oking for fresh Android apps to dig into this weekend? Our latest Five to Try column has a few to suggest, including Ghostbusters: Slime City, a free-to-play tie-in for the br new film. If you plan on seeing the flick this weekend—rather than, say, complaining about it on social media sight unseen—then the game could be a solid way to keep the fun going after the credits roll.
so worth a look this week are music-collecting resource Discogs, a fresh Android port of legendary role-playing game Final Fantasy VII, avatar-centric chat app Rawr, Zoho’s stylish Notebook. atever your plans this weekend, snag some fresh apps for your phone or tablet see if any stick.
Ghostbusters: Slime City
There’s a br new Ghostbusters film in theaters this weekend, so unsurprisingly, that means there’s also a new Ghostbusters game in the ay Store. Ghostbusters: Slime City is a free-to-play entry that lets you take control of a female or male specter-shooter, zapping the ghastly things in attractive shooting gallery-style sequences across New York City.
en you’re not blasting, the game lets you upgrade the city itself, tweak your proton pack, take on other quick-hit missions while tapping through dialogue exchanges. Slime City doesn’t seem like the kind of ultra-absorbing game you’ll be playing ‘til another Ghostbusters film wills its way into production, but for a few hours of freebie fun for fans, it’s worth a download.
Discogs
ysical media sales might be slowing down in a lot of sectors, but as we often hear, vinyl record sales continue to grow. And if you’re a music junkie that’s ever in search of the next record for your collection, grab the new Discogs app. The long-awaited app from the online music community helps you manage exp your collection from wherever you are.
It’s incredibly extensive: a quick search for The s’ The Queen is Dead revealed a couple hundred physical versions of the album from over the years, many with seemingly minute differences between them. However, for serious collectors, this kind of resource is invaluable when you’re flipping through stacks at the record store. Discogs lets you catalog your whole collection, make a wish list, even compare market prices for items.
Final Fantasy VII
Android is in peak Final Fantasy form right now, apparently: Final Fantasy IX was ported over this spring, a br new entry debuted a couple weeks back, another fresh mobile take is coming in August. And there’s something right smack dab in the middle of ‘em all: the overdue port of Final Fantasy VII ($16), the 1997 ayStation classic that took the role-playing franchise to epic new heights.
It’s a pretty straight port of the original with a virtual button overlay, plus the added ability to skip battles or boost your stats to make combat a breeze. The story of a mysterious, genetically-enhanced soldier in a crumbling world is still compelling, even if strange awkward in spots, there’s a 50-hour odyssey worth exploring here if you love role-playing on the go. And the premium price tag certainly fits its scale.
Quick note: the port has some issues. It runs fine on my Nexus 5, but when played on a Galaxy S6 ge+, the cinematics turned neon green. Furthermore, as listed on the ay Store page, there’s a nasty seemingly rom bug that might force you to quit a game load up a recent save. My advice is this: if you buy Final Fantasy VII on Android, try it immediately jump on a refund if you catch any initial problems.
Rawr
There are a million different chat apps out there today, it seems, with more on the horizon—but Rawr does something visually unique with its little dialogue blobs. Rather than make your words the entire focus, Rawr has animated avatars for each person that act out hashtag comms, whether it’s dancing, punching, or doing something else ridiculous.
It’s a livelier show than your average messaging app, obviously, the creation process is pretty extensive: the cartoonish beings look like Xbox ve Avatars, you can fine-tune all the little details to make it look just like you. Otherwise, it’s a messaging app… only now, when you type that you’re going to kick someone in the naughty bits, it’s actually acted out on the screen.
Notebook
th Evernote recently trimming down its free service to push more paid subscriptions, there’s a potential opening for a new cloud-synced note-taking app to amass some fans. Zoho’s new Notebook app looks like a contender: it lets you sync your notes, photos, audio recordings, to-do lists to an unlimited number of devices for free, plus it doesn’t hurt that the app offers a nice aesthetic upgrade over competitors.
It’s a slick offering that has more of a visual edge than the text-heavy Evernote, with snazzy notebook designs, colorful boxes that represent notes, the ability to merge together stacks of notes flip through them with ease. Even Zoho admits that Evernote is a much more feature-packed solution, but if you want the basics without a price tag or syncing limitations, Notebook is appealing.