No, this is not a new XBox Live game, it's actually an old one and I cannot believe that Ewan left this one for me for so long - we're both flight sim nuts! As it turns out, Rise of Glory is as much a game as it is a 'simulation', but it's none the worse for that and straddles the divide between the two genres pretty well. In short, it's World War I acrobatic duelling, with planes everywhere, frantic rolling and diving and firing and... generally trying to survive! Somewhat surprisingly, the biggest flaw in Rise of Glory turns out to be the size of your right thumb and its relation to your phone's 'Start' key...
Jewel Tower is a fast paced block building game, but unlike the Tetris genre, the aim is not to make as many lines as possible and keep the game grid as clear as possible, you're asked to build your stack of bricks as high as possible. And when you manage to get to the required height, you'll move up a level and be asked to build a higher tower from scratch. Oh and it's against the clock.
There are a lot of titles out there that take Flight Control as their inspiration. Guiding aircraft down to a safe landing seems to be a rather popular past-time on a mobile device. Many of them go for the Flight Control approach and hope that nobody notices, or they can get away with it as long as possible. Flying Development Studios have taken the other approach, added a twist to the game, and released it for the world to judge. You know what? It's not that bad.
High Dynamic Range (HDR) is one of those specialist photography areas that 'captured' popular acclaim as software automated the process, making it accessible to hobbyists and casual users. A well-known mobile HDR app is HDR Photo Camera, which is available for the iPhone and Symbian (see our review on All About Symbian here). The company behind it (Intellsys) have now published a Windows Phone 8 version, which I now put through its paces.
I'm a sucker for a camera utility and, for once, not a silly set of filters - we're talking something interesting and unique here in Turbo Camera. Not perfect, as you'll see, but certainly worth grabbing if its two main features grab you - quick fire burst shots and time lapse videos. Both do work but are ultimately a little limiting and flawed.
If Windows Phone had a counter that registered how long you spent inside each application, I have no doubt that the lion's share of my time would have been spent on Numberrific, a hideously evil and addictive number search game from Kirill Orlov. All you have to do is delete every number from the grid. It's simple... honestly.
Let's be fair, we've already reviewed Infinite Flight - Steve looked at it back in October 2011. But that was over a year ago, and since then Infinite Flight has been through countless iterations. The October review was on one of the earliest public versions of the game. So it seems fair to give Infinite Flight a go-around and bring it in for a second review after a quick circuit.
Maybe I'm destined to always be something of an edge case in the smartphone world - but it's hard to see how I'm so unusual here. I want to listen to podcasts and music on my Windows Phone and I want a wired headset rather than Bluetooth - I want the 'perfect' audio quality and I don't want to have to keep remembering to charge up yet another accessory. What about the headset that comes in each device box, I hear you cry? Ah, but I also want something that I've loved from Symbian devices - control of playback volume. Whether it's a quiet track and I'm now jogging along a noisy road or vice versa, I need to have volume control without having to stop and take my phone out of its case/pocket.
Many years ago, your first PDA application would be a clock. As technology has evolved, and user expectations move on, the 'everyone has a go at this genre' application has become something that reviewers are used to. The current fascination in Windows Phone seems to be two-fold. The first is for weather applications with funky live tiles, and the second is for image editing and filtering applications (for the record, the start of 2013 is probably going to see a proliferation of lock screen wallpaper apps - you heard it here first). So let's have a look at another entry in that Parthenon... Lomogram.
Looking for something to rival Sudoku for the New York Times, puzzler Will Shortz championed KenKen, and lent his name to this number puzzle that has captured the minds of many. Now Capcom have released a digital version for Windows Phone, can it rival the pencil and paper version? It's a close call, and a lot depends on how much you think a title like this should be worth.
