Firefox extensions for heavy surfers
March 4th, 2009 • 2 comments
This could easily be mistaken for hyperbole, but that would in fact be a mistake: Firefox completely changed the experience I have on the world wide web. It is easily extensible and allows a level of customization that few other applications in general (let alone web browsers) can touch. This enables users to craft a web experience that is highly customized to the interests and habits of that user. The browser can, by the way of extensions, become a powerful tool for web developers, a home-base for social media addicts, or an incredible environment for heavy surfers. This post highlights some of the best extensions for web addicts.
Adblock Plus- The web is a much different place than it was in the ’90s. At some point, companies realized they could advertise on the web. Now, web sites will sell their entire site design off to an advertiser and convert the whole site to an ad for a week or more. You’re going to see ads that try to get your attention by being disgusting. You’ll have animated flashing ads and ads that come up on top of content forcing you to watch before you read the site. It’s the one thing about the old web I really miss. I would almost be willing to go back to the days of the solid-grey backgrounds to dispense with the plethora of annoying ads I must put up with today. Luckily, thanks to a wonderful Firefox extension called Adblock Plus that will block 99% of all that crap, you can lose the ads and still keep your pretty backgrounds. The plugin automatically updates from a list of block rules that will cover most every ad you might see. You are also free to add your own custom rules to block ads the filters might have missed. Adblock Plus is the first extension covered for a reason: it is the biggest part of reclaiming your web surfing experience.
StumbleUpon- You’ve already loaded all your favorite sites into a feed reader like Google Reader, right? In that case, you may be looking for something to do when your feed reader is empty. StumbleUpon takes your interests and delivers a cool page related to one of them with every click of the Stumble button. My favorite metaphor to explain Stumble is that it is channel surfing for the web. Of course, it is far more intelligent than channel surfing. The StumbleUpon toolbar has a thumbs up and a thumbs down button. As you Stumble, you can rate pages using the buttons. This along with the interests you have selected determine which pages you will receive. It also includes a social networking aspect. You can add friends and recommend pages to them. Those pages will come up when they are stumbling. You can add any interesting page to StumbleUpon by clicking the thumbs up button. If a page has never been stumbled before, you will be prompted to provide some information in addition to a review. It’s a really fun way to discover more of the web.
Xmarks (formerly Foxmarks)- Foxmarks has been a great way to keep bookmarks in sync across multiple computers. Link as many machines as you like to your account, and your bookmarks are always in sync on all the machines. Now, the name has changed to Xmarks and features have been added to allow users to discover new sites that may be of interest. The new features are intriguing, but the bookmark syncing alone is enough to recommend this extension to anyone who uses more than one computer. The bookmarks are available online through the web interface in case you can’t or don’t want to install the extension. You’ll never be able to get away from your bookmarks!
Delicious/Diigo- I’m covering these together because you probably only need one or the other. Both are social bookmarking sites that, like Xmarks, store links to your favorite web sites online but unlike Xmarks these services have focused on the social aspects from the beginning. Before the massive improvements made in Firefox bookmarks with the 3.0 update, I used Delicious (and it’s extension) exclusively for bookmark storage. Now, I use both. In fact, I’m currently using Firefox bookmarks, Delicious, and Diigo. Diigo is a more full-featured service but is sorely lacking in the most important part of social experiences: users. Delicious has plenty of users to make the service seem worthwhile. The extensions for the services are similar. Both let you view bookmarks stored at the site without having to navigate to the page. Both allow users to easily add sites from the browser. They also work well with Firefox’s built-in bookmarks with a setting that allows bookmarks to be duplicated in both places. Both are indispensable for users who want to share their bookmarks and find cool new sites.
Edit Middle 2 and Cybersearch- Now, the most obscure extensions covered here. These are not flashy but are very useful. Firefox 3 gave us the “Awesome Bar”—a toolbar that is significantly less stupid than its predecessors in every browser released up to that point including Firefox 2+. Now, anything you type in the location bar is searched against URLs and titles of pages in your bookmarks and history. You may notice that searches are halted if you edit letters in the middle of whatever you have typed. Edit Middle 2 fixes this strange behavior and allows search to persist even if you correct a mistake in the middle of your typing. Cybersearch allows the “Awesome Bar” to search one more source: Google. Fantastic additions to an already stellar feature.
Read It Later- You may often find yourself with stories in your feed that are going to require more time and attention than you have at the moment. Read It Later allows you to organize pages and stories such as these. It uses Firefox’s bookmarking but tags the bookmarks you create with it so that it can include them in your reading list—a list of pages you would like to read at some point. Once you have read the page, you can add it to the permanent bookmarks, add it to a number of social news and bookmarking service, or simply mark it as read removing it from your list and bookmarks. This extension also offers syncing of its bookmarks, but you won’t need that if you’re also running Xmarks. The coolest feature of Read It Later is that, upon installing it, your Google Reader will incorporate a Read It Later button next to each of your stories making it easy to mark stories from the RSS reader for later review.
Tab Mix Plus- Firefox tabs are an amazing feature the browser thrust into popularity years ago. The browser’s native implementation improves with each release, but there are still some missing features. That can all be remedied with the Tab Mix Plus extension. You will now have a range of tab options you probably never before considered but soon will be unable to live without. My favorite option is the ability to choose which tab receives focus after you close one. I prefer the opening tab since I usually want to continue surfing that page after diverging to one of the links on it.
Stop-or-Reload Button- Here’s another small and simple extension that is really worth quite a lot. You may soon find that toolbar real estate is a premium in your newly tricked-out browser. This extension reclaims the space of one button which can be devoted to something more useful. How often do you need simultaneous access to both the stop and reload buttons? (That was a rhetorical question. You never need that, of course.) You only need to stop while a page is actively loading. Otherwise, you will instead have access to the reload button.
Download Statusbar- If your travels on the ‘net end up netting you any new files on your computer, you are probably somewhat frustrated with the fact that Firefox wants to pop up a new window when you start a download. It’s annoying. More annoying still is the fact that I have to switch between two windows to track my downloads while continuing to surf. The Download Statusbar puts your downloads at the bottom of the current window in a clean little bar above the status bar. When you aren’t downloading, it goes away. It’s much more elegant than Firefox’s default download manager.
Customization tips
You may find your interface a bit bloated if you install all of these and keep their default settings. You may customize the interface by right-clicking on an empty spot on the Firefox toolbar (try between the location bar and the search bar).
From this menu, you may disable toolbars or click Customize to start rearranging toolbar buttons. I usually end up with all bars hidden except the navigation bar and the bookmark bar. If there are buttons from another bar I want to use, I click the customize option and drag those from their current bar to either the navigation bar or the bookmark bar. Then I hide the other bar to save space. If you’re a Windows user, you can drag your bookmark toolbar to the top of the window next to the menu bar (You know the one. File, Edit, etcetera.) then hide the dedicated bookmark toolbar. Of course, if you’re a Mac user and don’t use the bookmark toolbar, you can just hide it without losing anything. This will save even more space. The key here is to get as much functionality into the smallest space possible to leave the most room for the actual browsing!
I hope you enjoy these tips. These extensions have really made the significant time I spend in my browser much more enjoyable and productive. If you’d like to recommend an extension or a tip for other web junkies like yourself, just drop us a comment!
Gaming blogs roundup
March 2nd, 2009 • 1 comment
I’m on a major gaming binge right now. As a result, I’m looking around for some cool blogs to add to my reader. I’ve found quite a bit of good stuff. Gaming is really so much more mainstream than it was ten years ago. Its audience has also matured tremendously. The media and the moral police of this great nation have had to accept the maturity of the content. The blogosphere reflects these sweeping changes in the medium. The blogging medium is even newer than gaming so as gaming has matured, blogging has matured into respected citizen journalism. These are the blogs that stand out right now. I’m skipping right over the Joystiqs and Kotakus—the juggernauts. You probably already know those. These are the blogs that, although they are a little harder to find, are well worth the effort.
Catchy Name News (RSS feed)- I first have to mention a friend’s blog. Justin is a long-time gamer with a lot of insight, a sense of humor, and an intense hatred of space marines and “art games.” His articles are always hilarious and often cover the dark corners of gaming many fear to tread. He just won the local SFIV tournament so head over to his blog and comment your congrats.
Sexy Videogame Land (RSS feed)- Leigh Alexander is all over the ‘net at major sites like Gamasutra and Kotaku. This is her personal gaming blog. There are some very cool posts. She’s currently playing RapeLay, the rape game that Amazon got into hot water for selling. I thought that might get your attention.
Magical Wasteland (RSS feed)- The design of the Magical Wasteland is complementary to the content. The entire site is black and white with no images getting in the way of the content which is insightful and well-written. This won’t clog up your reader either as updates come about once a week.
Arcade Heroes (RSS feed)- If you want to follow the dead and/or dying arcade scene, this is one great place. One thing you’ll learn from reading the site is that the arcade scene is much more vibrant in Japan than it is here in the US.
Dusty Pixels (RSS feed)- Is retro your game? Dusty Pixels covers game not in this generation (and I don’t see anything from the previous one), but even younger gamers may still be able to get “retro” as they seem to cover games for the original Playstation. There is a post with cool tips for acquiring older games to help get your collection going.
There are probably more blogs than there are people on earth so you probably have a few favorites I have missed. Maybe you have a gaming blog of your own you’d like to plug. Post a link in the comments. I’m always game for more cool game blogs!
The netbook trend
February 27th, 2009 • 4 comments
Netbooks have reached an amazing level of popularity in a very short space of time. In 2008, the netbook saw a 3,000% increase in sales over 2007. In the third quarter, netbook sales even outpaced those of the iPhone. To the average consumer, the choice is a simple one: I can go with a 15″ laptop for $600 or a 9″ netbook for $300. However, many netbook buyers are now learning that comparing a netbook to a notebook is not apples to apples.
In two years, the netbook will be another technology we look back upon and laugh like physics cards. The dominoes are stacked and ready for the fall. Here are the problems:
The original idea behind netbooks is that they would work primarily with web-based applications. This explained away concerns about low-speced builds. However, this was evidently a barrier for consumers who wanted to continue working with their desktop applications which require both processing power and memory to support the application along with storage space to keep saved documents and files. The evidence: manufacturers found soon after releasing the netbooks with Linux-based operating systems that users demanded the Windows-based operating systems instead. It also happened that Microsoft, no doubt feeling threatened by the growing popularity of a subset of computers incapable of running Vista, decided to resurrect Windows XP for distribution on netbooks. The web is virtually identical from Windows to Linux. Sure, people hate change no matter how small, but it seems to me that if users buy these machines with the expectation that the applications they are using are going to be primarily web-based, it wouldn’t be an issue. Also, the meager SSD offerings were seemingly insufficient as almost every new netbook coming out ships with a traditional hard drive. Why do I need 160GB hard drive to store my data in the cloud?
The processor, already a meager 1.6GHz, is throttled back to 500MHz for power savings. I’m all for power savings, but this seems a little extreme. Certainly road warriors will appreciate the longer battery life, but this comes at a great performance cost. It seems that much of the battery life gain will be utilized waiting for applications to load and complete processes.
To steal a phrase from Peter Rojas and Ryan Block of the gdgt podcast (who, I think, stole the phrase from someone else), netbooks are a race to the bottom. There is tremendous downward price pressure in this hardware category. This is great for the consumer… up to the point at which manufacturers can no longer offer lower prices for the hardware. At this point, they begin to explore more devious ways of externalizing the cost of these notebooks. You may remember the days of cheap computers with an AOL or CompuServe contract. Well, those days are back in the form of cellular data contracts. Who can resist a $99 computer with a two-year Verizon contract?
As consumers demand more from netbooks, the definition becomes muddied. We are already seeing netbooks in 10″ and 12″ configurations blurring the line between netbook and notebook. SSD has been mostly scrapped in favor of standard hard drives. Other manufacturers (I’m looking at you, Sony.) are releasing netbooks that they refuse to call netbooks in order to break out of the restrictive price constraints.
Ultimately, the problem is a misconception about what a netbook is meant to be. The netbook is really targetting geeks who already have a desktop, already have a real laptop (for doing real work), and want something to fill the gap between. Even this is a problem since most of these geeks have smartphones that are slowly becoming more and more capable of basic web-based tasks. The general populace sees this thing that looks like a small notebook and is offered at an attractive price. They believe it must be a notebook computer. Strictly speaking, it is, but it isn’t the workhorse a traditional notebook can be. This misconception leads to lots of sales on the frontend to average users who think they are getting a bargain, but it will not be sustainable as they recognize their error. An alternate scenario is that netbooks will slowly creep in price and performance to the point they are indistinguishable and thus will cease to exist. Either way, stock up on those cute little netbooks while you can. In 18 months or so, they may be much more difficult to find.
Frequency/Amplitude reborn!
February 26th, 2009 • No comments
Frequency and its sequel Amplitude for the PS2 were Harmonix‘s, Guitar Hero creators and current developers of Rock Band, first foray into console gaming. The games pioneered the modern rhythm gaming craze. In fact, the biggest difference between Rock Band and the early games are the controller. Harmonix tested the waters by releasing games that could be played with the standard PS2 controller. The games were really excellent. Granted, the PS2 controller wasn’t perfect for them, but they could have been improved with a small controller similar in size to the PS2 controller but with a different layout. Harmonix instead skipped straight into controllers shaped like instruments completing the metaphor.
That’s all well and good, but Sony recently announced a portable version of Rock Band for the PSP! Instead of some type of special controller for the portable console, the game will control with the standard PSP controlset. This gets me really excited. I was a big fan of Frequency and Amplitude, and I think it is a bit silly that Harmonix had to bundle a guitar shaped controller with what was essentially the next Frequency game to get the average gamer’s attention. If Harmonix can achieve bigger success with this spiritual sequel by exploiting the Rock Band brand, so be it! This may be the release that forces me to buy a PSP.
Primotech Exclusive: EA Publishing Rock Band Unplugged for the PSP
iPhone review: Vector Tanks
February 25th, 2009 • No comments
Vector Tanks is an iPhone game that seems to appeal to the nostalgia of former Battlezone players. I have very little connection to the source material here so I look at it through a different lens than would a player of the original Battlezone. It was released about three years before my birth, and, although Wikipedia says its popularity was enduring due to the innovative nature of the graphics and perspective, it had long since been retired into gaming lore by the time I began my illustrious career as a gamer. Vector graphics were a fad that didn’t endure (although the style was revived for the Geometry Wars series).
It has a look very authentic to that of it’s inspiration. In fact, the presentation is slightly improved. It is more colorful, and the lines have sort of a glow about them which is a pretty cool effect. Explosions are cool and feel large with the entire view shaking as an enemy tank explodes.
The control scheme has been well-adapted to the platform. I can’t imagine a better way to translate the controls of the original. The extreme left and right edges of the screen control movement of the left and right tracks. The middle of the screen on each edge is neutral—no movement is taking place. Slide either side to the top and that track will move forward; slide to the bottom and that side moves backward. It’s a pretty intuitive system. I have to say that, even though authenticity is not compromised, the controls are not entirely satisfying. It seems that sometimes the tracks do not move even though my fingers are tracing up and down the sides. This two-finger movement scheme is also problematic when it comes time to fire. Firing is accomplished by tapping the middle of the screen at the aiming reticule. In order to fire while moving, you must snake an extra finger (since your thumbs are occupied) around to the screen and tap on the center. Not only is this difficult to do, but it obscures much of the screen from view while firing is taking place. I guess this control setup was the best way to please the purists, but, on its own, the controls don’t hold up to much extended play.
Be prepared to see this screen quite a lot.
There is no narrative and no progression to the game that I can find. In the style of older games (and even still with newer arcade games) you are merely presented with a simple gameplay mechanic and given an opportunity to repeat it until you run out of patience (quarters being the arcade analog). This leaves a shallow gaming experience with no “carrot-on-a-stick” to keep me coming back.
I’m certainly glad I got to try this game. It has an undeniably cool and retro look. I imagine players of the original will enjoy the ability to play an old favorite on the go. Also, unlike many retro titles, Battlezone is a well that has not been tapped very often leaving the experience feeling fresh. It’s unfortunate that the controls seem to get in the way of enjoying the game. It’s doubly unfortunate that there seems to be no reason to continue playing unless you find the play mechanics themselves particularly satisfying. Some games are perfect for adaptation to the iPhone platform. Others like Vector Tanks are best left elsewhere.
Update schedule
February 25th, 2009 • 1 comment
I’m going to be moving to a bit more sane update schedule. Look for big posts on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday with other stories of interest posted as the urge hits me. Video shows will stay the same (bi-weekly on Friday). Thanks for reading. Be sure to subscribe to the feed so you won’t miss anything!
A cell phone retrospective
February 24th, 2009 • No comments
Wired has a cool photo retrospective of cell phones from the beginning to now. I never had one of the huge brick phones, but I fondly remember my StarTAC. It’s amazing how far we’ve come. I never thought I would actually want to pay for games to play on my phone, but that is where today leaves me… with unfortunate consequences to my bank account. 
Recession relief: Getting geek on the cheap
February 23rd, 2009 • No comments
As an Internet user, you should know you never have to pay retail for almost any gadget you might want. Internet retailers can sell much cheaper and they discount much more aggressively than their brick-and-mortar counterparts. Here are some of my favorite sites for getting great deals on geek sustenance—games and gadgets.
Games
Cheapassgamer.com- Maybe you want to save $5 or $10 on a game that’s launching soon. Maybe you want to find a heavy discount on a game that’s been out for a few months. Maybe you want the details on an upcoming game clearance at a retail chain. Cheapy D and the forum folks at CAG will hunt down the craziest deals and provide you with all the details. This site has been around for a while, and I don’t think they ever really miss. If there’s a deal, check out these forums and you will find it.
CheapCollegeGamers- Another forum for gaming deals. I only discovered this one recently. My favorite thing about it: the RSS feed is updated more frequently than that of Cheapassgamer and hits more of the deals where CAG only includes maybe one stellar deal per week. This feed has multiple deals every day. A great candidate for your Google Reader.
Half.com- eBay bought this site a few years ago. Almost yearly, eBay announces the site will be shut down, but the users just aren’t having it. So, the site survives. It is a marketplace for games, movies, books, and music. It’s sorta like eBay, but everything is Buy-it-now. All the auction foreplay is dispensed with. One really nice feature is the pre-order feature (now called Match My Price). Go to an item page, click Match My Price, and enter your desired price. When a seller lists an item, they will see they can sell it immediately for your requested price. If they choose to do so, it’s over. The item is yours and they are paid. You can set expiration for your pre-order for as little as two weeks, and you will receive e-mail updates to remind you that the pre-order is active. You can also manually cancel it at any time.
Gadgets and Gear
Woot- I’ve covered this one before, but this article cannot pass without mentioning it. Woot will give you one daily deal on a product. Most products are geek-friendly although there is the occasional golf club or espresso machine.
Slickdeals.net- The site has deals on all types of items, but much of what is posted is tech related. The RSS feed is great, but I find the deals are sometimes expired by the time they hit my reader. I guess if you really want to be thorough, you will have to keep the site open and spam refresh.
[H]ard|Forum- These are the forums of an excellent computer hardware site HardOCP. Check out the Hot Deals and the For Sale/Trade forums for nice prices on computer hardware and gadgets. You may find some gaming stuff here too. I actually came away with a 3DO console for practically nothing.
I know there are many more sites I may have missed. That’s where you come in! Post in the comments your favorite deals sites or even techniques for getting great prices on your geek gear. You may see an episode of the podcast in the coming weeks with some advanced online shopping techniques that will completely automate the process of finding deals online! Subscribe to the site feed or the podcast (iTunes) to stay informed.
Tumblr vs. Posterous: microblogging throwdown
February 22nd, 2009 • 17 comments
I’ve been auditioning the two heavyweights in the greater-than-140-characters microblogging space for a bit over a week now. I can tell you right off the bat, there is no clear winner here. Both services certainly have a place. In fact, the services are not quite as similar as I first thought.
Registration is an easy win for Posterous. It is one of few services that do not require a registration form to begin. Instead, just e-mail post [at] posterous [dot] com. Tumblr’s registration isn’t terrible, but you can’t beat no registration.
It was easily apparent that Tumblr (read my post about it) is the more full-featured of the two. It is truly just a half-step below a full-featured blog. There are multiple media types that can be easily added to your tumblelog. Posterous (read my post on that one too) takes a more hands-off approach to media. If you make a post with a link to a video on YouTube or a host of other media hosting sites, the media will automatically be embedded, but no attempt is made to facilitate your actually adding a video or audio file yourself unless you have first uploaded it to one of the aforementioned services. Tumblr, on the other hand, will send you to Vimeo when you want to post a video then add it to your blog. Audio hosting appears to be done in-house at Tumblr.
Both services offer a bookmarklet for easily sharing content without interrupting your surfing. There was at least one page that would not share with the Tumblr bookmarklet for some reason. I never really understood why that was. It seemed to share fine with Posterous. The bookmarklets are slightly different: Tumblr’s opens a new window/tab where Posterous overlays on top of the current page. I didn’t really see that make much difference. I’m sure some people would prefer one or the other, but it is purely cosmetic.
Both services also offer posting via e-mail. Posterous is intelligent in handling your e-mails. As I stated before, it will automatically embed media if you send e-mail with a link to said media. It seems Tumblr posts any link you send as just a link which is a bit of a bummer. You can, of course, still post a video through the web interface, but it would be nice to see e-mail posts handled based on context. Also, the Posterous address is a no-brainer: post [at] posterous [dot] com. Tumblr generates an e-mail address for each user. This means, you will probably not be recalling your e-mail for Tumblr if you happen to be away from your contact list.
The web interface is not the focus of the Posterous service. They really expect you to post everything via e-mail. It is still serviceable though. You get a WYSIWYG text editor, and, just like sending an e-mail, it will intelligently decide how to handle links. Even though Posterous doesn’t show you dedicated options for posting media, that functionality is present and works beautifully and simply. At Tumblr, you will select a type of post which will determine how your data is displayed. It has all the goodies as well. It’s nice to be able to explicitly specify what you are trying to post. If you were to post a link to a video site Posterous does not support, it is unclear how that would be handled. Since you would have already specified in Tumblr that you intend to post video, it makes sense that you would receive an error if Tumblr cannot find video at the given location.
If you need customization, you should really just forget about Posterous as there isn’t any to speak of. Tumblr has a really wide-range of options here. If this is going to be your only blog and you want to express yourself, Tumblr is the way to go.
Tumblr has added a new feature since I wrote about them that is very interesting. Users can now call a 1-800 number to post audio from their phones on the go. This is really cool, but I’m not sure exactly how I would use it.
As I said in the opening, neither service dominates the other. My advice: if this is your only blog or you really need to be able to customize, go with Tumblr. It’s easy, offers a lot of features, and completely flexible as far as styling. If you’re looking for a service to supplement other services in the social media space, stick to Posterous. It’s quick to setup, you don’t even have to think about design or customization, and you can basically use e-mail for all your posting be it text or multimedia. I’m personally going with Posterous. I’m already well-represented on the social web so I don’t need a microblogging service to reflect myself in any aspect other than the content. Posterous really dispenses with all the frills and lets me focus on just that.
Once again I want to mention that, should you decide to start using one of these services, you should totally add me. We could be friends and stuff. I will probably use my Posterous for most things, but I’m keeping my tumblelog around just to see if I can find a use for the über-cool audio posting via phone feature. If you’d prefer to follow both via RSS, I made a pipe for that which will try to eliminate any duplicate posts. See you on the Interwebs!
iPhone review: iDracula
February 21st, 2009 • No comments
At first glance, iDracula is visually reminiscent of the Diablo series (no, not the new rainbow/unicorn-riddled Diablo 3). Imagine my surprise when I fired up the game to find it has both feet firmly planted in a genre resurrected by Geometry Wars: the twin-stick shooter. For anyone unfamiliar with this type of game, it utilizes two different directional inputs—the first for traversing the arena and the second for controlling the direction of fire. In this implementation of the genre, you are a vampire hunter fighting wave after wave of monsters, picking up weapons and skills along the way to help you deal with the ever-encroaching onslaught.
Of course, the iPhone does not have the “twin sticks” from which the genre derives it’s name. Instead, like others that have come before, the developer had to devise another control mechanism. iDracula uses two on-screen directional controls giving it razor-accurate response. Per convention, the left side controls your character’s movement while the right side controls firing. The controls are rarely obtrusive and are positioned to still allow for a large play area while still being large enough to facilitate intuitive controls. It’s easy to find where your thumb needs to be to move and/or fire in any given direction.
The game comes with two modes: “Rush” and “Survival.” Rush mode throws you right into the fray. At all times, you’ll be surrounded by tons of monsters, and, armed with your machine gun and unlimited ammo, you’re tasked with mowing down as many as possible. This is the game mode for a quick play session. If you just have a minute or two to play, fire up “Rush” mode to dispense with all the foreplay. Throughout my play in this mode, there isn’t really any progression. That’s where “Survival” mode comes in.
“Survival” mode is the meat of the game. This mode couples the frantic arena shooting with RPG-like progression to give players a surprisingly robust experience. The mechanics are identical, but there is real progression here and incentive to play for more than a few minutes. You start with a handgun, and you’re looking at two or three shots to kill the weakest enemies. Luckily, the enemies will trickle in slowly at first to ease you into the action. Before long, the pace will pick up, new and stronger enemies will be introduced, and you’ll most likely have found a better weapon just about the time you were thinking you weren’t going to hold up much longer with just the pistol. The game seems to be intelligent about when new weapons are dropped so that you never feel like you are either underpowered or overpowered. You also have to manage ammo, but, honestly, once you start getting new weapons, ammo is not tough to find either although you may not necessarily find ammo for the particular weapon you want to use.
The progression comes in other forms as well. Perks are iDracula’s analog to leveling and learning new spells in an RPG. After a number of kills, you will see the perks icon light up in the top-right of the screen. Tap it to access a menu with four randomly selected upgrades like the ability to do more damage when your life gets low or a greater maximum health. These upgrades are persistent throughout your play session. In addition, you will periodically encounter Dracula. He is much tougher than the other enemies. If you defeat him, you are awarded with a shard. Collect shards to advance in rank. Unfortunately, rank is purely superficial; it’s nothing more than a word displayed at the end of the statistics screen displayed when you die leaving little incentive to strive for higher rank.
Now this is sounding like more of a timesink, right? Luckily, the developer considered the habits of mobile gamers and included an autosave that will allow you to resume your game after you have closed the game (or received a call). There is an in-game pause button as well, which is also convenient from time-to-time.
My complaints are few and minor. The character’s lower body moves completely independent of the upper body which creates some wacky-looking scenarios such as running full-speed forward away from monsters while your torso is facing and aiming in the exact opposite direction. The character’s feet should always be within a 90° radius of the direction of his face, but that is not necessarily the case here. I would love to see some sort of narrative and a progression through that narrative although that is a bit much to ask of a game at this price-point. (Maybe in the sequel?) 
An audio cue for perks would be nice. I often don’t know until I glance at the top-right of the screen that I have perks available. Finally, it is somewhat difficult to switch weapons in the game. The task itself is simple, but it requires diverting one of your thumbs from a directional control to execute. This is often dangerous by the time you might want to switch weapons because of the frantic pace of the game. To halt either firing or moving at these times is virtually suicide.
I’m really excited to see more from this developer. This is a near-perfect mobile gaming experience for players craving a bit more in the realm of hardcore gaming experiences on the iPhone. It is a genre-bending title that expertly melds a game well-suited to short, quick play sessions with some elements that make it worth coming back to. The game is currently $.99 at the time this review is published and will be for a little while longer. The developer is also promising some meaty additions (like a new game mode) in an upcoming update. The regular price is $2.99. It’s an incredible value at either price, and I’m sure iDracula will remain on my home screen for some time to come.