And some companies wonder why they struggle?

13/05/2012

Now I try not to criticize companies when I can help it. You never know when they might come back to bite you, however I felt that this one deserved a rant. They are called Cash Generator and their name speaks for themselves. What they do in store they do well and this isn’t what I’m about to write about. Instead what I’m about to write about is their awful website.

You go to their main page and you think “well that looks very well done”

The issue appears to be when you start to look at how things look. What do I mean? Well there seems to be no central template and the products can appear under any spelling. Here are two examples.

The HTC Flyer is an Android tablet that didn’t really take off. Despite this however I’m not sure that using it as something to eat off will improve its popularity.

But wait! It gets better. Say I want to search by brand. Let’s say I want to look for a nice Samsung Galaxy S2. That shouldn’t be an issue right?

Erm?

 Seriously it’s terrible. Even “Smaubng” is meant to be Samsung. I’m not here to pick on people’s spelling but as a company if you’re going to have a website like this, at least create a template so stores can put their products in the correct categories and so the consumers can find them? To me the above just makes the place feel like an amateur shop. I could create a better sub-menu in my basement, if I had a basement, but you know what I mean.

Hope I didn’t come across as too critical about it, as the saying goes “don’t like it, then don’t go there” but that isn’t the point. Mistakes like this that aren’t corrected just look amateurish and just makes things harder to find if you’re a consumer who just happens to be browsing. It could be sales lost and I’m amazed that it has been picked up on yet.


Rooting the HTC Evo 3D and getting Ice Cream Sandwich goodness on it.

12/05/2012

 I purchased this phone from ASDA a couple of months back as they had it for what I thought was a cracking price of £229 sim free. I quickly rooted it and put on the LeeDroid ROM but as most people know, Google released Ice Cream Sandwich back in November and HTC are still yet to update this device with an official Ice Cream Sandwich update. It’s a story that never changes though as manufacturers and networks and appalling at getting updates out to their devices in a reasonable time.  In this day and age it really is disgraceful that they can take the Michael like they do. Whilst most devices have been able to have customs ROM’s with Ice Cream Sandwich that hasn’t been possible for the Evo 3D mainly due to the “Unique” dual 5mp camera that is on the back of the phone. You could get custom ICS roms but the camera wouldn’t work… Until a few days ago.

 You see some awesome person at either HTC or Virgin leaking the test version of the Evo 3D ICS rom to the public, allowing the dev community to get the files they needed to get various parts of the phone working with Google‘s latest operating system. Some people are noticing a few hiccups but I have to say that I’m finding it a flawless experience. Instagram doesn’t work but everything else is wonderful (and Chrome Beta and Boid are amazing apps).

 Whilst most people managed to get their phones updated with no problems, I spent 2 days banging my head against it. Here is what I posted on the HotUKDeals Evo 3D page. It might help some people if they are having issues too.

I purchased this phone a couple of months back and for the most part I’ve been running the LeeDroid Gingerbread ROM after I had unlocked the boot loader via the HTCDEV website. About a week ago a test ICS ROM for our devises was leaked, which is great as it meant the dev community could finally put an ICS ROM together with everything working (including 3D camera). To install the new ones however you need to install the latest firmware.

For two nights I tried for hours and hours (up until around 6:30am), trying to get my boot loader “relocked” so that I could run Revolutionary and achieve S-OFF which is required if you want to flash your own firmware. Nothing would work. I scoured XDA for tips and none of them would work. Even the advice from the HTCDEV wouldn’t “relock” the boot loader. So what I had to do was the following.

1) I downloaded the official HTC Gingerbread ROM and saved it to my desktop. (DON’T RUN IT YET)

2) I downloaded HTC Supertool V3 and making sure my device had “USB Debugging” checked, I ran the programme

3) I then chose to “Lock the device” which finally set my phone’s boot loader to relocked. Don’t worry if it says “Security Warning” and doesn’t let you go past the boot loader. That’s fine at this point.

4) I then ran the official HTC Rom from my desktop (#1) and it went through the process of installing it. Reverting my phone back to how it was when it was purchased. The boot loader stayed as “Relocked” though.

So far what this has done is it has relocked the boot loader and reverted everything back to how it was when it was purchased, so HTC Sense running Gingerbread 2.3

To achieve S-OFF from here

1) Follow the instructions here from point 4 as 1-3 are not needed for Evo 3D’s purchased from ASDA. (The mentioned link for the PG86IMG is broken but you can get it from here

2) Once that is done, go to the Revolutionary website and follow the instructions there. After this you should have achieved S-OFF, which means you can get some ICS goodness. When it asks if you want to install Clockwork Recovery say YES.

Installing ICS ROMS

1) Before proceeding, make sure the PG86IMG.ZIP file from earlier in this thread is now deleted off the memory card.
2) Download the ICS PG86IMG.ZIP from here and put onto the memory card.

3) Restart the device into boot loader and let it install this firmware.

4) Reboot the device, put it into “Disc drive mode” and delete the zip PG86IMG.ZIP (alternatively you could do this via a memory card reader).

5) Download an ICS custom ROM. I’ve been using the Virtuous one here

6) Place that onto the memory card, and then start the phone again into the boot loader. From the boot loader go into recovery choose “install zip from sdcard” and select the ROM you put on there. Clockwork Recovery will do the rest from there.

This is what I had to do to get Ice Cream Sandwich onto my device. I know it’s long-winded but if anyone else is struggling I hope this helps. I’m glad I’ve got it on though as it’s so buttery smooth

Well that was three days and since then my phone has been enjoying some long overdue ICS goodness. HTC might fire off e-mails/announcements saying that these roms are not officially supported and they will void the warranty but at the end of the day if they would pull their fingers out then people wouldn’t have to turn elsewhere to get what they should have got months ago.


Time for a walk

11/05/2012

At the time of writing this it’s 13:30 and I’m exhausted. Why am I exhausted? Well I’ve just been for a walk that normally would take 20-30 minutes but today took an hour. Why exactly did it a take an hour? Well for those who keep up with my infrequent blog posts will know that I’m slowly recovering from an operation on my lower back to remove an infection, and today was the furthest I have walked since the operation on April 10th. It’s a start mind and something that I need to do every day to get my stamina in my legs back. There are probably quite a few people who are thinking “that doesn’t sound a problem to me” but when you factor in that I’ve spent the best part of the last 31 days lying on my sides then you can probably imagine why it’s worn me out. It’s not all bad though as I managed to get one or two decent pictures :)

just leaving my house, at this stage I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to go left here and just walk around the block or if I wanted to challenge myself I turn right, which would mean me making the walk to Madeley. I also had one eye at the heavens which were getting increasingly threatening. Despite this I decide to go left!

After walking through an alley I came to this hill which as it was going downwards was a piece of cake. There are houses around me here and at the very bottom you can just make out some shops. One photo which I would’ve taken but there were too many people hovering near the window was a news agents that had a big poster up saying “We sell top up here! BT Cellnet, One to One, Orange, Vodafone!” Nothing like being a decade out of date. As you can see the skies were looking increasingly threatening.

Walking down the bottom of that hill and turning left I eventually came to this junction. It’s absolutely awful. There are no traffic lights and there are 4 different roads in which you can come onto it. It’s not a nice place to cross when it’s really busy as you don’t know if the drivers are going to turn in or keep going round and half of them indicate at the last-minute when at all. So far I was feeling alright, but the challenge was yet to come, as I would be going where the two red cars are heading, which is up a great big hill, this I knew would be the biggest test for me. Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of the hill itself as the clouds finally gave in and unleashed their rain. It was only a short, sharp shower but still.

Eventually I made it up to the top of the hill and to our local Tesco‘s. By this stage I was feeling pretty drained. I knew it would as I went through the exact same thing last year and I also know that as long as I keep doing it daily then it will get easier and easier. Heading home was quite easy for half the journey as that hill I had to walk up I now could walk down, however the first hill you saw in the picture I now had to walk up! This was not easy as by now I had very little energy left. I got home around 12:00, had my chicken and basically fell asleep for an hour.

I’m still being visited by nurses daily to get my dressing on my wound changed, but more and more the responsibility is drifting over to me. Their job is just to make sure the wound is clean and that is fully dressed and protected. It’s up to me to channel my focus into getting me back on my feet so that when I get the go ahead, I can return to work in full swing and can get back to enjoying what I enjoy to do AND maybe picking up an extra one or two things that I’ve had plenty of time to think about whilst I’ve been off.

It’s not a case of “you know, I might do this if I feel like it.” It’s a case of “I have to do this”. And you know what? I will! :)


Too Much Thinking Time

27/04/2012

Firstly I would like to make an apology. Well I’m not sure I am making an apology, but hey I’m British so I can get away with. I’m once again going to deviate into personal territory but it’s my blog so I’m allowed! If that’s okay with you that is? Yes? Good! <Insert smiley face here>

As some of you have probably read here or have seen on my tweets on Twitter, I had an operation around 16 days ago. Now because the operation was so low on my back, it has meant that so far I haven’t been able to sit down yet, showering isn’t an option due to the dressing and April 10th was the last time I set foot outside the house. The problem with this is, that it gives you far too much time to think.

So what have I been thinking about? Well for those who don’t want to read on … I’ve been thinking about everything. From relationships to my physique, from how I miss going to work just because it passes the time, to where I’ve been, where I am and where I’m going. I’ve thought about what I want to start doing more when I’m healed again, to what I need to do to get my finances in order. It may seem a lot to some, or to other it may seem like nothing at all, but when you spent the last 2 weeks lying on your bed with this swirling around inside you, well it can start to really beat at you and get you down.

Relationship

Thankfully this isn’t a worry. I’ve been with my other half (shameless plug towards her blog here). for just over a year now, and I can honestly say that I’ve never been happy in a relationship. There are certain things that get to me sometimes. Living in different towns (okay so Derby is a city but who’s counting?), really sucks when you’re like this. I can’t travel to see her and until I’m mobile and she has two days off in a row then it would be silly to ask her to spend £27 on a return ticket  just to go back that same evening. Would I like that? Of course I would. Is it feasible? Absolutely. Does it make common sense? Absolutely not.

There have been times during this when I wish I could talk to her more, as it does get real lonely when you’re stuck between the same four walls, but in reality of course that isn’t possible. Although the question that pops into my head every now and again, is “am i good enough for her?”. I hope I am and I haven’t been given any indication that I’m not so I would class that as a good sign.

Physique

I’m not the slimmest person in the world and I’m definitely not the most well toned person in the world and 85% of the time that doesn’t bother me, but recently I’ve started to look at myself and think about it more and more. I know what needs to be done but my problem is that I’m so laid back that every time I go to do something, I think “ah it’s fine, there’s no rush, I can always do it later” and by the time that I think “you know what? I should really do that now!”, it’s too late.

Now going to the gym isn’t an option. I’m not that sort of person, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be more pro-active in my health. I could eat better food, I could go for walks (ties in lovely with the next one), and just take general better care of myself. No one is making me think this, in face the only person who’d opinion I really listen to on this, says I’m fine, but mentally it’s slowly there in the back of my head, just gently eating away at me.

What I should do more

Personally one thing I’ve always been interested in but have never really done anything about it, is to take photographs, i’m not as prolific in the taking photograph area as my other half is but it’s still something that I’m interested in. I’ve always believe that if you can capture the right image, then you can say more in that one shot then you can in 1000 words. This is one of the reasons why I want to take more walks when I’m able to, to take a path I haven’t been down and think “oh that looks interesting” *click*. Far too often when I have a choice I stay wrapped up in my own little bubble which is my bedroom, and when I have to stay in my bedroom I realise that I should be out in the fresh air more. I’m not a sporty person but you don’t have to be to enjoy the outdoors.

Financially

For a bit now I’ve been spending above my means. I haven’t been getting myself into debt, but what I have been doing is buying stuff I don’t really need, just because I can. What I need to do is work out how much my out-goings each month are, and see how much that roughly leaves me with each month, then I need to decide how much I should put to one side and how much I can spend. At the moment I’m not keeping track of this but luckily I’ve picked up on it before it has spiralled out of control. To generate some extra money I’ve started to sell stuff on Play and Hot Deals UK (that place should give me commission for the amount of links I’m starting to give it!), but if I don’t get more stringent, that could become a band-aid for a bullet wound and it’s something that I can not allow to happen.

Self Confidence / Self Worry

One thing about me is that I’m not the most confident person in the world, and sometimes I worry far too much over things. There are occasions when I over-think about something and well without going into details. Sometimes I try to create a barrier to protect myself and this comes across as if I’m being stubborn. Now I am a naturally stubborn person but not everything that comes across as me being stubborn is actually me being stubborn. Sometimes it’s my defensive mechanisms kicking into gear. Unfortunately I’m yet to figure out how to conquer this section, but I know I need to. The last thing I want to do is end up like Mr Heckles in Friends.

Conclusion

 I realise that this entire post probably seems like a bit of a ramble, I know the stuff that I need to do, but unfortunately I’m still weeks away from being able to start it. Until then I guess I’ll carry on thinking. I’ve tried everything to stop me from thinking. From buying a 2nd Xbox, to trying to reconnect with WoW, to even downloading and playing EVE Online, however nothing seems to be working. I wish I could find something that would!


Keeping notes for your in-game plans.

26/04/2012

  I’m sure we’ve all done this in whatever MMO we have played or still do play. You’ve wanted to plan what you need for your character, or you have tactics to remember. What is the best way to do this? Well that’s simple! The best way to do this is to grab a pen and paper and write.

 I was flicking through an old notepad I found recently and it was full of possible raid groups, raid tactics, what I needed to farm to get my gear, what I could farm for profit. I even found a complete battle-plan for a particular day, starting from when I would wake up to when I  would go to bed. Now considering I’m a casual player nowadays, I certainly don’t do this anymore, and knowing me, there’s every chance that if I woke up at 9:00am, that battle-plan was out the window come 9:05.

 I was just wondering if everyone uses the good old-fashioned pen and paper method? Do people use their smart phones or tablets instead? Or maybe a little window open in the corner with Notepad or Word just sitting there? What do you use?


Favourite places to “park” in WoW?

25/04/2012

We’ve all had them (well I hope we all have or I’m just a sad case). I’m sure people have had the odd one or two places they used to, or still do go to when parts of World of Warcraft is doing your head in. You want to get away but don’t really want to log out. You want some chill out time so you find a nice place and relax there.  Here are my two favourite places for when I used to play WoW all the time and things got too much but I didn’t want to log out.

Winterspring


On a mountain just north of Everlook. I would sometimes spend a few minutes here (pre-Azeroth flying). As you can see, the view isn’t too bad at all :)

My mouse must have been hiding in Darkshore somehow :D

Nagrand

On one of the first of the floating islands you reach when you come out of Shattrath. Looks over brilliantly my favourite zone in the whole of The Burning Crusade

What are/were your favourite places to take a time-out in WoW?


2nd hand games destroying the market? No! Abuse of prices and DLCs are!

24/04/2012

It’s something that you hear often nowadays “company x blames the 2nd hand game market”, “company y attributes a fall of revenue to 2nd hand games”. The developers and publishers of this world are quick to turn around and point the finger at us, the gamers. It’s our fault that they are considering only online downloads, it’s our fault as one publisher said “there is no longer a tail in selling games” (will explain later). Have they ever considered just why the 2nd market had grown so popular? Or are they, becoming like every other entertainment media in that they feel they can charge the same for less and people won’t notice?

As I said above, you hear rumours almost on a daily basis how publishers and developers are considering going to a download only model so that their games can’t be sold 2nd hand (you also hear how both Sony and Microsoft might also go down that same route with their next generation game consoles). Why are they considering doing this? Well in their eyes there used to be a time when games were released and they would make some fast bucks before slowly tailing off and after a few months become a steady stream of cash (hence the phrase “the tail”), however the claim is now that because the 2nd hand market is so profitable that the “tail” is no longer there. Therefore games companies are having to think of other ways to generate post-release sales (hence their reason for DLC’s).

Now I don’t buy this, and if you work in the gaming industry I apologize but as someone who is looking at it from outside the core of industry then I have one word to describe what I think about this … Bollocks!

In my opinion the real reason why the 2nd hand market has taken off is because the majority of game publishers/developers are disconnected from the general player base themselves and how an underlying mistrust has developed between the two groups of people. First up, and yes I’ll admit it’s a regular one for people who play games, is the pricing of games. As a rule, new release games cost between £40 and £50, and at this moment in time, with the current economic situation that’s a lot to shell out. I know there have been reports about how the gaming industry has “flourished” during the global recession but the question still has to be asked. If there the gaming industry is flourishing why are developers and publishers complaining. They are complaining because quite a few people nowadays are waiting for them to appear in 2nd hand shops, such as CEX, Game or online on Amazon, Hot Deals UK, Ebay or any other site like it. Basically once a game has been released, the title itself stops making money after a few months.

So what’s the problem I hear you ask. Surely they have a right to be unhappy about this and it’s understandable that they want to clamp down on this. Right? That’s all well and good but then you come to the mistrust part which I think is starting to play a bigger part then anyone anticipated, even if the bigwigs at EA, Activision etc, can’t see it.

With a few exceptions, games nowadays tend to feel shorter. They tend to feel as if “well this is lacking somewhat” or “I thought this was supposed to have this feature? Where is it?”, then all of a sudden, a DLC appears .. LOOK AT ME! I BRING SHINY EXTRA STUFF!

The publishers and developers might claim that they are doing this because of the booming 2nd hand game sub-industry but I would argue that it’s because of the attitude towards the release of DLC’s, is what in turn is causing the 2nd hand gaming industry to boom. I find it myself. I’m wary of buying a game as soon as it’s released because I know within 2 months time (sometimes as early as the same day of release), there will likely be a DLC that comes out with “extra maps” or “extended missions”. I look at this and I think, “why should I pay £40 for a game, and then almost immediately after have to fork out another £15-£20 for a DLC that should have been in the game in the first place? Why should I now pay £60 to make a game complete that 3-4 years ago would’ve cost just the £40? I’m sorry but I can’t see it as anything other than blatant profiteering.

Those who disagree with what I just said sometimes argue back that the cost of games are lower as digital versions then they are as hard copies and therefore people will save money. That’s not really the case though is it? Let’s give a few examples. The first price will be the digital copy price, the second price will be the hard copy price. Yes I’m using Amazon for the hard copy prices. :)

Look at the difference in prices there and tell me where the consumer benefits by buying a digital copy? The short answer is that they don’t. Digital copies in theory should be cheaper than hard copies and the cost of manufacturing discs and covers and the man power is requires to sell them isn’t there. Instead what you get are companies blatantly ripping people off on their online stores. This is why I don’t believe the real reason why a shift to digital downloads is due because people are buying 2nd hand games. The shift to digital downloads is for one reason, and one reason only. Pure greed.

I would like to say at this point though that not all DLC’s are bad. You have independent game companies who release a game for between £5-£10 and then every now and again will release a DLC  for between £1 and £3. These people are tiny independent companies, sometimes just with a minute team. When you consider the amount of hours they put in per head compared to the major companies listed above, they are probably putting in more effort too. Unfortunately because of the way the major developers/publishers are using and above the digital download system and the DLC system, it’s tainting that entire sector which in turn could make it more difficult for the independent companies to get their games out.

To sum it up. I don’t believe that the 2nd hand gaming industry is the reason “the tail no longer being there”. I believe that it’s the attitude of the developers and publishers in their general pricing and the way they treat the digital download sector and their attitude towards DLC’s, who are causing gamers to no longer trust them, and thus they are holding back, thus allowing the 2nd hand market to boom. It’s not the gamers that have allowed this to happen, it’s the people who make and distribute them!


The aftermath of the operation – A post about me.

14/04/2012

 I hope you guys who take the time to read my blog don’t mind while I drift into personal mode here. For those who have had the patience to read this blog since last year you will recall that on the 1st June 2011, I had an operation on what’s called “Pilonidal Sinus“. The post from last year can be found here (warning there is an image on there that well, isn’t safe for those who get light-headed quickly). When I had that done I was told it would be a long healing process but there’s an 85% chance that, that will be that. Of course I fell into the 15% category!

 On 10th April this year, I had to go in for another operation for the exact same thing, so four days later and with probably another three weeks off work (my guess), I decided to write about it. This time however, I’m not going to write about the injury itself, but instead I’m going to write about the surrounding issues, both mentally and physically.

 For the first 48 hours after the operation, things feel great. You feel a hundred times better and the thought of lying in bed watching Netflix on my Roku and playing games on my laptop and mobile phone sounds wonderful and for that period it is, however it’s after that when things start to turn and that’s where I’m at now.

 You see after 48 hours your nerves start growing back in the area that was cut out, so the feeling goes from a small, gentle throb that you can tolerate to a feeling that when you move, you just want to shout out and punch something to try to take the focus away from that area. On top of that, after spending now 4 days just lying on your side, you can image that your hips and thighs are very sore. Lying on your stomach isn’t very comfortable and lying on your back is completely out of the question. You have to wake yourself up in the night to lift yourself up so you can lie on the other side. This feeling is while I’m taking Co-codamal so that shows how painful it can be. Even coughing causes “ripples” down your body which gives you a sharp reminded at what you’ve had done.

 The worst part though (and yes I consider this the worst part), is the mental issues. After 4 days of “isolation” you start to get extremely frustrated, lonely and bored stiff. You see, walking down stairs takes a lot of effort and for the moment the pain afterwards just isn’t worth it, so it’s been four days stuck in the bedroom. You switch on the tv, and switch it back off, because you know nothing on there will distract you. You turn on the laptop and your just like “I’ve done this constantly since Tuesday, enough!”. Then finally there’s the constant tiredness, what with the strong painkillers and your body trying to fix itself.

 I know I’ll be worth it in the end, but unless you’ve ever had an operation where your stuck in one room for a long period of time then it really is hard to explain how tough it is mentally. I’m trying to remedy that though, at least temporarily. On one of my favourite sites, “Hot UK Deals“, someone was selling their 120gb Xbox 360 for £80 with delivery included in the cost. I thought that was a decent price. I’ve always been tempted by an Xbox and with my other half now having one that temptation got stronger. It was either that or an Asus Transformer, and as much as I would like an Android tablet, it’s not really something that I need right now, what with me having a Blackberry Playbook.

As you can see it isn’t all doom and gloom, but sometimes you know what they say. You feel better sometimes when you get it out of your system and that is how it feels for writing this. I hope it hasn’t come across as me just complaining, and thank you for reading :) . (Yes I did just put a cheesy smiley face at the end of this post. See, here’s another – :) )


SWTOR give free month of game play – Intent = Good, Application = Wrong

13/04/2012

I don’t normally comment on MMO news but this piece of news grabbed my attention. With the release of the 1.2 patch, Bioware are giving 30 days free game time to those who are level 50. They say it’s to reward their “support and loyalty”.

Now I have an issue with this. Bioware are presuming that you are only loyal and only support the game if you are level 50. This is no true. You could have been playing since day 1 and only have a Sith Sorcerer at say level 35. Some people level slowly, others don’t have time to play the amount that has been required so far, whilst others would have been playing since day 1 and have spent all their time realm-hopping and trying new classes. Just because a player isn’t max level does not mean that they aren’t loyal or offering support to the game.

I can only speak from experience, but for my first 18 months of playing World of Warcraft I never had a level 60 character. I spent all my time rolling alts and trying out different realms, but that didn’t make me any less supportive of the game. Back then I still played constantly, more than most people but without a max level character. Did that make me any less supportive or loyal to the game? No, of course not. I just liked the starting to mid-level parts of the game, as well as the new realm feeling so I decided to stay in that part of the game.

I can understand that Bioware want to reward players, but I don’t think they should have based the reward according to what level your character is. In my opinion they should have based on when the player subscribed and if they have been a constant player since then. The intent of this free month is noble and right, but the application of it in my opinion is wrong.


3D Badminton – Android Game Review

12/04/2012

Firstly may I apologize for the quality of this review. I realise it isn’t great but it’s my first attempt at reviewing a game, so feedback (friendly or otherwise) would be greatly appreciated!

Back in the day when I used to be at school, I used to love to play badminton. Now jokes about Neil’s dad aside (those who have seen the Inbetweeners will know what I mean there), I used to think it was a great sport. I would spend 3-4 hours a day playing it. After school though for some strange reason I stopped playing but always kept a fondness about the sport.

On one my random nights of opening up my laptop and having hunt through the Google Play website (it should still be the Android Market, but that’s a previous debate!), I found this little game from Game Colt Studio called “3D Badminton”. It only had 3 stars out of 5 on the ratings but those ratings can be worthless sometimes so I downloaded it anyway.

So what do I think of the game? If I had to choose one word, just one word of utmost descriptive skill, I would have to say … “Meh!”

 Where do I start? When you get a rally going the game is wonderful and smooth, however the serving is utterly atrocious. You see on the above video that I hit the net a lot when it’s my turn to serve, and that’s not me being light either. I’m swiping as hard as I can and still I struggled to get the shuttlecock over the net. On other occasions you can swipe the screen fiercely and it’ll go out of play at the back of the court, other times you could be in the exact same position, in the exact same situation, use the exact same shot, and it’ll fall comfortably in the middle of the court.

I don’t know if others have had the same issues, but for me, I found the control that you have over your shots to be very limited. Sometimes it feels like I almost have to put my finger through the screen to get a shot over the net, other times it feels like I should have just tickled it with a feather.

As for the graphics? Now these I like! I’m not one to go for “the more realistic, the better”, and in this case I do like the back in time style of the characters. With some refinement of the gameplay I think it could be a very fun app, but for now I have to say that 3 stars on the Google Play store is one star too many.

It can be found here on the Play Store and it’s free so that’s one good thing :)


Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 837 other followers