If you head over to the brilliant TheOnion.com you’ll be able to see a new Apple ad highlighting the PC to Mac switcher rate following the launch of Microsoft’s Windows 7. Justin Long and John Hodgman, the Mac and PC characters, stand below a bank of CCTV monitors across the top of the page watching PC users entering a series of Apple Retail Stores. After bemoaning Apple’s success in customer satisfaction surveys and the continued movement of PC users to Mac, Hodgman dashes off to accost the hapless switchers.

While certainly entertaining, the ad continues to promote Apple’s successful retail model with the added bonus that switchers don’t yet appear to be lured by the charms of Windows 7 to remain as PC users. The only drawback we can see, as with previous Get A Mac ads, is that Hodgman is still far too likeable a character while Long’s aloof, bordering on smug persona could begin to grate even the more hardened Mac enthusiast. That said, no amount of advertising is likely to sway a Mac user toward a PC but it may be enough to put off those sitting on the fence.

The ad features on The Onion’s home page and can be seen, while live, here

Developer: Revolution Pocket

Category: Games

Price: £2.99

It says rather a lot about the classic game, Beneath A Steel Sky, that, 15 years on, it is not only fondly remembered but is still able to generate a buzz among gamers. After all, it had long been been thought that the point-and-click adventure genre, to which this game belongs, died some some ago. Today it’s all about high energy first person shooters and 3D adventuring and yet this remastered version of BASS for the iPhone still retains a certain freshness – and that is down to the way in which creative director, Charles Cecil, has approached this PC-to-mobile port. Charles decided to release BASS for free into the public domain on the PC some years ago and so it was vital that this iPhone version contained enough extra material to justify a purchase.

Over the last few years, we have seen many straight ports of older games on the current generation of consoles and, in some cases, we’ve been expected to pay more for the games today than they cost to snap up a couple of decades ago. So when a developer decides to invest more time in bringing their old game up-to-date – hence the addition of the word Remastered – it is to be heartily applauded. The first thing you notice is the brand new animation, produced by Dave Gibbons, the creator of the Watchmen comics. This amazingly stylised intro replaces the comic book which was included in the box of the original and it is highly polished yet kitsch. Well-voiced, poignant and gripping, it fits in well with the style of the game itself, introducing Robert Foster as he is taken from his indigenous Australian tribe by stormtroopers from Union City. One helicopter crash later and Foster is ready to escape with his robot buddy, Joey, and discover exactly what is happening in the process.

That the control system has been overhauled is evident straight away and thankfully Revolution has not gone down a similar path to LucasArts’ control system for The Secret of Monkey Island. It takes just a minute to become acquainted with the control of BASS. By tapping on various parts of the screen, you can discover hotspots and their accompanying actions. So tap on Joey and you will be able to chat to him, tap on a lift and you will have the option to view it or perform an action. A box in the left hand bottom corner shows your inventory and a question mark top right gives you handy hints if you become stuck – dumbing down for today’s audience but it does prevent days of head scratching. The graphics of the game itself are taken straight from the PC game but their stylised look hasn’t dated it too much. Improvements have been made with the audio, however. The voice tracks have been re-sampled and are much clearer than the original which used to suffer in places.

If there is a disappointment, it is that Revolution Software has not given BASS the same sort of treatment it gave to the remastered version of Broken Sword for the DS and Wii. With those games, entire new scenes were added and it brought in the backstory of one of the leading characters. No such tinkering is evident with BASS. What Charles is hoping for, however, is a resurgence of interest in the BASS story that would lead to a brand new sequel being produced. When you consider that it is costing just £2.99 to cast a “vote” for sequel and that for that price you get to relive a 15-year-old classic in the palm of your hand (and maybe even complete it), it’s one of this year’s greatest bargains.

Longevity: 9.0
Fun factor: 9.2
Practicality: 8.9
Value For Money: 9.0

Kung Fu Verdict: 9.0

Over the past couple of years, there has been a point-and-click adventure revival. The iPhone is already blessed with the Secret of Monkey Island, but now Revolution Software is getting in on the act with a remastered version of Beneath a Steel Sky specially made for the Apple handset.

Revolution boss Charles Cecil is no stranger to handheld development – his classic adventure game, Broken Sword, has appeared on the GameBoy Advance and the Nintendo DS. But recently he announced a new division for his company, Revolution Pocket, creating games for iPhone, iPod Touch, Android, PSPgo, and DSi.

The games will have an emphasis on narrative and Charles has promised it won’t just be about dusting down old classics. A sequel to Beneath a Steel Sky is planned but it’s all dependent on how well the Remastered iPhone version fares in the App Store.

At £2.99, this remake of the 1994 PC original features a touch screen interface and animated movies produced by Dave Gibbons, co-creator of the Watchmen graphic novel. It was important, says Charles, to ensure the game was not just a straight port.

“We released the PC version of Beneath a Steel Sky into the public domain a while back,” he says. “Gamers can download the game for free on the PC so when we created the iPhone version it was important that we added value and created a desirable package.

“It’s not just about making the game portable, it’s about enhancing the experience. We’ve added a hint system and we believe we have created the perfect touch-screen control system. People were frustrated by Monkey Island’s control method on the iPhone and we feel we’ve bettered that.”

All of this comes just a few years after Charles was quoted as saying the point-and-click genre was dead. “That was me being slightly provocative,” he counters. “My point was that it’s the concept of the classic adventure game that is really static in terms of the game world, only reacting to the player’s input, which no longer appeals to a broad market.

“People want a more dynamic game experience. As a control system, point-and-click clearly works extremely well.”

Charles believes digital distribution is the future and he likes the Apple model in which the developer is able to keep 70 per cent of the game price.

“What it does,” he says, ” is allow us to be closer to our audience and it means we don’t end up having to sell hundreds of thousands of copies just to break even.

“With retail, everyone is taking a slice of the pie and there’s usually little left for developers and, with that in mind, we’ve been able to really put a lot of effort into making Beneath a Steel Sky on iPhone the very best experience possible for gamers.

“It’s about us experimenting. If the game sells well on the iPhone, we will produce more. I believe handhelds to be the future of the adventure game and we hope gamers see that too. The technology of the iPhone is opening up fresh possibilities.”

By David Crookes

Beneath a Steel Sky is available on October 9, priced £2.99
www.revolution.co.uk

Developer: 8080 srl
Category: News
Price: £0.59/$0.99

Many news apps provide links to specially formatted digital editions of your favourite newspapers, but reading a digital version of a newspaper is like browsing a web site. The romance of a broadsheet of tablet is lost, as is its character and identity when viewed in an iPhone-formatted edition. This novel app re-connects you with your newspaper by downloading the latest ‘hot off the press’ front page directly to your iPhone. This is akin to popping into your local Newsagents and treating it like a library as you read through all the front pages (though you don’t have to worry about the annoyed glare of the shop keeper as you get your free hit of headline news).

This is a great app if you need a quick news fix and don’t have time to wade through a whole paper. If you’re on holiday it’s nice to be able to get a taste of what’s going on at home. You can pinch to zoom in to read the small newsprint and pan around the paper by dragging your finger on the screen.

Frontpages is designed to look like a traditional newsstand. Simply search through the list of papers (or browse by typing a country into the search field) and choose your favourites. The selected paper’s latest edition will then be displayed as a folded newspaper in the main newsstand graphic. You can swipe your finger to browse through multiple shelves of papers. If a particular headline intrigues you and you need to know more then there’s an icon that will take you to the website edition of that paper in Safari. You can also open PDF versions of the front pages in Safari too, for sharper looking text and brighter image colours.

On the downside there’s only a few UK papers to peruse but this should change over time. Occasionally you’ll get a closed shutter graphic saying ‘Image Not Available’, which is frustrating. You only need to buy this app once and the latest front pages of your favourite papers can be within reach wherever you are.

Longevity: 9.0
Fun factor: 7.8
Practicality: 8.9
Value For Money: 8.5

Kung Fu Verdict: 8.8

Developer: Senstic
Category: Business
Price: £5.99

If you have ever given PowerPoint presentations, you will recall having been tied to the PC. This is because unless you own an expensive remote device, you need to use the keyboard or mouse to advance slides. Install i-Clickr PowerPoint Remote and you can use your iPhone or iPod Touch to give your next slide show in style, as this app gives you complete control over your presentation. As a bonus, you can view your slides and (more importantly) any notes that you have prepared on the screen during the slide show.

Longevity: 8.0
Fun Factor: 6.0
Practicality: 8.0
Value For Money: 8.0

Kung Fu Verdict: 7.5

You may remember our comments regarding Microsoft’s “Laptop Hunter” ad campaign (link) when they first launched, featuring “Lauren” dashing around trying to buy an enormous PC laptop for under $1000.

Of course, after an unanswered run of PC-bashing adverts from Apple, Microsoft deserved a chance to hit back and duly did as the red-haired laptop shopper dismissed the Apple store in a matter of seconds claiming she wasn’t “cool enough” to be a Mac person and also couldn’t afford Apple’s 17-inch laptop.

The series of Microsoft ads have continued featuring Matt & Olivia, Sheila, Lisa and Jackson, another Lauren and her mum… the list goes on.

Apple finally responded with a new Get A Mac ad featuring the Mac and PC characters which spun Microsoft’s “find your perfect model” theme. The ad ends with the shopper featured picking a Mac after none of the PC models can meet her criteria -”no crashes, viruses or headaches”. A clever take on the the same Mac Vs PC formula but the Microsoft ads still continue.

By retaliating, Apple has acknowledged the adverts of its rival and appeared almost rattled, especially if the following is true. Microsoft COO, Kevin Turner relayed the following information at the company’s Worldwide Partner Conference (excuse the grammar, it’s him not us):

“And so we’ve been running these PC value ads… Those are completely unscripted commercials. And you know why I know they’re working? Because two weeks ago we got a call from the Apple legal department saying, hey — this is a true story — saying, “Hey, you need to stop running those ads, we lowered our prices.” They took like $100 off or something. It was the greatest single phone call in the history that I’ve ever taken in business.

I did cartwheels down the hallway. At first I said, “Is this a joke? Who are you?” Not understanding what an opportunity. And so we’re just going to keep running them and running them and running them.”

How much of this story is true, we don’t know. What we do know, however, is the fierce back and forth banter on YouTube regarding a little parody of the Lauren laptop hunter ad we posted (embeded below).

It was a bit of fun and our own little response to Microsoft’s campaign but we’ve been stunned by the comments left. Of over 11,000 views, 89 people have commented so far.

There’s been some nice feedback, like Pitbullninja’s “LOL this is freakin funny”, and there’s been some negative feedback like musicfreak190′s “macs are garbage… learn how to use a real computer”. It seems the Mac haters, as you would expect, dominate the comments but, strangely enough, the video has received an average 4/5 rating.

There are also a fair few comments we didn’t feel comfortable posting here, so be warned if you want to check out the video yourself.

So, while we know that there’ll always be a healthy rivalry between Mac and PC users, we now know that the adverts created by both companies are protected as vociferously by their faithful as the products they produce.

Needless to say, we’ll be putting together another parody pretty soon to spark some more debate!

Click here to view the embedded video.

By now you’ve probably seen one of the new Microsoft adverts. You know the ones, Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld bantering in a seemingly nonsensical manner and at no point mentioning quite what they’re talking about or, at least, attempting to advertise.

Then there’s the other lot of ads from Bill and Co. The Gatesmeister doesn’t feature and Seinfeld has allegedly been canned, but the Redmond boys take aim at Apple’s I’m a Mac/I’m a PC campaign by, well… repeating the “I’m a PC” line. A wide range of people from all walks of life repeat the simple phrase “I’m a PC and I…” filling in the blank with everything from charity work to graffiti (yeah, PC users break the law too guys). This culminates with one chap proudly proclaiming “I’m a PC and I sell fish”. What the hell is going on!?

Online, people are wondering about hidden meanings in the Seinfeld ads, is the old woman Steve Jobs? Are scallop potatoes meant to be Macs? Was it really Bill Gates behind the Grassy Knoll? That’s stage one of the – wait for it – $300 million advertising campaign complete. People are talking about the ads.
Whether the consumers get it or not, they’re talking about Microsoft rather than just blindly using its software.

Then there’s the second batch of ads, the Seinfeld-less “I’m a PC” ones. Am I the only one to think this was a bad move? Even if I didn’t have a clue what Shoe Circus was meant to represent as Bill and Jerry tried on loafers, at least I was intrigued. Joe Public and a sprinkling of cash-hungry celebrities yelling “I’m a PC” in between my regular TV programming tells me two things; one – PCs are used the world over for a wide variety of tasks, both creative and dull. Tell me something I didn’t know. Two – Microsoft is aware of, possibly even worried/annoyed by, Apple’s “I’m a Mac” campaign.

The Bill & Jerry’s ads completely overlooked Apple’s ads. They ignored them as a company with such an enormous market share should. Microsoft is the Ford of the technology world, and you don’t see the Fiesta trying to rival a Ferrari when it comes to marketing.

So what are we left with? A petty playground squabble that will end up costing Microsoft about as much as it would cost to fix its currently flawed operating system. Don’t worry about Apple, boys. Take a look at yourselves! You’re re-branding a dead horse, that’s for sure, but people are still buying PCs and they’re still buying Windows. Just because the Zune didn’t take off doesn’t mean you’re failing.

Ultimately my problem comes down to the Microsoft fan boys (yes, I said “fan boys”). For years, us Mac users have been elitist and we’ve said that our platform is better than yours. There’s no getting around that. Now it actually IS better, and we’re still saying it. That hasn’t stopped Microsoft ruling the roost in the market share stakes. Nobody stopped buying PCs. But now, a set of overpriced and over hyped ads have appeared and the Windows users have crawled out of the woodwork to laugh and point and jeer and boast about their ads as if they’ve won some kind of battle. It’s a sad truth, but the Microsoft crowd are acting like the underdogs and that’s what entertains me the most. You don’t like our ads, nobody understands yours.

However you look at it, in terms of PR or user satisfaction, I’ll tell you one thing. I’m still glad “I’m a Mac and I don’t sell fish”.