DoubleTake! for the iPhone and iPod Touch Video Review

Maybe I was just the product of a quiet childhood, but I remember many nights as a little kid on the living room floor playing Concentration, the classic memory game. DoubleTake! brings the same style of gameplay to the iPhone and iPod Touch, with a few twists.

DoubleTake! (their exclamation point, not mine) offers a few different play modes, mostly based on whether each round is timed. As you play, new cards appear, while others change places on the board. That kind of little extra wasn't possible from the little cardboard cards I remember.

While the extra features are nice, the game seems overpriced at its current $2.99 in the US store.

Here's a look:

DoubleTake! in the App Store.

Vizati for the iPhone and iPod Touch Video Review

Not every app tries to wow you with impressive graphics, cool music, and whip-fast gameplay. Every once in a while, it's time for a break from the hurried pace of most iPhone apps. Enter Vizati. Vizati presents a series of puzzle games, based on rotating the game board to move colored stones properly in a limited number of moves.

The game has a weak (and not really needed) story line for the characters watching you solve the puzzles, and nice painted backgrounds. Overall though, it is intended as a calmer, gentler app in which the goal isn't to fly through the puzzles, but rather to take a moment to breathe and enjoy the challenge at hand.

Here's a look:

Vizati in the App Store, or the lite version.

NovaRift: Arena Video Review

NovaRift: Arena takes the gameplay of astreroids, and mashes it up with a top-down shooter like Galaxian, throwing in a healthy dose of network play at the same time. While gameplay is fine, the tiny ship, and even tinier enemies make it more difficult than it needs to be.

Also, while the networked play with built-in chat brings more of a console feel of the game, I couldn't find anything worthwhile, (or even fit to print)in the chat within 20 minutes. You might want to try the lite version first.

Here's a look:

NovaRift: Arena in the App Store.

Gyrotate for the iPhone and iPod Touch Video Review

It seems like there's no shortage of games loosely based on, or outright cloned from, Bejeweled. Some merely change the objects from jewels into other things like fruit or coins. However, every once in awhile, a variation on the same type of play stands out from the crowd. Enter Gyrotate.

Gyrotate is Bejeweled with a spin. Literally. The game board consists of a series of concentric squares. You move (or rotate) each square with your finger to align four or more of the same shape to eliminate them from the board. Each round has specific shape goals, and a timer.

This is one of the few Bejeweled-like games that actually rises above the original. The rotation of pieces add a new dimension, and makes the game feel fresh and challenging.

Here's a look:

Gyrotate in the App Store.

iWeather Lookup for the iPhone and iPod Touch Video Review

I can't wait to tell the grandkids I once lived in an age before The Weather Channel: that there was a time when knowing the current weather was near impossible (beyond going outside) and knowing what the future held involved a woefully outdated newspaper forecast, or a forecast on the radio sandwiched between ads and an annoying DJ (I used to be one, so I can say that). My, how times have changed. The weather app sector is probably one of the ten most competitive areas of the app store. Today we look at one of the top contenders: iWeather Lookup.

While other apps give you the same basic info you can find in other forms, iWeather Lookup goes beyond that, giving you moonphases, sunrises & sunsets, dewpoints, and average temps along with the three-day forecast, all on one cluttered screen. Additionally, another screen will give you radar, infrared, and even webcam info for that city. (See our bad webcam example in the video review.)

The cluttered, information-overload layout of the app won't be attractive to all, but to the weather afficionados who want the most information in one glance, iWeather Lookup delivers.

(iTunes link)

Here's a look: