Get plugged into the Technology, Entertainment and Design Conferences wherever you are with TED, today’s leading Fresh iPhone App. Formerly available only for the iPad, TED has made the jump to the smaller screen as a free download. It’s followed by Football Connect, a social app that plugs you into NFL football games and lets you play a social game with your friends while you watch. Sea Stars, an endless running title with a nautical theme, leads our games selection today, followed by the decidedly less cute Extraction: Project Outbreak, a zombie shooter with some very intuitive touch controls.
TED update (iPhone, iPad) Free
Straight from the Technology, Entertainment and Design Conferences comes TED, an app filled with the interesting talks by notable people that the events are known for, ranging from former President Bill Clinton to Bill Gates and beyond. The official TED app previously was only available to iPad owners, but has made its way to the iPhone and the iPod Touch with a new update, bringing along with it the conferences’ full library of presentations.
TED allows you to watch videos from conferences past and present, as well as save and bookmark your favorite or most interesting talks to check out later. You can also play videos on other devices with TED’s Air Play support, or listen to a continuous stream of TED discussions using the app’s TEDradio feature.
Football Connect (iPhone, iPad) Free
Part play-by-play, part social game, Football Connect is a companion app you fire up during National Football League games that keeps you up on the action. It’ll provide you with updates on what’s happening in the game you’re watching (as well as others), info on players and teams, and even a look at where the ball is on the field at any given moment. But that’s only half of what the app is all about.
The other half is a social game you can play with your friends in which you all try to guess what’s about to happen in the game. When you connect to a game, you get a game board filled with players and you can choose actions for each one, like “reception” or “touchdown.” If that players makes that event in the game happen, you earn points – and if you’re able to make a Bingo-style line of four adjacent pieces, you get triple points. It’s an easy and fun way to play against your friends (or enemies, or strangers) using Facebook while enjoying the game on TV.
Sea Stars (iPhone, iPad) Free
An endless running game, Sea Stars feels a lot like Halfbrick’s spectacular Jetpack Joyride, but with a much cuter presentation. That’s not a bad game to draw comparisons with, seeing as Jetpack Joyride is pretty phenomenal. Sea Stars is equally compelling. This time, you play a dolphin trying to swim as far as possible to rack up points and grab coins. Touching the screen causes your dolphin to dive, and releasing makes him rise or even leap through the air.
While there are dangers to avoid, Sea Stars feels like it’s much more about grabbing coins and other power-ups along the way to maximize your distance. Jumping high in the air enough times brings “rainbow birds” that inundate you with coins, and you can also recruit the help of several friendly characters that change the way your dolphin controls. Coins can buy you power-ups to help you get further, or help you to complete the game’s various additional objectives that help keep it interesting.
Extraction: Project Outbreak (iPhone, iPad) $0.99
Zombies are loose (again), and you have to shoot them all (again), as an elite private military contractor tasked with performing high-risk extractions. But you only need one finger to play Extraction: Project Outbreak – tapping the screen causes your character to move to a place, while dragging your finger over zombies automatically targets them. The key is to keep moving as you blast enemies to avoid being overrun.
Extraction: Project Outbreak includes a single-player campaign ranging between four and five hours long, as well as four other game modes to work through. It also includes role-playing game elements as you progress through it, allowing you to earn experience points that can be spent to improve your character to make him more powerful and more resilient.
