Well, it hasn’t been long since the release of Tap Tap Revenge 2 but I am already going to review it. A short description you might ask? Try visually stunning. Tap Tap Revenge 2 keeps to the original Tap Tap Revenge while adding awesome new features, more songs and new amazing graphics.

Tap Tap Revenge 2 contains the same play style as the original, simply start up the APP, download a few songs for free, and start playing. However, unlike the original, there is a collection of new features such as multi-tap, visual indicators, a new career mode, and more. The onscreen visual indicators allow you to see statistics such as your current progress in the song and how close you are to earning more multipliers.

Career mode is a new section that allows you to track your progress through the game. It contains a collection of achievements. The achievements vary from extremely simple goals such as simply finishing a whole song all the way to lengthy or difficult ones such as playing 1,000 games or earning 100,000 points on a song.

The game includes a vast amount of improvements. One of the main and best improvements of the game are the graphics. Tap Tap Revenge 2 truly shows the amazing rendering capabilities of the iPhone or iPod Touch and surprisingly there is no loss of FPS or any lag. As you play the screen is filled with tons of amazing affects and the better you are at the game, the cooler looking everything becomes.

Along with the graphical improvements, another main improvement is the menus. The menus now display a variety of useful information. While looking through your collection of songs or downloading new ones, you can see the album artwork for the songs. Additionally, after finish playing a song, you can choose to go to the author’s website or download the song off of iTunes.

Unfortunately, such a great APP does have its down sides. Many times the APP crashed while either viewing my downloaded music library or trying to download more music. In fact, this happened a lot. I played this on an iPod Touch and had restarted it before playing like you should always do however this did not stop the problem. Although there were no crashes or any problems what so ever in game or at any other menus, this glitch made trying to find new music a frustrating task.

Overall, the Tap Tap Revenge 2 is purely amazing and is FREE on the iTunes App store so what are you waiting for, get it now!

I know, I haven’t posted in quite some time, but I plan to change that soon.

Now, what has been bugging me for a long time is the lack of truly good iPhone APP Store games. I have downloaded over $150USD of APP Store Games and most of them ended up being krapp. Now, maybe I am just a big critic however here are some aspects that I believe an iPhone game needs:

• Story line – A game always needs a storyline, this isn’t the 80’s or 90’s where you have to search in some hidden page in the game manual to find out why we are playing this game. The game has to want us to play it. While your at it, throw in a few plot twists!
• Play time – Finishing a game in 5 minutes is not fun. Finishing a game in 2 hours is not fun. I want to see a game that requires me to spend days playing it.
• Difficulty – The game has to be challenging. It should require the player to have to actually try hard when playing. Feel free to throw in a bit of frustration as that adds to the fun in the long run but not too much. A difficulty level selector is also a plus and allows the more experience and the more noobish to play a game and still be fulfilled and challenged.
• Content – Don’t be afraid to use a lot of space. Many people complain about space issues of many game out there. That is why iTunes allows users to load and unload APPs at will. Fill your game with content!
• Listen to comments – This is a given, if you supply a support email, actually answer it.
• Graphics – This is a hard subject. A game doesn’t have to have some extreme shaders or 3D graphics. Of course this doesn’t mean a game doesn’t need any graphics at all. Personal testing that I have perform have shown me that a game could look very well and professional with 2D 32×32 tiles and 2 or 3 sprites/tiles stacked on them. Such a method has been in use for years and can really be beautiful in the hands of someone that knows what to do with it.
• iPod Touch compatibility – Remember, not everyone has an iPhone. You will make more sales if you open a game to users of iPod Touches.
• Multiplayer – Whether its playing with or against your friends, everyone agree, multiplayer mode is always funner. COOP mode is also a GREAT way to meet new people and have fun with your friends.

Now, there are some games I think would be superior if a clone or a similar game was released. These games are…

• Diablo 1, 2 – Such a game would in my opinion be perfect on the iPhone. A hack and slash game like Diablo could perfectly use the capabilities of the iPhone while at the same time give DAYS of play time and coutless hours of replay value. You throw in coop mode and you have a #1 APP. I am really hoping to see a Diablo game in the future.
• Quake 1, 2/Doom 1, 2/Strife/Duke Nukem – Maybe its just me, but running down hundreds of enemies with a chainsaw or BFG is always fun. Coop would also be great on such a game. Now, its probably not possible to get away with such a slaughter in a porn shop like in Duke Nukem, but throw in RPG characteristics like in the classic RPG/FPS game Strife and you have one hell of a game.
• Warcraft 1, 2, 3 – Warcraft was always a fun game, full of action, story line, and tons of hours. Warcraft 2 did not require that much disk space on the PC and if I were Blizzard, I would of already port Warcraft 2 over to the iPhone. Who knows, maybe we can see a clone.

Finally, some APPs that are well made and deserve a mention. Most of these are very short though.

• LightBike – Great Tron based game, however it is too easy even on the hardest difficulty.
• Snails – Worms based clone, no real flaws here except it being a short game (which is what Worms is anyways).
• Payback – Great GTA clone. This is based on the original Grand Theft Auto 1 and 2.
• Tap Tap/NIN Edition – Two great games, I especially like the NIN one because I like Nine Inch Nails.
• Hero of Sparta – This game is very well made. 3D and full of action however is way too short.
• Crash Kart – Just like the original PSX versions.
• Spore – A big disappointment. Only contains the creature stage and honestly isn’t much fun compared to the PC version.
• Hydro Tilt – Fun marble game but short.
• Warfare Inc. – Great RTS game. Reminded me of Command and Conquer. Also contains TONS of downloadable user-created levels. Actually a great game with no real flaws.

Note: Are you a developer and think you have a great APP that I missed? Post it in the comments and I will surely check it out and provide individual feedback if requested.

Recently, I discovered an iPhone and iPod Touch review site called KRAPPS. Although KRAPPS reviews apps for the iPhone and iTouch, this website is not just like any review site out there. KRAPPS, standing for krazy apps, and outlines apps that are not always cool, but are unique, weird, crazy, and sometimes just stupid. Sure, everyone has played or at least seen a racing app, or an app that farts when you press a button, but have you ever seen a drunk dialing app or a finger sprinting app? KRAPPS has, and they would like to show you. So if you ever were stuck at a party without something to talk about, or are just bored, pull out some KRAPPS.

http://krapps.com/