@tossrStu: Mmm—the "this is great! *" reviews really irritated me until I started ignoring them, at which point the entire problem went away. Like Amazon and other places with reviews, there's always going to be this kind of problem, exacerbated on the App Store due to the immediacy angle. This is why we really need some decent third-party review content. Unfortunately, due to the pricing of App Store content, publishers aren't remotely interesting in backing anything in print (although, interestingly, MacFormat now has full-page adverts from companies making App Store products), and so the web's the only place this'll happen. To date, only Slide to Play really seems to have got this right, with Touch Arcade being good for news and Pocket Gamer not having a bad crack at a 'magazine' approach.
One thing I didn't mention in my post, which I should have done, is that the low price/poor understanding of value has also led to a huge lack of patience on the part of OS X gamers. Because a game 'only' costs a quid, people play for five minutes, get pissed off, and then stomp off to the App Store to post a "this is POO" review. Clearly, they're not up for a challenge with something wonderful like Eliss and instead want to be dragged through by the hand in ten minutes (at which point they'll instead bitch that the game doesn't last long—sigh).
Quote: I've just bought hexagonal Bejewelled-but-not-necessarily-matching-in-a-straight-line game Azkend for 59p; all the reviews I saw (on websites that is, not the App Store; hopefully they're free of "publisher intervention") said that it was good when it was $3 so it's a bit of a steal at this price. First impressions are good; very polished and plays well.
It scraped a 4 on iPhoneTiny at $3. It's polished, a good 'time passer', but a bit easy until the very end of the quest, and not terribly exciting. For 59p, it's a steal though. Hell, even at a fiver it'd still be recommended.
Atrocity Exhibition wrote: I paid a 'MASSIVE SHOCK HORROR' £5.99 for Tiger Woods which 'feels' really expensive in AppStore terms, but realistically, I binned twice that on crappy Spectrum games back in the day, when £9.99 was an absolute fuckload of cash. (Two weeks paper round wages, in fact.)
It's a shame more people don't remember that, or that they don't think about the crap on DS that's £20 and is never updated. Got Settlers for DS? Well, you're fucked! There's a bug that means you can't complete the bloody thing! Got a buggy game for OS X? Chances are the dev will get an update out and it won't cost you extra.
Malabar Front wrote: I'm still not sure I understand how applications are sorted on the App Store in the 'Top…' sections, either.
I don't think anyone's managed to figure out how Apple compiles any of its charts, although at least it's not on ratings or sales alone. Often, what Apple comes up with is a genuinely useful set of 'top' or 'chart' apps, and even wee indie retro titles like Saucelifter get the nod now and again.
Anyway, some quick recommendations of stuff I've not yet reviewed on iPhoneTiny, in a BEExclusive (or something):
NLogFree: Freebie analogue synth. Good fun for pratting about with.
AirportMania: Kind of like a cartoonish side-on Flight Control. Occasionally annoying controls but a fun game and only 59p.
ColorSplash: Neat colour-isolation tool for photos.
Factbook: Popular source of info about nations. It's 59p and works offline.
QuadCamera: Really fun camera app that takes quickfire multiple shots and then pieces them together in various formats.
TonePad: Odd little time-based musical toy.
Atrocity Exhibition wrote: iphonetiny is a magnificent site, but I suppose Craig can only do so much hence a lot of gaps on there.
Eurogamer or some other proper games site really need to pull their fucking fingers out when it comes to the iPhone.
Ultimately, iPT is also going to be biased towards things that make me go "ooh, interesting" and whatever I can get promos for. Unless I get some advertising in, there's no way I'm splashing out a tenner on a game just to review. And while certain companies are absolutely fantastic for supporting people like me (shout-outs in particular to Namco, PopCap and TAITO from the 'big boys'), many aren't interested.
As for Eurogamer, I sounded them out a while back about doing iPhone stuff. They politely declined, saying they intended to do everything internally.
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The phone works intermittently or not at all. It's fine on wifi.
