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If there’s one thing that should be added to life’s list of certainties alongside death and taxes, it’s the fact that dungeons are going to have monsters that need slaying. Three Dungeon Hunter games didn’t get rid of them, so Gameloft is giving it another go with Dungeon Hunter 4, a free-to-playaction-RPG that takes the series back to its roots while attempting with mixed success to add some new ingredients to the monster-fighting stew.

As many of you can surely attest to, trying to play a console game on a touchscreen can be kind of a pain. The easiest way to get around this is to purchase a physical controller that’s compatible with your phone or tablet. Problem is, not all of those controllers are well-made, and many of the better ones are a bit on the pricy end. If you happen to own an Xperia phone and a PS3, you can kiss that problem goodbye: Sony is gearing up to provide official support for DualShock 3 controllers on Xperia devices.

Back in September we learned that CBS was doing a casting call for an upcoming game show based on the popular Draw Something app. It's unclear as to whether or not that show is still happening, but it looks like Channel 4 and Victory Television have teamed up with Zynga to adapt a different Draw Something show for the UK. So, that's something.

While the era of endless Zynga acquisitions has certainly slowed to a crawl in recent months, that doesn’t mean the big Z isn’t willing to snap up a good company when they see one.  Back in November (how perfectly timed!), the company announced the acquisition of November Software – a mobile games developer that, at that time of acquisition, had been working on a game called Golden Arrow.

Japanese game studio Inis has produced some of the best rhythm games in the genre, including Gitaroo Man for the PlayStation 2, Elite Beat Agents for the Nintendo DS, and Lips for the Xbox 360. But sometimes you need to take a break from your favorite records. Inis is hanging up its mandolin long enough to make Eden to Green, a “tower offense” game for iOS and Android.

The App Store is rife with games belonging to nearly every genre out there. Chances are good no matter what you're into, there's a game for you - that's the beauty of it! But have you ever stumbled across a game where scaring the wits out of your targets is the goal? We're willing to bet you haven't. But thanks to the bizarre gem The Spookening, you can be on your way to terrorizing villagers and grinning smugly with little more than an app purchase. The Spookening is a silly but satisfying exercise in creeping out the living, the only way a ghost knows how.

The GameStick, one of the Android-based consoles recently funded through Kickstarter, will ship to backers in June rather than the intended launch window of April. Developer kits, on the other hand, are currently en route.

When The Rock isn't playing the role of part-time WWE Champion on Monday Night Raw, he can often be found playing other parts on various movie sets. But something strange is happening in Studio 51, and it seems everyone around has either gone missing or wants The Rock dead (or at least beaten severely). Are they rabid John Cena fans? Movie critics who think five Fast & Furious movies was enough?

I was two days into Game Developer Conference when I went mute.

It came out of nowhere early Wednesday evening. Somehow, my vocal chords had become fried, leaving me whispering and whimpering – especially when I thought about the two days of meetings I still had left on my schedule. 

When you were young, someone might’ve told you that your personal worth can only be measured through your inward qualities. They might’ve told you that friends and popularity don’t matter, and that the content of your soul is what defines you as a human being. Well, the sooner you get all that saccharine nonsense out of your head, the sooner you can embrace the truth: Your Facebook friend count is what determines your value. Nothing more. It’s going to be like this in the far-flung future, too, so get used to it. Need proof? Take a look at Redshirt, which is coming soon for PC, Mac, iOS, and Android.

Mighty Dungeons bills itself as a cross between old-school board games like Hero Quest and Warhammer Quests and videogames like Diablo and Dungeon Master, but the truth is that it's a fairly straightforward roguelike. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, and as roguelikes go it's certainly gussied up in its Friday finest, but I think it's important to establish what we're really looking at here: a  top-down dungeon crawler with simple, repetitive gameplay.

Maybe it’s just me, but that seasonal transition – the winter-to-spring of it – makes March seem like the longest month ever.  Also, the whole “31 days” thing doesn’t help.  But doesn’t it feel even longer than that?  Thankfully, this past March gave us plenty of good games to help us while away our end-of-winter doldrums!

Jesse Schell, former Disney Imagineer and current professor at Carnegie Mellon University, is what you call a forward thinker. Nearly every talk he’s given in recent years has been about where he thinks games are headed, and how they’ll influence the world around us. His talk at this year's GDC was no different. He discussed, amongst other things, what he considers to be the future of storytelling in games. In typical Schell fashion, it was compelling, it was optimistic, and best of all, it was bold.

PlayFirst, a global leader of casual family games and the creators of the popular Diner Dash franchise have announced today their hiring of Tom Hall, the industry veteran who brought us such genre smashing hits as DOOM and Wolfenstein 3D. The announcement seems to continue the ongoing trend of mobile developers scooping up some serious talent, which is certainly a good thing for all of us who own a tablet or smartphone!

Free-to-play may be a major part of our industry these days, but not everyone’s a fan. From outspoken Internet commentors to developers concerned with how it influences game design, there’s long been an undercurrent of negative backlash just below the model’s wave of success. Brenda Romero falls somewhere in the middle of all this. There are things she can’t stand about the model, and other aspects she enjoys. In her GDC talk, titled “Free-to-Play: The Morning After,” Romero provided the audience with a summary of her feelings, as well as her personal experience with free-to-play gaming.

The waiting is the hardest part of post-Kickstarter anticipations, especially when the game you’re waiting for is the spiritual successor to a series left untouched for nearly fourteen years.  Fans of Jane Jensen and her Gabriel Knight trilogy find consolation in knowing Moebius will be made, but an assured future existence does little to quell the hysteria-inducing impatience of “I want it now!”  Luckily, a brand new trailer and website should help ease your Moebius anxiety.  Or make it worse, but that’s a risk worth taking.

Few developers are capable of tripping players out like Keita Takahashi. Best known as the maestro behind the Katamari series and the equally weird Noby Noby Boy, he has a knack for designing kooky, charming, and occasionally downright crazy games. Tenya Wanya Teens, one of his latest, follows in those footsteps quite nicely, and in fact might be his oddest release yet.

If you set your WABAC machines to 54 weeks ago, you’ll arrive at a time that was very different for Zynga.  Their stock was hovering around $13 a share, and they were riding high on a wave of successful acquisitions and the prospect of a bright year ahead.  It was in this environment that Zynga made its most notable acquisition to date: the $180 million purchase of New York-based Draw Something creators OMGPOP.  As part of that purchase, Zynga retained OMGPOP CEO Dan Porter to lead the team at Zynga NY.

With a funding round of $8.5 million from an A-List of investors back in September, and the recent successful launch of Mini Golf MatchUp on both iOS and Android platforms, Scopely is clearly doing something special.  The question is, what?  Is Scopely trying to be the next big mobile publisher, platform, both?  The answer, according to CBO Andy Kleinman, is none of the above.

Touch screen controls aren't often accepting of side-scrolling platformers. The level of precision seen in games like Super Mario Bros. and Sonic the Hedgehog is often understated. Sometimes, a game comes along and reminds us just how important tight controls can be. There's a bit of upside to Super Daddio 2, but a sloppy control scheme and other fundamental issues create a handful of problems.