Five to Try: Clash Royale crashes Android, Hound is a valuable voice assistant

BY

Published 4 Mar 2016

NSFW AI Why trust Greenbot

We maintain a strict editorial policy dedicated to factual accuracy, relevance, and impartiality. Our content is written and edited by top industry professionals with first-hand experience. The content undergoes thorough review by experienced editors to guarantee and adherence to the highest standards of reporting and publishing.

Disclosure

at, the millions upon millions of Clash of Clans players weren’t enough for Supercell? Apparently not, since the developer just launched Clash Royale, a card-based spinoff that seems destined to be another free-to-play smash. It leads our latest Five to Try roundup of new Android apps games, but there’s more in the mix this week.

so fresh intriguing are Hound, the conversational virtual assistant from SoundHound that can decipher elaborate queries, supernatural adventure game Fahrenheit: Indigo ophecy Remastered. Streamlined walkie talkie app Roger zany arcade game Thumb Drift round out this week’s picks, you can find out much more about each below.

Clash Royale

fivetotry march4 clashroyale

Build up your deck then trample the online competition.

You might have already heard about Clash Royale, as it soft-launched weeks back in several other countries, but now it’s available everywhere. so, being a spinoff of Clash of Clans instantly gives it a high profile. And lastly, at least based on my initial time with it, Clash Royale is a pretty entertaining free-to-play action game—one that features live multiplayer combat doesn’t require any knowledge of its predecessor.

Clash Royale is a card-based tactical game with a bit of a MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) flavor to the proceedings: you’ll drag hero attack cards onto the screen to try topple the enemy’s structures, while your foe does much the same. Each three-minute match is compact, certainly, but the ensuing back–forth is fun frenzied. It has freemium trappings, like multiple currency systems timers for accessing rewards, but Supercell’s latest still makes a strong first impression.

Hound

fivetotry march4 hound

Being able to ask follow-up questions to refine searches is one of Hound’s biggest features.

SoundHound is the company behind the Shazam-like music discovery app of the same name, but the new Hound app represents a pretty significant pivot: it’s a voice-driven virtual assistant. ile that puts it in direct competition with Now Microsoft’s Cortana, Hound excels in natural language recognition, letting you ask lengthy, multi-point questions as well as follow up for further details without restating the original query.

For example, you can ask for local coffee shops that are open at 7am have free -Fi, Hound will deliver a helpful list. And if you want to pare down the list even more, simply ask further questions thereafter. Hound hles a wide array of searches like that, along with ordering an Uber, checking the weather, sending texts placing calls, more. It’s not as deeply integrated as Now, but the beta version fared much better than Cortana in our three-way showdown last October, it’ll only get smarter in time.

Fahrenheit: Indigo ophecy Remastered

fivetotry march4 fahrenheit

Fahrenheit occasionally goes split-screen to frame a big event from multiple perspectives.

First released in 2005, console game Indigo ophecy was lauded for its cinematic storytelling, branching narratives, interactive conversations, all of which made it seem like the smartest choose-your-own-adventure at the time. And now it’s available on Android as Fahrenheit: Indigo ophecy Remastered ($10), which offers up the uncensored international version with improved graphics.

The game begins with a grisly murder in a New York City diner… you’re the killer, only you were possessed at the time, which sets the stage for a supernatural mystery. ile the touch controls are clunky (consider using a gamepad) newer games have advanced the genre significantly, Fahrenheit still has a fascinating allure thanks to elements like swapping between characters managing psychological states.

Roger

fivetotry march4 roger

Roger is all about swapping voice messages, with no text or video options in sight.

Smartphones are built for communication, whether it’s audio, video, or text, most messaging apps offer a way to send quick voice snippets back forth. But Roger is entirely focused on that purpose, modernizing the walkie talkie experience with an attractive, easy-to-use interface little extraneous bloat. Simply tap the button to record a message it’s sent off to your contact; receive a message you can hold the phone up to your ear to listen.

Roger has other little perks, like listen receipts location, time, weather info listed for each active contact, plus you can send messages via text or email to anyone not already using the service. nt to swap voice messages without bothering with text exchanges or signing up for a social media account? Roger’s simple, streamlined approach does that that alone. 

Thumb Drift

fivetotry march4 thumbdrift

You’ll need to accumulate a fair amount of drifting in the initial stage to open up the rest.

Drifting a car around a tight turn seems like a challenging maneuver in real-life—I won’t try it in my Volvo, thank you very much—but most racing games make it a simple task. Not Thumb Drift, however: this free, straightforward game has intentionally fiddly controls, asks you to keep your car on the road while slipping sliding through each curve. 

You’ll hold your thumb on the screen to start accelerating, the slightest movement in either direction whips out the back end begins your slide. It’s incredibly easy to lose control, you’ll overshoot most drifts at first, but that’s the fun of it: trying to harness this wild, mechanical beast is a blast, even with sessions that last only seconds at a time. Ads pop up occasionally, although you can pay $2 within to axe them for good.