New Apps Discussed on December 6th, 2009:

1. AppButler – App Organizer – $0.99 – A really neat app that organizes your apps in a manner that is pretty close to that of the Categories app that many Jailbroken iPhone users already have. The sense of organization is very good and a lot of the extra organization features like indexes, page numbering, and additional icons (that you can even customize) are very solid.
2. Project Phoenix - $1.99 – Great twin-stick shooter where you control a tank trying to shoot and blow up all the opposing tanks and vehicles on 7 large maps. Great 2D graphics, a large amount of upgrades to choose from, and an incredibly smooth framerate make this one of the best games I’ve played on the iPhone this year. It’s a short hour to play though, but I loved every minute of it. I cannot wait for the additional levels and features to be released in an update. A very close choice for my App of the Week. .
3. Song Summoner – The Unsung Heroes Encore Lite - Free Lite version or $9.99 Premium version – Square Enix is starting to win us over with each release and Song Summoner for the iPhone. Based on the original Song Summoner for the iPod, where the gimmick was that listening to your music would level up your characters, this sequel follows the same concept and employs a fully-polished tactical RPG at your fingertips. The whole game is so professional and so slick that we are just starting to forgive Square Enix for Crystal Defenders. Definitely check out the Lite version first as the $10 price point is a bit steep, but if it were $10 on any other gaming system, it’d be an instant bargain.
4. Asphalt 5 FREE – Free Lite version or $6.99 Premium version – Great looking arcade racer with easy controls that made me feel right at home with console versions of other racing games. I was surprised by how easily I was able to pick up and handle this racer. The Premium version gives you over 30 cars, more racing options, multiplayer through BlueTooth and Online, and the ability to play your iPod songs in-game.
5. Voltron – $3.99 – The officially licensed game for Voltron is here. Pilot mechanical lions, defeat Robeasts, avoid obstacles and even marvel at the clever Pause Menu audio as you go through the Voltron story with sharp graphics and nostalgic presentation.
6. Beat It!- $2.99 – Another quality game release from Glu, Beat It! is a game of Simon Says where you try to figure out the beats to different instruments from the original track. There’s a sense of musical dissection that I never experienced in other rhythm games and the presentation, an 8-bit graphical world of little details, is a marvel to look at. The presentation is worth the price tag alone.
7. iHulu – Free on Jailbroken iPhones only – Allows you to stream Hulu shows straight to your iPhone, even on 3G. It seems sketchy, and not all the shows on Hulu are available, but we’ll take what we can get for now. Note the link goes to the dev team’s Twitter feed.
8. Stair Dismount – $2.99 – From the team that brought you Zen Bound comes this cruel physics simulator in which you push a dummy down a flight of stairs and observe how much damage is done to the body. There’s a decent number stairways to push the dummy down, but the sense of extreme carnage and pain just doesn’t feel right here. It’s all over very quickly and left me a bit disappointed. It’s well-polished, but a bit pricey at $3.
9. geoSpark – $0.99 – From the developers of Harbor Master and geoDefense comes another quick and frantic casual game that will put you in the middle of quick decisions and intense action. Prevent sparks from colliding and chain similar sparks together to blow them up and gather massive points. It’s quick, frantic, and addicting.
10. Slime Ball Lite – Free Lite version or $1.99 Premium version – A simple volleyball game in which you bounce a ball back and forth over a net. Controls are basically move and jump, but there’s some physics built into the ball that allow for some slick motion. The Premium version includes Bluetooth multiplayer and more levels, which are always more fun.

Magellan RoadMate 2010 North America - $79.99 – Bob reviewed the Magellan RoadMate over the course of the Thanksgiving weekend and didn’t have much positive news. The app feels unfinished, likely to rush it for the holiday season, though we suspect, like many of the early iterations of the other GPS apps, that future updates will clean up the bugs and provide more features. There was one feature that really stood out, the volume control based on the speed of the vehicle, but the vehicle speed was never really properly interpreted, making this feature moot for the time being. Bob’s additional spreadsheets, audio notes, and screenshots will later be available on the GPS Roundup Report page.