Unsurprisingly perhaps, there are not that many RPG’s available for Android. It isn’t really the best platform for a style of game which usually requires many hours of play. Battleheart looks like it is trying to buck that trend and bring some levelling up goodness to phones around the world. The game has been available for iOS for some time, and was something of a hit with iPhone users, so it is not surprising to see it make its way over to Android.

Battleheart is a nice mix of slightly cutesy graphics, simple and intuitive controls and a welcome amount of depth. Far from being a casual game, Battleheart shows what can be done on a mobile platform with a bit of creativity and some damn good programming. At its core, Battleheart is a fairly standard single player RPG. Build a party of heroes, fight increasingly difficult groups of monsters (in real time) and earn XP to level up your characters. There are several character classes, including the usual Rogue, Wizard and Knight or Warrior, which can be customised to your playing style with hundreds of magical items and weapons, as well as numerous skills.

The menus and interface have been kept simple, doing away with the numerous character and item screens seen in full-size games of this type. Attacking a foe is as easy as drawing a line on screen between the party member you want to do the sword swinging and the enemy you want to do the bleeding. You can assign several party members to attack a single foe, or break up the battle into a series of one-on-one fights. The fights are fairly simplistic, as you might expect, but this does nothing to lessen the enjoyment of smashing a group of enemies.

If we were talking about a game on the Nintendo DS or PSP, these sorts of game features wouldn’t be unusual or even worth mentioning much, but when you consider that this game is a 46MB download which costs just a few pounds, it is a lot more impressive. If you are looking for a game to get your teeth into on Android, and you fancy a nice mix of fighting, exploring and character building, Battleheart couldn’t come more highly recommended. 

Meet Swampy. Swampy is an alligator who yearns for a more human existance, frowning on his fellows who love nothing more than lazing around in the mud and muck, and instead enjoying the pleasures of a nice shower. Unfortunately, Swampy lives in the sewers underneath a city (not the first place I would go looking for a shower…) and his less hygenic co-habitants are conspiring to sabotage his water supply and put a stop to this soapy madness. Your job is to get the water flowing from the main supply, through the muck, mould and broken pipes of the sewer, and finally to Swampy’s show outlet.

You use your finger to carve a path through the sewer muck, so that when the water is released, it flows smoothly to the shower. At the beginning of the game, this is a fairly simple task, but as the levels tick by things get increasingly difficult. Rarely will the path be straight from A to B, and you will have to avoid things like toxic ooze, mould, traps and even explosives. Along the way you will also need to activate switches that keep the water flowing and try to collect the rubber ducks dotted around in the filth.

The game features 120 levels of increasing difficulty, spread over 6 themed chapters. New levels are unlocked by collecting the ducks, with each level containing three of the little rubber critters. Several levels also contain other bathtime toys hidden in the muck, and collecting these opens bonus levels for you to try. The physics of the water sloshing around is really very good and despite the cute visuals and the Disney name, this really doesn’t feel like just a kids game. Some of the later levels are fiendishly hard and there is certainly enough challenge here for adults. On top of that, the game is good “clean” fun!

Disney seem to have been a little slow to get on the Android game bandagon, with Puffle Launch being the only other Disney game available on the Market. Whilst that game was well put together and great for kids, Where’s My Water is definitely a step up in terms of quality. Oh well, time for my shower. Now where did I put the key to that manhole cover?

Android App Reviews Volume 5

Our friends over at BDM, publishers of some of the best iPhone, iPad and Android magazines around, have just released the fifth edition of Android App Reviews. This excellent 160-page magazine, an essential purchase for anyone wanting to find the best apps available, is on sale at a newsagent/news stand near you right now.

“There are many popular apps that almost everyone knows and understands, but with such a huge number of apps available sorting the hits from the misses among the rest is challenging for even the keenest Android fan. Android App Reviews is here to help. 

Our team of Android fanatics has compiled hundreds of reviews and recommendations covering every category of Android app. From Books to Widgets, no matter what you are looking for, we have every essential app featured.

As well as providing you with an essential list of the best apps around, Android App Reviews also includes several step-by-step tutorials, covering everything from the safest way to download and backup your apps, to the best way to protect your Android device from viruses and malware.

On top of that, you will find an app troubleshooting guide and detailed looks at individual popular apps, showing you how to make free calls using Skype or create unique ringtones with Ringdroid, and much more.”

You can find out more about the magazine and find out BDM’s App of the Day on their Facebook or Twitter pages.

Android App Reviews is out now, priced just £8.99 ($17.99)

Welcome to the second post in our series of guides to getting up and running with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

Change the wallpaper

Zombie Dash combines the timeless appeal of classic arcade games with stunning graphics you have to see to believe.

Game Features:
- Visually stunning updated graphics, character and weapons
- Gameplay optimized for touch screen devices
- Countless hours of gameplay with 4 different adventure world

REQUIRES ANDROID: 2.0 and up
CATEGORY: Action & Arcade
INSTALLS: 1,000,000 – 5,000,000
SIZE: 4.6M
PRICE: Free
CONTENT RATING: Everyone

Touch & type

Use your fingers to manipulate icons, buttons, menus, the on-screen keyboard and other items on the touch screen. You can also change the screen’s orientation.

To select or activate something, touch it.

To type something, such as a name, password or search terms, just touch where you want to type. A keyboard pops up that lets you type into the field.

Other common gestures include:

• Touch & hold: Touch & hold an item on the screen by touching it and not lifting your finger until an action occurs.
• Drag: Touch & hold an item for a moment and then, without lifting your finger, move your finger across the screen until you reach the target position. For example, you can drag to reposition shortcuts on the Home screen.
• Swipe or slide: Quickly move your finger across the surface of the screen, without pausing when you first touch (so that you don’t drag something instead). For example, you can slide a Home screen left or right to view the other Home screens.
• Double-tap: Tap quickly twice on a web page, map or other screen to zoom. For example, double-tap a web page in Browser to zoom in and double-tap again to zoom out.
• Pinch: In some apps (such as Maps, Browser and Gallery), you can zoom in and out by placing two fingers on the screen at the same time and pinching them together (to zoom out) or spreading them apart (to zoom in).
• Rotate the screen: On most screens, the orientation of the screen rotates with your device as you turn it. You can change this Display setting.

• Faster, smoother performance, with an updated and simplified user interface.
• Suggestions for your search grouped by type, with web suggestions at the top.
• Country-specific suggestions and search results for all countries with Google domains.
• Long press to remove history items.

Google’s App market recently reached the milestone of the ten billionth download. That’s a massive 4 billion downloads since June 2011!
And to celebrate? Well that’s the good news for you and me, because Google have partnered with some of the biggest app developers and have reduced the price of loads of top apps to just 10 cents (or 10p if you are in the UK).

Here’s what Google have said:

“To celebrate this milestone, we partnered with some of the Android developers who contributed to this milestone to make a bunch of great Android apps available at an amazing price. Starting today for the next 10 days, we’ll have a new set of awesome apps available each day for only 10 cents each. Today, we are starting with Asphalt 6 HD, Color & Draw for Kids, Endomondo Sports Tracker Pro, Fieldrunners HD, Great Little War Game, Minecraft,Paper Camera, Sketchbook Mobile, Soundhound Infinity & Swiftkey X.

Of course, none of these apps would have existed if it weren’t for the developers who created them. Every day, these developers continue to push the limits on what’s possible and delight us in the process. For that, we thank them.

Please join us in this 10-day celebration and check in every day to see what new apps our developer partners are making available on Android Market - for only a dime.!

Well it certainly appears that way. Figures show that the two leading smartphone platforms now account for 58% of the US mobile gaming market, an increase of nearly 40% since 2009. In that year Nintendo held a massive 70% of all mobile gaming. This figure has dropped to 36% in 2011.

If the trend continues, and we see no reason why it wouldn’t with Smartphones becoming more and more powerful, the years ahead could be very tough for the Nintendo DS.

Figures for Sony’s PSP system also took a drop, although they had less far to fall. A share of 11% in 2009 has been shrunk to just 6% today.

Source: Flurry Analytics

Desktop Software

Before you switch from your current BlackBerry device to a new BlackBerry device, you should verify that you have the most recent version of the BlackBerry Desktop Software on your computer.

Switch your device

Step 1 – Connect your current device to your computer with a USB cable, open the desktop software and click on Device > Device Switch.

Step 2 – Click on the icon for your current device and then tick the check boxes for Device Data and Third Party Applications (assuming you want to copy these).

Step 3 – Click Next and wait for your device data to be backed up. Make sure you do not interupt this process.

Step 4 – When prompted, disconnect your old BlackBerry and connect the new one to the USB cable. Click on Next when it has connected.

Step 5 – Click on the icon for your new BlackBerry and wait while your data and apps are transferred. A message will tell you when everything has been copied onto the new device.

Sim and Media Card

The only things left to do now is disconnect your new BlackBerry, turn it off and insert you SIM card and Media card (if you have one). If you are switching from a device that is associated with the BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS), open the email setup screen, in the setup wizard, on your new device and update your device PIN.