Back in 2005 this amazing game called Guitar Hero rocked (pun, intended) the world with its curious originality despite it being so smack-on-the-forehead obvious. Everyone loves music, and idolizes celebrities even more, so why not put two and two together

The beautiful but simple design - not to mention ease of play (unless you play on Difficult - if so, I bow down to you)

and make a game of it? If Dance Dance Revolution and Rock Band are any indication, this gaming genre has lasting appeal, and shows little signs of slowing down. Kings of Leon Revenge is the latest from Tapulous – the supreme master of the tapping game domain – that capitalizes on this genre’s popularity. We reviewed  Tap Tap Revenge 2 on Appstruck awhile ago, both with glowing reviews, so we were excited to venture into Tapulous’ recent advent into musician-specific gaming. Kings of Leon Revenge follows ColdPlay Revenge, Lady Gaga Revenge, and a few others that entail a tapping game that feverishly adheres to music only by that specific artist. It’s a great way to become familiar with an artist, and it allows you cheap access to their music, wrapped into the bubble of a game.

The beauty of Kings of Leon Revenge lies in its streamlined play and aesthetic power. The game is simple, efficient, but beautifully designed: fuzzy, glowing lights of a brown and yellow earthiness permeate the game while a background image of the band is shadowed, ever so subtly, by the  semi-transparent orbs that fluidly steam toward the screen’s bottom, to explode upon your tap with an outward radiating halo. The game is such a pleasure to play because it runs so smoothly, with a slight lag only apparent momentarily on the 3G model when awarded combo points. The movements are so fluid it’s easy to get in that zone, where only you and the game and the music exist, in some halo of concentration and pattern-recognition. As I said with Bejeweled 2, there’s something to be said for games that cater to the human mind’s instinct to seek out patterns and adhere to them. Kings of Leon Revenge, along with other games of the same ilk, engrosses the user with a continual stream of orbs that you must tap at the exact right moment, much like striking the correct note when playing an instrument. The most I can play is on Medium Mode – Difficult really kicks me in the rear, big time. I’m privy to using my thumbs, but I know I’ll need to insert another finger, possibly rearrange my tactic, employing the use of index, middle, and ring finger instead of just my two, clunky thumbs. The screen shakes a bit in correction if you fail to hit a note, and awards you with combo and multiplier points when you remain error-free. You essentially beat along to the music, giving you the feeling that you’re playing along to the song, which as any music lover knows, is absolute heaven.

Much like its predecessors, Kings of Leon Revenge may be played on your own in Career mode, or with others in Battle Mode through a wifi connection. I prefer Concert Mode, unlocking more challenging songs, and downloading more songs to the default repertoire. I have yet to buy any songs from the option to do so through iTunes, but I love the fact that it’s there – people would definitely be more tempted to delve deeper into an artist’s music if they become familiar through playing a game. I, myself, had never heard of Kings of Leon before this game, despite recognizing a song here and there from the radio, and I can solidly say that after playing this game, I enjoy several of their songs. I may not buy them from the iTunes store just yet, but I certainly have them reserved on the sidelines for, say, future roadtrips or traveling when music is utterly mandatory. In particular, I like Love True Way, one of their lesser known songs, that exhibits more of a bluegrass meets early 80′s The Eagles vibe to it. Who would have guessed?

Regardless of whether or not you enjoy Kings of Leon as a band, the Revenge game is highly, highly addicting, as are all of Tapulous’ other games. It’s brilliant design, flow, and presentation are what make iPhones games such a pleasure to play.

To avenge my prior assessment, allow me to give you the tools to make the decision for yourself. Now it is time to determine which music-tap-fest-game isthe best for the iPhone. In this corner is the heavyweight Tap Tap Revenge 2.

This iPhone app follows in the vein of Guitar Hero, and additionally allows for reviews, downloads, and head to head challenges. The app offers career mode which acts as incentive to try all the special features of TTR2 and soon you’ll see these goals get ticked off the list as you become a tap master.

Impressively, Tap Tap Revenge 2 is not only an addictive game, it also acts as a platform for getting to know new music and cure boredom. I was able to play a song and choose from four difficulty levels (sound familiar?). I downloaded a Coldplay song, which very literally and ironicly froze and would not play. On the brighter side, I was introduced to the app’s theme song which had mind numbingly catchy lyrics including “don’t player hate because I dominate”, liberally spread with “global highscore” and the chorus of “tap tap, tap tap revenge”. The app also has hundreds of downloadable tracks, so I’m sure you’ll find something a bit more to your liking.

The app was quite responsive to touch, which I hope would be the case since that is the point of the app. But, as is the case with many apps, there still are bugs to be exterminated. Even extremely popular apps such as Tap Tap Revenge 2  (which has had over 23,561 ratings through the iPhone Appstore since the last version was released in March 2, 2009) still have some work to do.

My favorite aspect of TTR2, is the two player mode. Some people are interested in playing online against strangers, I like to play against my real friends; the ones I see every day. TTR2 gives me this opportunity and you get to fight over who’s really holding the iPod. Can you imagine if it was overlooked to take out the shake for two player? In one player you are often asked to shake the iPhone up or to the side to the beat (instead of tapping). Thank goodness I never came across this in two player mode where we are both using the same iPhone!

This app really does try to include a useful music tool though. After you rate a track you are given a list of the similar artists. Although this doesn’t compare to Pandora on guaging personal taste, I am happy with the direction Tap Tap Revenge 2 is going.

With today being the last day of the week to cover iPhone Music apps, what better way than to end it with a spin off of the incessantly popular Guitar Hero and Rock Band mania?

Guitar Rock Tour is an iPhone music gaming app produced by Gameloft that rides on the coattails of success garnered by Harmonix’s Rock Band and RedOctane’s Guitar Hero. It’s played in much the same manner, tapping the colored buttons in coordination with the rhythm, with higher points earned for jamming nonstop, and losing points for missing a button. As the crowd cheers your rocking out and head-thrashing and super-chill-yo guitar riffs, a lever on the side of the screen fills up with pulsing red light, indicating you now have “Pyro Power,” which you then pull down to incinerate any upcoming buttons on the line-up, saving you some hassle and earning you major points. The crowd also callously, and viciously boos you off stage if, like me, you attempt the Hard mode, and discover the game is much harder when you only have two thumbs to use instead of all five fingers, possibly even two hands as with the drum set in Rock Band. I suggest starting off slow on Easy mode, get adjusted to using your thumbs at the right cadence, figuring out just when to tap the buttons as they cross the line, then work your way through Medium before tackling Hard mode. I think it may actually be possible to develop a new kind of glass-sheared callous a la old-school Ninteno game controller blister, with all the tap tap tapping you’ll be doing at an increasingly frenetic pace.

Three songs are available right off the bat – the classic rock song Rock You Like A Hurricane by the German band Scorpions, You Really Got Me by The Kinks, and grunge-worthy Heart Shaped Box by iconic band Nirvana. I normally opt to rock out on the guitar (desire to be up front and center? Phallic envy? Who knows), but there’s a choice of playing drums, which, thankfully, only display two lines of buttons to tap, since playing with more than two fingers is most likely unfeasible.

I like to jump right into playing with “Quick Play,” but to unlock more songs you must play the “Tour” mode. Other songs include Message in a Bottle by The Police, Walk Idiot Walk by The Hives, What’s My Age Again? by Blink-182, Beat It by Michael Jackson, and many more covering the rock genres of Classic, Indie and Punk.  I have a sneaking suspicion, though, for copyright purposes GameLoft sourced the songs from cover bands, as some of the voices sound just a wee bit different. Just as in Guitar Hero and Rock Band, CGI figures sing and play in the background, though you probably won’t look at them much, other than your slight peripheral vision, as tapping the buttons proves to be far too engrossing.

The game is epic in every aspect, from the lavishly showy intro video, complete with shooting red flares, stadium sweep, and slow motion punk girl strumming her guitar, to the game itself, rambunctious and lively enough to keep you entertained all on your own. The game is laden with hip and cheesy lingo – “crank it up!” – and the main page before starting depicts a lustful, tattooed Agyness Deyn type.

Even if you find Guitar Rock Tour to be so glitzy and glam as to be nauseating, it’s a guilty pleasure, and is a load of fun to play.

iLike has brains. Offering interactivity and a template for musicians to create a personalized app for their music sets iLike apart from many. “We’re encouraged by the positive response our create-your-own-app platform has generated, and this is only the beginning,” said iLike CEO Ali Partovi. As of five days ago, it was reported that 250 musicians had created apps using iLike’s template.

I came across William Fitzsimmons iLike app one week ago. Drawn by the both the references to Iron and Wine as well as a neckbeard to be proud of, I started listening. If this were a music review I would elaborate, but it is not so I won’t.

The app, however is worthy of elaboration. First, the gripes: slow response to tapping. Luckily I was listening to his music while the app was on otherwise, William would have been out of luck. Once the app froze on me, too.

Besides that I think this is a wonderful app. The screen capture shows that iLike’s app is well organized. Once I set the music to play, I browsed throughout the app without musical interruption.

The app offers music, video, photos and general media stalkership of the artist. I found the blog, concerts, and fan wall to be a bit more helpful and interactive. I like that the fan wall sources where the comment came from, because otherwise I may wonder how many friends William Fitzsimmons can get to pose as “fans”. Way to go iLike, legitimizing the features through transparency!

The games section is silly. This particular iLike app had two puzzle games made of William Fitzsimmons photos. They’re pretty hard and enjoyable to do while listening to the music.

It’s funny how often paths can cross again and again. I was planning on going to a concert on my birthday, but because of unforseen events didn’t go. Now I find that had I went, I would have found William Fitzsimmons that night opening for who I would see. As I didn’t get to that concert and I have been enjoying William’s work, It almost seems meant to be that I’ve come across this app.

I was introduced to Tap Star as a Dance Dance Revolution for my phone, but neither Apple nor AT&T condone dancing upon it. I tried the next obvious step, but my toes are not nearly nimble enough for this game. So, officially there is no dancing involved with Tap Star.

It’s a basic rundown of this type of music-tapping-orgy app (yes that’s official lingo). There are different tracks that come with the app, and more that are downloadable. Each track has four different difficulty settings. As I said before, this finger tapping is not exactly one of my talents, so I am somewhere between Rookie and Amateur, but someday I may aspire to be Pro or even a Tapstar.

Arrows fly up the screen and as they fly over the box at the top of the screen, you tap the corresponding corner of the iPhone, theoretically. I quickly found this to be difficult, but this is of no fault to the app, but can be traced back to a genealogical inadequacy in rapid thumb tapping.

Some notable elements of this app are how it corresponds with the downloadable tracks, which is mostly due to the development by EpicTilt and Sony. As you open the app you are welcomed by an update of the *newest* downloadable track. This is great, but it does not automatically send you on your way to the game, and after you’ve downloaded the app, you hardly need to “skip to intro”. Skip what? Downloading it a second time? If you’ve already downloaded the track, the update plays dumb and sticks around, just like your little brother does when you just really want some DDR alone time. Whenever you choose your track you have the option of buying it too, so hopefully this will completely revitalize the music industry, instead of incentivizing you to download the entire discography of the music you just tapped to (don’t even try it, Sony knows people who know people if you catch my drift).

Also, the app can only be played sideways (see photos), so prepare yourself for that. Not a biggie, but I felt awkward sideways for a bit (again maybe a personal problem?).

You can submit your score after you’ve won (if you can win). This gives the app the same pseudo-social element that retro arcade machines did when you could input your three initials to show that you spent more time and money to master the button mash  and win a golden spot among the arcade gods. Same feeling here; I will never be a Tap Star, but I can comment my little loser heart out.

Besides a bit of my awkwardness and a little rough menu traveling, I found this app to be worth a shot. My only real qualm is the need for more music. There IS variety to the music, but not a ton to choose from, but of course this will come in time. It’s all from Sony, so you know they have plenty to choose from

Happy tapping!

It’s not often I walk the near bankrupt aisles of Toys R Us, a smoldering figment of mid 1990’s affluency, post F.A.O Schwartz, post KB Toys, but I do know toys of all kinds and sizes still line the aisles in quantity, and kids still run up and down the corridors, no doubt grabbing the latest and greatest of the Transformer toys or the noisiest, silliest, most outrageous – and most expensive – toy conceivable. Yet, for small children, the most interactive toys are the simplest – ones that make noise accompanied by loud colors, replete with animal, musical, and just plain cheerful themes.

Mantaray Creative understood this simplicity in distracting a child from otherwise disrupting behavior, and utilizes the small and portable – and thankfully, fairly indestructible – iPhone as the toy. iBabyBuddy was inspired by the aforementioned experiences with children, when little Bobby is fussy and whiny, in need of attention, and when expensive toys are carelessly tossed aside, boring from the get-go. The app is designed to entertain, stimulate, and teach children through the simple interaction with and discovery of sounds produced by animals, musical instruments, and what Mantaray calls “whimsical toy sounds.”

iBabyBuddy is brilliantly and festively colored – bright blues and yellows, reds and greens all draw in the eye – and the drawings are easily recognizable, with the animal pictures being fairly detailed for being so cartoon-y. There are three pages, one each for the themes of animal, musical instruments, and whimsical toy sounds, and you may navigate either by sliding your finger from side to side or by shaking the iPhone to “shake-n-change” the page. Each of the six images per page act as interactive buttons, so your child may tap them one at a time or in wild succession, a cacauphony of elephant trumpets and cow moos, all to his delight.

The drawings will highlight and change animation once tapped, and each sound corresponds with the picture at hand: the chimp ooo ooo aahhh aahhs, the elephant trumpets, the frog croaks, the acoustic guitar twangs, the cymbals crash, the drum beats, and so forth. I was curious to see what sound Mantaray chose for the skunk (I thought, “a skunk, really?”) and was amused when a fart was heard. For the whimsical toy sounds there are various creaks, rattles, boings, squeaks, wagga wagga noises, and the lone cartoonish slip and crash slapstick noise.

Mantaray Creative is so sure of the quality of iBabyBuddy they actually guarantee an “endless array of non-stop, educational fun.” We’ll see how that guarantee plays out when little Timmy finally tires of the turkey gobble gobbling, and tosses your iPhone in the street gutter. Oh, that Timmy. But for only $1.99, iBabyBuddy offers what most $20 noise-making toys do, and it’s far prettier and far more portable, not to mention it’s less plastic that will end up in your local landfill. When I tested iBabyBuddy on one of my local neighborhood kids, she couldn’t stop pressing the musical buttons, creating a jarring musical overture not unlike the warm-up cacauphony before a symphony. Most of all, though, she was tickled senseless by the skunk farting, and if Mantaray were really smart, they would just make an app with different animals farting.

iBabyBuddy is an excellent toy for children, and its simple interface only belies Mantaray’s understanding of simple pleasures for simple minds.