A little burst of mariachi music greets you as you open up Call of Carlos, a platforming arcade game from developers Games Academy. To go alongside the background music, there's a strong Central American feel to the graphics, which adds a lot of atmosphere to this well balanced and fast slice of twitchy controlled fun.
Alphajax has taken an unconventional route to Xbox Live. Originally an independent release in the Windows Store, Microsoft noted its popularity and has brought it to their flagship brand. But it's an app with some problems, and that dulls the impact.
Continuing our fine tradition of 'no stone left unturned' reviews, Rafe Blandford here looks at the Nokia Lumia 820, the little sister of the attention-grabbing, optically-stabilised, larger-screened Lumia 920. The attention difference is somewhat unfair though, as you'll see in the review part below - the 820 still has a lot to recommend it.
As the UK's national meteorological service, the Met Office has great name recognition and a reputation for accurate and reliable weather forecasts. Even with the plethora of existing weather apps, the arrival of an official Windows Phone 8 app from the Met Office is therefore something that's bound to gain the attention of UK weather watchers. In this review, we take a closer look to see if this is an app that's truly suited to the weather obsessed Brit.
Nokia continue to release their exclusive Xbox Live titles on Windows Phone, with some big names for the public to recognise. That might seem a bit trivial to regular Xbox Live players, but never put aside the pursuit of the casual consumer suddenly spotting a familiar logo in the marketing material. Which is why Trivial Pursuit is an important title.
"Surprise me!"A few moments later, my Windows Phone will pick out a tune at random and grace my ears with something wonderful from my collection (or The Proclaimers). That's 'Hey DJ!' in action, allowing your voice to be used to play your music. It works, it's useful, and it's a great example of third party apps filling in usability gaps.
Sharp eyed readers will have spotted that last week I was away from the All About offices, out and about in Amsterdam (covering the Junior Eurovision Song Contest). Spending a week in a foreign city, working in a situation where communication and access was vital, and the new HTC Windows Phone 8X in my pocket? All those factors added up to make for a real world test of this signature Windows Phone 8 device.
As part of our continuing review coverage of the new Nokia Lumia 920 (part 1 here), and following review part 2a, covering the stills camera functions, here's part 2b, covering video capture, another 920 speciality, thanks to the optical image stabilisation again, plus the unique Rich Recording system. It's fair to say that, again, while not being perfect, the Lumia 920's camera system is top of the heap among its Windows Phone, iOS and Android peers.
Last week's Xbox Live release, Turn N Run from Electronic Arts, is a platform game with a unique view on the world... a unique view that can change to give you a whole new set of platforms to run over. But is that enough to make up for some lacklustre design and slow gameplay?
In part 1 of our Nokia Lumia 920 review, Rafe presented a definitive look at the device's hardware, including an introduction to one of its unique selling points, the optically stabilised 'PureView'-branded camera. In this, review part 2a, I test the Lumia 920 stills camera over a wider range of conditions and critically assess its performance. Review part 2b will cover video capture to the same degree.
