Hidden Gems: Week Four

Some apps get all the attention, sitting atop the top 25 list just begging to be downloaded. Some slip down the list and out into the iTunes wilderness, never to be heard from again. Hidden Gems is about giving these apps the attention they deserve.

Pocket Tanks (Free) / Pocket Tanks Deluxe ($4.99)

It's hard to follow up lasts week's killer gem, Wundrbar, but I'll give it a go with Pocket Tanks.

Pocket Tanks is one of my favorite games. I got my first copy almost seven years ago on my first Mac. Ever since the App Store was announced I wondered whether Pocket Tanks would be developed for iPhone. Last week my curiosity finally got the better of me and I e-mailed Michael P. Welch, the developer of Pocket Tanks, to see if he would ever make an iPhone version of the game. He got back to me. Not only had he been developing the iPhone version for the past eight months but it was mere days from hitting the App Store. I couldn't believe it. It would be like a die-hard Quentin Tarantino fan finding out the director was making Kill Bill 3 and it would be released within a week. Until Nintendo releases Super Mario Bros. 3 for the iPhone, which I know will never happen officially, this will be my favorite game to finally get an iPhone port. Now, all gushing aside, let's talk about why this is a hidden gem. iShoot is the king of artillery games on iPhone. It has been in the top 25 lists off and on for months and has an impressive feature set, including weapon creation and wifi multiplayer support in version 2.0. But, if you like artillery games or dislike iShoot, it's time to give Pocket Tanks a try. Pocket Tanks is a great mix of luck and skill. There are over 100 weapons in the deluxe version and 35 weapons in the free version.

You can play against the computer or pass and play with a friend. At the start of the game you choose from 20 weapons. You can either take turns picking which weapons you want, which requires strategy, or you can choose to distribute them randomly, introducing more luck into the game. The gameplay is as simple as choosing the weapon you want to fire, the angle and the power. Strategy is much more complicated. Some weapons arch overhead, some burrow through the ground and some shoot straight through anything.

While the controls are simple, it's incredibly difficult to find the exact combination of angle and firepower to really nail your opponent when it counts. In addition, you have to plan ahead and decide when you should try to bury your enemy under dirt or blow them to kingdom come with a nuke. If Welch follows the pattern he set on the desktop versions of the game, he'll expand on the game over time by releasing more weapon packs. After all, the great variety of weapons are what make this game so great.

When the app store was first announced two games came immediately to mind that I hoped would make it onto the App Store. First, was Chopper (which I covered last week because the developer released a free version of the game). Second, was Pocket Tanks. Of course, Chopper has been in and out of the top 25 lists for several months now and I've always wondered whether Pocket Tanks would be ported. Now that it's here, I couldn't be happier. It doesn't have the bells and whistles of iShoot, but it it's a faithful port of a great game with a ton of weapons. Pocket Tanks was really meant to be played on the iPhone to begin with.

Yelp! 2.0

Sure, Yelp has been downloaded a heck of a lot, but you might not have noticed Yelp 2.0 hit recently. If you skipped it or found it lacking in the past, now is the time to give it another go. One of the major drawbacks with Yelp (and quickly pointed out by pricey competitor Zagat To Go '09) is you have to sift through a bunch of really wordy reviews to find what's good (or bad) at a particular establishment. Two huge improvements in this release help solve that problem. First, you can write 140 character quick tips just like Twitter. Second, the app singles out common phrases found in multiple reviews (just like the web site) to help you find out what's really good or really bad about a place. Yelp's got some serious crowd-sourcing power behind it and currently represents the best chance of making it easier to find good places to spend your money. With 2.0, now you can contribute from your phone.

Weekly Hidden Gems

Screamer Apps

It's one of the oldest jokes on the Internet. Get a person to get very focused on their computer screen, turn the sound way up and then scare the living crap out of them with a screaming face from The Exorcist. There were no less than three screamer apps released this week - Scary Puppy ($0.99), 3 2 1 Scream Lite (Free), Screamer ($0.99). Upon further inspection of the app store, there appear to be many of these apps released over the past several weeks. I don't know how I missed these before or why it took so long for them to hit the App Store, but these are the new fart apps - nearly worthless gag apps that fulfill a single purpose. Here, it's to scare the crap out of someone. I paid for Scary Puppy and was extremely unimpressed, but I'm sure there's a great screamer app out there. Here's one of the crueler (or funnier, depending on much of a jerk you are) examples of what can happen to someone using one the Prank Box (links to iTunes) screamer apps which try to get you to complete a task requiring intense focus:

I'm absolutely dying to see the video of someone getting scared out of their wits by one of these apps and then tossing it at a wall, decimating the iPhone in the process. If you have tried any of these out, let us know in the comments what's good and what's bad. We need to know before this joke gets lame. And it will get lame.

Biplane ($0.99) / Biplane Lite (Free)

A 3D flying game that has great motion controls, wonderful sound and decent graphics. Fly around as a raccoon and try to destroy the enemy. Consider giving the free app a try.