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Battlestar Galactica has come and gone. Currently, television viewers can enjoy the story's prequel with the series Caprica on SyFy.  However, if you want to relive the glorious days of the Cylons hunting humanity to extinction, look no further than the Cylon bobblehead application put out free by NBC Universal.

Okay, it doesn't really do much.  It's a bobblehead.  You can choose between the old and new designs of the Cylons by tapping the first screen, but that's it.  Really.  You swipe across the screen and the head bobbles.  You can keep it on the dashboard of your car rather than one of those Hawaiian girls with the grass skirts.

I'm all for the nerdy apps, particularly when they're free, but in this case I may have to recommend giving it a pass due to the lack of utility of this app.  It doesn't transform like the cool virtual Transformer app.  It doesn't fire weapons.  It just bobbles.

I'm sure there are many virtual bobblehead apps out there (why hasn't NBC made one of Dwight Schrute for The Office?), but this one is kind of lame.  I'm not into bobbleheads in the first place.  NBC also put out the lame Cylon Detector app, but in this case they at least had the decency to not charge a buck for it.

Overall, unless you're the biggest possible diehard fan of the 21st century reimagining of the franchise, I'm going to have to recommend that you give this one a pass.  Wait for the Dwight Schrute app instead.

Zombies are still popular — the craze that everybody wants to be a part of. The latest example of this is Zombie Duck.

Zombie duck is a hunting game—using the accelerometer, you tilt your iPhone to put the cross hairs over a duck that’s flying across the screen. When the crosshairs are firmly over the duck, press the ‘gun’ button to fire and shoot. If you don’t kill him fast enough, he turns into a zombie (IE: a red duck). If you don’t kill the duck within 5 seconds of that, you lose a heart. Once you lose all your hearts, the game is over.

 As you progress through the levels you can select different guns—ones that fire faster or hold more amo at once.

The controls on the game were difficult to use—although using the accelerometer as a means to aim made sense, I thought that using “buttons” in the corner of the screen to load and shoot your gun were awkward. If you were going to use gestures/motion to aim the gun, I thought it would make more sense to continue this metaphor and tap the screen and shake the phone to shoot and reload?

Sure this one is free, but we think it isn’t worth the space on your phone.

As with most Gameloft offerings, the graphics and animation were among the best I've seen for the iPhone or iPod touch.

The app is a story-based first person shooter involving a spaceship that is returning to Earth from a 30 year mission only to find that the machines have taken over the place.  The mission is to get the planet back for the human populace.

The main problem with the game is that it's diffcult to figure out how to play.  The user is taken through a bunch of comic book panel scenes (albeit more cleverly done with cute animations) and presented with some text conversation.  After getting through the comic book section, the user is taken to the main video game which plays much like the Transformers G1 or Voltron video games for the iPhone, except this one doesn't benefit from a known franchise.

The game is supposed to be a bit of an action mystery, but it doesn't seem well-written or well-developed and is too difficult to figure out how to play.  While this is good for those who like figuring out how these games work, I prefer the intuitive sort that doesn't take that much cogitation.

If Gameloft has another sale, and this game is offered for free, then perhaps you want to download it to your device and give it a whirl.  Otherwise, I would skip it and play Transformers or Voltron.

One can tell by my recent review of Strip Designer that I really dig apps that allow you to make a comic book on the iPhone or iPod touch.  Sadly, some are better than others and Comic Maker is definitely one of the "others."  That's not to say the app is all bad.  It's simply missing one option that would otherwise make it good.

The app is very intuitive and starts innocently enough at a central menu system in which one can create a comic book.  By selecting "New", one can create either a comic book, comic strip or graphic novel.  The three are fairly similar in terms of functionality, but differ in terms of the dimensions of the canvas.

Upon starting a new comic, the user is presented with three buttons on the bottom.  The first allows for saving the comic in a variety of formats (jpeg, pdf, cmf file) or opening existing ones.  It's also possible to share the comics on Facebook or Twitter.  The second button allows for adding or subtracting pages and determine the panel layout of the page.  The third allows for creating the content of the page based on pre-existing backgrounds and characters.

And there is my problem with this app.  All the options are limited.  The user can't lay out a panel any way he or she wants and there is no tool for drawing your own characters or backgrounds or even importing them.  You're stuck with whatever is in the app library.

Comic Maker is good for children or those with only a passing interest in making comics on the iPhone.  For those who are more serious, look elsewhere.

You have to hand it to the WWE.  Other than CNN, nobody else in the media business has the chutzpah to actually charge people for their newsfeed.  Granted, at a dollar it's less than the CNN app, but at least the Cable News Network offers live streaming of their content without the need to subscribe to cable.

What does the WWE offer?  Well, everything that a wrestling fan could watch.  They could rewatch the previous week's matches from cable (one match at a time) or some classic matches.  They could look at pictures of various Divas and they could read the latest official WWE gossip involving the latest media appearances from their favorite wrestlers.  For actual wrestling behind-the-scenes dirt, look elsewhere.

The app itself is simple beyond words.  There is the news section, which has articles.  There is the photos section, which has pictures.  There is the video section, which has videos.  That's it.  As an app, it's simply not that impressive.  I don't even see anything to indicate exclusive content.

This app is likely intended for folks who pay forty bucks for a pay-per-view, so somehow I doubt the extra dollar is going to intimidate them.  It's a simple app, but it could have been done better with the WWE flair and glitz.  Due to the fact that the content can be found elsewhere online, this app is ultimately not necessary for any wrestling fan.  But it's fun to have.  I leave it to you.

Make no illusion about it:  Words With Friends IS Scrabble.  The board is laid out slightly differently and there are noticable differences between the two games on the iPhone, but the fundamentals are the same.

In truth, Words With Friends is a cheap alternative to the big-name Hasbro app.  The similarities are: you are given a set of letters each with a certain number of points and you have to form words on the board.  There are also special tiles like "double word score", "triple letter score" and so on.

Words With Friends does have some important differences to the Scrabble app other than price.  It can only be played with someone else (either online or pass-and-play), and there is no single-player version against the computer.  An Internet connection is required, and you are required to create an account. The game has a number of annoying banner ads telling the user to follow the game's creators on Twitter.

I appreciate the fact that the price is more reasonable than Scrabble, but but overall it is underwhelming.  For more flexibility at a price that is not cost-prohibitive, I'd recommend sticking with the original.

Currently on sale for $.99, the "hip, new" version of the board game Clue has been availabe in the App Store for a little while.  The price discount was enough to make me want to try it out.

The game plays a lot like the 'Sherlock Holmes' game that was released in conjunction with the Robert Downey Jr. movie.  You go around a mansion and ask questions to people dressed like hipsters who have names out of 'Reservoir Dogs'.

Obviously, Clue is the exact opposite of a shoot-'em-up game, since its a lot of investigative type of play.  If your good at putting together hints, spending time looking into details, and smart enough, you'll figure out who killed Mr. Boddy in which part of the mansion and with what weapon.

The game lets you move around the house by tapping the footprints among the icons on the top left of the screen.  The same icons can also pause the application, talk to the suspects and look for clues.

I'm not that keen on the design of the application.  It looks like its out of a cartoon or comic book and doesn't have the gothic feel I've already associated with the board game.  Honestly, if I wanted a better version of Clue, I'd stick with the board game.

Unless you're a fanatic of the original board game and need it in all forms, I'd give this one a pass.

There are all kinds of basketball games in the App Store.  Some of them are even franchised by the NBA.  However, with March Madness here, it should be no surprise that some of the independents are trying to promote their basketball games by offering them free for a day.  Sorry fans, the day has passed.

The nice thing about a game that is strictly 3-point basketball shots is that it's nice wish fulfillment.  You dont have to be able to run or jump to do them.  You simply need some aim and finger strength.  But is the game worth $1.99?  Or even $.99?  The animation and graphics are superb, but the game itself is kind of simplistic.

Your presented with a basketball hoop at different angles.  Then you must touch the ball and make a flicking motion upward with your finger to get the ball in the hoop.  That's it.  Pretty simple, huh?

3 Point Hoops is not a bad game, but it simply runs the danger of getting boring relatively quickly.  There are two types of games you can play: Classic, which measures how many shots you can get in based on a limited number of chances, and Sudden Death, which involves getting as many shots in as possible within a time limit.  There is also an options menu to give instructions on play and to control music and sound effects.

Overall, I wouldn't give this game three points.  Maybe a solid two.

There is a certain level of quality one would expect from anything that has Martha Stewart's brand name on it.  The question one would immediate ask is: is a recipe magazine for the iPhone and iPod touch worth the $.99 investment and space on your iPhone?  By my reckoning, the answer is no.  Particularly when you consider that the Epicurious app is offered for free in the App Store and it offers more recipes.

To begin, the application should not require a data or WiFi connection to get content.  I understand that it makes updates to the data, but I personally think that a few thousand recipes are more than enough, and the speed increase to have them locally would warrant that approach.

The app is very pretty and has a fairly logical digital magazine layout divided into sections:  Dinner (which presumably is for dinner recipes), Search, Saved Recipes, Shopping List and More (which contains a login for a partner website ZipList, a set of local stores at which to find ingredients, and app information).  Recipes are organized by main ingredient, holiday, cooking method, and others, so they are easy to find.  Lists can be made with notes that detail the location of ingredients in the ailes of your favorite store.  But all of these sorts of features can already be had with many of the free recipe apps available in the App store.

My biggest issue is that this app commits what, in my mind, is the cardinal sin by charging for itself while running ads on it.  Having a partner site for tracking shopping lists is one thing.  Ads are another.

Admittedly, I am not one of Martha's army of zombie homemakers which will one day rise up and conquer the world.  Perhaps this is the layout they want.  However it seems to me that you could get similar use from the Epicurious app and save yourself a buck.

It's a good bet that Playboy paid Apple a ton of money to perform their recent "porn purge" of the App Store.  As a result of it, Playboy magazine is the closest thing a user can get to porn from iTunes aside from the SI Swimsuit Issue and half the stuff in the music store.  Due to the lack of content and choice with regards to scantily-clad females, the Playboy app is likely going to be one of the hottest sellers in the App Store for a while.

The price of the app was recently lowered to $.99 and upon review it's amazing that they charge at all.  The app simply is a placeholder for content that could likely be found on Playboy.com.  There are articles and the playmates for January and February can be seen in the app (no nudity, of course) but the purchase of more issues or special content costs extra.

The app itself is fairly simplistic and doesn't even come with that much content out of the box.  There are a few articles (using even fewer words) and photo spreads (difficult to see with such a small screen).  Undoubtedly this particular app will gain a huge real estate benefit from the release of the iPad.

Thanks to Apple's need to place itself as a family-friendly company to sell the iPod touch to kids, what's old is new again and a pornography dinosaur has been saved from complete obsolence.  Now people actually will be reading Playboy for the articles.