Android-Hen

Pacific Rim is going to be in theaters soon, and it's got giant robots and monsters fighting each other. You know what else has giant robots and monsters fighting each other? Pacific Rim:Kaiju Battle, which is now on Android. This is an augmented reality fighting game that lets you put a miniature cityscape with monsters on any flat surface. It actually works, too.

  

 

The game itself is a simple button masher. There are two attack buttons and two block buttons. All you really have to do is attack faster than the other monster. You can do battle as any of the three monsters or three robots. Kaiju Battle uses Qualcomm AR technology to paint the battle scene on your camera feed. All you need is an object for the app to use as a point of reference. I used a sheet of printer paper, but anything that stands out should work. There is also a simple camera mode that lets you stick Pacific Rim behemoths in your snapshots.

I would say the AR in this app works pretty well. It seems to scale proportions correctly, and rotates the battle as you circle around the point of reference. It's not the most advanced fighting game, but it's free and definitely fun to play around with for a little bit.

Barnes & Noble may be toning down its Android tablet business, but they'd still really appreciate it if you bought some books from them. To that end, they've updated the Nook Android app to version 3.4, with a focus on better magazine browsing and book images. Now Android tablets with a resolution of 1280x720 or higher (which should be pretty much everything made in the last year, barring some off-brand hardware) have access to bigger, sharper HD scans of magazines.

New magazines have been added to the library as well: WIRED, Vanity Fair, GQ, Glamour, and SELF. These "HD" magazines are apparently not available on smartphones - I couldn't see them in the store with my RAZR M, while some other magazines were available for purchase and subscription. Illustrations within standard ebooks can now be enlarged, so you won't have to squint at the puzzle illustration from the latest Dan Brown mystery.

  

Lastly, there are a couple of accessibility additions for blind and reduced-sight users. Android's triple-tap Screen Maginifier introduced in 4.2 now works with Nook (though it's not clear how this is different from its standard behavior) and the text-to-speech TalkBack feature (Android 4.1 or higher) can now be applied to individual lines of text within magazines and ebooks. It works quite well, so long as you're acquainted with TalkBack's modified navigation scheme. There are also some requisite bug fixes which have not been detailed.

Live wallpapers are awesome. The problem is that so many of the offerings available are, well, not. Yes, flowers are certainly pretty, and meandering fish can be quite relaxing, but they just aren'tawesome. If I'm going to waste some of my battery life powering an excessive animated background that I'll generally only really see when using my phone as a clock, I want it to get my juices pumping. Stickman Wallpaper is another one of the more exhilarating options out there.

  

This live wallpaper places a gathering of stick people in one of many diverse locales, with Mount Rushmore, New York, and Japan marking a few of the real world places they will visit. The stick people that populate these places are also diverse. Some are suitcase-toting business men, some look distinctly undead, and others must have downed Red Bull, because they've sprouted wings. Lastly, there's diversity in what these stick people do. Some are out walking their dogs, some are hungry for brains, and some come wielding swords and are hungry for blood. Swordfights will take place in fields of snow, and Jedis will wield lightsabers in space.

Stickman Wallpaper promises updates every two weeks containing new backgrounds against which stick people will do battle, so if there isn't enough variation already, the situation should only improve with time. There's a few caveats here, though. These are stick people, and they look like they were drawn by seven-year olds, especially on screens with immensely high resolutions. This wallpaper looks pixelated, and not in the good Pixel Fleet kind of way. The fully featured version costs $1.47, but there's a free version available so you can try before you buy.

And I'll come clean. I actually love having animated leaves as my live background.

Kairosoft is one of the most dependably solid Android game developers out there. While their titles tend to have a lot in common, those who appreciate the city builder/RPG formula love it to death. The company's latest title is Pocket League Story 2, which builds on the eponymous original with a handful of new features, most notably the ability to play soccer games (well, sort of) against real-world opponents.

Here's the gist: you're the owner of a brand-new soccer team, represented by tiny pixelated players and managers. You'll have to recruit and train top-notch players to advance in the league. To do that, you also have to build up your facilities in a manner not dissimilar to old-school Sim City titles. New buildings will enable you to train your players with specialized skills, as well as bring in some much-needed revenue via visitors and sponsors.

When it's time to start a game, you're more or less an observer, looking down from your box seats to watch your players duke it out via AI. (Direct control is not an option.) New gameplay elements include dynamic weather and penalty shootouts. The biggest addition in Pocket League Story 2 is the ability to play against real opponents. The integration isn't great - you'll have to add friends via an 9-digit code a la Nintendo's "Friend Codes," and there's no real matchmaking - but it's a very welcome change to Kairosoft's single-player only status quo. Multiplayer functions are listed as beta at the moment.

  

Kairosoft tends to avoid the more popular currency-based in-app purchase model. A $3.99 IAP will unlock the "full" version of the game, which allows you to play in landscape mode and gets rid of the ads. The company has released a few of its titles like this, but there doesn't seem to be any pattern as to which games will use the conventional free demo and full app or IAP model. In any case, the game is more than worth it if you're a fan of Kairosoft's style or RPG/city builder games.

Low Life is a combination of real-time strategy (Without the guns or explosions) and a bit of puzzle solving. You guide a group of amorphous creatures through a harsh world, getting through obstacles, avoiding bad guys, and solving some simple puzzles on the way. The full game is has 84 levels, but you can try out the first half in this free demo.

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You’re responsible for the fate of The Plebs, a sweet but clueless bunch of guys who need your help to get them through the dangerous world they find themselves in. Directing the action from above you must get them through 84 levels of mayhem to find the teleport home. Direct the Plebs as a group or select individuals for special missions. Find keys, hit switches, throw bombs and shoot guns! The world is full of dangers including the nastier types of low life, ready to pounce on your guys if they get close enough.

  

  

Some fanciful takes on quantum theory state that every decision you make creates an alternate world in which you chose differently. The idea of small choices with big consequences is explored in this free 8-bit style adventure game. Once you've explored one branching path to the full, you can go back and try another, perhaps where you had a biscuit with breakfast instead of an English muffin. It's not exactly cutting edge (The Story of Choices was created in less than two days), but it should be appealing for fans of 8-bit style and chiptune music.

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The Story of Choices has a very complex story line, with multiple paths and endings, based on small decisions, such as "wake up" or "snooze" a little while longer. Our hero, named Choices, needs to avoid war between two kingdoms as he works as a messenger between the two kings. Make him choose wisely, and you could even get the princess to marry him.