Reviews

Skelly Archer is a new Windows Phone game that has made it to the Windows Phone Store's "New and Rising" ranks. It is an adventure game where you play the role of Skelly the skeleton, a fallen archer, set on conquering a wide assortment of monsters and discovering magical jewels.

Skelly Archer has two game modes and twenty-six levels spread out across six different lands/scenes. It's a decent game for your Windows Phone that is full of challenges and not a shabby way to pass the time with.

AlterEgo: DreamWalker is the sequel to the Windows Phone game AlterEgo. DreamWalker shares the retro appearance of the original and is a challenging puzzle oriented platform game.

DreamWalker has you navigating through a series of platform levels full of obstacles and monsters to collect pixels. You have a ghost image that mirrors your movements that you can swap places with to get through the levels.

Game play is simple, yet challenging and the retro graphics reminds me of the old Atari or Commodore 64 days. AlterEgo: DreamWalker is a nice continuation of the original game.

SkateDog is a jumper styled game for your Windows Phone much like Rainbow Rapture and Penguin. You just control a dog on a skateboard instead of a vengeful rainbow or hungry penguin.

With SkateDog you are racing Pluft ET (space alien) to a race for a hamburger. You guide your dog over hill and dale while Pluft races along in his space ship (doesn't seem very fair). Along the way you can collect glasses of soda for a boost of speed and dog treats for bonus points.

SkateDog is a fun game for your Windows Phone and challenging enough to keep you interested in things. I'm not sure it could hold up to marathon gaming sessions but it is a nice game to pass the time with.

While the Kinect’s suitability for gaming is sometimes a subject of debate, nobody can deny that the Xbox 360’s motion peripheral is perfectly matched for workout games. Of all the consoles, only the Xbox 360 with Kinect can track a user’s entire body positioning with any real degree of accuracy. Gamers who aspire to get into better shape without leaving the home have many options thanks to these Kinect workout games.

Microsoft has thrown its hat in with Nike and developer Sumo Digital (makers of the awesome Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing Transformed) to produce the most definitive fitness game to date: Nike+ Kinect Training. We know they’re serious about it because they announced it on-stage at E3 (to a generally Kinect-apathetic crowd) and produced a terrific Windows Phone companion app to go along with it.

Recipes by Ingredients is a Windows Phone 8 app designed to help you find a recipe based on key ingredients, allergies, calories, cooking time and meal type. It's a nice app to help you with your fitness goals by eating right and avoiding foods that may present health issues.

The user interface isn't the smoothest around but the recipe selection is on the large side with over 175,000 recipes for meals ranging from breakfast to dinner to snacks.

Life Trends is an odd little app for your Windows Phone 8 device. It was developed to evaluate your personality and diagram your life activity and trends.

The foundation is based on a group of experts in the field of mathematical prediction, numerology and astrology. It's a horoscope app of sorts but instead of giving you a daily prediction, it tackles your entire life span in one try. One could say it's a tool to give your life a little balance.

One benefit of staying healthy and fit during Fitness Month and beyond is being better prepared in dealing with emergency situations that may jeopardize your health and well being. Emergency Kit for Windows Phone 8 is designed to help you make it through the these times of crisis by providing emergency first aid information.

The Kit contains information on how to respond to allergic reactions, snake bites, broken bones and even how to jump start your vehicle. Emergency Kit is a little on the condensed side but has some nice features.

Gibbage Cases has been a roller coaster, grass roots effort by Windows Phone enthusiast Kevin "Gibbage" Miller. Miller was looking for a simple case to protect his HTC 8X with three principles in mind; protection, design and function.

The end result was a unique case that offered a buffer between the 8X and harsh surfaces. The Gibbage Case may not offer much protection from falls but it should protect the soft outer coating of the 8X from scratches and rubbing thin. We received a Windows Phone 8 theme version (complete with the Windows Phone Central Logo) of the Gibbage Case. We took it out for a test drive over the past few days and found it to be a nice option for those who prefer a minimalistic approach to their cases.

As we've mentioned this week during Fitness Month, sleep is an essential part of living a healthy life. Sleep Journal is a Windows Phone app designed to log your sleep patterns that may help identify areas for improvement.

The app does paint things with a little bit of a broad brush as far as the amount of sleep you actually get but does have the journal feature where you can note how restful your sleep was.

Ever wonder if you snore? If you talk in your sleep? Does your wife/husband swear they don't snore? Sleep Recorder is an interesting Windows Phone app that records audio while you sleep and could help you answer those questions.

As well as recording your sleep cycles, Sleep Recorder also maps out where you've spent the night and uploads recordings to the cloud where they can be shared with others. Sleep Recorder is a unique app for your Windows Phone that can not only solve sleep related curiosities but also help identify sleep issues.

If you like puzzle games, you'll like omgTANGRAM. This is a Windows Phone game is a collection of tangram puzzles where you have to fill a wide range of silhouettes that you have to with seven puzzle pieces or tans.

On the surface omgTANGRAM looks like a simple puzzle game but once you dig into things, this Windows Phone game is full of challenges and a nice way to pass the time.

Weather Wallpaper is a Windows Phone 8 app that, as the title suggests, lets you integrate your local weather information into your lockscreen wallpaper.

While other weather apps are out there that offer lockscreen support, Amazing Weather HD comes to mind, Weather Wallpaper gives you the option as to which wallpapers to use. You can use weather related images provided by Bing, Bing's image of the day or your own photo.