Here’s my Metro News reviews for the week of June 1st.
Exploring Calvin & Hobbes
Bill Watterson
Kindle/iBooks
In this insightful retrospective of his work, a normally reclusive Bill Watterson allows for an in-depth interview about his childhood, artistic influences, and storytelling craft. Presented alongside his early drawings and studio tools, it delivers the kind of shared intimacy and warm candor that fans have long been waited for.
Google Photos
iPhone/Android
Free
Now offering unlimited storage for both videos and photos, Google’s image editor will also analyze and identify the content of your images to automatically organize them for you into groups and make them easier to share online. It will even identify people and track them as they age.
Foodtweeks
iPhone
Free
Share what you’re planning to eat and this app will suggest calorie-reducing tweeks, such as removing cheese from a burger or the skin from a chicken breast. Log enough of these actions or share them on social media and a donation will be made by Foodtweeks to a food bank.
Runtastic Leg Workout Trainer
iPhone/iPad/Android/Apple Watch
Free
This collection of 50 instructional videos focuses entirely on lower body workouts. Designed to be done anywhere and without equipment, you can customize a routine by time limit and difficulty level with styles including Pilates and Lungden’s Leg. You can even add your routine to an Apple Watch for hands-free workouts.
Splatoon
Nintendo Wii U
Rated: E for Everyone 10+
A paint ball shooter in which you splat the walls as much as the other players, Splatoon is whimsical in the way you can swim through the paint to move faster and use rollers, grenades, and bazookas for explosions of colour. Since the winning team is the one that covers the most area, people spend less time shooting each other and so you get a little more breathing time and for casual players a better sense of being on a team.
Unfortunately the game is dependent on an internet connection. To level up, earn new gear, and even unlock offline levels you must first rank up through online matches. A minimum of eight players is needed to start and so you can spend a long time waiting for the lobby to fill up while the painfully small selection of maps means the matches become repetitive very quickly.
This means there isn’t enough playground to really explore the paint’s playful promise. Painting a wall or structure allows you to swim up it and access higher platforms and paths. That creativity should offer a wide variety of level designs and game types and you can’t help, but feel there’s so much potential here left unrealized.
