Gamezebo Archives - July 2011

ESPN Sports Bar & Grill is a Facebook game developed by Playdom that lets you run your own sports bar. Gamezebo’s ESPN Sports Bar & Grill strategy guide and walkthrough will provide you with a quick start guide, tips and tricks, hints and cheats to help you run the best bar in town.

In news that should surprise no one, but is nonetheless exciting, rumors are swirling that Popcap will be bringing two more of its popular franchises to Facebook: Plants vs Zombies and Peggle.

Welcome to the Nightmare Realm walkthrough on Gamezebo. Nightmare Realm is a Hidden Object game played on the PC and Mac created by Lesta Games & Films. This walkthrough includes tips and tricks, helpful hints, and a strategy guide on how to complete the Nightmare Realm.

Social games continue to pop up on the iPhone at a rapid pace, and the upcoming first release from Scotland-based developer Tagplay, Funpark Friends, looks to merge the standard social experience with a Rollercoaster Tycoon-style management sim. You can create parks of various themes, and the game will actually reward you for developing relationships with other players, as opposed to simply accumulating as many friends as possible.

Last October, shortly after the release of ZeptoLab’s Cut the Rope, we had a chance to chat with the team’s creative director Semyon Voinov. Since that time, the game has gone on to become a landmark release, attaining a level of success on the App Store only previously seen by Angry Birds. Now, nine months, multiple content updates and an Android release later, we’ve had a chance to catch up with Semyon. He tells us about how Cut the Rope’s success has affected ZeptoLab, what he thinks of imitiators, and what’s next for the burgeoning franchise.

Don’t you just love CityVille Hometown on the iPhone? All that stuff to do, the social interaction, the customization? Apparently, Japan Life loves it too. Not to the point that it’s a rip-off, but there’s a strong resemblance. That doesn’t stop it from being a fun social title, but it does lose points for lack of originality.

There’s more than one way to get me to play your game, but putting adorable faces on blocks is, by far, one of the quickest ways to guarantee I’ll get...wait for it...face time with it. Combine a simple yet hard-to-master premise with unique gameplay and say no more, I’m throwing money at you until you give me your game. Developer HyperBees Ltd.’s new physics-based block-stacking game ShakyTower offers up a game that promises to deliver on all these fronts, and though I didn’t need to throw my money at them, something got in the way of mobile gaming utopia.

Two of the best things about hidden object games are getting to the bottom of the mysterious storylines and enjoying the lush, elaborate art. Intrigue Inc: Raven's Flight at least gets one of them right. While the game features some fairly pedestrian (translation: ugly) graphics, it also offers an interesting story of evil and international—dare I say—intrigue. It also contains more than a few creative takes on the usual door-opening and item-finding puzzles which save it from being just another ho-hum hidden object game.

Fated Haven: Chapter One emphasizes over and over again during its tutorial that it’s not like most other RPGs and players need to be careful. These instructions are ultimately quite confusing, because if you’ve ever played an indy RPG developed in RPG Maker XP, you’ve already played Fated Haven. Everything from its visuals to its gameplay and basic storyline are extremely derivative. That’s not to say Fated Haven isn’t any fun at all, it’s just fun in a way that evokes fond nostalgia for a very specific period from gaming history.

Pop quiz, hotshot: what do vampires do? They suck, of course. And what does the new hidden object horror game Vampire Saga: Welcome to Hell Lock do? You guessed it: it sucks.

When I look at the calendar, I know it’s 2011 – but when I look at my iPhone games collection, I can’t help but wonder if it’s really just 1994 all over again. Why would I wonder this, you might ask? Because customizable card games are back in a big way on the App Store, and I for one couldn’t be happier. Kard Combat is the latest such release, and it’s easily one of the best in the bunch.

As a parent, I love it when one of my kids takes an interest in my work. Sometimes I’ll ask them to play a game I’m reviewing and let me know what they think. It’s just a great experience all around. So when Untold Entertainment’s Ryan Creighton dropped me a line to let me know he’d developed a game with his 5 year old daughter Cassie, I just knew it was going to be something special.

Chalk this up as a rumor that turned out to be true. Electronic Arts has acquired PopCap Games for $650 million in cash plus $100 million in stock.

This is less than the $1 billion that was initially reported, but there is an earn-out.

According to TechCrunch, the earn-out scale is rather huge. If PopCap earnings are $91 million or less within a 2 year period, PopCap does not make anymore money. If earnings end up being $343 million or more, PopCap makes an additional $500 million, making the total acquisition price $1.3 billion!

It's summer! And with the temperature rising there's only one sure fire way to beat the heat: games of course! Thankfully, there are plenty of new releases coming out this summer, no matter what platform you're on. So whether you just want a game to play on your phone while you sit on the beach or you have grand plans to whittle away the hours indoors in front of your computer, Gamezebo has you covered.

Little-known fact: jousts were often major spectacles used to entertain the public, much in the same way gladiator battles in the Roman arenas were. Essentially tournament knights were the equivalent of modern day pro-wrestlers. Now Alawar Entertainment is about to let players experience medieval athleticism with its upcoming iOS title, Shake Spears.

Dream Planet is one of the newest city building games on facebook. Unfortunately, at this time, it can barely be called a game. You begin by selecting the planet you wish to build on, choosing from several different terrains. But once you have chosen your terrain you are on your own to start building your city.

While some may see Space City as just another social game, its unique space theme complete with race diversity is a nice diversion from the norm. In Space City, you are given the task of running a planet in the far reaches of the universe. Not only have humans discovered this far off planet, but other alien races have as well. Yes, you will have to share this planet with Starlings, Puggles and Dondees: the three alien races.

Tales of Lagoona: Orphans of the Ocean follows Islabelle, a mermaid with a single goal of preventing the run-down Coral Bay orphanage from being leveled and turned into an underwater shopping mall. You’re there every step of the way to help Islabelle achieve that goal, as you sell the orphanage’s many treasures to earn money for upgrades. With an in-depth, charming storyline and plenty of mini-game variety, Tales of Lagoona makes a splash in the hidden object space, even for its few faults.

The world of the Worms games is a strange place. It's bright and cheerful, but it's also full of microdiles armed to the teeth and willing to blow each other to Kingdom Come for no discernable reason. It's goofy and weird, and –when the game is well-made– it's a blast to visit. Recent titles have been a bit hit-or-miss, but the newly-released Worms Special Edition makes this particular trip to the universe a particularly pleasant experience.

Ah, Degrassi. For three decades the show has managed to capture the essence of that most dramatic of life's stages: high school. While we've been content to simply watch the drama unfold in the fictional Toronto high school up until now, the simply titled Degrassi visual novel lets you get involved. Though the first episode is relatively short, the writing is sharp and it practically forces you to replay it several times in order to see everything.