Is there any better way to show someone you love them than with a free time management game for the iPhone and iPad? OK, so there are many, but that doesn’t mean that this isn’t awesome! Today only G5 is giving away the fun Fix It Up World Tour for both iPhone and iPad! Here is the description: Go global in this fantastic strategy adventure! In this sequel to “Fix-it-up: Kate’s Adventure”, you must help Kate expand her car-repair empire around the world! Build car-repair shops anywhere from snowy Canada to steaming African jungles. Buy cars, fix them and paint them to make your business prosperous. Earn your fortune in your quest to build the mansion of your dreams. You must make sure that you create what the clients want so you can set the prices high! Increase the quality of your offers by upgrading buildings and tuning the cars so they don’t pollute the environment. Hire the best specialists so you can get cars up and running in no time! But this game isn’t just mechanics! Find out how the fascinating love story of Kate ends. Who will she choose – Steve or Martin? • 39 Levels and 15 [...]

Welcome back to the GearGames weekly video game release feature here at Gear Diary! After a few weeks off as the holidays more or less killed releases, we are starting to see a few new games. The three big games this week are Jagged Alliance – Back in Action and … oh yeah, that Playstation Vita thing. This week brings the special early adopters bundle, and a bunch of games are hitting stores as well. Early looks are no surprise – great hardware, extremely locked down transfer options, and pretty crappy PSP game compatibility. Jagged Alliance is one of the great franchises, and although it is also getting a re-make as a shooter, strategy fans are more excited for this great looking strategy game reboot. We might not be getting a true turn-based game – this is the classic ‘Real-Time with Pause’, but it is still a fun addition to the franchise and much better than many feared. There are a few others worth checking this week – read on to find out!… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

YOU MUST READ THIS POST! IT IS GOING TO BE HISTORIC! EVERYONE WILL BE TALKING ABOUT IT! I swear that every time I heard that last night during the Grammy Awards, I was certain of one thing – mediocrity was the best thing to hope for. If ‘everyone would be talking’, it would be like Nicki Minaj’s terrible performance that might signal her 15 minutes has played out with her singular stylistic droppings getting tiresome.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

So someone knocks on the door, right?  You want to see who the heck it is, without giving away the fact that, well, you’re checking them out.  (This isn’t an issue at my house–there’s simply too much glass around the door to hide.)  Maybe you even have one of those fisheye lens peephole viewer things.  Which is okay, I guess, but this is the digital age, and maybe you can do better, don’t you think?… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Once you graduate college or high school and start moseying out into the real world, you start to notice: finding dates is hard.  You are no longer surrounded by potential partners just your own age; you’re surrounded by, well, everybody.  Including old pharts like yours truly.  So how do you find a partner?… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

In my dreams, the way it works is this:  you have a card that you carry, which contains all your medical record information (encrypted, of course).  You back up this information on your system at home, and when you go into a new doctor’s office, instead of spending 15 minutes filling out a whole bunch of forms that are identical to the forms you’ve filled out before, you just hand them your card, they zip it through a card reader, you enter your PIN code, and bango, they have the info.  No need for forms, and you have access to your medical records whenever you need them.  In my dreams. But some people are at least making some decent first steps in that kind of direction.  Like MotherKnows:… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Yesterday we heard about the death of Whitney Houston, one of the all-time best selling female vocalists. She was extremely popular from the mid-80′s through the 90′s, but more than that she brought to the stage a voice that ranks her among the great all-time vocalists in popular music. Here is a bit from the news item: Whitney Houston, who reigned as pop music’s queen until her majestic voice and regal image were ravaged by drug use, erratic behavior and a tumultuous marriage to singer Bobby Brown, has died. She was 48. Publicist Kristen Foster said Saturday that the singer had died, but the cause and the location of her death were unknown. At her peak, Houston the golden girl of the music industry. From the middle 1980s to the late 1990s, she was one of the world’s best-selling artists. She wowed audiences with effortless, powerful, and peerless vocals that were rooted in the black church but made palatable to the masses with a pop sheen. Her success carried her beyond music to movies, where she starred in hits like “The Bodyguard” and “Waiting to Exhale.” She had the he perfect voice, and the perfect image: a gorgeous singer who [...]

When I was in College–back before the most recent ice age–computer graphics were juuuuust really getting started.  If you look at the graphics of “Project Genesis” in Star Trek II, you’ll see what was, for then, the top-of-the-line:  graphics that were programmed in UNIX on a big ol’ VAX, and then run out on a Cray SuperComputer.  I mean, that was smokin’ for 1982.  Really! Nowadays?  Now, PC are powerful enough that you can render complicated underwater scenes . . . in games.  You young whippersnappers don’t know how good you have it!… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Puzzle games are some of my favorites, particularly puzzle games that have an anachronistic, steampunk, Myst-like sensibility.  Good ones are few and far between, unfortunately, and it’s not like Broderbund is  cranking out iOS ports of the various Myst sequels in HD anyway, if you know what I mean.  So when I see game in this category, it does intrigue me:… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I don’t know why, but I find goofy racing games addicting.  Mario Karts, MicroQuad (on my lost, lamented Tapwave Zodiac), CroMag Rally, Sonic Racing . . . I just like ‘em.  I don’t like those realistic ones, where you get to zoom around in the latest Bugatti or Königsegg or Aston Martin–I like the goofy cartoony ones.  Don’t ask me why. Not unlike KartRider Rush:… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

As I have said many times, while the mainstream gaming market seems largely bereft of creativity as they churn out sequel after sequel and pretty much every game becomes a cover shooter with a few RPG-lite skill trees, the indie game market is full of excellent games. One of the most highly anticipated games of 2012 for RPG fans is the indie game Driftmoon, and today they have released a demo for the game.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

OK – thanks to all that entered to win one of the TWO FULL GAME CODES for the XBOX360 version of the original Darkness game! Now that the contest is over, I have randomized the valid entries thanks to Random.org and … The winners are ….. Isiah 59 Doug You have 24 hours to send your email contact information to contests@geardiary.com and your game code will be sent via email. Thanks again to the great folks at 2k Games, the developers of The Darkness and everyone who entered. Be sure to head to ‘Embrace the Darkness’ Continue reading on Gear Diary …

As Mike recently pointed out, Adele is a phenomena who popularity exploded this year because… she has a great voice and the songs are great! She’s had a rough time lately however thanks to throat surgery and a silent recovery. After a polyp was removed Adele was told not to speak for a month. According to an upcoming interview on 60 Minutes, Adele, who loves to talk, found the silence more difficult than the actual surgery. Fortunately for her she lives in the era of smartphone apps. As she explained, I had an application on my phone that you type the words into it and then it speaks it. But there’s more. You see, most text-to-speach apps offer G-rated language and Adele is a self-professed potty-mouth. … Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Tonight on Bill Maher’s Real Time program on HBO he did a cute shtick with Siri and Valentines Day. (The bit talked about gifts for certain kinds of favors and the cynical aspects of the V-Day and was a bit amusing.) Apparently Maher doesn’t actually use an iPhone because… It was upside down. (Just look at where the print is.) “Siri, is everything alright?” “Bill, would you please stop holding me upside down? I’m getting dizzy.”… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

AT&T is reportedly slated to increase their device upgrade costs from $18 to $36 this coming Sunday, February 12. Because the overall costs associated with upgrading to a new device have increased, effective Sunday, February 12, 2012, AT&T will change its upgrade fee from $18 to $36 Just my luck. I’m due for an upgrade, and I’ve been chomping at the bit to try a Windows phone, as evidenced by Dan and Judie’s saga of their HTC Titan usage. Speaking for myself, it’s just unfortunate that by the time I want to try out the Titan II or the Nokia 900 I’ll be paying a lot more than I anticipated. In a message to… Continue reading on Gear Diary …