useful”. But she also weighed in on how plain it looked and thought it could definitely use a face lift. So, seeing that I’m not a doctor I’m going to focus my review on the app’s usability, design, and layout.

As you can see from the images it’s working with a grey background and white textboxes. While navigating the app I felt like I had flashed back to the 90′s and was navigating forms within an Access database. It seriously looks just like that. I did find that the information appeared to be thorough and relevant to the topic, but spending more than a couple minutes at a time with this app can be sleep inducing. Keep in mind it’s intended to be a reference guide and not a visual masterpiece, but for the $9.99 price point I definitely expected a lot more.

Hypertension Pro isn’t all text though, there is a little bit of functionality built in. It includes interactive risk calculators for coronary, metabolic syndrome, body mass index (BMI), and stroke risk. For each you enter in patient specific data like age, blood pressure, sex, and existing medical conditions and it’ll calculate the risk for you which I can see being useful.

Overall I was dissapointed with Hypertension Pro. I expected a lot more. Having the word “Pro” in the name I expected something more visually compelling. I expected more data, more color, things like graphs and studies, and so forth. It doesn’t have any of this.

Pros:

Provides pertinent information for diagnosing & treating hypertension

Cons:

Is visually plain
Could be more user friendly
Overpriced

Version Reviewed: 3.1

Requirements: iPhone or iPod Touch; iPhone OS 3.1.3 or later

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StealthType SMS

Ryan Johnson — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 15:46:55 +0000

Ever found yourself in a situation where you needed to type a text, but didn’t want anyone to notice you doing it? If so, then you should take a look at StealthType SMS. Created by Cleverlike Corporation, this app allows you to type text messages without ever looking at the screen. Yeah, seriously! No this isn’t a voice recognition app, because obviously if you’re talking into your iPhone speaker it wouldn’t be very inconspicuous. Instead it’s an app designed for use while wearing your headphones. While giving the impression that you’re listening to music on your iPod, StealthType SMS provides you with an responsive keyboard that gives you audio feedback when you touch it (A-B-C-D). To send a stealthy text you just select one of your contacts, place your finger on the keyboard without looking and while continuing to press the screen, slide your finger from key to key until you hear the letter or option you’re looking for. Once you’ve found what you’re looking for just lift your finger to make that selection (W-a-z-z-u-p [Space] F-o-o-l). When you’re finished typing your no look message you’re ready to send a StealthType SMS.

Believe it or not this app actually works. I was able to type a text on my first try with my head turned and eyes closed. Everything within the app is communicated verbally the moment you launch it; “StealthType Activated”. To get started you first need to setup your contacts which requires looking at the screen. To add a contact, just choose someone from your iPhone contacts list and record yourself saying their name. Recording the name allows you to select it later without looking. You can add as many contacts as you like. The app home screen displays as many as 6 contacts without requiring you to page down. If you find that you use certain contacts more than others you can arrange them any way you like using the edit option on the contacts page. Once you’re all setup all you have to do is plug in your headphones, fire up the app, look away, and start touching the screen. StealthType SMS will pretty much do it all from there.

StealthType SMS definitely works. The one thing I didn’t like about this app was the actually sending of the text message. How so? Well, everything leading up to the actual sending of a text works as advertised. It may take a little while to get the hang of, but you can definitely pick a contact and type a perfect message without looking. However, to send the message StealthType SMS requires you to paste it into the standard iPhone SMS window and then press send. You definitely have to look to complete this step. So in the end, you can’t technically complete everything without looking.

I really like the concept of this app but I find some aspects of it contradicting. The fact that you have to wear headphones for it to work makes it seem conspicuous to me. Scenarios where I would want to be able to send a text without looking like I am is while in meetings, in school, while at dinner, that kind of thing. Putting headphones on in any of those situations would attract more attention then me looking down to type. So, even though it works really well, and totally does exactly what it says, I don’t really see people using this frequently. It’s probably more of a novelty than anything. That being said, if an update is made where you can send the text message from within the app without having to paste it on another page, then I think that’d be a major help and could see this being a really great app for the visually impaired.

Pros:

Works as advertised
Interface is designed well and functions perfectly
Unique concept

Cons:

Probably not something that most people would use frequently

Version Reviewed: 1.1

Requirements: iPhone or iPod Touch; iPhone OS 3.1.2 or later

Tap Fish

Ryan Johnson — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 17:46:55 +0000

Listen, if you love the idea of owning fish but can’t seem to keep them alive for long, and hate cleaning the tank, then it’s time to call it quits and get yourself some virtual fish. Tap Fish, created by Bayview Labs LLC, lets you own, buy, sell, and breed your own virtual fish. Once you get the hang of it you’re essentially in charge of your own aquarium. There are tons of different varieties of fish and multiple different tanks and levels that you can earn and buy. If you want to see what other people are working with you can visit neighboring tanks and over time if you level up enough your tank can become a featured neighbor tank.

Tap Fish offers 27+ exotic fish including killer whales, sharks, and sting rays, over 40 different tank accessories like plants, reefs, caves, and mermaids, and 50 tanks and levels. The way the game works is you gain experience the better you take care of you fish and the more your aquarium thrives. To get new fish, tanks, and accessories you need to either earn or buy coins. There are a variety of different ways that you can earn coins. You can breed fish to create new species and clean neighbors tank just to name a few. The more attention and TLC you give your fish, and the more efficiently you run your aquarium, the more experience you’ll earn and the more pimped out your tanks and fish collection will be. But, if you’re lazy and you just want to get to buying fish without earning them, you can purchase versions of the app that include anywhere from 25-150 fishbucks.

Overall Tap Fish is a decent game. If you’re into virtual world games like this then you’ll definitely enjoy it. Feeding the fish, breeding the fish, watching them grow, and accessorizing the tank can be fun if you’ve got enough fishbucks. Personally I’m not the biggest fan of apps that offer more points/bucks if you purchase tiered paid versions of the app. I prefer games that stick to making you earn points/bucks just by playing the game. I find games that go the tiered purchasing route make it too drawn out to earn your own points/bucks. So, since I’m not into buying the upgrades I typically lose interest in games like this pretty fast. Nonetheless, plenty of people enjoy these types of games. And as far as Tap Fish is concerned, it provides decent graphics, plenty of options, and without a doubt gives users an amusing and calming personal aquarium experience. If you like virtual world games then you should definitely try out Tap Fish.

Pros:

Fairly realistic personal aquarium
Ability to breed different species of fish makes it interesting
Ability to view other people’s aquariums is a nice touch

Cons:

It’s free, but not really; you’ll likely want to upgrade to a paid version to get more fishbucks

Version Reviewed: 1.01

Requirements: iPhone or iPod Touch; iPhone OS 2.2.1 or later

Jet Ball

Ryan Johnson — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 21:10:52 +0000

If you’re a fan of arkanoid style block-breaking games then you really need to check out Jet Ball. Take your standard brick-breaking game, subtract what you don’t like, and inject the good parts with steroids and you’ll get Jet Ball. Codefreeze, the app’s creator makes no effort to hide the fact that Jet Ball is a brick-breaking clone, and there’s no denying that once you play it that’ll be your first reaction. However after a few minutes with Jet Ball you’ll quickly realize how awesome this app is. Jet Ball capitalizes on some of the things that other brick breaking games have done wrong and as a result have created a fast paced, challenging, graphically beautiful, and thoroughly engaging gaming experience.

Jet Ball will stress you out and have you hooked all at the same time. It offers a ton of cool in-game features that enhance the game significantly and can quickly get you out of a pinch or steal a life away at a moments notice. Much like other arkanoid games there are tons of bonuses & minuses built into the game to make it more interesting. As you destroy levels you unveil things such as enhanced weaponry, shield, extra lives, and damage increasing balls. Likewise you also expose features that make the game harder (shorter pad, and smaller balls, faster pace, instant death). From a features perspective, it’s not a far cry from what else is out there, but it’s just done very well.

Previously I mentioned that Jet Ball capitalizes on what other brick breaking games do wrong. What did I mean by that? Well, some brick breaking games start out kind of slow and take a while to build up. Others are flooded with overindulging affects, and an annoying number of both pregame and in-game pop up messages. Not to mention in many cases the slider bar is often so close to the bottom of the screen that your thumb covers it up making it hard to see what you’re doing. Jet Ball doesn’t have any of these problems.

From a game-play and usability perspective Jet Ball really delivers. It’s menus are simple and clean, not littered with overbearing fluff and annoying pop-ups. It’s colors, graphics, and effects are crisp, clean, and on the money. They aren’t headache inducing like some others. The position of the slider pad in this game is absolutely perfect. It provides you with a circular spot to place your thumb and allows you to see the entire slider pad and the full gaming surface the entire time you play, which is ideal.

Key Features of Jet Ball:

65 spinning and moving levels
20+ different power ups & power downs
60+ different bricks and obstacles
3 difficulty levels
Current game auto save
Can listen to iPod while you play

One thing’s for sure, Jet Ball is a keeper. Comparing this side-by-side to other brick breaking games really makes it stand out. It’s a nice blend of classic arkanoid gaming, cutting edge effects, sounds, and graphics, natural feeling game-play, that’s elegantly delivered and without all of the over the top fluff. For arkanoid fans, this is a must have app. If you’re the test drive before you buy type then go try out the lighter Jet Ball Free version to see what this app is all about.

Palringo Instant Messenger Premium

Ryan Johnson — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 21:12:42 +0000

If you’re in the market for an all in-one chat app then you might want to checkout Palringo Instant Messenger Premium. Created by Palringo Limited, this app not only allows you to connect with your friends on multiple popular chat clients, but it also allows you to send voice or photo messages to your contacts for free!

Let’s face it we all use chat because we’re lazy. It’s a million times easier to type mindlessly on a computer than it is to pick up a phone and talk. Well, why not amplify the lazy factor and eliminate typing altogether! Sending voice messages on Palringo Instant Messenger Premium is really easy. All you have to do is hold down the audio button while you speak. When you’re done just let go and the message gets sent to your chat buddy. How easy is that! No matter what chat client your friends use they’ll be able to listen to your message. Sending photo messages is just as easy. Same process, just press the camera icon, take a pic with your camera or select one from your gallery and send it.

So how did Palringo perform? Well, overall it’s clear that this is a well designed and executed social networking app. The interface is clean and logical, it comes with a nice grouping of features, and provides users with a lot of support and “how to” information which is nice. I found most aspects of the chat functionality to work very well. However, for whatever reason the push notification feature didn’t appear to work for me. I also was unable to connect to my Yahoo and Facebook chat accounts despite numerous attempts. Facebook being the most important one for me. When I attempted to login to Facebook it essentially was treated as suspicious activity. When I later went to login to my account from a computer it made me answer a series of security questions and recommended that I change my password. Even after I confirmed with Facebook that it was a trusted source I was still unable to login. I can’t say this is something that everyone will experience, but obviously for me this was a less than optimal user experience.

I’m a big fan of the voice chat option that Palringo Instant Messenger Premium provides. From what I could tell it works very well. It definitely couldn’t be much easier to create and send than it is. However, I found that it may take a little trust and coordination for someone on the other end to listen to it. When you send a voice message a user receives a message to download software. As convenient and easy as that may be, I sent it to three different people without telling them exactly what it was and all of them elected not to download the software. So I’d say if you’re looking to use the voice chat option it’s probably a good idea to first tell whomever you’re chatting with what to expect when you send it. Perhaps if they’re also using Palringo Instant Messenger Premium they can listen to it without downloading any extras, but I wasn’t able to test with another Palringo user so I’m not sure if that’s the case or not.

Overall I like what Palringo Instant Messenger Premium has to offer. Unfortunately for me I wasn’t able to experience everything the way I would’ve liked to. Seeing that I was unable to connect to Facebook and the push notification wasn’t working for me I had to doc it a few points. If you want to try out Palringo minus a few of the bells and whistles that the premium app offers then you should checkout Palringo Instant Messenger. It’s considered the lite version and is completely free.

Pros:

Send text, voice, and picture messages to friends on top chat platforms for free
Includes location + google maps integration so you can see where your friends are
Includes push notifications so you can be logged into chats even when the app is closed
Works in both landscape and portrait mode

Cons:

Facebook treated this app as if it was a hacker trying to access my account
I was unable to connect to Yahoo and Facebook
Push notification did not work for me; not sure why

Version Reviewed: 2.9

Requirements: iPhone or iPod Touch; iPhone OS version 3.0 or later

News Addict

Ryan Johnson — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 19:21:09 +0000

Here’s a cool app that brings together all the news sources that matter into one convenient, super easy to use, news app. News Addict, by TapMode gives you one touch access to 41 of the most relevant news sites and aggregates them into an extremely clean and user friendly interface. Why mess around with creating a ton of bookmarks or opening eight concurrent Safari windows when you can access 41 of your favorite news sites with a single touch? Makes sense to me.

With News Addict, picking and viewing your favorite news site is as simple as scrolling through a single page and touching the one you want. You can choose from a wide variety of major news sources including all of the major newspapers, magazines, television channels, and web resources (The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Fox News Channel, CNN, Yahoo, Digg, and on and on and on). It’s jam packed with every resource that matters to a news junkie.

In addition to one-stop-shop access to all the best news sources, News Addict also provides some additional benefits that give it a leg up over using a standard browser. Depending on your viewing preference it supports both portrait and landscape viewing (nothing new or revolutionary here). While reading you get to see 25% more area than when viewing the same site in Safari (nice). News Addict also allows you to hide the full navigation bar and options menu so 100% of your iPhone screen can be pure news reading bliss (double nice). While hidden you can navigate back to a previous page just by touching the bottom left hand corner of the screen (ding ding ding). To invoke the full menu all you have to do is touch the small tab in the bottom right of the screen.

Another great feature recently added to News Addict is Tilt Scrolling. If you ever get tired of swiping your finger to progress down the page you can activate the Tilt Scrolling feature and simply angle your iPhone to scroll down or up a page. To ensure that you can choose the perfect angle for Tilt Scrolling, News Addict allows you to callibrate the app with a single touch. To callibrate you just hold the app at your preferred reading angle and then press the callibrate button. That’ll essentially be your ground zero. From there all you have to do is tilt your iPhone slightly forward or slightly backward to scroll up and down a page. I love this feature. It allows me to be even lazier while reading!

All in all I really like News Addict. It’s a super simple app that’s not laden with gobs and gobs of bells and whistles that requires a tech savvy user to operate. For people who use their iPhone to stay on top of the latest news, and typically do so by accessing multiple different popular news sites, News Addict without a doubt simplifies their daily routine. Just open, touch, read, and tilt and you’re soaking up the latest news with the least amount of effort possible. How lovely is that! If you’re obsessed with the news, and use your iPhone to consume it, then you should definitely check out News Addict.

Version Reviewed: 1.2

Requirements: iPhone or iPod Touch; iPhone OS 2.2.1 or later

Alpine Crawler

Ryan Johnson — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 18:45:02 +0000

Talk to any off road enthusiast and they’ll tell you there’s nothing better than bogging through the mud, scaling mountains, crawling over boulders, and winching buddies out of water. If you’re the type that enjoys off roading then you may want to checkout Alpine Crawler. Alpine Crawler, created by 3D Magic Kft., is a fun free game app that brings a little bit of the excitement of cross country vehicle racing directly to your iPhone or iPod Touch. This game pins you up against unpredictably bumpy, steep, and fluctuating terrain. You’ve got to get to the finish line as quickly as you can without getting stuck or inflicting too much damage on your vehicle. To advance in the game it requires pushing the limits between speed and safety. Drive too slow and you won’t advance, but make the slightest oversight and you’ll go crashing face first into the ground far far below.

If you’re a fan of driving and racing games than you’ll certainly find Alpine Crawler entertaining. It’s not the type of game that you can just floor the accelerator mindlessly and achieve good results. It’s a 2D style game so there’s no steering required, but the little bit of controls that you do have, accelerator and brake, you’ve got to master. The terrain varies by level. As you’d expect the further you advance the steeper and more unforgiving the terrain. Inclines are both steep and gradual. Often times they’re littered with moguls and sudden drop offs. Declines vary in degree, but for the most part include extremely severe drop offs that require expert braking and perfect speed to conquer.

Each time you launch into the air you inflict some level of damage to your vehicle when you land. The farther the fall and the more severe the landing area, the more damage your incur. Fatal damage and getting stuck are the two things that’ll end your game. You’re able to add additional health if you complete a certain amount of a level successfully. It’s extremely critical that you reach these points because in the more difficult levels you health disappears quickly.

As simple as this game is I found it to be pretty amusing. I’ve been playing it for several days now and seem to keep going back for more. The premise is very simple, but the accelerator begs for you to floor it. If you look closely the tiny driver reacts to the terrain. If you floor the accelerator his head flies back, if you crash into the ground his head whips forward. There’s nothing mind blowing about Alpine Crawler, but if you like racing games like I do you’re going to find it pretty amusing. Besides it’s free! There’s a higher quality paid version available as well called Alpine Crawler World. I haven’t tried it out yet, but I imagine it’s pretty fun.

Pros:

Catchy game-play, definitely amusing
Simple enough for even small children to play and enjoy
Fairly realistic in-game physics
It’s free

Cons:

Perhaps it’s a little short, but it’s hard to find fault when it’s free
Graphics are mediocre

Version Reviewed: 1.1

Requirements: iPhone or iPod Touch; iPhone OS 3.0 or later