Here’s my Metro News review for the week of Aug. 18th
Riddle of the Black Cat
By J.W. Rinzler
iBooks/Kindle
Three Stars
Edgar Allen Poe’s famous detective, Auguste Dupin, takes on the insanity defense in this animated retelling of one of Poe’s darkest tales. Stellar voice acting and imaginatively possessed illustrations offer wonderfully grisly hysterics. Rinzler’s take is a creative one and the added analysis is insightful, yet still it can’t match the original short story’s powerful spell. Thankfully it’s included too.
Jillian Michaels
iPhone/iPad/Android
Free
This full-featured fitness app offers tailored workouts and recipes, video instructions, in-depth articles and a tracking journal. The free beginner content is good, but a costly subscription is needed after.
Forks Over Knives
iPhone
$3.99
An appetizing selection of creative vegetarian meals, this companion to the documentary of the same name offers weekly updates of grain-focused breakfasts, stews, salads, noodles, burgers, and even decadent desserts.
Hanx Writer
iPad
Free
Actor Tom Hanks is the quirky mind behind this app that turns your iPad into a selection of manual typewriters, complete with classic fonts, mechanical sounds, and a “proper” delete key.
Hohokum
PS4/PS3/PS Vita
Rated: Everyone 10+
4 Stars
This deliriously psychedelic, pop art experience is indeed a game, but you’ll need to relax and explore its abstract worlds just to find the puzzles. It reminds me of The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine, with its vibrant worlds, strange machines, and multicoloured people. As a painted snake, you glide, give rides, and explore, and somewhere along there try to figure out what’s going on. Things grow, bloom, flood, and explode to a joyous groove. It’s an animated masterpiece, but its ethereal confusion will either delight you or frustrate you beyond belief.
