The Crazies is just your typical zombie-like thriller movie. It’s definitely not an original concept, and I even believe it’s a remake of a 1973 film of the same title. Pretty much the basis of the story is a plane crashes near a small town in Iowa. Nobody notices but one man, who only hears it. He reports the noise, but everyone ignores it (apparently he has a history of complaining). Then, as shown in the trailer, the man who was once the town drunk walks onto a baseball field with a loaded shotgun. Soon enough, a couple more people start feeling sick and begin acting weird. The town’s sheriff and deputy suspect…

…the water supply could be messing people up, so they shut it off and investigate the source (a nearby lake). The sheriff finds the plane underneath the water. Later we discover that the plane carried a biochemical weapon designed to clear out mass populations, and that it was being flown to Houston to be destroyed, but crashed. The chemical infected the water supply, and infected anyone who drank it. The infected are like normal people, but they look creepy and they have the undeniable urge to kill anyone who isn’t infected. So then the sheriff, his deputy, and his wife basically just try to escape the city. Oh, and the army also attempts to quarantine the town and keep the infection on the down-low…that doesn’t work out too well.

This movie was pretty good. Nothing really scary, just a bunch of jumpy-pop-out-in-your-face moments. Y’know, the kinds of moments that make you jump and get your heart beating a bit faster. I’ve watched it twice through, now. Once by myself, and again with Lindsay (in reverse order). This movie has quite a bit of blood, but nothing overwhelming. I might recommend this movie, but not to someone who gets uncomfortable with all of the blood and tense waits (people hiding from a killer, he’s getting closer…closer…oh snap…oh snap what’s gonna happen…).

This post is 90% summary, 10% review. YAY

Yet another post regarding my phone, the Palm Pre. Now I’ve actually planned on making this post for quite some time, I’ve just been putting it off because it seemed like it would take too long. But as the title says, in this post I will give brief reviews and explanations of the best games for the Palm Pre, as well as what has so far been the most convenient non-games for the phone. I’m posting a lot more often now because Lindsay is away at Blue Lake until Sunday…god I miss her

NOTE: I’ve left out reviews for Glyder 2 and Real Tennis because I have to restart my phone just to clear up enough RAM to even run the app, so it just wasn’t worth my time to get the screenshots.

First, we’ll start off with games…we’ll start off with one of the first, and best apps for the Palm Pre: Paratrooper. I’ve even already done a review for this app, so I’ll keep things short.

Paratrooper (Full Review)

This game is still incredible. Most games I’ve bought, the developer releases it and moves on to another app. Not here. This developer continues to add more and more features, as well as levels to keep us entertained. It cost $2, but it was still well worth the money. I recently did a data-reset so I have to start over from the start.

Topple Ball

Topple Ball is just your average accelerometer game, like Paratrooper. The object of the game is to get your blue ball onto the green circle without failing. You are given…5 lives I believe to get as far as you can. Somehow I managed to get from level 1 to level 64, with a high score of 3697. Which isn’t half bad, if I do say so. This developer doesn’t really update the game, but there’s so much to it that there really is no point. I’ve only gotten to chapter 7, and there are 20 chapters (each chapter is 10 level, or so). This developer also has a very similar game called Tilt-a-Maze. It’s basically the same as this game, only the ball is red, and you have to navigate your way through various mazes. I forgot to take screenshots of it, but I can honestly say it’s as good, if not, better than Topple Ball.

Fall-E (and Fall-E Pro)

Fall-E is a pretty awesome game. The point of the game is to just fall as far as you can, and wrack up the most points along the way. Lindsay and I both love this game, and we try to see who can keep the high score the longest. I’ve kept my score (shown far-left) for probably a few weeks, now. Recently the developer released Fall-E Pro, which is Fall-E, only with a bunch of different levels. Like levels where the gravity is lowered, or where the power-ups are all replaced with question marks so you don’t know what they are. I used to hold the world record on 3 of the levels, but now I’ve been moved down a bit. On Speed-E and Flash-E I’m in 2nd, and in Blink-E1 I’m 3rd. It’s fine, though. I was never intentionally setting the high scores. Anyway, this game is really neat and such. I’ve killed a ton of time playing it.

Helicopter Game

The helicopter game for the Palm Pre is almost an exact replica of the Helicopter Game found at Addictinggames.com. It’s really easy to play, you just tap the screen and avoid hitting anything that is green lol. This game is a lot of fun, but once I get around the 1000 mark (where my high score is in that screenshot) I come across just a green wall that I can’t pass no matter what I try. This has happened 3 times so far, and I know it’s probably just me, because there are scores in the 1500’s on the global high score list. Oh well, one of these days I’m sure I’ll get through it lol. This is one of the best free games out for my phone.

Sky Climber

Sky Climber is the Palm Pre’s version of Doodle Jump on the IPhone. It’s very easy to pick up and play, and the object is the exact opposite of Fall-E. Here, you just want to jump as high as you can by bouncing off of green platforms. This game is really fun, and has some competition from a game called Cloud Hopper. But even though Cloud Hopper has some features that Sky Climber could really use, the game lags and everything is very small on the screen. This game is really fun, and it’s free!

Tilt GT

Now, I was skeptical before I bought this game. It looked fun, but I never saw a review for it. Eventually I just bought it because it was half-off, and I was pleased. The game is really fun. You just tilt the phone and move the car through the track. You can touch part of the screen to boost your car forward to hopefully get better times. The developer recently added new levels, as well as the ability to play the game by touching the screen, rather than tilting. This game is very fun, and well worth the money! If you get bored playing by yourself, you can play a ghost of yourself, which I guess isn’t much different, but it feels more like a race.

Zombie Invasion

I bought this game a few minutes after buying Paratrooper. It was only $1, and it had some 3D graphics on it, so I had to check it out. Basically you’re 1 guy defending an entire village. Your mission is to stop all of the zombies from killing you, because once you’re dead, the village is basically dead. Unfortunately, you can’t move, and you’re stuck in the same village for the whole game. The developer should really make it similar to The Last Stand 2 where you can explore cities and gather up supplies and survivors. Oh well, it was a great game for awhile, but now it’s just too monotonous for me to keep playing consistently.

Blobber

This game has no point. All it is is a little white blob (both screenshots he’s red because I’m poking him) that floats around your screen based on the accelerometer. You can poke him, drag him, and even split him up into many little blobbers. This game is really dumb, but also really entertaining just by how simple it is. I keep this app mostly because Lindsay loves him, but I too think the face he makes when you drag him around (the screenshot on the right) is adorable. Don’t judge me.

The next 2 apps aren’t games, but they are apps I use every day, and they are both very convenient.

InContact

InContact is basically just a quick-contact application that lets me quickly call, email, or text anyone I have added to that list. I just touch their picture, then I touch one of the 4 possible icons that pop up (SMS, E-mail, Call, or Instant Message) to open up another application. It is a lot faster than opening the application, typing in a phone number/contact name/e-mail address. This is a free product, and I must say, it’s the best one out there. My only complaints are that I think the icon should have a transparent background to make it less chunky. I’ve got this app on my quick-launcher now so I want it to look nice. That, and there’s an advertisement at the top of the page (it’s not shown in the screenshot because I took it from their website).

Appbox

I found Appbox in the Catalog randomly. I was just looking around when I came across it. It looked interesting, so I read the description and then some reviews. This application was basically one big box of smaller applications. Apps like a scientific calculator, a countdown timer, and a password vault. These are all apps I’ve been looking for, but the only ones I’ve found were all individual and cost $3-4 a piece. This application had all of these, and many more, for only $1. It’s quite an amazing deal, I must say. If anyone reading this happens to have a WebOS phone, this app is a must buy. It was half-off when I bought it so now it’s $1.99, but it’s still very worth it.

Honorable Mentions

The apps that I love, but don’t have the time to review completely (perhaps I’ll do another one of these in the future, who knows?)

Fandango, My Coke Rewards, Pandora Radio, Paper Football, Nuclear Attack, Photo Effects, Party Sign, Sorting Thoughts, Tweed, WordBox, ZumoDrive, and Zombie’s Fury.

There you go, lots of reviews for lots of apps.

This is a review of Red Dead Redemption, for a video trailer: click here.

Red Dead Redemption is the latest game released from Rockstar Games, and is in a way a sequel to their previous Wild West game Red Dead Revolver for the PlayStation 2. Red Dead Redemption, like Rockstar’s infamous Grand Theft Auto series, is a game with a gigantic map, tremendous graphics, and smooth gameplay.

The story begins in the year 1911. This is around the time where civilization is starting to expand itself, but the West still exists. The Wild West is being pushed aside by order and peace, as are the natives. You play as John Marsten, an outlaw and former gang member who’s been caught after being left for dead. The police made a deal with you: take out your old gang, and you can go free. This may sound easy, but the game takes all sorts of twists and turns that end up giving you plenty of hours of gameplay (I think the campaign alone typically takes around 20 hours to complete, but then there’s also an endless sandbox-mode).

Visual: This is, which we have all come to expect from Rockstar, is visually mind boggling. The graphics are amazing, given what is being displayed all at one time. The scenery, from almost any angle, looks like something you’d see from a landscape photographer, or a painter. If your character is idle for roughly a minute, the game just starts showing off how amazing it is by shifting over to a slideshow of the in-game scenery.

Gameplay: The gameplay is simple enough. The controls are easy to pick up and play, and even some of the more complex elements of the game are easy for a newbie. Movements are fluid and well put together. However, I have seen 2 possible problems with animations, both involving the horses. First, the horses are initally very awkward to control. It reminded me of a quote I once read in a magazine about Halo’s warthogs…”it’s like driving drunk, minus the crashing or getting caught by police”. But it doesn’t take long to get into the swing of things. My other complaint is that while trying to make a quick escape by mounting your horse while it runs alongside you, sometimes the horse glitches (or something) and stops completely while you get on it. It’s a small complaint, but it does happen a lot.

Sounds: The sounds are spot on. Absolutely perfect.

AI: The AI are intelligent, but also very bad shots lol. They know how to hide behind things, and when it’s best to just run away, but when they choose to fight, even on Hard it seems like they are firing weapons for the first time.

Story: The story is amazing. There were times where I found myself playing an hour or so longer than planned just to find out what happened next.

Online: I haven’t had this much fun online since Counter Strike. Not even MW2 can compete with how much fun this is. Joining Free-Roam with your friends, forming a posse, and reigning hell is about as much fun I’ve had playing online.

Final Verdict: Get this game. I don’t care if you don’t have an Xbox360 or a PS3, get this game anyway. It’s definitely one of the best games I have ever played.