Coming out of nowhere today is Call of Duty: Strike Team ($7), a premium-priced shooter from Activision. The newest title in a long line of Call of Duty games, Strike Team offers both first-person and third-person views of combat, as players can switch views during the game for traditional FPS shooting and melee combat, then tactical strategy viewed from the position of a drone. CoD: Strike Team features a single-player campaign mode, plus a survival mode which lets players fight off waves of enemies while competing against others. It’s a neat game — unfortunately, like 2K Drive below, we experienced a few technical problems with the game, as it crashed multiple times during the first level. Hopefully future updates will fix the issues.
Hello Vino, the free wine app from Drive Thru Interactive, has gotten a sizable update in version 3.0. The updated app has been redesigned and is now universal for iPhone and iPad. Hello Vino now offers insider wine deals, expert reviews from Elizabeth Schneider, audio pronunciations of wines, improvements to the “My Wines” feature and enhancements to the wine label scanner. Tens of thousands of new wines have also been added to the app’s database.
EA’s Real Racing 3 (free, not pictured) has updated to version 1.3.5. The update adds seven new Porsches to the game’s garage, including the 1972 911 Carrera RS 2.7, 2003 911 GT2, and the 2013 911 RSR.
A new series — the 50 Years of 911 — lets players compete against the new Porsches, unlockable if you earn 15 in-game trophies. A number of new options for instant car deliveries and upgrades have been added, in addition to bug fixes.
The anticipated 2K Drive ($7) from 2K Sports and Lucid Games — the latter a studio founded by creators of Project Gotham Racing and Blur — hit the App Store today… sort of. A racing simulation game, 2K Drive features single and multiplayer modes, licensed cars and real-world driving environments textured like the ones seen in Gotham titles. There are plenty of possibilities for personalizing a driver or car, including RaceFace, which lets users take a picture to put their face into the game.