Author - Ripper71

Hybrid Wars Review

2016/10/15

News, Reviews, Windows PC News, Windows PC Review

If you are like me, you have discovered a fondness for most games under the Wargaming.net banner beginning with World of Tanks, a game that blew up on the scene about six years ago. They’ve shown up at E3 throwing great tournaments and parking tanks out front but most importantly they show up with solid, remarkably well balanced PvP games. They didn’t stop at tanks – instead, they added World of Warplanes and most recently World of Warships, all while also expanding onto mobile devices and console platforms. All three of these games have had the same 3rd person/first person play perspective with occasional top down and the general idea being why fix what isn’t broken? Well Hybrid Wars is changing the game for Wargaming and it will remain to be seen if the fans will make the jump with them.

First Shot:

I play all the Wargaming.net titles on all their available systems, many as early as Alpha phase. I have the U.S.S. Texas challenge coin I bought with hopes of winning a free code (no luck but it looks nice in my challenge coin collection), I have a World Of Tanks cap I won at a World of Warplanes contest, and I have a couple little plastic World Of Tanks artillery tanks that are similar to the ones my nephew was certified on and used in Iraq and Afghanistan. My dream toy would be one of the World Of Tanks remote control tanks they gave away at E3 2011 as prizes. I want all this out there so you know just how much I was looking forward to Hybrid Wars when I heard Wargaming was bringing us exoskeletons, helicopters, and mechs all in one game!

Then a very strange phrase started popping up: top down shooter. WoT used that for artillery, and WoWs used it for carriers but it was all done very strategically, you shot with artillery but with time in between and understanding “leading targets” and “splash damage” and WoWs carriers was giving orders. Hybrid Wars is a top down shooter set in the style of ’90s with hyper waves of enemies coming at you from all sides such as Jackal, 1942 or well the fact is though it was considered a ’90s style gameplay it hasn’t gone anywhere, dozens of games come out every year with this format quite often the theme is really the only difference. Some notable recent ones would be the terrific Alien Breed Trilogy and Livelock but the main difference usually winds up just being what you kill and general theme. Zombies have been a huge one for sure, swarming as you spin in circles shooting. So the key question is why will people play Wargaming’s top down shooter besides brand loyalty.

One thing in it’s favor is that you have different characters you unlock much like you unlocked vehicles in the other games. Each character has a tech tree to build up, as well as favorite vehicles with tech trees. These help you to definitely customize your experience. You might like the exoskeleton build of one character but the mech of another so you choose which your more likely to spend time with your play style. This is one of the key differences from most other top down shooters but very similar to Wargaming’s other game builds, it’s not about getting new weapons as much as upgrading and modifying what you are working with. At the same time though if you have ever played a top down shooter you can jump right into the game shooting everything and even destroying many parts of the environment.

There is a single player campaign and multiplayer is Co-Op which are two definite departures from play format. The campaign is a bit short and mostly consists of “ok now go destroy these enemies, now protect this tower by destroying those enemies” which felt a bit thin. Without PvP multiplayer like Wargaming’s other titles I’m not sure how many people will be willing to spend their money on the game.

That is another big change. Players of previous titles are used to being able to play for free only playing for premium vehicles (like the Ripper I dream about so much) so that if they wanted they could get a great experience without hitting their wallet and there is a price tag on Hybrid Wars as well as a price to get more characters for it.

Last Thoughts For Now:

I get the feeling we will be coming back to Hybrid Wars. It has a season pass which is currently for sale and it will be interesting to see what they come out with. It is already a lot of fun with lots of replay value, even if just considering building up each character’s traits and vehicles, though you only start with one character with the prime game, two with the deluxe and a third possible if you link to Wargaming.net, and at Wargaming.net you can buy even more expensive sets to get in game gold. Let’s just hope it brings in the sailors, tankers and pilots who have been playing and making one of the best gaming communities on the net.

[easyreview title=”Hybrid Wars Review Score” cat1title=”Overall Score (out of 5)” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”4″ ]

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Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex-First Assault Online Review

2016/10/13

Ripper71

Geek News, News, Reviews, Windows PC News, Windows PC Review

When our Editor-in-Chief asked if I wanted to play a first-person shooter called “First Assault Online” I said sure since I had a bit of time available. Then when I downloaded the game I found out it was “Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex-First Assault Online” and I was so happy I had taken the review. One of the first anime movies that I really got into was Ghost In The Shell and I have enjoyed watching the televisions series on Adult Swim particularly when it came to Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex. It is well written, the animation is really well done and it had a habit of being rough on it’s characters developing their true grit. Sometimes as a show goes along they will stray away from the core of a character’s beliefs to make it fit a storyline. Not a problem here though, this show is always solid. So here was my chance to play a game based off of one of my all time favorite anime shows, will Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex-First Assault Online hold up to the series? time to find out.

First Assault:

I understand why my EIC shortened the game name since it is a pretty big mouthful so until the end I will just be calling it First Assault Online. First things first it definitely feels like you were just dropped into a firefight in an episode of GITS. You use actual characters from the show and futuristic talents that feel like they should belong to each of the characters that they are assigned to. The voices are great, the locations fit and futuristic, anime is spot on, it really is a gift to fans of the show to be able to play it. Even when I was off my game and not pulling my best KDR I was still having fun just being in the world and fighting in it. You fight cyborgs and robots which have a gratifying mechanical breakup instead of bloodshed which feels like it belongs here. I wasn’t able to find anything that didn’t fit the show and it’s atmosphere.

Once you get past that the game is really a straight forward FPS. You unlock weapons and as well as attachments, you level for new talents and prizes, you try to get them with getting got. The physics are some of the most solid of any FPS I have played, I can’t think of any instances where I thought otherwise. It has a built-in anti-cheat program which hopefully is catching most of the cheaters and probably most importantly the best auto-balancing systems I have seen. Maybe it is because the classes are so well balanced but I never saw a blowout game, even ones I was choking on someone else was pulling up the slack. Not sure what algorithms it uses but I was impressed and this review probably would have been done sooner if I could have convinced myself I didn’t need another day of play when it wasn’t needed but just wanted. This can be an addictive play. It even seemed to detect spawn campers quick and shift spawn points.

I guess one of the only things I could ask for would be a single player campaign, just to go through so GITS stories. That puts a wistful smile on my face when I think about the idea but as a general rule a game needs to be great at single player or great at multiplayer, it has to be a huge franchise to be both and this is a play for free with pay for more faster unlocks and experience. When you consider that the fact that this game is so good is amazing.

Last Shot (For Now):

Time for me to get back to playing it but first a quick summary. Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex-First Assault Online is one of the best first-person shooter games I have ever seen and is exceptionally true to its anime roots. The game is free when it would have been a steal at $15 so you might want to buy a bit of unlocks and extra experience just to make sure this game gets to stick around. It’s well balanced, has a great anti-cheat and it’s auto-balancing is some of the best on the market. Okay, time to head back in game.

[easyreview title=”Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex-First Assault Online Review Score” cat1title=”Overall Score (out of 5)” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”5″ ]

The Bunker Review

2016/10/10

Ripper71

Geek News, News, Reviews, Windows PC News, Windows PC Review

It is 5:00 AM and I am showered with my clothes laid out for the day and I’m in my pitch black media room. Well almost pitch black, before me my gaming rig is fired up with The Bunker about to start. Why so early in the morning? The same reason I started it in the dark of night and that is because we here at http://GamingShogun.com are dedicated to getting you a review of the proper experience of a choice based horror game in the vein of Until Dawn or, to us, really old school games like Dragon’s Lair and Night Trap. So with my headset on, blinds drawn, and no lights save for the screen it was time for The Bunker.

Hands On:

The Bunker starts with your birth in a British nuclear bunker right as the bombs hits. You are born nice and healthy, but you’ve got 30 years of bunker time to look forward to with yourself being the last survivor. This isn’t a spoiler, it is the first couple of minutes and you then spend a few minutes after that with a very point and click “on rails” narrative. That is kind of how it continues for quite a while, you have to be careful in cutscenes because sometimes it will want you to take action to show you are still paying attention and every once in a while you also get a strange jump scare. There doesn’t feel like a real sense of urgency though at the beginning, and that is kind of why the suspense winds up catching up to you without you noticing. Little flashbacks hint to possible problems other than radiation in the bunker’s history and maybe not everyone died of old age.

Most of the point and clicks aren’t too bad even though they wind up breaking up what begins to feel like a well done movie, but others are click as fast as you can which can be difficult getting fast enough with a mouse. A couple times I held the mouse in the place it needed to be on the screen while I took my other hand and clicked the button like crazy. It was a bit awkward and took me out of an otherwise suspense filled moment. During one cut-scene, I made the mistake of taking a drink from my beverage and died for my trouble, having to go back a couple of those click happy moments. I wish I could say the point and click and fast clicking went away but it follows you right up to whatever ending you wind up living, it stays mostly on the rails the whole way despite clicking with only a couple choices made.

The one thought that got stuck in my head early on though was how they managed to have only one baby in the bunker, why didn’t they have more? How had it come to be that the first born baby was also the last survivor? It’s not a pick up line to say “we need to make babies to save Britain” if it is obviously true. There is a sort of reason given in the plot but I still think the old phrase “children are our future” especially applies when you think you might be the last folks on Earth.

Final Credits:

I wish I could say that the point and click gameplay just engaged you in the action rather than distracted from it and that you felt you were actually making choices rather than riding the rails of a preset narrative but that’s not the case. This is a wonderfully acted suspense thriller movie that lasts a few hours because it does the equivalent of hitting pause regularly. I think if they had made it into an independent movie and put it on the festival circuit it would have been an acclaimed hit from the score and cinematography to acting and directing. Both endings are solid too. It even had Adam Brown (Ori in The Hobbit) and Sarah Greene (Hecate Poole in Penny Dreadful) starring in it. In the end though it did remind me of the old school games like Dragon’s Lair where you didn’t have a choice of what you did just a time in which to do it. I’m actually double rating this review as a game and what I would have rated it as just a movie.

[easyreview title=”The Bunker Review Score” cat1title=”Overall Score (out of 5)” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”3.5″ ]

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Smash and Grab Preview

2016/10/06

Ripper71

News, Previews, Windows PC News, Windows PC Preview

I know what you are thinking: “With a name like Smash & Grab this game must be the story of two wacky characters, one of whom is clumsy and smashing into things and another that grabs them just before they fall and break!” Well, nay, if you thought that you would be wrong! You would probably also be the only one besides me to come up with the premise. The game is in the name when it comes to Smash & Grab, it’s basically The Warriors if all the gangs were rioting and looting as well as beating up on The Warriors. Is beating someone with a virtual baseball bat while cleaning out a virtual electronic shop that much fun? Let’s find out.

Hands On The Merchandise:

I covered the general premise above that this is a game about gangs beating each other up and robbing businesses, but this is not a new premise when one considers hit games like Grand Theft Auto and Saints Row making their fortune and sequels thanks to this formula. One of the most interesting differences between Smash & Grab and the rest of these games is that this is set in a futuristic time when the police turn over the streets at a certain time to the thugs and the only way businesses keep their stock is to either use metal shuttering or private security thugs. The other and definitely most key difference is that all the gangs have player leaders.

So players choose a gang leader and lieutenant, get a gang and off they go to compete with other gangs for loot. Some buildings are hardware store fronts with hammers or nail guns to use as weapons, others might have some chemicals that can be combined at a workbench to make a freezing hammer or some other combo weapon that won’t necessarily help when you smash the next window but will definitely help when you see some enemy gangs. This brings up another aspect, much like was a concern in the U.S. before scary clown sightings, there are Team West and Team East which consists of 3 player-led gangs. So if you were just minding your own business stealing diamond necklaces from a glass front and a gang from the other side of the country comes and starts beating you across the head with a 2×4 full of nails there is a chance another gang sporting the same colors might come and get your back, or loot depending on the player. As time progresses in the match more store fronts become available for busting up until you get to the final ones where you have private security as well as the opposite team to deal with.

There are three modes which much like the game’s name are pretty self explanatory: Practice, Ransack and Takeback (capture the flag). The game is still in Steam Early Access which if you are new to the idea means it is still a work in progress but has been made available to players for feedback, server testing and balancing issues. A good way to think of it is late beta with supposedly fewer bugs. This isn’t always the case but it is the hope. At this point only a couple of the maps are available and weapon balancing is still very much in flux. This is often a fun time because those who are playing at this time tend to care about the game’s development and are mature enough to handle crashes, bugs and fatal errors. It can also bring with it a feeling of pride for helping get the final version going so don’t let Early Access stop you from giving a game some love.

The graphics are really beautiful, the weapon crafting is coming along really nicely and until you have a big bug hit or a game crash it becomes a “one more match” game real quick so be sure to put some time aside before starting it up, you probably won’t be satisfied with one play.

Last Grab:

Games like Smash And Grab in the end become highly dependent on their player base as to how fun it winds up being in the end. Right now the player base cares about the experience and the game is a blast to play. It looks great, it’s fun to find what you are going to get to craft in each match and how effective it is and it gives you a chance to make new friends both on your team and on your enemy’s because if the player is good and a good sport that can sometimes be a hard combination to find but Steam Early Access one of those places to look. I’ll be playing this game right on out to release and hopefully beyond.

F1 2016 Review

2016/09/01

Ripper71

News, Reviews, Xbox One News, Xbox One Review

Formula 1 is truly one of the most international sports where rather being sponsored by teams it is sponsored by companies showing the support of the people through industry rather through governmental. As a result these beautiful works of modern engineering are covered the emblems of those that support them and drivers names and numbers are on hats and shirts the way they would be supporting any other players and teams. The biggest differences are these highly tuned machines can be effected by the most subtle of conditions that the fans discuss things right down to the fuel mix and probably the most important difference from other sports is teams can be fired or worse. As a result when the racing season ends it is felt massively through the community but luckily sometimes there is something to help, in this case in the form of Codemasters F1 2016 for the Xbox One.

Hands On The Wheel:

First thing I have to note is that though there are many faces to choose from for avatars as well as primary sponsors and numbers, there are no female avatars. To be honest I didn’t really notice this at first much to my cchagrin but when “Mrs. Ripper” went to give it a play (she is REALLY good at racing games) she went to start her career character and this discrepancy was the first thing she noticed. There really is no reason one of the faces which were being designed to be generic avatars couldn’t have been given some more feminine features, even just one would have been a sign of good faith. After that you choose a helmet that you don for the races so it isn’t quite as noticeable but we are in the days of women races.

Once you have your character all put together read absolutely every instruction and health guide you can find because the controls are extremely touchy and if you are like me and can’t quite afford a driving wheel and pedal set you are going to have one hell of a painful learning curve. You can play a starter career with all the practices it gives you and single player quick races but really practice before you take on career mode, championship mode which is where you race real professionals’ times on the courses, or multiplayer where if you are lucky you will find someone who sucks worse than you but if the have the steering/pedal gear they will probably slaughter you if you don’t.

The game is definitely fun and if you are into Formula 1 it will be worth the long learning curve. The graphics are also very nice, they did an excellent job of capturing not only the foliage and cars but the faces of the professionals you will have to deal with and the commentators’ voices. Long after I accepted I might be a perma-spank player I watched the game handled in some good hands and it was beautiful to watch. It was equally funny to watch though in the hands that couldn’t make the turns clean.

Last Lap:

Codemasters F1 2016 is definitely for players with a love of the sport, not a casual driving game player. If you love Formula 1 racing and especially if you have the wheel/pedal this is a game for you to play and love and challenge your buddies too. Just remember it takes a very steady hand…

[easyreview title=”Codemasters F1 2016 Review Score” cat1title=”Overall Score (out of 5)” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”4″ ]

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We Happy Few Alpha Preview

2016/08/18

Ripper71

News, Previews, Windows PC News, Windows PC Preview

Describing a game as being “in alpha” can be extremely vague as it can represent such a wide scope of playable states. I have played alphas where everything was so completed that they were just ironing out minor bugs and it was ready for market, most would consider this market beta but a perfectionist might call that alpha. Others I have seen called alpha for over 2 years with almost zero developmental progression and none in sight. I don’t mean to drone on (though I might have) about what entails an alpha but I feel I need to let the players, particularly all the Kickstarters who helped fund it know where the game is.

The We Happy Few alpha build, which is pretty much the same folks saw at E3, is 50% mapped with no story development yet for the three characters we follow. In other words it is a world where you can take in the landscape and bump around with a few of the NPCs. One choice is made at the very beginning of the demo and that choice will make a difference on how much world you get to explore (hint: not much, you will get to choose again). You get to do a few quests and that’s what they are labeled, you get quests and side quests to get things going but mostly it is setting you up to just experience the what they have created of the world.

My first and vaguely disturbing thought of We Happy Few was that the game is an Orwellian 1984 Yellow Submarine. Everyone is taking a drug called Joy, a nice little blend that makes you forget anything bad from the past and think the world is great. So great that you want Technicolor all around you and mime paint on your face and nice clothes because shabby clothes denotes a “downer” mind and nobody wants to be or even see a downer. If you fellow friends and townsfolk think you might have missed your Joy then ye shall be deemed a Downer and smacked upon the noggin until you can be dumped in the rubble and rambles with the other Downers. There is no three strikes rule or anything (but then baseball never really took on the way cricket did across the pond).

At this point, the game is in an early enough alpha it could wind up like an entirely different game than I ran around in since we aren’t getting any of the story yet. I welcome the idea of a psychedelic take on a New World Order as fiction when the reality of politics are what they are. Give me my mime paint and bowler hat please. And don’t be a downer!

Super Toy Con Las Vegas Wrap Up And Gallery

2016/08/18

Ripper71

Geek News, News, Screenshots / Photos

Super Toy Con Las Vegas moved locations this year, which concerned more than a few attendees that going from a small convention space to a full sized arena might be too much. What wound up being surprising was what a perfect fit it was, a little tight even the design of the arena space put every type of activity in it’s proper space. There for celebrity autographs? Floor two to the right. Autographs from cosplayers and the Garbage Pail Kids artists that were celebrating 30 years? Floor two to the left. Floor one arena was dedicated to vendors with a curtained off end zoned with all the artists and creative vendors.

Things didn’t quite go as planned, attendance was hurt by the 50th Anniversary Star Trek Con also being in town and pulling just about everyone who every appeared in an episode into the con including Kirstie Alley and Clint Howard. As for Super Toy Con Las Vegas they had some of their anchor names not make it which they tried to adjust for by having great group ups like all the bad guys from The Karate Kid, the main cast of the original Battlestar Galactica and Power Rangers.

Word needed to get out more about it, a lot of folks including in the comic book and toy community didn’t know about it which was a shame because it was a great even for such a great price.

Gallery

15th Annual Star Trek Convention Las Vegas Wrap Up and Photo Gallery

2016/08/18

Ripper71

News, Screenshots / Photos

It may have been the 15th Annual Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas but the real key is that it is the 50th anniversary of the original airing of the show and just about everyone who has ever appeared on it was there to celebrate all these years among the stars.

We all remember the primary cast but sometimes we forget that people like Kirstie Alley was in one of the movies and made her first convention appearance or that Ron Howard’s brother Clint Howard had a famous role so many years ago. The wall between cast members and fans definitely came down as you walked around and saw famous actors asking for pictures with cosplayers. People were just people as they talked about their experience in front of the camera and in front of the television, it was the way it should be.

there was also an amazing art gallery and terrific photo ops, the only problem I would say is that it was sold out so quickly and so expensively that it did limit who could go and even how much media was able to cover it. Every minute was precious though as the 15th anniversary of the the convention would only come around once and more importantly the 50th anniversary of the original airings is such a milestone that few can beat.

Gallery

MilitAnts Review

2016/08/01

Ripper71

News, Reviews, Windows PC News, Windows PC Review

I’ve been playing side-scrolling shooters since the first side-scrolling shooters came out in arcades and then on the first home game consoles. If I didn’t own it my cousins did and, if by some freak of financial windfall, the three of us didn’t then the local video store knew not to expect their copy back for a while. Of course, Contra held a place more nearer and dearer to our hearts than some family members but friends and family who challenged us and felt the frustration of getting their butts kicked by kids time and time again understood the excitement and fun of the video gauntlet thrown down each time. Fast forward 29 years… OMG HAS IT REALLY BEEN THAT LONG!!! *deep gasping breaths* sorry just give me a moment… let’s just say fast forward a lot and here we are still playing the side-scrollers with the same love as yesteryear this time with a flair that Disney would probably appreciate.

Game On:

The Disney-like part and the aspect that makes the game different from other side-scrollers is in the name MilitAnts. You play a sole soldier of the ant army who must defend the approach into the colony by a huge swarm of bugs lead by deadly and really, really hard bosses, all on a 2.5D.

First off to describe the horde you face. You fight over 30 different kinds of enemies including an army of different termites and an air force of wasps, all willing to put their differences aside to come try to kill you and your kind off. Talk about making someone angry. Boss battles are frustratingly hard, luckily the save/restart point is right before so you don’t have to travel far but dying happens aplenty.

One of the best things about being a soldier ant: you may use 2 legs to stand but that leaves 4 legs for weapons. At first this means next to nothing because it starts you off with the same two weapons (pistols) in your upper hands and the same type of weapons in the two lower arms which are blades. Not sure why you have to have 2 blades instead a choice to have one gun and one blade, maybe one of the hands are underdeveloped and can’t hold more than a Swiss Army pocket knife.

So you start with two energy pistols that wear down fast and you want to buy some better gear. To do this you beat down they enemies with combos so that they drop pieces of crystals which you then turn into crystals and buy stuff with. You REALLY want to have some upgrades in place by the time you hit the second boss or you will find your time filled with cursing in more languages that your realized you knew (for me it was Chinese I think thanks to Firefly). Adding to the challenge of getting that weapon upgrade is 2.5D. In case you haven’t experience it it is when the game is given depth and there is a level deep. So besides side scrolling and shooting those in front and behind you you also need to shoot them beside you. The only way it ever works really well is with very few enemies back there which MilitAnt doesn’t do or with an amazing target system which begins the problems with the game.

The game is a port, it doesn’t really hide the fact and the interesting thing is playing on the keyboard and mouse then PC with a game controller there were certain things better in each. Using keyboard and mouse seems a little bit better at targeting though maybe a little bit slower going between targets. When it comes to jumping however the controller wins hands down and holds its better in pretty much everything else. That might be why in the PC online manual for it has controller directions only. Personally I kinda wished they had just stayed with controller controls and not done the .5 part of the 2.5D. It made a game I enjoyed whenever there was no creature back there frustrating when it would pop up and I would have to try to target it.

One thing I have to note is that the game is very beautiful, which a lot of players don’t care about but I think adds to the Disney way about it even more.

Last Thought:

I was really excited for MilitAnt which might also explain a bit of my frustration with it. It is a decent side-scroller with the 2.5D gameplay and a bit of the Disney flair. I think I might go take a break from gaming and watch one of the insect flix until I get angry at one of the bad guys and replay a boss or two.

[easyreview title=”MilitAnt Review Score” cat1title=”Overall Score (out of 5)” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”3″ ]

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LoveHandle Smartphone Grip Review

2016/07/11

Ripper71

Mobile News, Mobile Review, News, Reviews

Let’s face it normally when you think of love handles you think of that patch of fat on your hips that refuse to leave. If it is on your significant other it could be a spot of comfort that you hold onto in a chilly wind as you snuggle up, if it is on you it is the spot you glare at whenever there is a birthday party or wedding with particularly good cake. But there have been a few products out there with the same name that are handles used to protect the things you love and the one I have found the most impressive by far is the LoveHandle electronics flexible band handle.

LoveHandles On:

These have been around for a while and have been an “As Seen On TV” product but there was something that always makes you feel a little nervous trusting your multi-hundred dollar electronics to a little strap of of elastic, plastic and adhesive. The funny thing is that we often hold them by our hands instead which can become far more compromised and likely to be holding other valuables. LoveHandle uses high quality elastic bands wrapped into solid plastic with a 3M adhesive. When you consider it all the weakest point in the whole process is the adhesive and there are few adhesives that have a strength greater or more trusted than 3M. I use an iPhone 6+ and after attaching the band and deciding I fully trusted it I held the strap by one index finger and spun it as hard as I can (alright I was sitting on the grass so I did hedge my bet a touch) and kept doing it until my finger got tired then checked over the strap and saw nothing wrong and I am still using it. I use a wallet case so I really don’t want to drop and lose my phone when recording Bellagio fountains or July 4th fireworks or take a picture out the car window of the newest somehow worse Hello Kitty on the Las Vegas Strip charging for pictures. They come in different colors as well so it was easy to match my case or they can be custom ordered by companies as rewards for employees and customers with their individual logo on the elastic.

When my wife and I are going to bed at night we tend to wind down looking at our phones, I am usually reading a book on it and she is usually making last minute FB and twitter posts. More than once the way we have realized it was time to go to sleep was when the phone slips from our hand in exhaustion and *SMACK* phone to the forehead if we are lucky, I have a bone disorder that can cause my nose to break from such a strike. Now if I fall asleep my hand and phone attached to my fingers just drop to my chest. I have enough LoveHandles for my wife to use one soon, I think a couple more decent self inflicted smacks at bedtime will do it.

Another great use for the LoveHandle is that not only can it keep the screen in your hand it can keep it out of the way of your hand. Carrying groceries, coffee, FroYo, frozen dinners, hot soup, basically anything you would want to keep separated from a sensitive piece of electronics can be slid onto the back of your hand really easy using the strap so that it is kept safe. I was recently on a walk, slid it around to the back of my hand and went to take a drink, the water spilled all over my hand where the phone had just been a second before. It may have been fine but I’m sure I didn’t have to worry and find out.

One last thing and this really should not be minimized. I have nerve disorders and damage in multiple places in my body which can cause my to lose feeling in half my hand. That means the heavier the electronic and the more prolonged the use the more I have to worry about dropping them. The LoveHandle comes in more than one size to accommodate larger electronics and hand size but even at it’s minimal size it can dramatically help people with grip handicaps handle their electronics safer. The handles are so efficient I have plans on putting them on my game controllers so that when I am doing prolonged gaming I don’t have to worry about dropping the controller due to my own issues. The plan is to put them on the underside of the handles so that my last two fingers which I have almost no feeling in will just be strapped on the controller. It will definitely go on one of my iPad 2 cases and probably on the bottom of one of my laptops so that when I pull it out or put it back in a bag I won’t lose my grip. Just as importantly no matter what I did the LoveHandle never lost it’s grip unless I wanted it to.

Last Love:

The LoveHandle is a rather simple idea that is a genius low cost solution on how to keep your valuable electronics safe without compromising use. Besides all the consumer uses listed above I am sure folks will find tons of commercial and industrial uses for them as well, and as a handicapped individual I can tell you I will be coming up with more and more ways to use them than as seen on TV.

[easyreview title=”LoveHandle Smartphone Grip Review Score” cat1title=”Overall Score (out of 5)” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”5″ ]

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