If you’ve ever played Magic: The Gathering, you’ll be remotely familiar with the basics of this game on the card playing level, but the game doesn’t end there. With two modes of play you can either dig right into the dueling or you can adventure into the world of Orions. Each option offers you plenty of entertainment for whichever play style you prefer. When you do start to battle, you start with a set number of points in each of the six different spell categories and a list of cards to cast. These cards range from creatures to effects and make the game very interesting. There’s only room to cast five creatures at a time, so keep that in mind.

If you decide to play the adventure mode this game offers, each battle is going to represent attacking another Orion or leader who occupies the area you’re heading towards. You’ll also have your own home area where you can add buildings and other features that will enhance your cards and the number of points you have in each spell category. Basically, you’ll have a way to boost your battles remotely without having to use any cards.

Orions: Legend of Wizards is a really fun game that has a little bit of a learning curve. Expect to sit down with the tutorial for a bit before you fully understand how to play this game. Once you get a hang of it, prepare to lose quite a bit. Eventually you’ll start wining a match here and there, but until then, don’t give up and learn from your mistakes. If you’re looking for a good strategy card game for your iPhone, Orions is it.

From the brushed-metal menus to the functional HUD, the entire product screams speed. For instance, you’ll breeze right through the perfunctory car and level select menus that seem to take forever in other games. Brake and gas pedal buttons flank the two bottom corners of the racing display; we found it best to keep our thumbs very close by. As in the best console racers, you’ll be pressing both at the same time quite frequently. In the unlikely event that you have time to glance at the top of the screen during a race, you’ll find compact race-status bar to let you know where you are in relation to the others. Fastlane is also super-efficient when it comes to load times and battery usage, which surprised us, given its high-fidelity graphics.

Look at that dynamic lighting.

The racing physics are wonderful. We found ourself brushing the brake and sailing through perfectly executed drifts, smashing our fingers on the gas during straightaways, and generally moving the iPhone much more than was probably necessary. Your car has real heft and speed, and all of it feels within your control. Learning how to take curves and maintain speed through bends will take a lot of work, but it’s a testament to the game that it’s a progress of your skill, and the depth here is a definite positive. Our mention of Gran Turismo isn’t accidental; everything from the pristine cars (they’re not damaged during races, and if you take a brake-heavy approach, a voice will chide you to race as if insurance premiums aren’t on your mind) to the required diligence calls to mind that PlayStation masterpiece.

In case we haven’t made it clear already, we’ll say it again: Fastlane Street Racing is a hard game. You will have to earn every one of your victories. The AI cars will take better lines than you will, they’ll nudge you out of and into turns, and they’ll cut you off mercilessly. The 12 unlockable courses are beautifully realized, but even the simplest are challenging. We loved the selection of 10 vehicles, and how they were ranked not only by speed, but also by balance and acceleration. Here’s it worth noting that while you can of course pick the overhead view to race (we suggest you do to keep an eye on your car), Fastlane also offers you the chance to skim along ground with an invigorating strapped-to-the-hood camera angle. It’s a fun way to tour the lovely tracks.

Fastlane’s presentation is technically masterful. The graphics have the best combination of frame rate and acuity of any racing game we’ve played on the iPhone. The action never seems to dip below an incredibly smooth 25 fps or so. We were also unexpectedly thrilled by the realistic engine noise. In other games, a high whine or a comically low rumble often stand in for the engine’s rev, so the purr of Fastlane’s supercars was music to our ears. Outside of the pitch-perfection of the sound effect, it’s useful to the player–it helps you keep tabs on speed, and thus turns and braking. The audio tracks are generic techno that’s best turned off, though you can select one of the few tracks if it catches your ear.

Overall, Fastlane Street Racing is a marvelous racing game that experienced gamers should love. The gameplay is rock solid, the courses are interesting and challenging, the cars are beautiful, and the sound effects are great. Nevertheless, we can’t recommend this to everyone. It requires a beady-eyed concentration that infrequent or less intense players may consider more work than play; the races are on the long side, and it takes real effort to even learn how to corner correctly. We would like to see the developer make a few concessions to less experienced players to improve the title’s accessibility.

When you first load up the game, make sure you’re holding your iPhone parallel to the ground with it facing up. You may need to tilt it a little bit, but holding it any other way will cause you to spin in circles and probably make you sick. You’ll notice first that there are no opponents in this game. That’s because it’s more of a deathmatch game then anything else. Unfortunately at the time of this review we were not able to test out if local multiplayer worked.

One of the first things you’ll notice when you’re running around the level is that movig and jumping at the same time requires two buttons on the right side of the screen to be pressed at the same time. This is really awkward and makes the possibility of jumping and firing while moving even more impossible. You’ll also notice that the movement controls are way too sensitive. This is surely something that is a result of the game being nearly a direct port over to this platform.

The concept behind this game and porting it to these devices is an excellent one. When a more iPhone centric version of this app comes out, it will definitely fly up the top apps list. Unfortunately, in its current state, it’s just another app that provides you with a great example of the iPhones potential.

First up, I’d like to discuss the price. Just to put it in some perspective. Yes, it’s ‘expensive’ by App Store standards (7,99 USD / 5,99 EUR), but it’s still less then what you pay for a real deck of Uno cards. (9 Euros at my local toy store, 9 USD on Amazon.com)

I’ve played Uno quite a bit. My previous experience includes the Xbox Live Arcade version of this game. I enjoyed many a fine hour, playing with others online as well as custom-rules matches against the computer players. In short, I know how to play Uno — and what to look for in an electronic version.

Here’s my thoughts.

Gameloft’s Uno is a very colorful, faithful Uno game that borrows heavily from the XBLA version. The overall production value is excellent, as I’ve come to expect from Gameloft games. The menu layout and depth is excellent. Plenty of sound options as well as tutorials and assorted greeblies.

The inclusion of tutorials is very nice. The game offers up good game tips as well as basic strategy. First time Uno players should be able to pick-up-and-play just fine.

We’ll start with gameplay in the ‘Quick Play’ mode. A basic-rules game of Uno, against three AI players. The actual gameplay is very much like the XBLA version, and I felt right at home. Your hand is at the bottom of the screen, with cards selected by either double-tapping them or ‘swiping’ them to the discard pile. You can sort through your hand by swiping left or right. Grabbing a new card is as simple as tapping on the deck. Other functions like ‘challenges’ are handled by large, friendly on-screen buttons. Sound wise, there are some voice-prompts as well as the usual ‘swishy’ sound effects that you’d expect from a card game.

The landscape graphics are bold, colorful and match the ‘feel’ of a family oriented card game. There are options for different backgrounds, but I didn’t see anything like specialty decks (I.e. the 25th anniversary deck of the XBLA version)

Moving on in the menus, you’ll find ‘custom rules’ modes, that allow you to play in whatever variety you want. Me, I like some progressive penalties, as well as draw-and-play. I’m mighty good with the Draw-2′s so better watch out

Next up is the ‘Tournament’ mode. Tournament pits you against other AI players in a knockout battle (or so I gather, from quick glances…) In keeping with the XBLA version, there are some good unlockables and achievements to be found!! You can unlock new player icons, backgrounds, and some puzzle pieces. Everything is tracked by stats as well. Very good depth for a basic card game. The unlockables should add some decent replayability.

Now for the good stuff — multiplayer. You get local WiFi play (i.e. several phones/touches on the same network), pass-around play (i.e hand the device to friends, and pass it around) and the cherry on top: actual online gameplay!! I haven’t tried it yet, so I’ll cover that later.

That about covers the basics. I’ll probably be playing a lot of Uno over the next few days

My first thoughts so far: Gameloft’s Uno is an excellent showing. Well produced, with all the modes and options you’d expect. For less the the price of an actual Uno deck, you get a polished electronic version with added online gameplay. If you like the XBLA version, you’ll love having it on your iPhone or Touch. Money well spent.

WARNING: IT DOES NOT CURRENTLY WORK ON IPOD TOUCH.

Hopefully a future update will fix that..

Guitar Rock Tour is an app for the iPhone and iPod Touch that allows you to play  both guitar and drums. While the name is misleading and we’ve seen games like Tap Tap Revenge come through the App Store already, this game manages to pull off the Rock Band feel very well for an iPhone app.

This game is a lot of fun and the music selection isn’t bad either. It’s odd to hear covers of some songs on that list, especially Boys Like Girls, but to get the tracks how they want them, sometimes the bands just aren’t available to re-record. If you’re a fan of Guitar Hero or Rock Band, definitely check this game out.

Scoops is a fun accelerometer based game for the iPhone and iPod Touch. In this game, your goal is to catch as many scoops of icecream as possible. You’re armed with an icecream cone that sways left to right as you tilt your phone and all you need to do to get the high score is avoid the vegetables.

Scoops is a really fun puzzle game that is very easy to get into. It seems really simple and it’s surprising that you don’t lose anything for missing icecream until you start missing a lot of them in a row. The sensitivity of the accelerometer lets you play this game a little more incognito then other games of this type, so definitely check this out.

mattrich over at MacThemes created this theme.
Here’s the original thread, you can find all the extra/new icons HERE

I have recieved permission from mattrich to post this here.

Click to Download

There’s also an Icon pack available with 120+ icons
http://www.mediafire.com/?biqtmzfnyti

Credit to the makers.

If you think you’re talented enough, there is also a PSD available.
No 5 minute jobs.

Enjoy.