If you watched cartoons growing up (who didn’t?), chances are extremely likely you’ve grown up watching the Looney Tunes or Scooby Doo. These classic television series’ have seen so many reboots, re-runs, and adaptations that anyone from five years old to 50 has had a major serialized show feature these iconic characters. Warner Brothers, in hopes to create an iconic environment for children, has announced Cartoon Universe, a new online free-to-play world.

As a character, Spongebob Squarepants is perfectly suited for the Diner Dash formula. After all, he is probably the only creature in existence who thrives as an employee in the world of fast food. And while the little sponge certainly seems happy enough in SpongeBob Diner Dash Deluxe, the game breaks down into a pretty basic Diner Dash experience. It’s fun for a while, sure, but given the playful nature of the SpongeBob universe, it could have gone that extra mile to be especially memorable.

KingsIsle Entertainment, the people who brought you Wizard101, are at it again with an exciting new family-friendly fantasy world called Pirate101.

When I heard I’d be reviewing Shaun the Sheep - Fleece Lightning, I was torn. On one hand, I thought, it’s an “advergame,” a hybrid genre home to gems like this. On the flipside, however, the brand it’s married to is that of a razor-sharp children’s show by the creators of Wallace & Gromit. Could this Chillingo-published title rise above dismal standards to provide - you know - fun? Spoiler alert: Heck yes.

Console games that are tied into movies generally fail for any number of reasons, the most notable of which is a very short development cycle. With the advent of mobile gaming, games based off movies finally have a medium where the short development cycle isn’t necessarily as big of a hindrance. Unfortunately for The Lorax, a game by Miniclip.com that ties in with the Dr. Seuss movie that was recently in theaters, you’re still getting the stunted, boring experience that you’ve come to expect from movie games.

The creators of the incredibly popular mobile title Smurfs’ Village are taking another pass at the sim genre with the release of Fumbies: The Cloud Creatures. Taking many a page from its predecessor, the game combines the familiar with a very Sims and Pet Society-style feel, granting players the ability to care for a variety of quirky and cute bear… squirrel things. Relatively basic, the core of the app doesn’t feel all that unique, but it is polished with a rather original presentation and a good number of perks are peppered throughout.

When Kinectimals debuted on the Xbox 360’s newly minted Kinect motion sensor, it instantly tugged at your heartstrings. One thing that we humans cannot resist is cute, cuddly young animals, and Kinectimals delivered it in spades on your TV screen—and now you can get a similar experience on iOS for a fraction of the investment price. While the game is short on variety, it’s filled to the brim with different variations on mini-games and is sure to please its target market that is starved for all things adorable.

Tiny Wings was a certifiable hit. A nice and simple swoop and glide mechanic with controls boiled down to a single touch made it easy for anyone to pick up and enjoy. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of that perfect dive-bomb, skimming the Earth and then sailing above the clouds in a beautiful arc. But simple and addicting iOS games means inevitable heir apparent, trying to capture lightning in a bottle for the 2nd (or 3rd or 10th) time. Can Woody Woodpecker do it?

If I were to sit down and make a list of my all time favourite video games, Cave Story would rank pretty high on that list. An indie gem in the Metroidvania fashion, there really isn’t a single thing about that game that I don’t love. So when I heard that Studio Pixel, the one man team behind that cult classic, had just released a new iPhone game, I rushed to the App Store to grab a copy. Now that I’ve played it, I’ll simply say this – don’t expect to like Azarashi simply because you liked Cave Story.

There are two truisms about the iPhone, smart phones, and tablets. One, kids love them across all senses – touch, taste, sight, and sound. And two, everyone in the San Francisco Bay Area that works in high tech or games and has kids under the age of five, wants to fix this problem and create a kids app.

Unfortunately, most education and apps for kids suck. When kids are not mindlessly playing Angry Birds because that is the only game their mothers know exists, they are getting very little back education-wise from their time on smart phones and tablets.

It was then interesting for me to read in Techcrunch about San Francisco-based FingerPrint Digital, whose educational kids game apps and play network have been played for over 2 million minutes this month.