Kabam, “the leader in free-to-play games for core players” and the team behind the hugely successful Kingdoms of Camelot: Battle for the North, have announced today their acquisition of Exploding Barrel Games. You may know Vancouver-based Exploding Barrel Games for their popular (and equally delicious) Margaritaville Online Facebook game, and for their contributions to the Need for Speed, Skate, FIFA, and SSX franchises. 

Welcome to MargaritaVille Online, a beach resort simulation based on the Jimmy Buffet song of the same name. In the game you will be completing quests, playing mini-games, and exploring the surprisingly large island while restoring a beach-side bar known as The Oasis. This guide will help familiarize yourself with the island and all its locations as well as give you tips on getting started.

If you’ve been following along with our coverage at home, you already know that it’s been a pretty great month for games. But which of the dozens upon dozens of games that we’ve covered has really stood out? Which games went above and beyond to stand head and shoulders above the rest? Which games were special enough to earn the title of Gamezebo’s Game of the Month?

It sounds like a joke. And maybe that’s how it started, but it turns out that Margaritaville Online -- a game based on Jimmy Buffett’s song and chain of restaurants of the same name -- is also one of the most fully realized and enjoyable games released on Facebook to date. Far from a cheap cash in, Margaritaville Online gives you a large world to explore, plentiful and varied mini-games to play, and arguably the most impressive visuals on the platform. It’s almost unbelievable just how much you’ll enjoy wasting away in this virtual paradise.

The upcoming MargaritaVille Online tasks players with creating a beach oasis, but there's more to the game than just sun and surf. Like caverns, for instance. And party pirates. Here Gamezebo gets an exclusive early look at John LaFeet’s Party Caves, where the game gets a little bit darker. But of course it still knows how to party

2011 was a year of many things. But arguably one of the strangest things to happen to social games was the seemingly sudden explosion of celebrity appearances. A number of prominent pop stars, both alive and dead, made their way into our favorite Facebook games and the results were mixed. Sometimes it fit, sometimes it didn’t, and other times you could visit farms filled with sheep on motorcycles.