If you’re a fan of driving games then you’ll be happy to hear that Bronze Award-winning Redline Rush is now free for iOS after only ten days on the App Store. The game was previously $0.99, but you can now get it for the low price of free.

If you haven’t had a chance to play it yet, here’s a little of what you can look forward to:. You’ll drive around in a fancy sports car to test your driving skills while in a high speed chase against the police. You’re tasked to avoid crashes, take down traffic cars, pick-up power-ups and make your way to the top of the leaderboard in this high-speed driving game. There are a bunch of sports cars to choose from, 3 different tracks to drive on and you can challenge your friends with GameCenter integration.

Head over to the App Store now to get Redline Rush for free.

Initially, Tetris Blitz was only released on the Canadian App Store, but now EA has launched the free game worldwide for iOS and Android. It’s not traditional Tetris though. In Tetris Blitz you have a two minutes to clear as many lines as possible.

You can also use power-ups like Magnet, Laser and Time Shift, some of which are free while others cost money. EA has said that a new power-up will be released every week.

Tetris Blitz is a free download, but does come with in-app purchases. According to Pocket Gamer, though, the in-app purchases are cheaper than they were a month ago. Before you would have had to pay $30 to see the next three Tetriminos. How you’ll just have to cough up $2.99. If you wanted to hold two blocks you’d have to pay $40, but now it’ll cost you $4.99.

Tetris Blitz is now available on iOS and Android all around the world for free.

Image Credit: Polygon

Rovio’s Angry Birds Space first launched in the App Store last March and today, for the first time, you can get the game for free on both the iPhone and iPad. It probably won’t last long so you should download it now while you have the chance. It’s likely that this title is going free with Apple’s Free App of the Week promotion, which means you’ll only have seven days to get the game for free if that’s the case.

If you’re one of the few people who haven’t yet given this game a test drive, then you’re in for a treat. It has everything you love about the Angry Birds series, as well as some new space-themed game play features and challenges .

Head over to the App Store now to get Angry Birds Space free on your iPhone and iPad.

Image Credit: HDW

It looks like the Star Wars role-playing game “Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic” is about to be released for the iPad, according to an e-mail sent out from Aspyr. The e-mail was a newsletter announcing a sale on Call of Duty games, but also included the Star Wars news.

Right at the top of the e-mail was written:

“The critically-acclaimed Star Wars RPG is now available on iPad…”

While it doesn’t actually specify which Star Wars game it’s referring to, Aspyr Media previously brought the classic PC game to the Mac. It also already has its foot in the App Store door with its own game, Sushi Mushi, so it’s likeily that they would be porting the game to the iPad.

At this point, nothing has been confirmed or denied by Aspyr Media, so keep your eyes open.

Image Credit: IGN

After weeks of buildup, Microsoft finally had its Xbox reveal event today where it unveiled its new console, the Xbox One.

Hardware

Unlike Sony’s announcement with the PS4, Microsoft chose to actually show off the physical hardware of the Xbox One at the event. The console has a very flat and sleek look, likely influenced by Microsoft’s standard Windows 8 tile design. It has a “few” USB 3.0 ports, a 500GB hard drive, and a Blu-ray player, along with 8GB of RAM to rival that of the Playstation 4 as well as an 8 core CPU. The system is also built using the X86 architecture,  which confirms that it will not be backwards compatible with Xbox 360 games. The console will also include a slightly updated version of the Xbox controller, with 40 new enhancements to make it more ergonomic and responsive.

The console will also come with another piece of hardware in the box, the new Xbox Kinect, which is now included with all systems. The new Kinect is said to be much more capable and is able to better sense movement. It can now track things such as movements of your wrists and it can even measure things like your heart rate and can tell when you shift your weight to one side. The new Kinect can also capture 1080p video at 30 fps, far superior to the VGA video quality that was capable from the 360′s Kinect. The Kinect will also play a big role in voice commands and gestures when navigating around the new Xbox.

Software and Features

Xbox One’s main dashboard looks fairly identical to the current tiled design that the 360′s menu has; however, now that each console comes packed in with a Kinect, Microsoft is pushing voice commands. Users can now turn on the Xbox from what appears to be a sleep mode simply by saying, “Xbox on.” Not only that, but Kinect is now able to identify people just from their voices, so the console will automatically load up the right profile depending on who is speaking to it. Users can also near instantaneously switch between apps just through voice commands. Commands like “go to movie”, “go to game”, “go to Skype” will have your Xbox jumping back and forth between different apps just as fast as switching the channel on your TV.

Intelligent TV is another big push by Microsoft. It allows for users to watch their TV subscription directly through their Xbox and lets them do things such as mark favorite shows and channels and see what the most popular shows are with the rest of Xbox users. It also incorporates the Kinect voice features so that you can quickly hop between channels just by saying things like “play MTV.” Through exclusive partnerships with companies like the NFL, Xbox will also provide interactive elements to certain shows, such as letting you scroll through auto-updating stats and your fantasy team while watching football.

As for games, Microsoft’s own in-house developer Microsoft Studios has announced that it will be bringing a massive 15 new exclusive titles to the Xbox One within the first year of its release, with eight of these titles being new franchises. These games include Forza Motorsport 5 and the new game Quantum Break from Max Payne/Alan Wake developer Remedy. Microsoft also announced more exclusive DLC for the upcoming Call of Duty: Ghosts.

The console will come with its own feature to try to deter used games by forcing users to download entire discs to the hard drive in order to play them. Users will be able to associate each game they buy to one Xbox profile, and if they want to play it on others, they will be forced to pay a fee. You, however, will no longer require your disc to be in the console in order to play a game.

Other announcements included a new live action Halo TV series with Steven Spielberg working as an executive producer, and that the Xbox One will include game play recording features like those prominently shown for the PS4, although not as robust.

Expect to hear a lot more about the console and the games being developed for it at E3 starting June 11. The Xbox One is set to hit store shelves sometime before the end of this year.

Watch Microsoft’s complete reveal of the console here.

Fans of the Assassin’s Creed game will be happy to know that the movie based on the game series now has an official release date. Ubisoft, which is developing the movie, revealed that the new Assassin’s Creed movie is slated to be released on May 22, 2015.

The film will star Michael Fassbender (X-Men: First Class, Prometheus, Inglorious Basterds), who also happens to be producing the movie and will be distributed by New Regency and Fox. A director for the movie has not been confirmed, but that could change soon with an actual release date.

Not much else is known about the film, other than that Fassbender is expected to play Desmond Miles.

This date can still change though. 2015 is still quite a ways a way and it looks like it’ll be a big summer for blockbuster movies. Disney is reportedly thinking of releasing Star Wars: Episode VII that same weekend and if that’s true then Assassin’s Creed might decide to move to another day.

On top of the Assassin’s Creed movie and the new Star Wars movie, Pirates of the Caribbean 5, The Avengers 2, The Hobbit: There and Back Again, and Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 are also planned for a 2015 release.

Image Credit: GeekTyrant

The Simpsons: Tapped Out for iOS recently received a new update, bringing a new character, new buildings, more quests, and other less important things with it. In today’s new update, EA is bringing the level cap up to 29, which means you can expand your town just a little bit more. The new update also introduces Agnes Skinner.

With Agnes, you can taunt the elderly and win at Bingo. The update also brings a new quest involving the relationship between Agnes and her son Seymour.

With the new buildings, you can watch performances at the Open Air Stage, shop at the Sprawl-Mart and enjoy Silhouette Night at the Skinner House.

If you haven’t yet played The Simpsons: Tapped Out, it’s basically a city simulation game where you build a new Springfield after the first one was blown up. Throughout the game, you’ll meet familiar Simpsons characters and build places you’ll find familiar to those who watch the show on television.

The Simpsons: Tapped Out’s new update is now available for free in the App Store.

For a limited time only, Gameloft is making two of its iOS games free. Starting today, and only for this weekend, you can download Gangster Rio: City of Saints and N.O.V.A. 3 for free if you don’t already have them downloaded.  Downloading these games this weekend will save you about $12.00. Gangster Rio normally sells for $4.00 and N.O.V.A. 3 is a “steep” $6.99. Both are universal games so they can be played on any iOS device.

Gangster Rio: City of Saints is similar to Grand Theft Auto. Set in 3D environment in Rio de Janeiro, you’ll encounter corrupt politicians that you’ll have to kill people, save witnesses, steal cars and stay alive in 60 different missions using different weapons.

N.O.V.A. 3 is a first person shooter game with 10 different levels. You can play up to 12 players in 7 different multiplayer modes. The game features in-game voice chats so you can keep in contact with friends while playing.

Both Gangster Rio: City of Saints and N.O.V.A. 3 are now available on the App Store for free this weekend only, so get ‘em while they’re hot!

Image Credit: Mob

It’s no secret that iOS games, and phone-based gaming in general, are the future. According to the second edition of the ongoing quarterly AppAnnie & IDC Portable Gaming Report, there is a clear shift in consumer spending from gaming-optimized handhelds to phone-based devices.

The app analysis firm looked at consumer spending on games in the fourth quarter of 2012 and compared it to the first quarter of 2013. The results showed an obvious increase in iOS game spending with a significant decrease in on traditional handheld games.

According to the report:

• iOS and Google Play both saw growth in game downloads and consumer spending
• iOS is now the leader in consumer spending on games, with Google Play likely to surpass gaming-optimized handhelds in 2Q13
• Gaming-optimized handhelds experienced significant decreases in consumer spending and packaged game shipments due to seasonality

iOS and Android gaming isn’t really affected by “seasonality” since developers put new games out throughout the whole year.

Image Credit: Mashable

The Angry Birds phenomena is everywhere. From shirts, to toys, to blankets, to TV shows and commercial, and of course any system that plays games, those infuriated birds are easy to find. Now the birds have been confirmed to be coming to the big screen, with Sony Pictures Entertainment announcing that they have signed on to distribute the film.

Not much is currently known about the movie, besides that its anticipated release date is set for July 1, 2016 and that it will be in 3D. Gamespot also reports that Iron Man producer David Maisel will be working on the project as executive producer and that Despicable Me producer John Cohen will also be helping produce the film. The film itself will be self-produced by the game’s developer Rovio, who has its own large video animation team.

Sony Pictures reportedly won the rights to the film through a bidding war with several other movie studios. Sony Pictures’ CEO and co-chairman Amy Pascal released a statement sharing their excitement over the acquisition.

“”Every studio in town would love to add Angry Birds to their slate. There are few titles out there that bring this kind of excitement, brand awareness and built-in audience to the table. We’re thrilled to be distributing this film and we hope this is just the beginning of what will be a long relationship with Rovio as we look for ways to work on future projects together.”

Banking on Angry Birds and 3D to still be hugely popular in 2016 sounds like a slight gamble to me, but people sure damn love those birds.

Pudding Monsters, the deliciously addictive puzzle game for iOS, has been updated. In this release, you’ll see brand new levels with the Sky High update as the Pudding Monsters are venturing outside for a whole new adventure.

The app, made by Zeptolab, the same creators of Cut the Rope, was first released last December and got its first update in February, which brought the Monsters to the city.

In this update, you’ll see the Pudding Monsters hitting the great outdoors as you help them climb mountains and reach for the sky in 25 new Sky View levels. The new levels introduce a brand new monster, Mr. Powerlifter Monster, and challenging new gameplay elements.

Pudding Monsters for the iPhone and iPad are usually priced at $1.99 each, but until May 22 you can get both versions of the game for free with Apple’s App of the Week promotion.

Rovio has finally released the much teased update for the Angry Birds Seasons app. The update brings 36 new “magical” levels where the bad piggies are making eggs disappear.

An exciting new feature in these levels is the new magic portals, which sucks the birds in one end and shoots them out the other. There are 36 new levels, plus six more unlockable stages.

The levels are carnival themed and the magic portals bring a whole new twist to the Angry Birds Seasons. There’s also a new power-up called AllakaBAM, which is a magic box that explodes when you hit it.

The addition of the portals was first teased by Rovio a few weeks ago with an interesting video that was posted on Twitter.

Rovio’s new carnival-themed season is now available in the App Store. It’s free for those who already bought the game or it can be downloaded for $0.99 for the iPhone or $2.99 on the iPad.

Anomaly 2 has just been released for Mac, Linux and PC users via Steam. Sequel to the iOS hit Anomaly Warzone Earth, the game is currently retailing for $13.49, though the price will rise to $15.00 next week. This deal is available on both Steam and directly from the developer’s store.

Anomaly 2 is a tower defense/offense game in which you defend the human race from extinction from a horde of aliens. While the game may look like a traditional tower defense game, it sure doesn’t feel like one due to its fast-paced nature and action packed world of vehicles, power-ups, and morphing war mechs. Anomaly 2 includes both a single-player campaign and a multiplayer battle mode. When playing multiplayer, you can choose to be either the human race or an evil pack of aliens.

Since its days on iOS, Anomaly 2 now runs on a new and improved graphics engine, making the entire world more beautiful. However, even with the new graphics engine, most Mac users will be able to run the game due to the fact that Anomaly 2 only requires 2GB of RAM, a 2.4GHz Intel dual-core CPU and a 512MB of graphics memory.

Via: Cult of Mac

Microsoft Points, Microsoft’s controversial virtual currency system for the Xbox, seems like it’s on the way out. The Verge is reporting that Microsoft plans to switch over to a gift card system like Apple’s iTunes gift cards that uses real currency as opposed to Microsoft’s magical fairy money.

Microsoft Points have been criticized for trying to trick people into spending more money than they think they are. Instead of spending $1 on the Xbox Marketplace, Microsoft has its users spend 80 Microsoft Points. This makes it harder to realize how much money you’re actually spending, and makes it harder to tell how much things in the store actually cost. If the average user sees a game in the store that costs 2400 Microsoft Points, they’re going to have no idea how much that actually is in real dollars.

Microsoft is reportedly planning to get rid of this system, however, as they plan to adopt a gift card method that uses real currency. Customers would go to the store and buy a $20 Microsoft Card, that would not only allow them to buy things on the Xbox Marketplace, but also the Windows Store and Windows Phone Store.

The switch in currency would likely be set to happen in time for the release of Microsoft’s next Xbox console, which is expected to be released sometime this fall.

Back in the days where not everyone had a mobile device in their pocket, dots used to be a pretty fun game to play when all you had was a piece of paper and a pen. Since being released for iOS only two weeks ago, Dots by Betaworks One has already been played 100 million times.

The game play is a little different than the version I remember playing as a kid, but still fun and addictive, as well as an excellent waste of time. You start with a screen of 36 colored dots and you have 60 seconds to get rid of as many dots as you can by connecting straight lines of the same colored dots.

Betaworks designed Dots as part of an experiment to release new beta products every week for six weeks to see what works. Betaworks announced a week ago that the game hit 25 million game plays about a week ago and has since reached the 100 million mark in a total of two weeks since it’s release.

Dots is a free download from the App Store with some in-app purchase options for extra features.

Image Credit: Laughing Squid

One of Rovio’s popular games, Bad Piggies, has been updated today. The update brings fifteen brand new sun-drenched levels, along with some new gadgets to help you beat them, including a suction cup gadget for climbing walls and a spring-loaded boxing glove.

If you haven’t had a chance to play Bad Piggies, here’s what it is in a nutshell: instead of helping the Angry Birds get revenge on the pigs, you play from the perspective of the pigs. You won’t be slingshotting birds through the air.  You’ll build the ultimate device to help you fly, crawl, roll, or crash your way to the eggs.

Here’s all the new stuff included in the Bad Piggies update:

• 15 new sun-drenched levels!
• Record your best tricks in-game and share through your favorite social networks!
• Climb walls with the new suction cup gadget!
• Punch your way to victory with the new spring-loaded Boxing Glove!
• Fill your need for speed in a new Road Hog challenge!
• Go crazy in an all-new sandbox!

All versions of Bad Piggies have been updated, but the free versions for the iPhone and iPad have received only five new levels. You can get the newly updated game from the App Store now, or download it for $0.99.

Image Credit: Rovio

It’s been a great week with a lot of great new apps hitting the marketplace. We’ve got a few new ones for you this week. If you’re concerned about network quality we have an iPhone app for you. We have a light and less extensible version of Status Board for the iPad. A beloved iOS podcast app comes to the Mac, in beta. Our web app is a dead simple to-do list. Our game of the week is a follow up from the makers of “You Don’t Know Jack.”

iPhone/iPod Touch: OpenSignal

Our iPhones are awesome mini-computers that are always at hand, but without a proper network connection, they lose a bit of their usefulness. The open source OpenSignal app gives you a clear way to look at your current network status.

It shows the strength of your cellular and Wi-Fi connections. You can run upload and download speed tests, take a look at the coverage map in your area by carrier, and see a map with local Wi-FI hotspots. There’s a lot of data here in a relatively neat package, though this may overwhelm novice users.

Open Signal is Free on the App Store.

iPad: My Dashboard

In case you missed it, we did a huge exploration of Panic’s Status Board and the variety of panels that developers were creating. My Dashboard bares a passing resemblance to Status Board but it’s missing the power and extensibility. If Status Board was a successful engineer, My Dashboard is his cousin that’s a social media marketing expert.

That said, not everyone needs a powerful status tool. My Dashboard is a bunch of preconfigured widgets that you can place around three screens. You can drop a panel with Twitter, and another with Facebook. You can monitor a couple of different websites, including the doomed Google Reader. Another Panel gives you in app access to the current videos from your subscribed channels. There’s a music player that ties to your on-device library. The various backgrounds look really nice, tipping the hat to some clever design. To get your GMail and a to-do list you’ll need to spend an additional $0.99 above the apps purchase price, which doubles the price.

You can grab My Dashboard on the App Store for $0.99 here

Mac: Instacast

It’s going to take a lot to get anyone to switch their podcasting app, but Instacast has made a compelling argument for buying their app for all platforms. With the release of the Mac client, you can now pull all of your podcast subscriptions from iTunes or Apple’s own Podcasts app on iOS.

The app is in open beta right now, but it is in very good condition. You could easily mistake this for release-quality software. You can import your iPhone and iPad subscriptions by creating or signing in with your account. This means that you only have to go through the misery of reconfiguring your podcasts once. The Mac app actually has better sorting options over the iOS app. The instant sync is by far the most valuable part of the new software.

You can download the beta here it’s free but you can lock in the price of $14.99 if you purchase your license now.

Web: TodoCat

The internet loves productivity apps, nearly as much as it loves cats. This combines the two of them in a nice package that’s minimal. The page is the Sophisticated Cat meme with the I Should in bold, and the buy a boat underlined. You can then add your tasks which stack up below, you can clear them with a click.

It’s basically a scratch pad, no sophisticated GTD process involved. If you want to sync the web app you’ll need to create an account. However simple it may be, it’s really responsive and you can’t help but chuckle at Sophisticated Cat. If you’re buying a boat, your to-do list is already done for you.

TodoCat is a free app you can check out here.

Game: Lie Swatter

You Don’t Know Jack was a classic game that has had a resurgence in recent years, first as a console game and more recently as a social game. Developer Jellyvision has released a new trivia game called Lie Swatter. The premise is pretty simple, you get a listing of trivia facts and you have to choose all the lies for points, you lose points for selecting true facts about your subject.

The game is asynchronous, and turns work a’la Words with Friends. Each game is three rounds, so it can go pretty quick. Like You Don’t Know Jack there is a lot of pressure to plunk down some cash to stop the ad model. Playing with it isn’t too terrible, but it may hamper your progress if you’re playing a lot of games.

Lie Swatter is free and you can grab it from the App Store.

Whether you obsessively played Grand Theft Auto: Vice City when it first came out back in 2002 for the Playstation 2, or whether you’ve never even touched the game, it’s hard to pass up the game’s current price on the App Store. The iOS version of the game is now on sale for $1.99, which is 60% off the regular price of $4.99.

GTA: Vice City originally came out for iOS back in December as a celebration of the game’s 10th anniversary. It includes a number of enhancements to the game’s graphics and controls and includes the full version of the game that originally came out for the PS2. The app also works universally on iPhone and iPad, so you won’t have to worry about buying two versions of the game just because you want to play it on your tablet.

Even if you never intend to play Vice City, there’s something cool about just having such a massively celebrated console game in your pocket at all times.

Be sure to buy it on the App Store before the price goes back up.

One of the best parts of Ellen DeGeneres’ show is all the games that she plays with members of her audience, and one those games is a word-guessing game where a player holds cards on their forehead and the other provides clues for the person to guess what’s on the card. Now you can play this game at home with Ellen’s new app, Heads Up!

With Heads Up!, you hold your iPhone or iPad up to your forehead, instead of a stack of cards. Since you can’t drop a card to see the next one, once you guess what’s on the screen all you have to do is tilt the iPhone or iPad forward to move on to the next card. If you can’t guess the word, just tilt the device backwards to pass. You have 60 seconds to guess as many words as possible and at the end of the 60 seconds you’ll see a list of all the words you managed to guess.

Heads Up! also has a great video feature, so you’re being filmed while playing. You can share you’re funniest rounds with friends or choose “Send to Ellen” to share on her Heads Up! Facebook page.

There are over 18 themed decks to choose from, but the game does have in-app purchases so you’ll have to shell out another $0.99 for another deck.

Make sure to watch the video above from yesterday’s Ellen show where she played Heads Up! with actress Alison Sweeney. Then make sure to download Ellen’s game from the App Store for just $0.99.

Microsoft has finally come out with the date that it will reveal its upcoming next-gen console. The company will hold an event on May 21 where the Xbox team will present a “special unveiling.”

The event was announced on Xbox Director of Programming, Major Nelson’s blog:

“On Tuesday May 21st, we’ll mark the beginning of a new generation of games, TV and entertainment. On that day, we’ll be holding a special press event on the Xbox campus and we invite you to join us via the live global stream that will be available on Xbox.com, Xbox LIVE and broadcast on Spike TV if you are in the US or Canada.”

On that day, we’ll share our vision for Xbox, and give you a real taste of the future. Then, 19-days later at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles, we’ll continue the conversation and showcase our full lineup of blockbuster games.

We are thrilled to pull back the curtain and reveal what we’ve been working on.”

While Microsoft never specifically says that it will be showing off its new Xbox, codenamed Durango, it is without a doubt that’s what the presentation will be about. Microsoft is clearly making a big deal about the unveiling, as the company will be broadcasting the announcement on national TV.

It sounds like Microsoft plans to use the May 21 event to unveil the console, and then the e3 press conference a couple weeks later to showcase games for the new system.

Expect Microsoft to announce the launch date for Durango to be sometime in the fall in order to lineup with the release of Sony’s PS4. Also expect to see an actual physical model of the console, as opposed to Sony’s announcement where they chose not to show off the actual system.

Just a few more weeks until we finally get to see which rumors were true, and which were false.

Om Nom, the cute little green monster in the Cut the Rope game, is gearing up for some time travelling. At midnight tonight, the sequel to the widely popular puzzle game, Cut the Rope: Time Travel, will go live in the U.K. and U.S. App Stores.

In Cut the Rope: Time Travel, you’ll travel alongside Om Nom as he jumps between time periods and meets up with his ancestors where you’ll have to deliver candy to two monsters at once.

The game features six time periods: the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, a pirate ship, ancient Egypt, ancient Greece and the Stone Age. Each stage will have new puzzle elements, as well as ones that you’re already familiar with, like explosive mines, wormholes, rockets and saw blades.

If you haven’t tried out the original Cut the Rope, then I would highly suggest giving it a go while you wait for the sequel. It’s a fun puzzle game that will keep you entertained for hours. If the original game is anything to go by, then Cut the Rope: Time Travel should prove to be just as entertaining. You can get Cut the Rope for your iPhone for $0.99 and your iPad for $3.99.

If you live in Canada and you’ve patiently been waiting for the follow-up game to OMGPOP’s popular social game Draw Something, then it’s a good day to be you because Draw Something 2 has been spotted in the Canadian App Store.

Draw Something 2 actually launched in the Swedish App Store last month, but the game has only now made an appearance in the Canadian App Store. The social drawing guessing game was first released in Sweden because it was there that the original game first reached the top of the App Store charts.

OMGPOP was acquired by Zynga in March of last year for $200 million. It has since released Draw Something Pro.

Draw Something 2 is expected to launch globally “soon.” If you live in Canada, though, you can get a head start. Draw Something 2 is available for $2.99 or you can get Draw Something 2 Free for, well, free.

Draw Something 2 features new tools, patterns, stamps and colors, as well as a new social feed and a gallery of all your favorite drawings. It also has over 5,000 new words and you can even free draw just for fun.

Image Credit: Cult of Android

Our apps this week run the gamut from superfluous toys to interesting tools. It’s been a good week to dig through apps, as the weather here hasn’t really been all that corporative in the spring department. Grab your iDevices and let’s take a look at this week’s apps.

iPhone/iPod Touch: Farmstand

As the weather warms up here in the northern hemisphere, farmers’ markets begin to pop up all over town. Some of the earliest begin in May, but it’s kind of a hassle to keep all of them straight, especially when they might have random hours. Farmstand solves that by giving you a list of the local farmers’ markets, complete with hours.

There is a community aspect to the app, as you can update the entries that might be incomplete. If you find something particularly interesting, you can post it in the app. The login integrates with Facebook and Twitter, so you won’t need to remember another account. They recently added stickers to put on the images you share from the markets, giving the social layer some more polish.

If you’re looking for a good source of local food, or a social network of granola heads this is a cool app to check out. You can download it free from the App Store.

iPad: Poems by Heart from Penguin Classics

April is National Poetry month. What better way to celebrate than to actually learn some poetry? Penguin’s app tries to help you memorize poetry with an iPad that reads the poem to you, then asks you to slowly fill in more and more blanks until you’re recreating it from memory. The final test is actual reciting the poem from memory, which you can then share to Soundcloud.

The memorization games are a great way to learn, but they’re boring without content. For free you get William Blake’s “Eternity” and William Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 18.” (You likely know it’s opening line: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?) After that other packs unlock poems in groups of three or four for $0.99. (Check out the Gothic Tales pack which has Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven” and Percy Bysshe Shelly’s “Ozymandias”.)

You can get the base free app from the App Store here.

Mac: Coucou

Every Mac user probably collects little menu bar utilities until the top of the screen looks like a trophy case. Coucou is the kind of app that actually belongs in the menu bar. It’s a network manager that allows you to quickly see your network resources. You can then pull up its remote management page, or connect to a remote Mac using SSH or Screen Sharing. Beats having to switch away and pull up a Finder Window.

The app is limited to Mac, iDevices, Printers, and NAS’. It shows that you should be able to manage Apple network devices, which wasn’t possible when testing this app. You can also set up broadcast services on your Mac such as web apps you’re developing or MAMP.

You can get Coucou on the Mac App store for $1.99

Web: Rainy Cafe

White Noise can be relaxing and even boost creativity. You can search the App Store and find dozens of apps to generate a variety of noises, but Rainy Cafe is both free and works cross platform. At this point it’s supported entirely through donations, so there isn’t even an ad.

The site is quite simple — you are presented with two switches. One is labeled rain; the other is labeled cafe. The rain is a gentle, rolling rain sound. The cafe is a mixture of table sounds and muffled talking that sounds like a busy lunch rush. You can play both sounds at the same time. The spp works on the desktop, as well as on phones and tablet.

It’s totally free and you can check it out here.

Game of the Week: Magicka

Coming in somewhere between Castle Crashers and Puzzle Quest, Magicka was originally released for the PC back in 2011. The iPad version is developed enough for touch that you wouldn’t even notice it was a remake. You take the role of a possessed Wizard sent out on a quest to defend your city. The game doesn’t take itself too seriously and there are plenty of jokes peppered into the dialog.

The combat system is really interesting. The game is broken into side-scrolling stages with a slightly isometric perspective. Enemies come in from both sides of the screen. Your Wizard has to attack by selecting elements to cast spells and then tapping the enemy to cast them. Each element behaves differently, and some monsters are immune. The real fun comes in once you start mixing and matching the elements, finding crazy combos that illicit unexpected results. The monsters all have unique character designs and are based on Norse mythology.

This is a must-play for iPad gamers. It’s $1.99 on the App Store.

Real Racing 3, one of the most popular racing games for iOS, was released back in February and today it has finally gotten its first major update. Fans of the game will be excited to hear that the game now features new vehicles, more than 100 new events, a new game mode, iCloud save syncing, plus a whole lot more.

With the update, Real Racing 3 brings back the American fan favorite Chevrolet, featuring the Chevrolet Cobalt SS and the Camaro ZL1. There’s also an all-new Hunter mode and Cloud save functionality so you can save your data across all of your devices. With more than a hundred new events, Real Racing 3′s total number of events now exceeds 1,000.

Here are the full iTunes release notes:

• New manufacturer – Chevrolet! The Cobalt SS and the Camaro ZL1 join the lineup
• New event type – Hunter! Chase down the hunted car and overtake within one lap
• 100+ new events! Total number of events now exceeds 1,000!
• Cloud Save functionality! Transfer your save data between devices
• New social features! See who is online and compare how your friends are doing with the statistics leader board
• Check your TSM mailbox for the latest friend notifications
• Improved tutorial and main menu
• Numerous additional improvements, fixes, and performance optimizations

Get the updated Real Racing 3 from the App Store now. Ready, set, go!

Image Credit: Real Racing

EA’s recent and controversial release SimCity, with its horrendous launch and less than stellar reviews, now has a date for its Mac release. SimCity will be released for Mac June 11, with anyone that already owns the Windows version receiving access to the Mac version as well.

EA announced that the game will in fact support cross-platform play, so Mac and PC users will be able to put their differences aside and build together in perfect harmony. Users who buy SimCity will also have access to both versions of the game, which is useful for those that like to use Macs as their laptop and PCs as their dedicated gaming desktop. EA says that the game will be released on its online store Origin as well as “other online retailers.”

EA also took the liberty of announcing in its press release that it has sold more than 1.3 million copies to date of SimCity. These are impressive numbers for a PC exclusive game that has been out for just over a month and that has received heaps of bad press.

EA also announced today that it will be re-enabling Cheetah Speed in the game, a setting to make your city’s time accelerate to the fastest speed possible. EA had previously disabled this setting as a way to try to help manage the massive load of users it had playing on SimCity’s servers.

Fortunately, the number of new Mac players that will hop onto the game on day one is likely not nearly enough to create server issues like those of the game’s original launch. Mac users will (hopefully) be able to see SimCity launch the way it was actually intended.

If playing Fruit Ninja doesn’t satisfy all of your fruit slicing needs, perhaps the new Fruit Ninja Magazine will help.

Totally…Fruit Ninja Magazine is a new release in the Totally… series by Titan Magazines. The series partners up with commercial products such as Hollywood movies or games like Fruit Ninja, and then publishes a one-off issue about that product.

Totally…Fruit Ninja is issue #34 in the series, with past issues having highlighted things like Hot Wheels and Madagascar 3.

The magazine will include things like a Fruit Ninja tips section, a game/puzzle section, and a Fruit Ninja comic story. Of all these, the comic is what definitely makes a purchase of this magazine worthwhile, as it is set in the empire of Fruitasia and involves a quest to find “the mystic thing that rhymes with orange.”

While it seems like this magazine is only offered at retailers in the U.K., if you’re a diehard fruit cutting fan, it seems like something that could be worth tracking down online. All that Fruit Ninja back story you’ve been looking for is finally here. Hopefully next up is a fruit slicing, high budget Hollywood movie, starring Morgan Freeman as the Fruit Ninja.

While Sony announced this past February the name and main features of the company’s upcoming console, the Playstation 4, Microsoft has yet to announce anything on when it will be showing off its next console, codenamed Durango. Tom Warren of the Verge is now reporting, however, that Microsoft will in fact be holding an event to unveil the console late next month.

The Verge says it has confirmed through sources that Durango will be unveiled on May 21st at a small venue Microsoft event, with the event focused on showing off the new Xbox and its main features, as well as Microsoft’s plans for Xbox in 2013. The month after will then have Microsoft showing off more details and games for the console at its June e3 press conference. The Verge reports that Microsoft had initially planned to reveal the console sometime in April, but has since altered its plans.

It’s hard to know what to expect from the announcement, besides the fact that we will almost definitely get to see the actual physical Durango console, something that we didn’t get from Sony’s unveiling. High-up Xbox figures such as Microsoft’s Larry Hryb publicly blasted Sony for having not shown off an actual PS4 at its console announcement event. The event will also bring an answer to the swirling questions of whether or not the next Xbox will require a constant Internet connection or not.

If the event is in fact real, expect an official announcement from Microsoft about it sometime in the coming weeks.

Yesterday we told you about how rumors were beginning to solidify that Microsoft’s next Xbox would require a constant Internet connection. Today, Microsoft executive Adam Orth, who works as the creative director at the company’s gaming division Microsoft Studios, called out all those complaining about the possibility of an always online console.

Orth took to Twitter to express his frustration with those concerned with the idea of an always online system.

Sorry, I don’t get the drama around having an ‘always on’ console. Every device now is ‘always on’. That’s the world we live in. #dealwithit

While Orth is clearly content with an always online system, this comment still isn’t definite proof that the next Xbox will in fact require a constant Internet connection. It does, however, continue to add weight to the theory.

After his first tweet, Orth continued to make remarks mocking those who complain about an always online system. He continued to tweet, “Sometimes the electricity goes out, I will not purchase a vacuum cleaner.” and “The mobile reception in this area I live in is spotty and unreliable. I will not buy a mobile phone.”

Someone then responded to Orth’s tweets asking what would he do if he lived in a smaller, less Internet enabled town like Blacksburg, Virgina, or Janesville, Wisconsin. To that, Orth responded, “Why on Earth would I live there?”

These are ballsy (and ignorant) comments from such a high up figure at Microsoft. Here are two PR tips that Orth can have for free: 1. Don’t tell a massive percentage of your customers and fans to simply “Deal with it.” And 2. Don’t publicly state your opinion on something that the company you work for is trying to keep under wraps.

While much is already known about Sony’s upcoming PS4, Microsoft has yet to even announce its successor to the Xbox 360. While all the information coming out about Microsoft’s upcoming console has just been speculation, the previously reported rumor that the console will require an Internet connection at all times seems to be getting more concrete.

Two sources have now reaffirmed to gaming site Kotaku that the next Xbox, expected to be released in late 2013 or early 2014, will be an always online system. The sources say that the console, codenamed Durango, must always be connected to the Internet to play apps and games. They add that the console will allow for Internet outages that last only a couple minutes before the user is forced to stop what they’re playing.

“Unless something has changed recently, Durango consumer units must have an active internet connection to be used,” the source said. “If there isn’t a connection, no games or apps can be started. If the connection is interrupted then after a period of time–currently three minutes, if I remember correctly–the game/app is suspended and the network troubleshooter started.”

While rumors regarding this have been swirling for sometime, having a major credible publication such as Kotaku report that it received this tip from its “best sources” makes the information a lot easier to believe. Read more in depth on Kotaku‘s report here.

If Durango does in fact require an Internet connection to run, Microsoft had best hope that it has some incredible online features to make the concession worth it to consumers. Otherwise, it may be quite an easy choice for shoppers when look into buying the next Xbox versus a PS4. Sony has already confirmed that the upcoming Playstation 4 will not require an Internet connection to play its games.

Angry Birds developer Rovio has heard your cries for more Angry Birds fun on iOS, as the company announced today that it will be bringing the popular Facebook game Angry Birds Friends to mobile devices. Wait, you weren’t crying for more Angry Birds? Oh well.

Angry Birds Friends takes typical Angry Birds gameplay and centers it around competing for high scores with your Facebook friends. The game first launched on Facebook nearly a year ago in May 2012 and has racked up a baffling 1.2 million daily users and an average of 60 million installs each month.

Pop some piggies with your friends wherever you are! Angry Birds Friends spruces up the classic Angry Birds experience with fun new social features that integrate with Facebook. For the first time ever the fans of Angry Birds can use their mobile to challenge their Facebook friends in weekly tournaments for the coveted bronze, silver and gold crown on the levels. Gather daily rewards, send and receive gifts of power-ups with your friends and brag about your accomplishments.

While Rovio hasn’t given an exact date for the game’s release besides “soon”, it is likely that it will be released sometime within the next few weeks.

Rovio also released its most recent financial report today, with the company proving to have made $195 million in revenue and $71 million in profit in 2012. The most impressive figure to come out of the report, however, was that 45% of all Rovio’s revenue is now coming from merchandising. The company also revealed that its games now host a combined total of 263 million monthly active users.

In what first seemed like a soon-to-die fad, I think it’s safe to say that we can now begin preparing to hand Earth over to our Angry Bird overlords.

The box art to, arguably, the year’s most anticipated game has been revealed. Rockstar has released an image of the cover for Grand Theft Auto 5, with the cover maintaining the same traditional mosaic look as the rest of the series.

The cover doesn’t tell much; however, it does feature all of the game’s three playable characters. Besides that, we see a vicious pet Rottweiler, a missile-firing helicopter, and a blonde woman holding what is clearly meant to be an iPhone knockoff.

GTA 5 is the first game in the series to feature multiple playable protagonists. While GTA 4 later introduced two other playable characters in post-release DLC, GTA 5 is the first game that is built around the concept of controlling three separate characters at once. Players will constantly hop back and forth between characters and will often see stories become intertwined with those of other protagonists. The characters are: Michael, a former bank robber who’s in his early 40s and who wants to get back into the heist game due to family issues; Trevor, a criminal, a drug addict and a loose cannon; and Franklin, a young hustler looking to make his way to the top.

Pieces of GTA 5′s cover art were first seen a couple days ago when a large mural advertising the game started to get put up on a wall in New York City. While the mural is of the game’s box art, it has still yet to be completed, which is why the full box art has yet to be seen until now.

You’ll be able to roam around Los Santos on September 17 when the game’s released on Xbox 360 and PS3.

Rumors of a video game controller made by Apple have circulated for a long time, with people clamoring for something that gives iOS gamers more control than what a simple touchscreen can deliver.

Jon Jordan of PocketGamer is reporting that a number of his developer contacts have informed him that Apple has been at this week’s Game Developers Conference in San Francisco and it has been holding private meetings with game developers in order to discuss their upcoming game controller. Apple is said to be holding the meetings to ensure that there is a significant amount of support for the controller at the time of its launch.

It is expected that the controller will primarily be marketed to play games on a big screen TV by using AirPlay between an Apple TV and an iPhone or iPad. The concept of holding a controller while looking at an iPad or iPhone screen sounds like somewhat of a nightmare and something that sounds completely unlike Apple.

Gaming has become a significantly large part of Apple’s business, so the idea of the company further cutting into the sales of competing video game consoles with the release of a physical controller may be a smart one.

Apple is rumored to hold an iPad-centric event sometime in April, so it could be as soon as then that we see the announcement of the company’s game controller.

Image Credit: ryanrybot

YouTube and video games have continued to become more and more linked in past years. What began as hobbyists buying expensive capture equipment in order to record and upload their game footage has since transitioned into a number of games including their own features that allow players to upload videos to YouTube straight from within the games themselves.

Now YouTube has announced that it has plans to make it easier for game developers to add livestreaming features into their games. YouTube has been making significant efforts to get in on the livestreaming front and it recognizes that video game livestreams are some of the most popular on the web. The company announced it will be releasing a new API made specifically to allow developers to make their games easily livestreamable to YouTube. The news of this API isn’t all good for users, however, as one of the features of this new API is to make it easy for developers to occasionally flash advertisements across these livestreams.

While YouTube in the past limited which developers were allowed to include livestreaming features in their games, with Black Ops 2 being an example of a game that featured the livestreaming feature, the company now wants to expand this access to a wider range of developers. YouTube also announced that the ability to watch livestreams will no longer be limited to desktops as it will be bringing livestream viewing to iOS and Android devices as well.

Unfortunately, the ability to livestream on YouTube still remains a feature that only channels that have partnered with YouTube can use. If YouTube really wants its livestreaming to take off, it will first have to ensure that it is something the average Joe can do, especially when Sony plans to make livestreaming one of the PS4′s main features.

The new mobile, touchscreen version of Final Fantasy V brings new classes, like the Gladiator, Cannoneer, Oracle, and Necromancer. It also adds an optional boss named Enuo, designed by Tetsuya Nomura and the graphics and characters have been overhauled for this version.

Here’s what you can expect to see:

• Customize characters with an unprecedented degree of freedom with the job and ability system – 26 unique job classes!
• Veteran character designer Kazuko Shibuya has returned to recreate the characters and graphics for a completely enhanced mobile experience!
• Touch-screen controls and active-time battle system are optimized for fluid combat on mobile devices
• This new version also includes “The Sealed Temple” from the 2006 release, as well as the Tetsuya Nomura-designed optional boss Enuo, and an extraordinary soundtrack
• Game Center support and plenty of achievements to be earned.

If you’ve been waiting for its release on iOS, you can get Final Fantasy V for $15.99 in the App Store and begin your quest to save the world.

At today’s Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco, Facebook had a number of stats to brag about when it came to the social network’s vast gaming audience.

Facebook revealed that it has 250 million users that are playing games on the site each and every month. This is an increase of 45 million from the 205 million monthly gamers that played on the site back in August 2011. While overall numbers are up, the percentage of Facebook users that play games has declined since 2010. In 2010, roughly 50% of all Facebook users played games on the site, while today that number is closer to 20%.

There’s also a lot more money being made off Facebook games today. Game developers took in over $2 billion dollars over the course of 2012, a 30% increase over what Facecbook paid out to them in 2011. This is largely thanks to last year’s 25% increase in the number of paying gamers that use the site.

Facebook also wanted to tout how it has been a major component of dozens of the top mobile games for iPhone and Android. Facebook revealed that 55% of the top 400 apps on iOS are integrated with its site.

With major developers like Zynga trying to get away from relying on Facebook, it’s hard to tell if gaming on Facebook will continue to grow or if it has reached its peak in popularity. Either way, at least we’ve arrived at the point where I’ve stopped getting dozens of Farmville and Mafia Wars invites every single day.

Easter is almost here and Capcom is celebrating by slashing prices of some of its more popular games on iOS. A number of Capcom games are now only $0.99, so if you like Street Fighter or Mega Man then it’s a good time to download them so you can play over the long weekend.

Capcom is discounting four games, which includes mega Man X and a few games from the Street Fighters series. The sale will be on for a limited time only, so don’t wait too long to pick up these titles. Here’s a list of which games are on sale:

Street Fighter II Collection (iPhone) — $3.99  $0.99
Street Fighter X Tekken Mobile (Universal) — $2.99  $0.99
Street Fighter IV Volt (iPhone) — $4.99  $0.99
Mega Man X (Universal) — $4.99  $0.99

Head over to the App Store now before the sale ends. It probably won’t be around after Easter, so hop to it!

Image Credit: SuperHeroHype

Microsoft was less than impressed with sales for its Windows 8 Tablets, so it’s decided to start giving them out for free. Or at least digital versions for your Xbox Live avatars.

Xbox Live users can now download a free Windows 8 Surface prop to have their avatars play around with and to show off to all their friends. The avatar will play around with the tiles, put on some music and dance, and mess around with the keyboard cover — a fairly accurate depiction of the Windows 8 Tablet experience.

If you’re a real life iPad user that secretly wants to live out your Surface dreams, download the prop here for free.

Image Credit: WP Central

If you’re reading this article, odds are you’ve played Rock Band at least once, although probably much more since the original game was released back in 2007. Since then, developer Harmonix has made sure to keep the Rock Band platform alive and thriving by releasing new songs as DLC every single week. That’s over 275 weeks and over 4000 songs. Now, however, the rhythm game genre is taking a bit of a break as popularity has declined, and with that comes Rock Band’s last ever weekly song release.

The last DLC song to be released will be Don McLean’s American Pie and it will arrive on April 2. Harmonix couldn’t have chosen a better song to represent the end of an incredible era.

Harmonix doesn’t currently have any plans to release any more DLC for Rock Band; however, the team has stated, “we still have the technical capability should the right band and the right opportunity arise.”

While it’s been some time since I sat down with my friends and had a Rock Band party, “A long, long time ago I can still remember how that music used to make me smile.”

If next week’s release of Bioshock Infinite has got you down because you won’t be able to play it on your Mac, you won’t have to be sad for long. Aspyr Media announced today that it will be porting the game to Mac and that the game will be released sometime this summer.

“We are incredibly excited to bring the latest version of BioShock, one of the industry’s most critically acclaimed and beloved franchises, to the Mac.” said Michael Rogers, president of Aspyr Media. “We pride ourselves on bringing the very best in gaming to the Mac, and that’s exactly what Mac owners will get with Irrational Games’ masterfully-crafted BioShock Infinite.”

Aspyr is mainly known for having ported games over to the Mac such as Call of Duty: Black Ops, Call of Duty; 4 and recently Borderlands 2.

Bioshock Infinite comes out for PCs and consoles next Tuesday, March 26th and is expected to be highly praised. You can check out the reviews that start tonight at midnight to find out if it will be something worth your time.

French video game publisher and developer Gameloft has posted an interestingly eerie image on its Modern Combat Facebook page, hinting that it might be a fifth installment of the popular Call of Duty-like mobile gaming series.

In the picture, a man is standing looking out at a warehouse yard covered in snow. He’s holding a gun and on the lefthand side you can see an open doorway with the silhouette of another man standing in it. Very mysterious. Like the sign on the right side, Gameloft posted the image with the caption: “WARNING: NO TRESPASSING.”

Back in December of 2012, a document was leaked on the Internet that contained Gameloft’s entire 2013 release schedule. It told of a game called Modern Combat 5: Last War, which is scheduled to be released in Q4 2013.

According to Pocket Gamer, Gameloft’s fifth Modern Combat game on iOS could be demoed during the keynote presentation for a new Apple product in the next few months.

Image Credit: Modern Combat

Final Fantasy fans will be happy to hear that a new report claims that the fifth episode in the Final Fantasy series is set to arrive on iOS and Android devices in Japan by the end of this month. This means good news for the rest of the world too, since Final Fantasy V will probably be released in the United States after its Japan release.

This is pretty exciting for a lot of people, though not all that surprising since the first four iterations of Final Fantasy were also released on the iOS platform.

Final Fantasy V was originally launched in Japan in 1992 for SNES. It was only in 1999 that it came to the U.S. as part of the Final Fantasy collection for the PlayStation. It was later brought to the Gameboy Advance.

According to Joystiq, the game will be priced at ¥1,800, which is about $19. There’s no official release date for when the game will be released outside of Japan, but previous games have seen same-day worldwide releases, so it’s definitely possible that we’ll be seeing Final Fantasy V on the App Store by the end of March.

Image Credit: NeoGAF

I don’t get much time to game these days, unless whisking away dirty diapers tossing up a Hail Mary hook shot across the room into the garbage counts. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t. One game I’ve been dying to play since its release, but just never got around to is Fez. The massively, super critically acclaimed Xbox Live game from Polytron (a Montreal company, what what!) may just get a second life on iOS.

In a Reddit AMA, Phil Fish, the Fez designer, almost went as far as to confirm that Fez will be available for iOS. He stopped just short of promising it, saying the game’s presence on iOS devices was “highly probable.”

Yeah, I’m pumped. If you have a couple of hours to burn, check out Indie Game: The Movie. Not only does the film take you through the ups and downs (mostly downs, downs, downs, and a giant up) of independent video game creation, it also focuses in on Fez. It’s pretty great.

Anyway. Fez. For iOS. It’s ‘Probable.’ That’s enough for me. Well, that and it’s also going to be available for the Mac too, so my bases are pretty much covered at this point.

Electronic Arts, one of the largest video game giants in the business, has announced that its CEO of five years, John Riccitiello, will be stepping down. EA did not release why Riccitiello will be departing; however, the company’s press release says that the decision was a mutual one between Riccitiello and his successor, Larry Probst.

Larry Probst, who currently sits as Chairman of the Board, was previously EA’s CEO from 1991 to 2007, before giving up the position to Riccitiello himself. EA mentions Probts’ accomplishments in its press release: “As CEO, Probst successfully grew the Company’s annual revenues from $175 million to approximately $3 billion, led EA into new platforms such as mobile, online and other emerging markets and expanded its international presence to more than 75 countries.” Probst also had some comments for Riccitiello in the press release: “We thank John for his contributions to EA since he was appointed CEO in 2007, especially the passion, dedication and energy he brought to the Company every single day,” said Mr. Probst. “John has worked hard to lead the Company through challenging transitions in our industry, and was instrumental in driving our very significant growth in digital revenues. We appreciate John’s leadership and the many important strategic initiatives he has driven for the Company. We have mutually agreed that this is the right time for a leadership transition.”

Some are speculating that the decision has to do with EA’s incredibly disastrous launch of its recent game SimCity. It could, however, just be convenient timing.

Riccitiello rounded out the press release with a statement of his own: “EA is an outstanding company with creative and talented employees, and it has been an honor to serve as the Company’s CEO. I am proud of what we have accomplished together, and after six years I feel it is the right time for me pass the baton and let new leadership take the Company into its next phase of innovation and growth. I remain very optimistic about EA’s future – there is a world class team driving the Company’s transition to the next generation of game consoles.”

On the bright side, at least he’s no longer at “The Worst Company in America.”

The latest Civilization 5 expansion pack will be available for both Mac and PC on the same date. This expansion pack, titled Brave New World, will cost $29.99 when it drops on a currently-undisclosed-release-date sometime this summer. This expansion pack will bring new civs, buildings and units to the standard Civilization 5 game that has a huge following worldwide amont Mac, PC and mobile gamers.

Civilization is a strategy game where you work to build a, well, civilization. In the game, you must build cities, develop technologies and wage wars in order to have your civilization prosper and grow. ‘Brave New World’ will bring religion and trade networks to the game to make for an overall more engaging experience. Just make sure you watch your back for Gandhi.

Whatever you do this St. Patrick’s Day, just make sure you do it with a designated driver. Even if you’re sober, just take a taxi anyway, and save yourself the aggravation. Oh, and download our weekly apps before you imbibe to ensure that you don’t forget them in a haze of green beer and corned beef.

We have a launcher for the iPhone that enables you to do some light scripting this week, and our iPad app recommendation is a streaming app from the network that’s long been a hold out for online offerings. On the Mac we have a mod that brings iOS style multitasking to Mac OS X. Finally, our  web recommendation is a lightweight text editor. For our game of the week we have a tale of redemption and fishing. Two things we love a lot.

iPhone/iPod Touch: Launch Center Pro

Fiddly app launchers are cat nip for Mac Geeks. Alfred, Quicksilver, and Launchbar are all likely to induce an hour long explanation about how much time they save. Launch Center Pro brings that same sort of fiddly control to the iPhone.

App Junkies can create a grid of their most used apps, or even groups of apps if you really have a problem. You can also create a grid of messaging and phone shortcuts tied to contacts directly, or simply invoke a contact search. Power users will love the way the app allows you to use iOS’ custom URL scheme to create a variety of workflows.

You can find a good description of many of them in this Github collection of workflows. Launch Center can serve as a good introduction to these schemes as you can see what apps use which URLs and what can be passed. Launch Center Pro is on sale for $2.99 and available from the App Store.

iPad: CBS

CBS hasn’t been the most friendly network when it comes to streaming shows on the iPad, or online for that matter. They didn’t really have an option for iPad users, and the don’t really do same-season iTunes shows.Their deal with Hulu wasn’t even for any of their current-run shows.

It isn’t hard to imagine that some people are relieved that CBS finally put out an iPad app that fills in their TV needs. Of course you’ll have to put up with ads and wait eight days to see new episodes, but that caveat exists for most U.S. TV networks’ apps. What might be most infuriating is that there are series listed that don’t include full episodes. It’s a free app you can download from the App Store if you live in the U.S.

Mac: TaskBoard

While some people lament the slow march of iOS features to their Macs, some of us embrace it fondly. TaskBoard may not come from Apple, but a clever programmer has brought iOS style multitasking to the Mac. You get a global multitouch gesture and keyboard shortcut, and then when you initiate the gesture, a banner of running apps along the bottom or side of your screen pops up.

It’s a bit silly, but it’s a neat little hack that you can show off to your geekier friends at work, especially if they’re the types that don’t believe mobile and desktop operating systems are on a crash course over the next couple of years.

TaskBoard is in beta, free, and can be downloaded from Sourceforge.

Web: Draft

It’s funny, as Google positions docs to compete better with Microsoft Office, its online offerings begin to get weighed down by corporate friendly features. Draft strips that away, and simply gives you an online, collaborative text editor.

Once you finish writing up your text, you can mark it as a draft point, and email a link off to a collaborator. You can then review their changes and accept or reject them. It’s a simple but powerful tool for text. It’s essentially like ‘track changes’ in Office, but not as annoying. It’s free to sign up and try here.

Game of the Week: Ridiculous Fishing – A Tale of Redemption

There are fishing games and then there is Ridiculous Fishing. You aren’t going to find a game where you can shoot hundreds of fish from the sky using a blunderbuss or a mini-gun outside of this one.

You drop your line in the water and try to avoid hooking fish until you get to the end of your line. When you do hook a fish, you begin reeling the line back in and try to collect as many fish as possible. Once you get your line and fish to the surface, the fish are flung into the air where you can begin shooting them down for cash.

The cash buys you guns, hats, and gadgets to get more fish. There are four levels and sixty-six different fish to catch. It’s addictive fun that can chew up a few hours pretty easily. Ridiculous Fishing is $2.99 on the App Store.

To say the Wii U has been underperforming for Nintendo would be an understatement. This past February, the recently released console sold just 64,000 units off U.S. store shelves according to a report from NPD Group. This is in contrast to Nintendo’s forecasted numbers, which estimated the Japanese company to sell 2 million units every single month from January to March. That’s right, Nintendo sold just 64,000 units of the Wii U of a planned 2 MILLION.

From its November 18 launch date to the end of 2012, the Wii U managed to sell 3.06 million units, nearing numbers that Nintendo’s previous console launch for the original Wii brought in. Since then, however, things for Nintendo’s console have been dire. NPD has cited U.S. sales in January to have been as low as 57,000 units.

With the holiday season over and hype building up for Sony and Microsoft’s next consoles, the Wii U’s future is looking less than bright. Perhaps if Nintendo is able to release a series of solid games within the next several months they’ll be able to re-spark interest, or perhaps the console is simply already on its way out to pasture.

If you have a jailbroken iPad or iPhone and are looking to do something cool with it, why not try playing some games using a PS3 controller? With the new Cydia tweak, Blutrol, iPads and iPhones gain the ability to connect to PS3 controllers, for people seeking a more traditional gaming experience.

The tweak is designed to be used with games that have virtual buttons and joysticks on the screen. Users first go into the game they want to play, take a screenshot of the virtual keyboard placement and then return to the tweak where they can assign PS3 buttons to the parts of the screen where the virtual buttons were.

The folks over at iDownloadBlog released a video tutorial detailing the relatively simple setup for how to get a controller up and running on one of the devices, which you can watch at the top of the page here. You can also read a written step-by-step guide on how to get the tweak working here.

At first I thought the idea of being able to use a PS3 controller on an iPad sounded awesome. However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I never want to play Street Fighter on my iPad and I certainly don’t want to be holding a PS3 controller while playing Street Fighter on my iPad.

At the end of the video tutorial, you can also see the game being played on a big HD TV. If you already have a PS3 controller, why wouldn’t you just pick up the PS3 version of Street Fighter 4 for dirt cheap instead of blowing up the iPad version to a full TV screen resolution.

Still, it’s a cool thing to play around with and show off to friends. Buy it now for $9.99 off the Cydia app store.

Rovio, the game maker that brought us the Angry Birds franchise, has released its newest game, and it has nothing to do with flying angry birds. Rovio’s newest game, “The Croods,” is based on the upcoming Dreamworks animated film of the same title.

Rovio partnered with Dreamworks to bring the movie to your smartphone and tablet, using the same characters and storyline in the game as you’ll see in the movie. Basically, the Croods are a prehistoric family of cavemen who are trying to progress past the stone age by coming up with new ideas.

The Croods travel to different landscapes to hunt and gather food in order to survive, while also discovering and taming new creatures along the way. According to Rovio, these creatures are unlike “anything you’ve ever seen.”

You can also play as Grug to invent things, kind of like creating vehicles in Bad Piggies. You can also customize the characters and homes with accessories.

This isn’t the first time Rovio has partnered with a film studio. It previously worked with 20th Century Fox to create the Angry Birds Rio edition based on the movie Rio. Angry Birds Star Wars has also been a big hit since its release.

The game is now available for free on the App Store for your iPhone and iPad, as well as for Android.

StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm was recently released and since then many have been wondering what new games Blizzard is planning to release. Well, Blizzard’s Chief Creative Officer, Rob Pardo, hinted on Twitter that an announcement would be made at PAX East next week.

Pardo tweeted: “PAX East next week and I’m still not ready with the announcement for our next game. Work work work.” Pardo also made it clear that this announcement will not be about Titan, a game that the developer has been working on.

With only this information to go on, some think that Blizzard All-Stars will be announced and finally ready for playing. This is a definite possibility as it was first unveiled at BlizzCon in 2010 and earlier this year Blizzard confirmed that it was still working on the game.

PAX East runs from March 22-24 in Boston, so you won’t have much longer to find out what Blizzard has in store.

Image Credit: Gameguyz

Internet modder Ben Heck, famous for some of his past console mod projects such as the Portable N64 and the Xbox 360 laptop, is currently hard at work on a new project that should clear up some space in your living room. Mr. Heckendorn’s new project has him taking all three of the current major consoles (the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii U) and throwing them under one casing, creating what he calls the “ultimate combo system”.

The project is being shown off online in a three part video series, with the first video covering the dismantling and disassembly of the three consoles. In the second video, Heck will work on getting the wiring and cables all properly interconnected between the machines and the third video will follow Heck’s construction of the new casing for the systems.

These projects are typically done as one of a kind request items from customers, so don’t expect to be able to buy the finished model. You could, however, request that he create a version just for you, but just make sure you have several thousand dollars at the ready if you do. Heck also builds controllers and accessories for those with certain disabilities, such as a popular one-handed Xbox controller he created for an injured soldier returning from Iraq.

Subscribe to The Ben Heck Show on YouTube to catch Part 2 and 3 when they’re released.

It’s not very often that a newly released, highly rated video game on the App Store ends up going on sale. The 4.5-star  App Store rated Knights of Pen and Paper is currently free. The game, a universal app, is a turn-based RPG that many have spoken very highly of in recent months.

While the relationship to Final Fantasy is obvious, the game also emulates the ideals of the popular tabletop gaming franchise Dungeons and Dragons. Players pick the quest, the bad guys their hero will battle, and then head off on their journey.

Frankly, it’s unlike anything on the App Store currently, and if you’re into RPG games at all, and you’re looking for something new to pick up, we recommend downloading this one while it’s free. Heck, it’s worth the money once it goes back on sale.

Whether you’re looking to re-live a bit of your gaming youth or whether you just want an incredibly sleek and retro looking iPhone speaker dock, this Atari 2600 is something everyone should want in their house.

The device acts as both a speaker and charging dock and was created using a real Atari 2600. While its insides have been changed out and it no longer plays games, from the outside, it still looks exactly like an old Atari. The dock even includes an FM radio, a remote control and a 3.5mm audio-in port.

The dock is designed for earlier iPhone models, so those who have an iPhone 5 will also have to buy an adapter.

If you’re seriously interested in picking it up, you should buy sooner rather than later. Seeing as how the dock was made from a broken Atari, there is currently only one in stock to purchase and there may not be any more made. Buy it for roughly $220 from Etsy user Peter Morris here.

We’re going to go light on the banter this week, but we aren’t shorting you on any apps. For your iPhone we have an app that gives you local points of interest in your area. For the iPad we have an app that delivers content from a multitude of Apple news sites and podcasts. On the Mac we have a new App.Net client. On the web, we have TV Guide for the cord cutting set. Our game of the week is a creepy walk through haunted woods.

iPhone/iPod Touch: Field Trip

Whether you’re touring around a strange city or just spending a bored afternoon in your neighborhood, finding interesting historic sites or current local events can be a bit of a crap shoot. Usually you have to track down some weekly rag, and hope that you’re getting the right issue. Google Field Trip solves this issue by giving you a list of upcoming events and points of interest in your vicinity. It’s got a nice interface that you can browse by text or maps. The historical stuff is the most detailed but you also get listings for upcoming concerts and local restaurants as well. You can grab it from the App Store for free.

iPad: MacHash

If your RSS feeds are bulging at the seams, you may want to use an app to round up all the Apple news for quick scanning without the looming unread count. MacHash is that app, and it includes a selection of popular Apple podcasts. You can mute various sites and podcasts to just your favorites. It is ad supported but you can remove the ads for $2.99. You can download it from the App Store for free.

Mac: Kiwi

Now that App.Net has limited free accounts, there is going to be a bigger market for clients. iOS has the excellent Netbot, which is a clone of the great Tweetbot, but on the Mac there isn’t such a clear choice. Kiwi is a nicely designed client that is pretty easy to use. You can cross-post to Twitter using the app as well, so if you’re still on both networks this is an easy choice. You can try the app for free, but to remove the nag banner it will be $9.99. You can download Kiwi here.

Web: CanIStream.it?

One of the most annoying things about trying to catch a show online is trying to find out where you can get the show from. Can I Stream It is a site that allows you to search for TV shows and movies by name and find out where they are available online and for how much. They include popular streaming services as well as rental and download services. If the show you want to watch is unavailable on your service of choice you can sign up to have them notify you when it is available. You can check out the site here.

Game of the Week: Year Walk

There hasn’t been a game since the original Silent Hill that managed to be as immersive and creepy as Year Walk. The game revolves around the myth that you can wander around the woods long enough to get a glimpse of the future. You find some rather creepy imagery in the woods, along with some intense jump scares. The puzzles themselves are pretty difficult; you’ll need to keep a notebook handy. (Or a walkthrough for the less scrupulous players.) This game has enough thought behind it that there’s a companion app of reading material available for free here. The game itself is $3.99 on the App Store.

The original Angry Birds for iPhone and iPad was first released back in 2009, and has since gone on to become the number one app of all time. However, with so many new versions of the popular iOS game (Star Wars, Space, Bad Piggies, etc.), the original version’s popularity has slipped. So in an effort to increase downloads, Rovio has decided to make both the iPhone and iPad versions of the original Angry Birds free for the first time ever.

Rovio’s move comes at about the same time that it’s been noted that, for the first time since May 2010, no Rovio games are in the Top 80 highest grossing iPhone apps.

Usually Angry Birds, which has just been named App of the Week, is $0.99 on the iPhone and $2.99 on the iPad. While downloading the game is free, there are still options for in-app purchases (go figure).

Along with this price tag change, Rovio has also added 15 new levels to the game. If you haven’t gotten around to playing the original Angry Birds (but really, who hasn’t?) then now is a good time to do it!

Image Credit: Entree Kibbles

If your interest in Temple Run 2 has been slowly fading since its release, perhaps Temple Run Oz will be able to get you back into the running, jumping and sliding mood. Temple Run Oz feels and plays like the recent Temple Run 2; however, it is completely painted over with a theme to match Disney’s upcoming film Oz.

The game adds and changes a number of features, including a more active environment that has roads crumbling, tree branches falling and monkeys swooping to attack you. The game also swaps out Temple Run 2′s mine cart sections for a hot air balloon sequence.

Temple Run Developers Imangi Studios have already done one movie tie-in game for Disney in the past, with Temple Run Brave, which ran off the original Temple Run engine.

Like Temple Run Brave, Temple Run Oz will cost you $0.99 as opposed to the free Temple Run 2. Why the versions of the game that are essentially glamorized advertisements cost money while the original versions are free is beyond me. The game will also include the standard micro-transactions for those parents interested in having their kids ruin their lives.

To its credit, Temple Run Oz sounds like it’s made a number of interesting improvements on Temple Run 2. While I couldn’t care less about the Oz theme, for $0.99, it certainly sounds as though it’s worth checking out.

Download the iOS or Android version. (Link for Android version will work once the game goes live later today.)

Pixelscopic, the creator of Delver’s Drop, the Zelda-esque action-RPG game, has surpassed its Kickstarter funding goal of $75,000, garnering more than $82,000 from backers since the game made its way onto Kickstarter on February 8.

There’s still seven days left to join in on the campaign to fund this Kickstarter project. Even though it’s already reached its funding goal, there are still more benefits to supporting it. If the campaign makes at least $115,000, Pixelscopic will implement four-player multiplayer options and if it reaches $240,000, the developer will bring the game to Nintendo’s 3DS and Sony’s PS Vita.

In the game, you have been imprisoned in a complicated castle and your task to is to navigate through the dungeons and other layers of the castle to escape. Along the way you’ll fight your way through eight zones of randomly generated rooms and enemies, while trying to solve different puzzles throughout the game.

Delver’s Drop is coming to iOS, Android, and Ouya in February 2014.

Here’s some fun news to go with your morning coffee. Chillingo, the publisher behind games like Angry Birds and Cut the Rope, is bringing the much loved Peanuts comic strip to iOS in a Snoopy-featured, endless running game, called Snoopy Coaster.

Leigh Anne Brodsky, the Managing Director of Peanuts Worldwide, and the licensor of the “Peanuts” brand, said:

There’s something in Peanuts that everyone can relate to, and we are always looking for new ways to share the characters with future generations. Partnering with a leading gaming publisher like Chillingo is a great step in that direction. Plus, Snoopy Coaster delivers a fantastic, fun experience for players who want the thrill ride of their lives.

Snoopy Coaster will feature everyone’s favorite beagle and the rest of the Peanuts characters. The game is an endless coaster where you help Snoopy and his pals on a roller coaster ride filled with coins, power-ups, and unlockables.

This game really is a great way to keep Charles M. Schulzs’ much-loved comic strip alive by bringing it to new audiences in a new way.

Snoopy Coaster is set to be released later this month. I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty excited.

Image Credit: TOTAL Wallpapers

The folks behind the independent British film Pulp have chosen an interesting way to distribute their new film. They have released the movie exclusively on Microsoft’s Xbox 360 Video Store, making it the first film to ever debut on the Xbox, or any home gaming system for that matter.

Pulp is an indie British film that follows a struggling comic book publisher who gets recruited by police to help take down a criminal operation. The film’s creator, Adam Handy, says that it in recent years it has been incredibly hard for independant British films to get published. This is why his team chose to release the film on Xbox Live, hoping that the platform’s cheaper distribution and potential for publicity would be a good fit for Pulp.

Xbox is also happy to have the film come exclusively to their console. “It’s a great fit. The film is really well aligned with our audience,” said Pav Bhardwaj, Xbox Live product manager. “…it’s great to support British talent.”

It’s still unclear whether the creators of Pulp have any intention of eventually bringing the film to other viewing platforms. This will likely have a lot to do with how sales of the film turn out.

The film is available to download as of today, and costs 1120 Microsoft Points ($14.75) for the standard definition version and 1420 Points ($17.75) for the HD version.

The popular free-to-play PC game League of Legends has finally landed on the Mac in beta form. The game is also free for Macintosh and can be downloaded via Riot Games’ website right now. The company has also released an announcement video to go along with the release that we’ve embedded above. The Mac version of League of Legends is completely compatible with the PC version, meaning that you can play cross-platform and use skins and mods made for the PC client.

If you’ve never played League of Legends before, it’s a very interesting game. League of Legends is a multiplayer game and is session-based. Users are formed into teams of two, three or five. Players are called “Champions” and can choose from one of 110 Champions that the game has too offer. When the game starts, players are positioned at different sides of the maps in “Spawning Pools”. Users must get to the other side of the map and destroy the other team’s Nexus (no, not that Nexus) in order to win.

Though the game is free, League of Legends players can opt to throw money at the game. Players can purchase Riot Points, or RP, and these can be used towards new items in the game such as new boots, IP boosts and new skins among other items.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen League of Legends talk Mac. Back in 2010, Riot Games said that it had a fully working Mac port of the game ready to release, but that it just didn’t meet their standards. The port then went on to be a dead project, only to be recently resurrected.

Now that award season has finally ended, we can get back to what’s most important: apps. This week we have a few more wonkish apps for you to check out. Trying to keep track of unit conversions can be a pain, but we have an iPhone app to make it easier. On the iPad we have an app for those of you who like to cheat on iTunes with a certain online retailer. For the Mac we have another Google Reader client. On the web, there is finally an alternative to Google Reader for online RSS. Our game of the week brings some crazy arcade action with a demonic twist.

iPhone/iPod Touch: Amount

Conversion calculators are in the App Store aplenty, but most of them are a mix of complex and expensive. Amount is still a bit of the former, but it’s free so its complexity is forgiven. When you first open the app it asks you to enter a number. Then you are given a huge list of categories of units. After selecting the category you want, you can click between the available units to see how they stack up against the others. It isn’t perfect, and though you can change units and amounts easily in the app, you have to force quit it to get the initial set up back again. It’s not perfect, but it’s one of the best I’ve seen since Tapbots’ Convertbot, and you can get it for free from the App Store.

iPad: Amazon Cloud Player

In a sign that Amazon is far more concerned about selling you media than devices, they have been aggressively pushing their services on Apple’s platforms. Their Cloud MP3 player was already out for iPhone, but they have recently added support for the iPad. It matches the design scheme of the Kindle and Video apps previously released by Amazon. The “Now Playing” images are a really nice touch that elevates this over the default iTunes player. You can stream your MP3s or download them for later play. Even if you don’t regularly buy MP3s from Amazon, check out the app because you may have some free MP3s based upon physical albums you’ve bought. It’s a free app you download here.

Mac: Leaf

If you’re an avid user of RSS, you likely have accumulated a fair amount of feeds. Sometimes just scanning through the news is all you’re looking for, rather than reading through each and every article. Leaf is the scanner’s RSS reader. It simply lists all of your articles from Google Reader in a big list and allows you to scroll through and see previews via Readability. It’s light on sharing options, which may be it’s biggest drawback. However, if you like simplicity and the ability to scan, Leaf is the RSS reader for you. It’s $3.99 and you can grab it from the Mac App Store.

Web: The Old Reader

There has long been a shadow hanging over most iOS and Mac RSS readers: Google Reader’s status as the default RSS sync service is not a supported API. It doesn’t seem the Reader itself is even on Google’s radar anymore, despite how important that API is to the RSS developer community. The Old Reader is the first new web based RSS reader in awhile, and seeks to restore a lot of the social sharing that was removed from Reader when Google started pushing Google+. You can easily import your Google Reader feeds, or import an OPML file to start using your account. There are extensions for both Safari and Chrome as well, but as of yet there isn’t an API. They promise a later iOS app. At the very least you can stash your Google Reader list here just in case the service gets shuttered suddenly. The Old Reader is free and you can check it out here.

Game of the Week: Hell Yeah! Pocket Inferno

Hell Yeah! Pocket Inferno is an arcade take on Sega’s console title from late last year. In the new iOS game you take control of Alex, the skeletal rabbit ruler of hell (just go with it), and go level to level collecting skulls, killing monsters and generally being evil. It’s takes a bit from Jetpack Joyride, but is broken down into levels. This game has to be seen and played to understand its charm. You unlock new weapons and character customizations in the shop as you play with in-game currency. It’s a simple but fun game, and you can get for $0.99 here.

Apple has chosen to fully refund a British family after their five-year-old son racked up a £ 1,710.43 ($2550) price tag from in-app purchases in just 15 minutes.

When five-year-old Danny Kitchen wanted to play the free Zombies vs. Ninja game he saw on the App Store, he went to his dad to have him type in their account’s password so he could download it. Seeing that the game was a free download, Danny’s father felt comfortable in letting his son get the app, so he entered the password and returned the iPad to his son.

Danny then decided to go on an in-app buying rampage, obviously going for all of the add-ons that cost £69.99. Danny quickly bought 12 ’333 keys’, seven ’333 ecstasy bombs’, and five ’9000 darts’. A few days later, the Kitchens received a call from their credit card company inquiring about the £ 1,700 iTunes total that was run up in just under 15 minutes.

Apple and the Kitchen family has a lot of back and forth communication, but finally Apple chose to refund the family. Once Danny had found out the extent of what he had done, he said, “I was worried and I felt sad. I’m banned from the iPad now.”

Either that, or all of this is simply an elaborate cover-up for Danny’s father’s dark, crippling addiction to Zombies vs. Ninja.

Image Credit: SWNS

More information has accidentally leaked out on Ubisoft’s recently announced Assassin’s Creed 4 Black Flag. It turns out the game now has an expected release date of October 29, 2013, and Ubisoft also plans to release the title for the Playstation 4 and Microsoft’s next console.

A page on Ubisoft’s website was put up that accidentally included the game’s release date as well as a line of text that said, “Also coming to next-gen consoles.” The page was then quickly edited to remove the text and release date.

Not much more has been said officially about the game except the fact that the game will include “60 minutes of exclusive gameplay for Playstation 3.” (And presumably, the PS4 as well.) Rumors place the game’s setting to be around the 1720s in the golden age of piracy and that the game’s protagonist will be the grandfather of Assassin Creed 3′s protagonist, Connor Kenway.

Ubisoft plans to release a new trailer containing more information about the game Monday.

I was just talking to a friend about the need for next generation consoles. Obviously during that conversation the topic of “moar powah” came up pretty quickly. Then the reminiscing started and we were down the rabbit hole of the history of video games. Just how far have we come from some of the first FPS games back in 1992? As it turns out, according to NoFrag.com, we’ve come a LONG way, baby.

No Frag has put together a video showing off the history of FPS video gaming. The 7 minute video pays homage to some of the more popular games, but it’s an interesting video. Seeing just how far we’ve come in 20 years is pretty spectacular. Yay, science, polygons, and physics.

Tower Defense games are great, but have you ever wanted to play them in reverse? Instead of killing off an onslaught of enemies,be the enemy trying to break on through to the other side? That’s Anomaly, and it’s plenty popular.

11 Bit has announced that an official followup to the original Anomaly will be released this spring, and it will cost $15. The awesome thing is it sounds like the game will be released for Windows, OS X, and Linux all at the same time. The sequel will set you back a paltry $15.00.

You can check out the trailer above.

It may have been one of the more bizarre announcements to ever come from a gaming company when Sony took to the stage last week to announce, but not show off, the new PlayStation 4.

It hasn’t taken very long for pundits and gamers to take to forums in excitement and flat out annoyance about the way Sony handled the event. It’s starting to look like the pressure may be on a little bit at Sony. The company has released a couple of UI screenshots online today.

Feast your eyes on these bad boys.

Via Ultralinx

While you may or may not be caught up in the PS4 hype, Sony’s next console still doesn’t come out for another several months and you’re going to need something to pass the time. If you’re a cheap/money-conscious gamer, Uncharted 3′s new free-to-play multiplayer might be an easy way to burn a few dozen hours.

Uncharted 3′s design team Naughty Dog stated that they wanted to make the game free-to-play to test out the world of freemium micro-transaction fueled games and also to re-invigorate the Uncharted 3 community and get long-time players excited to play again. The free-to-play version does come with some limits, however, such as a level cap of 15. If players want to go past this level, they’ll have to start forking out real cash, the prices for which are still unknown.

Sony isn’t completely unfamiliar with taking their first party games free-to-play, as almost exactly a year ago the company switched its popular first-person-shooter Killzone 3′s multiplayer over to the free-to-play model.

While it surely wouldn’t be too expensive to pick up a full retail copy of the year and a half old game, it’s hard to argue with free. Although it sounds like blasphemy playing only the multiplayer component of an Uncharted game, hopefully it convinces some people to buy the full thing. The multiplayer itself still remains a really fun experience though, especially if you’re playing with a friend or two.

Download it starting today on PSN.

With Wednesday’s much discussed PlayStation 4 announcement, one of the show’s highlights was certainly the innovative and cool things Sony was planning to do with the console’s cloud features. Now, however, Sony is saying that having these features work on the console’s launch day is merely “aspirational”.

Forbes sat down with CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment Jack Tretton and asked him various questions about the new console announcement. One of the things asked, was whether features shown such as “downloading back catalog games, playing them from the cloud, sharing games between devices” and “having friends log in and watch you play, or take over the controller” would work right out of the box on day one. To this, Tretton responded:

I think it’s aspirational on the device, as opposed to us standing up there, pounding the floor and saying the day this thing ships all this stuff will be there. I think it’ll absolutely be there for the device, but I don’t know whether it will be there for day one on the device. I think a lot of these are things that we’re gonna do over time.

This is slightly disconcerting news when you look at how all of these cloud features are being pushed as one of the PS4′s major features. However, if Sony wants to seriously compete this generation, they absolutely have to release their console this holiday season, which is also likely when Microsoft plans to release their new Xbox. Because of this, it’s hard to fully fault Sony if the features aren’t 100% ready to go at launch.

The complete interview extends to a variety of other topics regarding Sony’s new console announcement and Jack Tretton does a great job of providing a number of honest and interesting answers. It’s definitely worth a look.

If you’re a Mac user that is either a fan of Lord of the Rings, a fan of LEGO or a fan of good games, you should probably pick up today’s newly released LEGO The Lord of the Rings for OS X. (And really, who isn’t a fan of all three?)

The game, originally released back in October 2012 for consoles and PCs, received critical acclaim and was praised for adding life back into the declining LEGO games franchise. As a first in the series, the game takes lines of dialogue straight from the Lord of the Rings movies and simply pastes them into the game to use for characters’ voices. The game also contains features such as a free-roam mode that lets you take control of your LEGO hobbits and wizards and freely explore middle-earth.

The game has been ported to the Mac by developer Feral Interactive, a developer with tons of experience bringing games to the Mac with examples including Batman: Arkham Asylum and Bioshock. Unfortunately, however, the game isn’t currently available for purchase on Steam like its PC version counter-part. The game can be purchased for $29.99 from either the Mac Game Store or Feral Interactive’s website.

If you are looking for a great game that either you or your kids can enjoy on the Mac, LEGO The Lord of the Rings is certainly a great pick.

Hear that? Someone at Apple just laughed out loud. I guess we should give credit where it’s due, and trust us, Sony needs any positive vibes it can get after its non-unveiling unveiling of the PlayStation 4 earlier this week. The company has confirmed that it’s working on an iOS companion application for iOS devices.

The app being developed by Sony will let you see maps, menus, and other goodies directly from your iPad or iPhone while you’re off killing bad guys on your TV, kinda like the Xbox app, but you know, way later in the game.

From the Sony release:

A new application from SCE called “PlayStation®App” will enable iPhone, iPad, and Android based smartphones and tablets to become second screens. Once installed on these devices, users can, for example, see maps on their second screens when playing an adventure game, purchase PS4 games while away from home and download it directly to the console at home, or remotely watch other gamers playing on their devices.

It’s a nifty feature, but honestly it’s nothing groundbreaking. I’m not entirely sure putting something like this in the App Store is a great idea. Sure, it’s great for its fans and users — there’s no doubt about that. That said, wouldn’t something like the Wii U controller be a better idea? I mean, sending someone to a third-party app store is ultimately going to mean more purchases through Apple or Google’s marketplaces. That can’t be good for handheld platforms.

I agree with Ian, it’s looking more and more like Sony’s dead in the water.

During a roundtable discussion today to follow up yesterday’s Playstation 4 announcement, Shuhei Yoshida, president of Sony’s Worldwide Studios, discussed how PS3 controllers will work on the new PS4.

The short answer is they won’t. At least the Dualshock 3 won’t. While this was sort of to be expected since the PS4 won’t play PS3 games, there isn’t much that separates the two controllers. While the buttons and sticks are likely superior, the only real addition to the PS4′s controller that affects gameplay is the touchpad. If there’s a game that doesn’t use the touchpad, there doesn’t seem to be any real reason that one shouldn’t be able to use a Dualshock 3 to play the game instead. This could have been useful if you wanted to play at home with some friends but hadn’t gone out and bought extra Dualshock 4s. In short, Sony wants to sell you more controllers.

The Playstation Move, however, will be supported. As we saw in Media Molecule’s sculpting demo, the Move will be able to use the Playstation 4′s new camera and power to do things it could have never done on the PS3. The Dualshock 4 will also include some of the Move’s motion technology.

November’s coming fast, so you should probably start saving up for those controllers, games and that mysterious looking console now.

Image Credit: Polygon

Dear Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo.

You know that I loved you guys. I really did. There’s always been a space underneath my TV for your stuff. From the Sega MegaDrive through to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, I’ve bought pretty much all of them. Heck, I even bought a Sega Saturn, although sadly I think that I was probably one of the handful of people who did.

But I think I’ve bought my last games console. The farcical press conference “unveiling” the next PlayStation — although it’s fair to ask if it’s an unveiling when there’s nothing physical unveiled — was just the last straw. Yes, I’m sure that the next Playstation will be incredibly powerful, leading to a glut of games that rely on the shock and awe effect of their visuals, as opposed to good gameplay.

And that will only be after two years, when the game developers have actually managed to get their heads around the unique and probably pretty difficult to understand architecture. In the meantime, there will probably be one good flagship title and a lot of mediocre retreads of old favourites.

This is where Apple comes in. Because at present, as long as you’re not a hardcore shoot-em-up addict, the best gaming platform out there is iOS. From Letterpress to Osmosis to one of the thousand tricky little throwaway games that cost next to nothing on the App Store, the iOS games market is creative, fun, full of new ideas – and for users, cheap. You don’t have to spend $50 on a game only to find that it’s a half-baked rip-off of something you played on the original Xbox years ago.

There’s just one little piece of the jigsaw missing: A way to play all these incredible games in the living room. Yes, you can use AirPlay mirroring and an Apple TV to get your games on the big screen in the corner, but it’s an experience best described as… sub-optimal. But a faster, more powerful version of the same tiny black box could easily run iOS games all by itself, either with dedicated Bluetooth controllers – or using other iOS devices instead.

I know it’s coming. You know it’s coming – and I don’t for one second doubt that Sony, Microsoft and the rest know it’s coming too. Never mind getting the same old boring TV shows on the big screen – I want to play, to interact, to do crazy stuff. Not just sit back and watch the same old boring shows.

So sayonara Sony, goodbye Microsoft, and so long Nintendo. You guys were great. But there’s going to be a new player of games in town. And I’d much rather hitch my wagon to Apple than pay you yet more hundreds of dollars for a console with a handful of decent games (at indecent prices). Those days are over.

Love and kisses

Ian.

Image by Un ragazzo chiamato Bi

Nintendo and Sony are in for one heck of a problem if they don’t figure out a quick way to compete with gaming on cellphones and LTE-equipped tablets. A new study from IDC has confirmed what most of us would have guessed if we took two minutes out of our busy day to think about it — gaming on our phones has become more popular than gaming on handheld devices like the PS Vita and Nintendo DS. It’s no joke; it really is all about the device in our pocket.

From the IDC and AppAnnie study:

combined consumer spending on iOS App Store and Google Play games eclipsed that of dedicated handheld games in Q4. Dedicated handheld gaming showed particular seasonality; close to 60 percent of Q4 consumer spending on Nintendo and Sony handheld gaming software occurred in December, a significantly higher share than was the case for December iOS App Store or Google Play game spending.

Like I said above, it’s not really surprising, considering the availability of gaming titles in the iOS App Store and Google Play store. Why would anyone go out and buy a Nintendo DS or PS Vita when they can get their casual, on the road gaming done on their phones or even tablets these days. Sony and Nintendo ruled the market until recently, and they’ve done themselves a huge disservice by not going out and doing something about the paradigm shift away from “handheld” devices. At this point they may want to start considering phones of their own if they plan on competing in the next five or six years. Pull an Amazon, create your own OS and Android variant, release a custom store, and get moving before it’s too late.

The Enhanced Edition of Baldur’s Gate for Mac will be out and available for download tomorrow, February 22. Baldur’s Gate is a fantasy role-playing video game that involves mystery, intrigue and adventure.

Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition for PC was released at the end of November and was quickly followed by an iPad version in December. A new element of the game is the ability to play cross-platform cooperative multiplayer across PC, Mac and iPad. Sounds pretty cool. The makers of Baldur’s Gate, Overhaul Games, are also working on bringing the Enhanced Edition to Android devices.

The chief developer at Overhaul Games, Trent Oster, said: “The development of the Mac version of Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition has been a longer process than we had planned…We strove to create a high quality release for the Mac fans of the series and we feel proud of the current version and feel the extra development time was effort well spent.”

Other enhancements for the game include:

• New Adventure: The Black Pits
• New Character: Dorn Il;Khan
• New Character: Neera the Wild Mage
• New Character: Rasaad yn Bashir
• A new collection of player character voice sets
• Native support for high resolution widescreen displays
• New hand-painted player portraits
• Improved multiplayer support, with connectivity between all platforms

The game will cost a hefty $19.99US, and will be available for download from the Mac App Store.

Image Credit: OnlySP

For the first time ever, Plants vs. Zombies and Plants vs. Zombies HD are available to download for free in the App Store.

The popular iOS game was launched in the App Store in 2010, and it’s been five months since its last update.

For those of you who live under a rock and aren’t sure what this game is about, here’s a quick recap: Plants vs. Zombies is a tower defense game where players use a variety of plants and fungi to fight off an approaching army of zombies from eating their brains.

So if you haven’t already done so, now is the perfect time to head on over to the App Store and download this awesome game. Did I mention it’s free?

Image Credit: iG33kstas

Sony has announced the long awaited Playstation 4 at a media event in New York City. The device will reportedly feature all new software, which will offer instant-boot, background downloading and deep PS Vita integration. The company wants to work to make all PS4 games playable on the Vita and will work on making every PS1, PS2 and PS3 game playable via the cloud.

Sony has put a lot of effort into social integration on the device. The console’s controller features a social button that can be used to send in-game recordings to friends. Users can have friends take over their games and can choose to send “drops”, or health packages, to friends. The system will also feature Ustream integration allowing gamers to share live gameplay with the world.

The PS4′s Dual-Shock 4 controller also makes the system shine. The controller will offer a standard headphone jack and a color strip that changes color during gameplay and can be used to identify players. The controller also features a 3D camera that is used to track the controller’s motion and can sense depth. Like the PS Vita, the PS4′s controller includes a touch-panel, which will be used to enhance gameplay.

As far as hardware goes, the console is powered by standard, yet customized, PC parts. The PS4 will boast 8GB of GDDR5 memory and an 8-core x86 CPU. Since the GPU and CPU are unified, they’ll be able to push around 170GPBS of bandwidth. The PS4 will support 4K video and stereoscopic 3D in 1080p. Sony has not yet given a release date for the PS4.

Image Via: CNN Money

Sony has an event scheduled today, and many believe the company will be announcing its brand new PlayStation. While we aren’t there, you can watch the event unfold in real time online. Sony has committed to streaming the event on Ustream.

Of course, you can watch the whole thing right here as it unfolds. Why get the news from some reporter second hand when you can get it directly from Sony as it happens…

The event starts at 5:30 PM EST, or 2:30 PM PST.

Video streaming by Ustream

The court dispute that began between Zynga and EA last August over the similarities between Zynga’s The Ville and EA’s The Sims Social has been resolved out of court. A U.S. judge has dismissed the copyright case “with prejudice.”

The controversy began when EA filed a lawsuit for copyright infringement against Zynga. In this lawsuit, EA argued that Zynga’s Facebook-based game had just one too many similarities to its own mobile game application. Zynga responded by throwing back its own countersuit, contending that EA’s claims were unfounded, anticompetitive and unlawful, with a statement that read: ” Today we responded to EA’s claims which we believe have no merit. We also filed a counterclaim which addresses actions by EA we believe to be anticompetitive and unlawful business practices, including legal threats and demands for no-hire agreements.”

Most recently, however, both companies have released matching statements referring to a confidential settlement agreement that reads: “EA and Zynga have resolved their respective claims and have reached a settlement of their litigation in the Northern District of California.”

Word’s still out on whether or not Zynga will continue to copy independent game titles for a quick buck.

Image Credit: Pinoytutorial Techtorial

Australian developer Firemonkeys has released a quiet update to Real Racing 3 that fixes issues that involve wait timers. Before the update you had to wait for your car to be repaired from all the dents and destruction after a race, but now the repairs are done right away.

Service wait times have also been reduced by two-thirds. After a few races you’ll need to service your car since the tires, oil, and engine slowly degrade while the car is being used.

Real Racing 3 has only been released as a ‘soft launch’ in state countries like Australia and New Zealand, so only those countries have been able to play and will be happy to see the wait times have improved drastically.

By the time it goes global on February 28, the rest of the world won’t even have to experience the longer wait times and the game will hopefully be fixed of any other last minute bugs or issues before it reaches us.

Image Credit: EA

We hope that everyone out there had a great Valentine’s day. We promise a mush-free apps post for you this week. We have an avatar generator for the iPhone, which is pretty cool. Also a tool that you can use to plan out some healthy meals with a new iPad app. There was a big update to show you on a popular note-taking app for the Mac, and you can create your own infographics using a new web app.

After creating the back alley of the web, M00t has created a creative and fun game that you need to check out.

iPhone/iPod Touch: iMade Face

Trying to create a neat picture to use as your avatar can be a pain. You can always use a headshot or an old cartoon icon, but why not create something unique. iMadeFace is a free iPhone app that helps you create a cartoon image of yourself using a tool that resembles character customizers from RPG games. If you do not like the generic faces offered by the basic generator, you can purchase hats and masks as separate packs for $0.99 each. You can download the app here.

iPad: Cooking Light Recipes: Quick and Healthy Menu Maker

One of the hardest things about cooking at home is trying to construct a complete meal and keep all of the nutritional facts straight. Cooking Light Magazine has created an app that helps you balance entrees, sides, and deserts. In the bottom right hand corner you get a running total of the calories, sodium, and fat content for your meal. Lean too hard in one direction and the indicator turns red, letting you know you’ve gone over. The app is $3.99 and is on the App Store.

Mac: nvAlt

Notational Velocity is a pretty popular note-taking app, but Brett Terpstra forked the project to create nvAlt, which beefs up the software’s shortcuts and Markdown support. You can easily sync nvAlt with your Simplenote account, or push out your notes as a webpage using Peggd. One of the more useful features is that you can link notes together, which allows you to relate your projects together. It’s a free and open source app you can download here.

Web: Infogr.am

Infographics are the lolcats of news and productivity sties. However, you need to have a pretty good eye for design and data to make them, and even then making them quickly isn’t easy. Infogr.am is a fairly easy web interface for quickly making charts and infographics like the one above. You can edit the titles and text, then put in your data. Once you’re finished with the graphic you can share it out to Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest. It is also saved to your Infogr.am account so you can get back to it later. The most useful feature is that you can embed the Infographic on your own site. It’s free to sign up here.

Game of the Week: Drawquest

When the creator of the app has 4Chan on his resume, people tend to think that they’re about to see something lurid. However, M00t has always been more about freedom and creativity than sleaze. Drawquest shows off that creativity with a daily art challenge that you participate in. Once you complete these you can compare you creation with others. It isn’t a straight up game per se, but it is a fun exercise. There are social aspects that allow you to follow other users and connect the app to your Facebook. The app is free from on App Store.

For those that like to play more fully fleshed out games on their phone as opposed to something like Angry Birds, Infinity Blade, one of the fastest and best selling iOS games ever, is this week’s free App Of The Week.

The game, originally released back in late 2010, typically goes for $5.99, so this is a significant discount. At the time of its release, Infinity Blade was praised by critics and fans due to its impressive graphics and in-depth item and combat systems. The game was the first major release for iOS that found real success at a higher price point, with $1.6 million made in the first four days.

For those that enjoy the game, the sequel Infinity Blade 2 released in late 2011 is also on the App Store for $6.99. While it isn’t a great choice for people looking to mess around on their phone for a couple of minutes, those with a lot of time to kill may really enjoy it. Either way, it’s still free.

For the past several years, the names Playstation, Xbox and Nintendo have dominated the home video game market. Some, however, are speculating that this may soon change, with the rumored upcoming release of Apple’s new TV product.

Nat Brown, a former Microsoft engineer and founder of the Xbox Project, wrote a detailed post on his personal blog ripping into Microsoft for how they’ve handled the Xbox. Brown says that the only reason the Xbox has been so successful is not because it’s good, but that Sony’s and Nintendo’s offerings are even worse.

Brown’s main point is that Microsoft has dramatically failed when it comes to indie games. He criticizes the company for making it nearly impossible for an indie developer to get their game onto the system and then to have it promoted and sold. “Why can’t I write a game for xBox tomorrow using $100 worth of tools and my existing Windows laptop and test it on my home xBox or at my friends’ houses? Microsoft, you are idiotic to have ceded not just indie game developers but also a generation of loyal kids and teens to making games for other people’s mobile devices.”

This is where Apple will come in and dominate says Brown. Apple already has a hugely successful system when it comes to promoting and publishing apps and it is this ease for developers that may end up killing the other major consoles. “I will be the first to write apps for Apple-TV when I can, and I know I’ll make money. I would for xBox if I could and I knew I would make money.”

At this point we still know nothing about what an Apple TV product could look like or what we should expect from the next Xbox. If Nat Brown is right, however, Microsoft and Sony clearly need to step it up with their next consoles when it comes to how they treat indie developers.

It’s time to hit the asphalt, and get your download on. Real Racing 3 is rolling out across a couple of App Stores around the globe. Currently, the game is available on the Australian, New Zealand, and Canadian App Stores. We promised you a PSA when it went live, so here it is now. It’s live, but only kinda…

It seems that the game is getting a soft launch in some of the “smaller” App Stores ahead of the February 28th global launch. The game’s free to download, but it’s based on a freemium model, which means you may find yourself paying for tracks, cars, or other in-game mechanics along the way.

Note: It also looks like the Canadian store link is only working for some people currently. Not sure if the app hasn’t fully propagated just yet, or if it’s been pulled. You may want to check and let us know in the comments if it’s not around.

Nintendo and Namco are choosing to break down barriers this week as they bring the first free-to-play game to the Wii U with TANK! TANK! TANK!

TANK! TANK! TANK! is a game that was originally released alongside the Wii U’s launch back in November, and it’s now choosing to change tactics when it comes to making money. The $49.99 disc based game is seeing a drastic change in format as it moves to a free-to-play eShop game. The free-to-play format will allow for players to play three times a day before they’re forced to start paying. Players will then be able to buy three packs that include full replayable game modes for €1.99 /£1.59 each. These, however, are early bird prices that will quickly go up to €9.99/£7.99 after February 28th.

The new free-to-play version is currently only scheduled for a Europe release, so North American Wii U owners might have to wait and hope for good sales of the European version if they want to see their own free version. Japanese gamers, on the other hand, had the game launch as a free-to-play title from day one.

Nintendo hasn’t been the most active company when it comes to adapting to new business models. The Japanese company is only just beginning to support DLC, which for the past few years has been a massive moneymaker for Sony and Microsoft. Because of this, it will be interesting to see if Nintendo and its developers will be able to successfully push things like free-to-play games on the Wii U and have them succeed.

It usually sells for a dollar, but now you can get “Super Monsters Ate My Condo!” for free on the App Store. A sequel to Monsters Ate My Condo, this is a fun puzzle game that is part digital Jenga game, part insanity.

This game also combines the traditional match-three type of play. To play, you swipe blocks from a multi-tiered, colorful condo and feed them to a pair of giant monsters standing behind the towers. The blocks that are left in the tower slide down and if they match you get points. As you continue, sets of matched blocked will form newer, single blocks that can be matched to earn even more points.

It’s a really fun and easy game to help pass the time on the bus or at work. It’s free right now, so even if you don’t really like it, it’s not like you wasted a buck. Check it out.

Image Credit: TouchArcade

Last March Epic Games had some stage time during the iPad announcement to show off its new Infinity Blade: Dungeons title. At the time there was no concrete announcements about release dates, and expectations were handled pretty well. Today, however, word is rolling around on the street that the company will have more delays in launching the title. By delays, we mean the project is actually on hold.

Epic Games founder, Tim Sweeney, took to the company website to publish an article on the situation, stating:

We’re closing Impossible Studios.

When former members of Big Huge Games approached Epic last year, we saw the opportunity to help a great group of people while putting them to work on a project that needed a team. It was a bold initiative and the Impossible folks made a gallant effort, but ultimately it wasn’t working out for Epic.

In addition to providing Impossible Studios employees with 3 months of severance pay, we’ll be giving the team the opportunity to form a new company with the Impossible Studios name and the awesome Impossibear logo.

This means that Infinity Blade: Dungeons is now on hold as we figure out the future of the project.

That’s terrible news. If any game is responsible for really pushing the ethos of iPad gaming, it was Epic Games and its Infinity Blade series. Delays suck, but hopefully by the time the company ships the game it’ll be bug free, and all systems go. That said, given the likelihood of iOS 7 and a next-generation iPad just around the corner, we have to wonder what kind of changes would have to happen to bring the game in line with that kind of change-up. Hopefully it’s not the beginning of the end.

Start your engines. The next edition of Real Racing is going to be hitting the pavement on February 28. If you’re into racing games that border more on the hyper-real and less on the Mario Kart, you’re going to want to check back on February 28th to download the game.

More details should surface next week at EA’s press event, so we’ll likely have more information at that time. We’ll keep you posted once more news drops.

If you’re looking to get caught up on your Angry Birds fiction before the release of the upcoming cartoon show, this weekend would be the time.

All of the Angry Birds HD titles for iPad have been dropped in price from $2.99 to $0.99. Rovio’s other titles are all also dropped to the $0.99 mark, except for Bad Piggies Best Egg Recipes, because hey, why not?

LINKS!

• Angry Birds HD $0.99
• Angry Birds Seasons HD $0.99
• Angry Birds Rio HD Free
• Angry Birds Space HD $0.99
• Angry Birds Star Wars HD $0.99
• Bad Piggies HD $0.99
• Amazing Alex HD $0.99

If you’re curious to see what the Angry Birds craze is all about, then try picking up one of these cheap selections. (Then continue to be confused after you play it and still don’t understand why the craze exists.)

Back in August, EA announced that it would be bringing a Steam-like digital distribution platform to the Mac, and subsequently, it released a limited alpha version in January of 2013. Today EA has officially launched Origin for Mac, bringing some of the company’s biggest games to our favorite Apple computers so we can really get our nerd on. It’s about time too.

The launch of Origin on the Mac means that Apple users can now access big titles like The Sims 3, Dragon Age 2, Batman: Arkham City, and LEGO Harry Potter. Here’s what EA Origin Vice President of Production Mike Blank had to say:

“Origin is going to allow us to get games into the hands of our consumers as quickly as we can, to enable our gamers to connect with their friends and to enjoy their gaming experience as quickly and directly as possible.”

Origin for Mac will give users the ability to download cross-platform games on multiple machines, with purchases and in-game progress that will be saved to their accounts. ”Part of the goal of Origin is to provide real value to our gamers. With key titles from The Sims franchise and its expansion packs, if you download it once, you can download it again across both platforms,” Blank explained.

When asked about the reason for bringing Origin to the Mac, Blank  pointed out that the  Mac is growing in user share faster than some actually realize. “The Mac’s gradually increasing market share, as well as a vocal community of Mac gamers, drove the decision.” Traditionally, developers have focused more on the PC platform, but Blank sees a new trend coming into effect and Origin “is the first step in a strategy you’re going to start seeing coming out of EA.”

Origin for Mac can be downloaded from EA’s website. It requires a Mac with an Intel Core 2 Duo processor running OS X 10.6.8 or higher.

If you thought Assassin’s Creed 3 would mark a break for the hit series, you were far from correct. At Ubisoft’s third-quarter earnings call today, CEO Yves Guillemot announced that a new Assassin’s Creed would be coming sometime in fiscal 2014.

“We are delighted and proud to announce today that in financial year ’14, we will introduce an all-new Assassin’s Creed hero, within an all new team and time period, and we expect it to be another major leap forward for the franchise. It is the benefit of multiple teams working on multiple chapters of the product, each getting several years to make their versions of an Assassin’s Creed game.”

It’s interesting to see Ubisoft leaving the production formula that they had gotten so comfortable with for Assassin’s Creed 2. Ubisoft first released Assassin’s Creed 2 before then putting out Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood and Assassin’s Creed Revelations in the two years after. The games built off the story of Assassin’s Creed 2 and featured the same character and similar settings.

Ubisoft may be starting to see that they must make some significant changes if they want to keep the franchise both critically and commercially popular. The past two games have been criticized by many as being disappointing and too similar to previous entries in the series. GiantBomb even named Assassin’s Creed 3 their most disappointing game of 2012.

Ubisoft says that more information regarding the title will start to come out soon. The setting and main character are two of the most important aspects of any Assassin’s Creed game so hopefully Ubisoft is able to announce something truly new and exciting for this next game.

Assassin’s Creed 2 is available on the Mac App Store, and Assassin’s Creed 3 is rumored to be coming to the platform, but there’s little evidence suggesting that it could happen any time in the near future.

You’d be hard-pressed to go a week without seeing someone in public wearing an angry birds shirt, sporting some sort of Angry Birds merchandise or playing Angry Birds itself, and now, those angry birds are getting their own cartoon show.

Rovio CEO Mikael Hed revealed today that an Angry Birds cartoon show, produced by Rovio themselves, will be launching this spring. The cartoon was originally scheduled to debut in fall of 2012 but the company chose to push this date back. Rovio’s in-house animation team, which they began building back in 2011 when they acquired Kombo animation, will be creating the cartoon, which will be released in ultra-small episodes. The Rovio animation team has already accomplished a significant amount for the company, such as the trailer up top for Angry Birds Star Wars that shows off the team’s animation style.

Rovio doesn’t really have TV in mind when it comes to the cartoon’s distribution. The Finnish company said in an interview that they think they have good means to handle distribution through their own channels. What exactly this means is unknown, but it sounds as though they may push the content through Rovio’s own apps.

While I can’t comprehend the phenomenon behind the shirts, backpacks, or even the game itself for that matter, an Angry Birds cartoon actually seems like a good fit for the brand. While the lasting appeal of the Angry Birds craze continues to amaze me, it will be interesting to see how this new cartoon turns out.

OUYA, the Kickstarter funded Rubik’s cube sized Android gaming console, finally has a release date. The $99.99 console will be arriving sometime this June and people interested can start pre-ordering today.

Retailers that have signed on to stock the console include the likes of Amazon, Gamestop, Best Buy and Target. People can also buy the console directly from the OUYA website and customers that do this will receive their console at a significantly earlier time in April. Those who helped back the $8.5 million cost to fund the Kickstarter project will get their OUYAs the earliest, with their systems beginning to be shipped to them in March. Additional controllers will also be sold for $49.99 each, a high cost that is attributed to the controller’s touch panel.

While OUYA sounds exciting in premise, we will still have to wait and see if the system can deliver on the most important part when it comes out; being backed by good games.

University student often find themselves with a lot of things to do to help prevent them from studying. When my friends and I are looking for something to do, often after having had one or two beverages, we usually find ourselves in the mad and hectic world of Spaceteam.

For those who don’t know, Spaceteam is a 2-4 player iOS game released back in late November of last year. It’s local multiplayer only, over either Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, so you’ll have to be in the same room as those that you’re playing with. That, however, is where all the fun comes in. You and your friends are part of a Spaceteam, a team of 4 humorously generated stick figures that are in charge of commanding a spaceship.

Each player has a unique control panel placed on their screen with several knobs and doo-hickeys to help commandeer the spacecraft. A number of commands will then start popping up on each player’s screen such as “Set Newtonian Photomist to Maximum” or “Refrigerate leftovers”. When you see a command pop-up on your screen, you must then shout out what it says across the room to a fellow Spaceteam member who has that function on their control panel so they can then make the proper adjustments. As you can expect, this can quickly lead to madness if everyone begins yelling orders to each other at the same time.

After a certain amount of time, the round will end and a new and more challenging round will begin. You will have less time to put in commands, asteroids and wormholes will have you shaking your phones and turning them upside-down, and after a while, there will be no more text and you’ll have to communicate symbols and images to the rest of your team.

Spaceteam is completely free and is a must-have for anyone looking to bond with/yell at their friends. There are also minor in-app purchases such as new character appearances and new spaceship layouts that users can pay $0.99 for if they want to help support the developer.

Go meet-up with three other friends and download Spaceteam right now. There’s nothing else quite like it.

For those of you suffering from Macworld envy, we have some apps to keep you entertained. You may not be able to see demos of upcoming software, but you will be able to get updates on the grocery list in real time while you’re at the store. You even get to wait in line like you’re at Macworld.

Hey, you don’t get to enjoy that notoriously fickle San Francisco weather, but we have an app that shows you a current model of all the wind in the world. You can watch the breeze off the bay that’s likely chilling your favorite Mac pundits to the bone.

You might be able to find your next iPhone case in the exhibit hall, but you can see what’s taking up all that space on your iPhone with Phoneclean.

Finally, instead of vendor parties, you can see all the upcoming movie trailers and set an email reminder for yourself, and if you’re already sick of the coverage, you can waste your weekend with a game that has some real retro appeal. If you are at Macworld, you can still download all these apps, no waiting lists required.

iPhone/iPod Touch: Anylist

There is nothing more irritating than forgetting that one thing at the grocery store, or being told the minute that you get home that there was something else you needed to pick up. Anylist makes list creation easy with autocomplete and searchable selections.

There are also starter lists, so if you tend to have the same couple of things you need to pick up every week, you can save yourself having to type them out.

The sharing features work off the email you use to sign up for an account with Anylist, but you can search for names in your contacts to share the list with.

You can search for recipes in the app as well. It even allows for easy list creation outside of the culinary world, allowing you to just get a plain text list. Anylist is free and available from the App Store.

iPad: Windscape

There is a certain kind of Earth Science nerd who is going to love Windscape. For the rest of you, this is the sort of thing that is just cool to look at, much like Star Walk and a few other science apps for the iPad. Windscape shows an animated model of all the wind in the world. The wind is animated over a satellite view of the earth by a series of dots. The temperature of the wind is represented by the color of the dots. The app is $0.99 and can be downloaded here.

Mac: Phoneclean

For the real digital hoarders, Apple has introduced the 128GB iPad. The rest of us can probably get by with a bit less space. With Retina apps, image caches, and a host of other digital kipple sitting in our less used apps, it can begin to take up a lot of space that would be better used for our music or taking more photos. Phoneclean is a free app that gets rid of those caches, and frees up some space on your device. It’s a simple open and run app, and you can double check everything before it’s deleted. It will only scan the first iOS device it finds, so it’s best to just keep one plugged in. This is a free app and can be downloaded here.

Web: Movie Cron

If you have your Apple TV in front of you as you read this, take a look at the Trailers section. There are dozens and dozens of movies to preview on there with disparate release dates, and some with very little commercial coverage. Movie Cron allows you to watch trailers, and then set an email reminder for yourself to see the movie when it comes out. (If you’d like, you can add your mobile number and get a text when the movie is released as well.) This is a solution for a first world problem, but it’s a good one. It’s free and you can check it out here.

Game of the Week: Mutant Mudds

Mutant Mudds is a game that wears a lot of nostalgia on its sleeve. It looks like the classic games of the NES era. However, rather than delivering some twitchy, jumpy arcade experience, Mutant Mudds actually brings a lot of the design sense from that era to bear on the mobile game. There is a great soundtrack that emulates old NES sounds perfectly.

The game is 2D with some 3D gimmicks thrown in; whoever made this really knows the 90s gaming tropes. I think what I like most is that the game manages to be challenging and deep without breaking that quick-in, quick-out feel needed on a mobile title. This one will be in your regular rotation for some time. The game is only $0.99 and you should download it from here.

A few days ago Rovio teased in a Tweet that new levels would be coming to its Star Wars Angry Birds edition and the 20 new levels are now available in the App Store and Google Play.

Like in previous updates, the refresh includes 20 new levels plus two new bonus levels that can be unlocked as you earn stars while playing. The new levels take place in and around an asteroid field following the Battle of Hoth where you go up against the Pigtroopers. There are new mynock pigs you need to escape and a big boss battle to beat.

You can get the newly updated Angry Birds Star Wars for iPhone for $0.99 or get it on your iPad for $2.99 now.

It seems that all signs are pointing towards a February 20th announcement date for Sony’s next Playstation. Sony today tweeted about a big Playstation event along with the term “Playstation 2013″. The announcement includes a video that focuses on the iconic Playstation controller buttons and further enforces that the big reveal will be hardware related.

Most of the gaming press have agreed in the past that Microsoft and Sony’s new consoles will likely be released around the holidays in 2013. This announcement date would make for a logical amount of time to make for a successful and smooth holiday launch for the Playstation 4. Many people also believe that it’s important for Sony to announce, market and release their new console before Microsoft releases the Xbox. One of the major advantages the Xbox 360 had over the Playstation 3 was that it came out almost a full year earlier and had time to cement itself into the market.

It’s almost a certainty that this announcement is about the Playstation 4. Consumers wouldn’t stand for Sony using 2013 as simply another year for a couple big game releases. With that being said, sales of the six and a half year old Playstation 3 are constantly slowing and now is the right time for Sony to start prepping for their next big launch.

Tune-in to the Internet on February 20th at 6 PM EST to see the big reveal. We’ll have more as we get closer.

Rovio, the makers behind the hugely popular Angry Birds franchise, took to its Twitter account last night to tease the upcoming release of new levels for its Angry Birds Star Wars edition. Rovio posted a picture that shows the Millennium Falcon zooming down a dark tunnel. The tweet featured the hash tags #ComingSoon and #EscapeFromHoth.

Those who know Empire Strikes Back will recognize the scene right away. If you don’t know, the screen shot is the cave that Han, Leia, Chewy, and the droids escape to while trying to evade the Imperial Fleet at the beginning of the film. Though it’s not much to go on, it’s pretty clear Angry Birds Star Wars is about to get a follow-up update to last November’s Hoth update.

Rovio hasn’t given an exact release date yet. If you haven’t gotten around to playing Angry Birds Star Wars yet, you should definitely try it out so you can catch up before the new update rolls out.

Image Credit: Rovio

iPhone/iPod Touch: CARROT

Is your todo list mocking you? Sitting there each day endlessly taunting you with an ever growing list of things that need to be done. Have you tried gamification and still can’t get motivated? Try CARROT, the abusive AI personal assistant. Now at least when your todo list mocks you, it’s actually mocking you. You enter your todo list in a similar manner to Clear. As you clear your tasks, you earn points, but even as you level up, you’re still judged on the amount of time it takes to clear tasks and how often you check in with the app. When you do level up, CARROT offers you a fortune, which usually predicts your grisly demise. You may not be able to carry GLaaDoS around in your pocket, but this is pretty close. CARROT is $0.99 and you can download it here.

iPad: iYoga Premium

You may have already given up your hardcore cardio workouts at the gym, but there is still hope for your workout resolutions at home. Rather than another stressful routine, why not try a more gentle workout with Yoga? Instead of trying to find a Yoga group down at the local Whole Foods, you can just get an instructor on your iPad. iYoga Premium has all the trappings of yoga — the teacher with the slightly too calm voice, and bells that ring as you change positions. The app is compatible with AirPlay mirroring so you can easily use you Apple TV to get an easier view from your yoga mat. The poses are both narrated and animated, making it easy to follow along. The app does a really good job of showing which muscles are supposed to be stretching and contracting, so you know if you’re doing it right. This is a nice easy workout with a variety of preset routines you can choose from along with a custom routine option. The initial app is $1.99, which gets you 81 poses, and you can unlock additional poses for another $4.99. You can download the app from the App Store here.

Mac: Clean

Do you keep a lot of extraneous files on your desktop? For a lot of Mac users the desktop becomes a sort of scratch pad for files. You save downloads there, screenshots, and quick text files you might need later. The problem is that at some point your desktop begins to be less of a desktop and more just a pile of files that you need to hide with your applications as quickly as possible. Clean tries to clean that up, but rather than simply committing all of your files to the Trash, Clean seeks to arrange them in folders for you. After it runs, Clean creates a folder by month or day in your Documents folder and moves your Desktop files there. You can run it manually or let it run in the background all the time. Clean is free and available from the App Store.

Web: Branch

Branch is the platform for open discussion with closed membership. It’s actually a pretty simple concept. The site lets a moderator filter out all those people who simply join a conversation to be antagonistic. There’s a lot of potential here as an idea, though I would like to see the ability to embed conversations rather than simply link to them. For many sites that simply lack comment sections, this is an easy way to start a conversation around their articles. You sign up using your Twitter account. You can try the app out here.

Game of the Week: Ghostbusters

For people of a certain age (Read: Old), these developers could have released an app that did nothing but play a loop of the Ghostbusters theme, and it probably would have been at the top of the app charts. Instead, with this new game, you get a mixture of a time management game and RPG. You go around town busting ghosts and collecting money and slime samples that allow you to unlock more levels in a tower. Sadly, the main Ghostbusters are here in name only, and there’ s an assortment of new b-team characters, but the game is fun enough to look the other way. This is a Freemium game, so be prepared to wait for the upgrades unless you’re willing to pay extra. Ghostbusters is free from the App Store.

Most developers would be happy with a couple hundred thousand downloads over the life of their app. For Imangi Studios, the expectations are a little bit different considering the original Temple Run has been downloaded over 170 million times already. Temple Run 2 has some ginormous shoes to fill, and frankly, there was a lot of expectations about what the game would do over the course of the first week.

In its first four days on the App Store, Imangi Studios’ Temple Run 2 has already been downloaded over 20 million times. Plenty of applications have had success in their first week, but when you consider that Google Maps was downloaded 10 million times in 48 hours, and Angry Birds Space hit the 10 million download mark in just 72 hours, Temple Run 2′s run is looking mighty impressive.

Clearly, Imangi Studios is killing it.  The game sits at the top of the free app listing on the App Store and in the seventh spot (Canadian store) in the top grossing apps section. It’s pretty clear people are buying up a ton of in-game purchases.

You can download the game on the App Store for free.

The apps we have for you this week are fairly varied. They run the gamut from social users to power users, and feature the first tandem app offering in this series. Without further ado, here are your apps

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iPhone/iPod Touch: Cleverbug

Judging by the majority of posts, you would assume that Facebook exists for two things, drinking and birthdays. One of Facebook’s best uses is keeping track of birthdays, but leaving that impersonal wall post for your spouse, parents, or siblings is definitely going to put you on the Goofus side of the comic. Instead, why not use Facebook to get the right date, a nice picture, but still actually have a physical card. That is exactly what Cleverbug does. For around three dollars and a stamp, you can send your card to someone from your Facebook list using a photo from their page. If you don’t find something you like, you can also upload an image from your phone. There are a variety of cards that fit the relationship and gender of the person. If you don’t have their address you can also send the card to yourself for delivery. The app is a fairly neat use of Facebook and the first card is free to try. You can download Cleverbug from the App Store here.

iPad/Mac: Hot Keys

Keyboard shortcuts have always been the domain of the power users. Unless you’re really into using an app everyday, it can be hard to remember the more esoteric time savers. That’s where Hot Keys comes in. You have a small server app on your Mac and a client app on your iPad. After establishing the connection, using the button that looks like a refresh symbol, you can then get the default OS X shortcut pack automatically. If you switch to remote packs you can see a pack for Photoshop as well. What’s most intriguing about this app is the ability to make custom packs for the apps you use most. For example, in Byword you can make a quick couple of shortcuts to push the Markdown text into the clipboard as HTML. You need both apps for this to work, and they are both free. The Mac App is here. The iPad app is here.

Web App: Typing.io

Trying to learn a new programming language means remapping to figure out where the main symbols you need are located on the keyboard. Do you need to hit “<”, or use “[” ? Well, Typing.io is a web app that allows you to type along to a program in one of seventeen languages. These are real apps too. The C++ lesson is HTMLDocumentParser.cpp, C is the Linux kernel, and Objective C is Cheddar. Even novices can get some good finger exercises and some help with learning some of the more obscure keyboard keys. The app requires a Google account and you can see the lessons here.

Game of the Week: Temple Run 2

Temple Run wasn’t the first Endless Runner on the iPhone. It was a huge hit though, and made a big enough splash that Actvision’s rerelease of Pitfall! was a clone of Temple Run. In Temple Run 2, there are some new obstacles, as well as new characters you can unlock and play. The game does a great job of showing off the new content early, and it’s just as addictive as its predecessor. It is a free app you can get from the App Store here.

One More For The Road: Bet To Win

If you’re constantly betting your friends over silly things like “who’s going to win the next roller derby match,” but have no way of keeping track of your bets and your winnings, you should check out Bet To Win. Developer Arctic Empire has finally made making frivolous bets easier, and pretty instant. Plus, you get to smack talk your friends any chance you get, which makes the app a lot more fun to use. The app is available for both the iPhone and iPad

Earlier this morning Temple Run 2, the sequel to the wildly popular endless running game, landed in the New Zealand App Store. It’s set to launch in the rest of the world, including the U.S., tonight. If the original Temple Run’s success is anything to go by (it was downloaded more than 75 million times in 2012 alone) then Temple Run 2 will be just as thrilling.

Previously, Temple Run-like games have been released , like the Brave version, but this is the first true sequel to by released by the husband and wife duo that make up Imangi Studios.

In Temple Run 2, you’ll see the key components that really make Temple Run what it is: after taking the idol, you’re chased (this time by one giant creature) and you have to use a combination of swipes and tilts to jump, slide and collect coins.

But there are some notable differences that make Temple Run 2 a version of its own. The game takes place just before sunset. Unlike Temple Run, the sequel’s course takes you on curvy and hilly paths. You’ll go down zip lines and even ride in a mine cart.

If you haven’t already tried Temple Run, I would highly suggest giving it a go. It’s a free download from the App Store, just like Temple Run 2 will be when it lands in the U.S. App Store. While you’re waiting, you can check out the video above to see what you have to look forward to once it goes live in App Stores around the world.