= 4 stars

Control your Mac using this iPhone track pad / remote simulator.

The Good

• The touch screen trackpad has both left and right click buttons (and an option for three), double-tap to initiate a tap-and-drag, and multi touch — swipe with two fingers to scroll. Tap and hold on the “Keys” button in the lower menu bar to bring up an on-screen keyboard.
• A “scrolling” trackpad lets you swipe up and down to scroll up and down, and pinch with two fingers to resize a window. You can also activate “circular scrolling” that simulates an iPod click wheel.
• The “Launch Pad” contains up an app launcher where you can load up your favorite apps. Currently running apps are listed with white text, with the currently “forward” app in green. Quit any app by tapping the “x” icon at right.
• The app requires a helper app called Snatch Server to be running on your Mac. Setup was so easy, I can’t recall how I did it. Snatch Server works with both Mac and Windows.
• You can create your own remote layout using a remote control editor where you drag buttons and assign shortcuts, using a “record” feature. Actually, with AppleScript support, one could create a remote to for all sorts of things on your Mac besides just launching and controlling multimedia entertainment apps.
• Has support for user-created, custom remotes. Enterprising users have already made ones for Hulu, Plex, iTunes, Safari, VLC, Gmail, Google Reader, and even Adobe CS 3 apps. Below is a snazzy iTunes remote:

The Bad

• Save for some of the custom remotes, the overall interface doesn’t look as polished as AirMouse or other iPhone remote apps (stay tuned).
• “Quirky.” Don’t like the tap-and-hold on the keys icon to bring up the on-screen keyboard — wish it were more easily accessible from the trackpad(s). Applications must be running on your Mac before they appear on the iPhone app to be bookmarked. Remote customization feels odd: resizing buttons is difficult on the small iPhone screen, the editor could use a “duplicate button” and “align” option (for lining up several buttons). Installing custom remotes takes several steps. I’ve also gotten stuck in places, like double-tapping an icon on the bottom turns all the other bottom icons grey and it took me a while to figure out double-tapping on the same icon turns this off (this is a feature?).

Conclusion

Since hooking up a Mac Mini to the television I’ve been on a quest for a good iPhone computer control app. Snatch is a great contender. Despite the lack of polish and the feeling that some of its features aren’t as straightforward as they could be, the ability to create your own remote control layout essentially means the sky’s the limit — one could create a personal, peculiarly nutty remote layout that’s ideal for your own obsessive home entertainment needs. Recommended.

iTunes App Store Link:
iTunes App Store Link (Snatch Test):

= 4 stars

An array of multicolored snoods fill the screen. Use a gun to aim and fire a particularly colored snood upward. Three or more adjacent snoods of the same color are removed from the board.

The Good

• Simple gameplay of matching colored snoods and aiming the gun. Fired snoods can get stuck in odd patterns, blocking future moves, so aiming is of the essence.
• A few specially powered snoods introduce welcome variety: a “stone” snood explodes and takes out adjacent snoods, the “wildcard” snood transforms color based its neighbors, and the “rowbuilder” snood divides on impact to create more snoods. The last one seems more annoying than helpful.

The Bad

• The graphics are personally, rather off-putting. The little cartoon heads look like decapitated Snorks, and the metallic environment makes the game look like some sick scientific experiment. I would have preferred the snoods be jewels or some other shiny object.

Conclusion

Snood is a great game in just about every department, but the gross feeling I get from the graphics means personally, I won’t be playing this one repeatedly. That said, based on the addictive gameplay I’m probably in the minority here.

iPhone App Store Link:

= 5 stars

Tower defense style game where you must prevent waves of “creeps” from reaching the end of a path by setting up various armed towers with a limited amount of money.

The Good

• An excellent version of tower defense that shines in the details. The iPhone’s multitouch makes it really easy and fun to place towers — simply drag and drop them from the bottom row. The creeps march along a defined path that hints at certain types and arrangements of towers (straight lines are ideal for the laser turret). Tap the small timer in the lower left corner to send the next wave of creeps in immediately.
• Vector graphics in a style similar to old Atari games like Tempest, with tons of colors and crazy explosions that warp the playing field and sends sparks flying everywhere.
• Interesting sense of humor — there are jokes before each level, and when you lose the game taunts your failure with “you lose” “the creeps win,” etc.

The Bad

• Your side project of watching every episode of Star Trek before the premiere of the new movie is now moving ahead at warp factor not happening.

Conclusion

This is the best tower defense style game on the iPhone I’ve played yet — I am currently obsessed with it. Highly recommended.

iTunes App Store Link:

= 4 stars

Keep a grocery store stocked with various products as relentless, impatient shoppers do their thing.

The Good

• Pretty simple rules. Just guide a clerk with a shopping cart around to various empty shelves and display cases by tapping on them. Variety comes about through having to refill your shopping cart, clean up messes, and different types of customers. Customers indicate the next item they want to shop for via small thought bubbles. If they reach a shelf that is empty, a face icon shows them getting angrier and angrier.
• The graphics are charming and appealing, resembling The Sims. They’re much better than the hand drawn ones of Diner Dash. Also excellent is the background music.
• At the end of each level you get take the money earned and spend it improving products and upkeep of the store.

The Bad

• This game is on the easy side, then suddenly switches to insane. I got halfway through the entire game without much effort on my first day. But things get super crazy in the store once thieves start infiltrating. You have to switch from your usual tasks to tapping on a security guard whenever a thief starts stealing stuff, which can happen once every few seconds. And even with that switch to difficult, I polished off the whole game on the third day.
• Very similar to Diner Dash except the diner is replaced with a grocery store. Running a store is less fun than being the shopper, and perhaps a clothes store or some other retail outlet would be more fun than groceries.
• A superfluous subplot of some evil corporation told via comic book panel cut scenes.

Conclusion

A decent time management game with way-cute graphics being the best part.

iTunes App Store Link:

= 4 stars

Wooden Labyrinth 3D is essentially the same game concept as Labyrinth but with the addition of a third dimension — height. Tilt the iPhone to navigate a steel ball through a wooden maze while avoiding the holes.

The Good

• Satisfying graphics and game play. The steel ball has a decent weight, and the tilt sensitivity is very accurate, allowing you fine control of the ball’s direction and speed.
• The 3D effect is quite cool. You can make the ball jump by shaking the iPhone, or tapping the iPhone’s underside (my preferred technique). This ability to travel above the wooden board literally adds another level to the wooden board — you can jump over not-so-high walls, onto second-tier platforms, and over particularly annoying holes.
• Sound effects and background music.
• An options page where you can adjust the friction, sensitivity, calibrate the controls, and toggle the background music and sound effects.
• Ten level packs with ten levels apiece will keep you challenged until your balls roll away. There’s also a level editor in the works.

The Bad

• Tilting the iPhone also changes your perspective of the wooden maze, meaning the walls actually shift slightly. The resultant effect can sometimes feel a tad extreme, like rocking on a seafaring boat.
• I was able to pass several levels using a completely ridiculous jump-as-much-as-possible technique — think Mario.

Conclusion

If you’ve already played Labyrinth Lite, this 3D version of the same wooden maze concept is a pretty solid variation on the theme, with a lot of added mileage due to a large number of additional levels. Right now, it’s only $2.99 which is might sound a bit high, until you realize a similar non-3D Labyrinth game (which appears to be made by another developer?) is going for $6.99. As a result, I’d say Wooden Labyrinth 3D feels like a steel — ball that is.

iTunes App Store Link: