Asphalt 8: Airborne+ is a re-made version of the 2013 game bur for Apple Arcade. Previously I gave the game 4 of 5 stars as it was a pretty good racing game. As far as I can tell this version's game play is the same as previous. I think there are more tracks and cars and maybe it adds Mastery (each car has 15 mastery races), Gauntlet (pit your best five cars to get a best time then try to beat other people's best times), or World Series (3+ vs mode) modes (and a Motorcycle Blitz mode which I didn't try).

The racing is much better with a controller which I may not have had in 2013. The cars for the most part are barely different from each other -- I'm assuming acceleration, top speed, handling but you will have cars that seem to be the same or barely different.

When I first tries to play this version I bought cars willy nilly and got confused since it's hard to keep track of which car I had upgrades and with a long list of cars it's hard to find the right car. I reset the game and this time didn't buy any cars since the game gives you a new car every five or so Career mode races. Those car I improved and it was a funner experience for me.

In the end it's still quite a fun racing game and surprisingly performs well on my 2017 iPad Pro.

Madame Web (2024) [/] Netflix movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Hard luck paramedic Cassandra Webb (Dakota Johnson) starts developing precognitive powers which she immediately has to use to save three girls -- Julia (Sydney Sweeney), Anaya (Isabela Merced), and Mattie (Celeste O'Connor) -- from the spider-powered supervillain Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim). The movie is about Cassandra coming to grips with her powers and responsibilities (although a paramedic Cassandra is a rather "that's none of my business" sort of loner). The three girls don't get to do much which I suppose sets up future tv series or movies. That first third of the movie is quite boring but it gets better and the final act is fairly exciting.

Tetris Beat (2021) [/] Apple Arcade's version of Tetris. It's Tetris but you want to drop the blocks to the rhythm of the song which makes it very hard, especially without a controller. There is also a classic mode. Oh, it's no longer in Apple Arcade.

Monster Hunter Stories+ (2021) [/] Apple Arcade version of MH Stories ($20) with no changes. A third-person JRPG set in the world of Monster Hunter where you play a kid capturing and taming monsters. It plays better with a twin-stick controller than using the virtual sticks.

The Last Astronaut (2019) [/] Science fiction novel by David Wellington. In 2034 an extra-solar asteroid is found to be decelerating towards Earth which means it's Humankind's first alien contact. Unfortunately with NASA scaled down to almost no budget they have to put a middle-aged Sally Jansen, who led the last NASA manned mission and it ended in disaster, in charge of a crew with three non-astronauts. Oh and it turns out they have to compete with KSpace, a commercial space exploration company, who is sending their own ship with a three-person crew... Once they get inside it's a very alien environment and there's the mystery of whether or not the aliens are friendly. It's the kind of setup I should like but the tone is a bit more horror than wonder so in the end I'm ambivalent about the story.

Morey's Fine Fish & Seafood - Wild Alaska Salmon Seasoned Grill [+] Individually wrapped salmon fillets already seasoned. Cook in a toaster oven for 30 minutes (from frozen) and it comes out very tasty and juicy and goes well with plain rice.

Military Prosecutor Doberman is a Korean military drama. Captain Do Bae-man (Ahn Bo-hyun) is a successful prosecutor in the Korean army's justice department of the 4th Division. But it turns out he's quite corrupt as he throws cases based on the wishes (and payments) of his boss Yong Moon-goo (Kim Young-min), who in turn works for the ambitious Major General Noh Hwa-young (Oh Yeon-soo) who claws her way to command of 4th Division.

Enter Captain Cha Woo-in (Jo Bo-ah) assigned to be Do Bae-man's junior prosecutor. Turns out though her secret agenda is recruiting Do Bae-man to join her in taking down Yong Moon-goo and Noh Hwa-young. Yong Moon-goo had a hand in Cha Woo-in's father fall from grace and suspicious death whilst a then Major Noh Hwa-young murdered Do Bae-man's military prosecutor parents.

The first part of the series is working cases and then some courtroom drama. As the series goes on the two leads get more evidence against Noh Hwa-young and there's a larger corrupt organization within the Army, the Patriotic Association, that leads even to the head of the National Defense Department. There are some fights to show off Cha Woo-in's vigilante fighting skills and that Do Bae-man is not so bad himself. A hint of a romance between the two but nothing happens 'til the last minute of the series.

This was a series I struggled watching mostly because I wanted a romance not a drama. Both leads look great in uniform so I kept watching. The military corruption and twists are not that interesting -- maybe because it feels like the plot is moving rather slowly. Overall a nice enough series but replace the two lead actors and maybe I wouldn't recommend.

Previous appearances:

Ahn Bo-hyun
- Her Private Life as the female lead's adopted younger brother and a bit of a romantic rival to the male lead.
- See You in My 19th Life as the male lead

Kim Young-min
- Crash Landing On You as the NK intelligence analyst working for the bad guy
- Queen of Tears as one of country town's residents who has a semi-senile mother

SpellTower+ is a word game and another excellent game from Zach Gage.

In the base game you have a 9x13 letter grid with some dead spaces and some yellow (double score) and blue (eliminate row) letters -- blue letters are the harder to use ones like Q and X. Tap and trace to make words anywhere on the grid with bonus points for using yellow and blue letters. Those letters disappear (and long words take out surrounding letters) and higher letters fall down to fill the space. No new letters appear so it's all about making the big words and thinking ahead to get letters to come down so you can make other words.

Search is a 7x7 grid where you are trying to make words that use the central letter, which has a star. Letters three squares away are yellow and score 3 points (regular letters are 1 point). Find the word that scores the target 1-, 2- or 3-star points. I guess it's setup so you can make one good word at the start and you need to find it. You can also make zero-scoring words to make letters fall so you can make the big word but that's a lot of thinking.

Puzzle starts out with a 5-high letter tower but after each word a new line is added at the bottom and game ends if a letter reaches the top. My favorite mode.

Rush is like Puzzle but if you take too long a line is automatically added. I don't think quickly so this game mode is quite difficult.

Graphics are nice and simple. Sounds are subdued so you can think. Quite polished UI and game play. It's also a fun word game.