Gamezebo Archives - December 2010

Free games are all around us, but they may not be as easy to find as you’d think. We help you sort through the App Store to find the latest price drops and limited time offers so that you won’t have to spend a penny. Today’s free games include a beautiful hand-painted survival game, a chance to stop the Nazi’s from developing the atom bomb, a 25-in-1 game collection, and more!

Paradise Life is a Facebook game developed by IceBreak Games. Live life in a paradise island where you explore and build your home. Plant exotic crops, raise animals, clear the terrain and fight critters. These are just a few of the things you can do to get started playing Paradise Life by referring to this quick start guide.

Much like the flesh-dripping living corpses themselves, the zombie phenomenon refuses to die. We've seen zombies take over the world in multiple movies, we've seen zombies annihilated by defensive suburban flora, and even one of this year's best console games featured a decidedly non-sequitur zombie expansion pack. And now Facebook has Zombie Mosh, which mixes the rocking undead with various elements of Frontierville and Nightclub City. The concept has undeniable charm and the friendly developers plan to release additional features as the beta progresses, but it's hard to see this as more than a novelty game that should have been scheduled for a Halloween release.

When it comes to first person shooter games, few names are as big as Battlefield: Bad Company. EA knows this well, which is why they’ve decided to shrink it down to pocket size for the iPhone. But has Battlefield: Bad Company 2 survived the transition to mobile? Or is this just another case of App Store cannon fodder?

Being the first real mega hit on the iPhone might make Doodle Jump an iconic name amongst gamers, but it also suffers the fate of feeling a little dated in the face of every jumping game that’s followed. As the second standalone release in the series, Doodle Jump Christmas Special had a chance to add some new twists to this growingly stale formula. Instead, it’s the same old experience with a snowy coat of paint thrown on top.

Each week hundreds of new games hit the App Store, vying for your dollars. Join us every Friday as we sort through the pile and let you know which games should be on your radar. This week’s releases include a classic PC adventure with full motion video, Lara Croft’s iOS debut, a pair of big name first person shooters, and more!

If you’ve ever enjoyed a racing game on the iPhone, there’s a good chance you owe developer Firemint a thank you. Their original Real Racing title was a hit on the App Store, and it perfected tilt-steering in a way that nearly every racer since has tried to copy. Now, 18 months after the release of the original, Real Racing 2 has arrived.

Neo Defender 2 sells itself as an Asteroids style retro shooter, and it definitely carries some of those similarities. The game also introduces a few changes and incorporates some elements that seem to make the game sometimes less fun than that 30 year old original, and other times downright unplayable.

Every Friday we post our roundup of the week's download game deals and discounts from around the Web. Keep on reading to learn all the ways you can save this week!

Free games are all around us, but they may not be as easy to find as you’d think. We help you sort through the App Store to find the latest price drops and limited time offers so that you won’t have to spend a penny. Today’s free games include a jump for love, a liquor-heavy time management game, a chance to cook up a feast in the kitchen and more!

Magic Mall is a take on the “mall management” sub-genre of the “business” sub-genre of the “management sim” sub-genre. If you have ever specifically wanted to design your own mall, this is definitely a game for you. While Magic Mall is still early in its development cycle, it offers a clear gameplay progression where you begin with a drab, grey mall and slowly develop it into a lively, brightly-colored mall full of decorations. Magic Mall is a low-stress game where failure is nearly impossible, making it something ideally played to relax.

It's sometimes difficult to care for a video game protagonist, thanks to a lifeless personality or some really terrible dialogue. Lylian: Episode One is different, however - throughout play we found her character troublesome to bond with, not due to a sketchy script, but rather because she's completely and utterly insane in the membrane.

Sales come and sales go on the App Store – especially around the holidays – but in all our App Store sale coverage, we’ve never seen anything quite like this. EA has put 68 games on sale for 99 cents, including brand new releases, $12.99 iPad games, and more!

There’s an endless variety of business management sims to play on Facebook, so it’s quite an achievement when a developer comes up with a genuinely novel twist on the formula. My Shops has you trying to manage an ever-increasing variety of shops located on a single avenue, instead of endlessly micromanaging a single store. This is a very intuitive way to change up the formula, but surprisingly, there’s very little on Facebook right now that really plays the way My Shops does. Some elements of typical timer-driven sim play are there, but there’s also a lot of strategy and even some action.

Mighty Pirates is a Facebook game developed by CrowdStar. Explore the high seas, fight with other pirates to steal treasure maps, fill up your treasure room, upgrade your ship and go on quests to become the best pirate. These are just a few of the things you can do to get started playing Mighty Pirates by referring to this quick start guide.

The idea of taking a board game with you but without all the bits and pieces is definitely appealing for families. Table Twister makes its best attempt to give you this, but only at the level of Hungry Hungry Hippos. The games are fun, if not short-lived and repetitive. But whether you’re actually able to play them depends entirely on the device you’re using.

Free games are all around us, but they may not be as easy to find as you’d think. We help you sort through the App Store to find the latest price drops and limited time offers so that you won’t have to spend a penny. Today’s free games include a steampunk twist on a card game classic, some well-armed teddy bears ready for destruction, a traditional beach game and more!

It was only a matter of time. Reportedly making billions of dollars a year and having spurned a rumored $6 billion acquisition offer from Google, GroupOn’s group buying model is being copied and adopted to every market and every corner of the world.

OpenFeint, among the most forward-thinking companies in the mobile game app space have announced the launch of Game Channel and a new feature called Fire Sale, in an attempt to bring Groupon mechanics to the Apple iTunes Store and Google’s Android Marketplace.But, with a few twists since Groupon does not control the commerce portion of Apple’s and Google’s Store.

Apple confirmed this morning that the Mac App Store will open for business on Jan. 6, allowing people to download and run apps on their Mac OS X computers. It's an announcement that could potentially revolutionize desktop gaming in the same way that the App Store revolutionized mobile gaming on the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.

All of our misguided labeling of people as “casual” and “core” gamers has become a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. The folks who played Pac Man in bars in the 70s didn’t consider themselves casual gamers, because no one was telling them to. These days, even the most infrequent gamer is inundated with messages online and in the world around them about games. They find “casual games portals” and see ads for “hardcore games on the iPhone!” These terms aren’t unheard of anymore, but they are unclear, and as a result we’ve all internalized our own meanings for them. What’s more, we’ve all labeled ourselves. The prominence of gaming in recent years has made our gaming habits part of our personal “Identity” – it is impossible to avoid.