During an interview with Treet.TV CEO Wiz Nordberg, I was introduced to a crossword puzzle game made for the iOS that backs the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. He described Crosswords by Stand Alone, Inc. in such a positive light that I felt I had to review it myself.

The first thing I noticed about Crosswords was the incredibly fortunate name this app was able to grab. As Wiz pointed out, the advantage to an entirely new platform is the ability for early-comers to grab the best names for their apps. Crosswords makes perfect sense and by name alone has probably received a lot more attention than many others buried behind a sea of easier discoveries.

Moving on to content, Crosswords has daily updates from virtually every major newspaper you may have heard of. From the Houston Chronicle to the New York Post, you likely won’t find yourself bored waiting for a new puzzle to solve. In some cases, puzzles appear in the app as much as two days before they are slated for release.

Once you have a puzzle selected, the interface is incredibly adapted to users with completely varying tastes. You can hold the device upright for access to an easy menu as well as a more full-screen view of the game field. Upon tilting to the right or left, the screen splits between the puzzle and the questions giving you faster access to the clues if you are more accustomed to jumping around to what you know before attempting to tackle what you are less sure about. You can also do a word-by-word view to simplify the overall process and remove a lot of the clutter from the puzzle. As much as I would normally hate such drastic variances in the interface when tilting the device, the developers knew exactly what they were doing here.

Price is a big factor when considering purchasing Crosswords. At $9.99 the sticker shock for an iOS app is steep. While you might pay twice that for a Nintendo DS version of pretty much the same game, many users are more accustomed to paying a fraction of this.

Having played Crosswords, I would say that if you are serious about your interest in Crossword puzzles, this is a very professional app that has all the perks you would expect from the price tag. If you’re only a casual puzzle solver then you may find other more budget-friendly apps your style.

Special thanks goes to Wiz Nordberg of Treet.TV for bringing up this app for review. Click here information about Stand Alone, Inc. and Crosswords app.

Their official press release is below:

Rockstar Games Presents Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars Lite – Free for the iPhoneT and iPodR touch

Rockstar Games is happy to announce the release of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars Lite for the Apple iPhone™ and iPod® touch. Chinatown Wars Lite is your introduction into Liberty City’s criminal underground. As Huang Lee, help Uncle Wu “Kenny” Lee in his quest for revenge and control of the Triad Gangs of Liberty City. Immerse yourself in the first three missions from the full game and get ready for hotwiring, reckless driving, heart-pounding gunfights and plenty of hot pursuits.

Download this exciting experience for free at the iTunes App Store and get behind the wheel of one of the most critically-acclaimed handheld titles of this generation.

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is compatible with iPhone™ and iPod® Touch Firmware 3.12 and above.

2XL gives you a very diverse set of color choices for your bike and attire in addition to an impressive set of tracks to fit your taste. Some of the tracks are extremely confusing though they do make simple square and figure 8 tracks available to you as you become accustomed to the Supercross sport.

Graphics are somewhat bland which is what we expected coming in to a game that was designed with mobile gaming in mind. It was a surprise to see resolution choices ranged from small screen to extremely generous. The 1600×900 and 1680×1050 resolution testing systems were both well adjusted and natural. Though the textures were very plain, I didn’t leave the gaming experience feeling as if I had been ripped off in any way graphically.

2XL Supercross is made to be used with an accelerometer, joystick or controller. This doesn’t stop the game from being more than playable using a keyboard. Movements were a bit jerky at times and it takes a little getting used to, though it isn’t unplayable.

Sound effects and music were very good for a budget game. The engine sounded a bit like someone giving a raspberry to a microphone when played on basic laptop speakers. The crowd cheers when you pass an opponent and boos when they pass you. Thankfully, you can turn down your engine, effects, crowd and music independently as you prefer.

Don’t expect to be wowed by the experience, but at under ten dollars this is a title worth picking up.

Geo-Defense has amazing sounds and big explosions. It’s simple and easy to understand. The game reminds me of Tron and not in a bad way. One very positive aspect is once you leave the game using the home button, your place is saved and picked up when you load it back up. This makes Geo-Defense a solid app for use when you just need to kill a few minutes.

Here is where simple graphics make all the difference in the world. As you jostle your iPhone about and turn it upside down hoping for more of the soothing sound the background moves with you simulating an actual environment using the screen of the iphone as your eyes in to this tropical jungle. It isn’t pinpoint accurate with your motions but it is a surprisingly smooth addition to this very simple application.

In addition to the background, the name of the program so prominently displayed on the UI rotates with the device. This may not be the best aspect of the program but it does show the creator has a mind for branding. If you are looking over the shoulder of someone playing with Rain Stick you can’t miss the name of the program.

So how does the new version of this classic game look? Well, the graphics are very good for an iPhone app. The jagged edges on many of the graphics are a severe reminder that antialiasing is not present on this device but given the small overall screen size and comparisons to other games in the market this offering from Electronic Arts is impressive. They took a gamble adding 3d animations and special effects knowing that the device might not be very flattering to this theme and it didn’t fail to accomplish giving an overall pleasant viewing experience.

The virtual board game brings the thunder when it comes down to sound. Music available in multiple styles while sound effects are plentiful. The whirr of the blades on the windmill piece, the slap of the sumo wrestler’s feet on the cold tile of the playing area and even the revving of the car’s engine brings this game to life in an interesting way. After about an hour of playing I found myself wanting to turn the music off just so that I could hear the subtle sound effects that let me know exactly what was going on before I even needed to read the cards as they came up.

Optimization is lackluster. I say that because no matter how much memory I freed on the iPhone I couldn’t play for more than five minutes without receiving a low memory warning requesting that I reboot the device. Thankfully, this wasn’t the case with my iPod Touch as it played for hours without even the slightest glitch. 3d Animations get a little jumpy on the iPhone while they remain smooth on the iPod Touch giving a very real indication that every bit of processing power on the iPhone was needed to run this game. The iPod Touch has been promoted as a gaming device in part thanks to its slightly more powerful processor which helped out remarkably with the overall experience. I have to take points off for this serious aggravation.

Control and challenge levels are two areas where this game soars. Controls are not only explained at the beginning of every game but they are so intuitive that you really don’t need the reminder at all. There are three difficulty levels and as much as I found myself wondering just how a dice game can have a difficulty setting I found myself really being thrown a curve by the remarkable AI. Deals and offers are greatly controlled by this setting as you may be able to sneak past a strategically beneficial trade with the AI on the lower setting while you might find yourself getting the short end of the stick on the higher setting. Monopoly is very much about strategy and this has certainly reminded me of that fact.

Overall, Monopoly: Here and Now for the iPhone and iPod Touch is worth picking up at the low price of $4.99. You have options of enjoying a multiplayer game or going head-to-head with up to three AI players. The games last anywhere between 20 minutes and 2 hours depending on how the dice fall. If you are a fan of the classic board game you may find yourself glued to the screen of your phone as you eagerly attempt to gain control of the transportation squares while avoiding your opponent’s utilities.