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- PadGadget Daily App Deal – 8 iPad Apps on Sale
- Legendary Wars HD – iPad Game Review
- SpeechTrans Ultimate Powered by Nuance – iPad App Review
- TripList – iPad App Review
| PadGadget Daily App Deal – 8 iPad Apps on Sale Posted: 08 May 2011 09:48 PM PDT
For today’s Daily Deal we’ve found eight great apps to add to your iPad collection. We have five productivity / utility apps and three game apps in today’s bundle. We used our PadGadget Apps Tracker to find these great deals and we’ll continue to look for the best app deals as they pop-up. Some of these apps are up to 80% off, so be sure to check them out because they are on sale for a limited time.
We use our PadGadget Apps Tracker to constantly monitor the App Store to find the biggest price changes on iPad apps. Our editorial team goes through the data, picks the best deals on the most interesting apps and then brings them to you on a regular basis. All app prices are checked at the time of posting but prices are subject to change without notice. When developers put their games on sale it’s usually for a very limited time, often 24 hours or less, so be sure to check pricing on iTunes before making a purchase. » Related posts:
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| Legendary Wars HD – iPad Game Review Posted: 08 May 2011 04:34 PM PDT
There are countless defend this or that type games in the App Store, where you have some kind of minion that gathers resources, which you then use to build up an army to defend or attack whatever it is you're championing. It's an overdone genre, but Legendary Wars manages to stand out with multiple gameplay modes that are incorporated into the main campaign. The game starts out like many others – you're in a generic kingdom you must defend from generic enemies while gathering the pieces of a shattered sunstone, which will magically eradicate all evil. There's not much in the way of plot, so if you're into story lines, this will be a disappointment. You begin by deploying your miner, named "Miney" to gather crystals from your mine. Every time Miney scrounges up a crystal, you tap on it to collect it. When you've collected enough, you're able to build your first defensive unit to defend your castle from the hordes of approaching skullys and zombies. Yes, everything does have a cutesy name. Over the course of the game, you'll battle skullys, zombies, wolfys, vamps, and more, with your elfys, dwarfys, and knightys. To spawn the unit, you tap the icon on the lower lefthand side of the screen. More powerful units take more crystals to build, and thus take longer. So you must decide whether you want a large army, or a powerful army. Each level will take a different combination to beat, which is typical of this kind of game. At the end of every level, you gain crystals for winning. These crystals are used in the armory to upgrade all of your units, plus the castle. There are three lanes that your units can be sent to, and to choose, you move the blue arrow with your finger. Units can switch lanes to battle approaching enemies at any time with a quick swipe. However, this takes a lot of micromanaging and furious tapping. There are controls to send all of your units forwards, backwards, or to make them stand still. If the micromanagement is difficult, there is an option to have your army auto-attack whatever enemy is closest to them, which alleviates the need to constantly move your units from lane to lane. In this mode, though, my army was not very bright at all. If a unit was attacking from behind or right on them and I happened to click the forward attack button, they would walk forward regardless and shamefully die with their backs full of arrows. Luckily, there are other game modes which relieved the frustration of trying to direct my hapless minions in battle. The side scrolling levels allow you to control a single unit, and provide controls for changing lanes, jumping, and killing enemies. This was a great use of the separate lanes, which I admit, had me confused in normal gameplay. It didn't usually make sense to separate my minions into separate lanes and have some standing around twiddling their thumbs while others died. There are also levels where you control a champion and a few other minions, with the goal of protecting your champion until the end. These levels were entertaining and challenging, and a very welcome break. I really liked the graphics in Legendary Wars – they are colorful and well done in a charming, cartoony way. From the main menu, you can play any of the game modes once they are unlocked from the main campaign: endless defense, side scrolling, and survival. You can earn crystals in each of these modes that will allow you to upgrade units in the campaign mode, which is a great feature. If you're ever stuck on a difficult level, you can take a break, do something else, and earn currency which will help you beat the level (through upgrades) when you return later. There are leaderboards and plenty of fun achievements to be had. I spent some time just unlocking those, as they were fun to do and allowed me to explore some of the other elements of gameplay. This is a solid lane defense game. It took a lot of work to properly control all of my units, but I did get the hang of it enough to progress quickly through the game. There's a lot of content and extra modes that make this game enjoyable and different from the average defense type game.
What I liked: The different modes of gameplay broke up the repetitiveness of waiting for crystals, directing units, and defending my castle. I particularly liked the side scrolling levels where I controlled a single unit. What I didn't like: Controlling my units was frustrating most of the time, especially towards the end of each level when mobs were spawning constantly and my units wouldn't switch lanes fast enough or intelligently attack – organizing my archers behind my knights was always an irritation. Better AI would be great, as would the ability to automatically have them move into different attack formations. To buy or not to buy: The iPad version is just $.99 right now, which is a steal. If you like castle defense type games, this is a very good choice, especially if you like to micromanage.
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| SpeechTrans Ultimate Powered by Nuance – iPad App Review Posted: 08 May 2011 03:54 PM PDT
When the app is first loaded you are able to choose your input language as well as the output language. If there is any question of the diversity of this app, you can choose from English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Polish, Chinese, Korean, Dutch, Swedish, Arabic or Japanese. You can also choose between male and female voices for translations. Once you have chosen your languages for translation you are brought to a screen that offers two methods of translation: speaking into the device or typing into the given text field. I found that speaking into the device was reasonably accurate, though occasionally it did miss a word or there were slight errors in the interpretation. Overall it was very impressive and pictured myself in the streets of a foreign country and allowing one of the locals to speak into my iPad so that I can read or listen to the translation in English. Recording time is limited to 55 second blocks, but this provides plenty of time for most phrases and all translations are saved automatically to a history log so you can refer back to them later. Value added features, as if anything else were required, allow you to integrate with Facebook (dictate status updates or speak with individuals in other languages), send out tweets through Twitter, cut and paste text from other applications as well as being able to e-mail yourself the translated text and/or audio files. For the purchase price, 400 transcriptions are preloaded, but you can purchase more in-app. Text to speech translations are unlimited.
What I liked: This is the kind of app that turns your iPad or iPhone into a tool more than a toy. I especially love that you can speak into the device itself but that you can also type when that is more appropriate or useful. What I didn't like: Some translations were a bit difficult to understand when listened to over the iPad and iPhone speaker. I found Japanese and Chinese in particular often sounded almost garbled. There is also a requirement for this app to have network access via WiFi or 3G/EDGE, which may be a problem when traveling. To buy or not to buy: If you are planning a trip anywhere you don’t speak the language, or if you have met somebody you want to communicate who speaks another language, this app is indispensable and worth every penny of the cost. It is also important to note that while the app may seem expensive, purchase entitles you to free lifetime updates with any new languages added.
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| Posted: 08 May 2011 02:44 PM PDT
This app boasts a very simple user interface, and it does deliver. It is very simple to create trips and assign packing lists to each. There is an included list of 160 items that are most packed by individuals, but you can also add your own. You can also customize each item by categorizing it and assigning a quantity.
There are a lot of details that can make this a valuable tool, such as being able to assign each trip a start date and organize them accordingly. You can also assign an icon to represent each trip, so you can identify them at a glance. For somebody like me, traveling with two small children, this app could prove indispensable. Making sure I don’t forget our plane tickets while I try to to remember all of the odds and ends and comfort items the kids need sounds like a load off my mind. Similarly, how many times have you had the nightmare before a big trip that you got all the way to the airport without your passport? Or worried that you would end up at your business conference with extra socks but not your presentation?
What I liked: I appreciate that you can organize your packing and tasks, and mark them as done when they are taken care of. What I didn't like: It would be nice to be able create trip templates for trips that are to different locations (perhaps even different types of travel) but that require the same packing and preparation. To buy or not to buy: While you could do everything this app does with a to-do list, this is a handy way to keep good track of what preparations and packing you have done and still need to do. If you travel a lot or you are like me and need to remember oodles of odds and ends for your kids, it is worth the price.
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Legendary Wars has been available on the iPhone for a few months, but now there's a native iPad version of this highly rated castle defense game, that plays even better than the original, thanks to a larger screen and more control over your army.
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