PopCap Games and Mindscape has released four titles under the Casual Fever brand to retailers in Australia and New Zealand.
Vacation Quest Australia (review) allows players to explore 28 famous Australian locations and immerse themselves in Australian trivia and lingo while they find over 2,200 items in the landscape and search for hidden boomerangs. There are achievements and bonus locations to be found.
Players will wake up during their vacation on the Emerald Star cruise ship and find themselves alone in Escape the Emerald Star. The ship is in disarray and players must find over 2000 hidden items and conquer seven mini games to escape the ship. The game features 25 locations and two bonus play modes.
Mystery P.I. Curious Case of Counterfeit Cove brings players to Whaler’s Cover, a small village in New England that specializes in tourism. Unfortunately the town is having a serious counterfeiting issues. Players will take the role of the detective hired to crack the counterfeiting ring. Players will experience 25 different locations, over 2,200 hidden objects, six unique mini games, and two bonus play modes.
The last title is a two for one pack of mahjong games, Mahjong Escape Ancient Japan and Mahjong Escape Ancient China. In Mahjong Escape Ancient Japan, players will play through 200 levels that span over 12 eras of Japanese history. There are three difficulty settings, six tile designs, over 20 hand-painted backgrounds, and two game modes. Mahjong Escape Ancient China features 175 levels, special power-up tiles, 15 hand painted backgrounds, five relaxing sound tracks, six tile designs, and 11 dynasties to explore.
All four titles are now available at retailers for $19.95 each.
Halo 4 fans will be delighted to know that the making of featurette for the Warthog Chase scene in the Halo 4 webseries: ‘Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn’ has just been released by 343 Studios. The Warthog was created by the amazing WETA workshop and as such, is more awesome than the entirety of the Halo universe.
As a small promotion for The Walking Dead season 3, AMC dressed several people up as Zombies to roam New York City to see if the dead can live among us.
Suffice to say that many screams were heard that day, especially with the news of people going crazy from bath salts and seemingly performing zombie-like actions, such as eating another person’s face off. The dead were seen shuffling through the sidewalks of New York, performing day to day actions from their jobs of driving a cab, to eating a famed New York hotdog.
Some people reacted as any social media savvy person would do – whip out their cameras and take photos. Granted, if a real zombie apocalypse happened, many of these zombies would probably not be ignoring the myriad of fresh flesh, but would people stop and oogle at the fantastic special effects? Or would they be genre savvy and take it as the beginnings of the zombie invasion?
2K Sports announced that they will be teaming up with Shawn “JAY Z” Carter for NBA 2k13. Jay Z will be the Executive Producer for the game. JAY Z’s interest has branched from music into sports through his part ownership of the 40/40 sports clubs and the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets. He recently helped create the new black and white logo and visual style of the club. JAY Z will share his artistic vision in crafting the style of the game and choose the soundtrack of the game.
The soundtrack has been announced to be the following:
Artist:
Title:
The Hours
Ali in the Jungle
Too Short
Blow the Whistle (Main)
Eric B. and Rakim
I Ain’t No Joke
Phoenix
1901
JAY Z
Pump it Up (Freestyle)
Puff Daddy and the Family
Victory (feat. Notorious B.I.G. & Busta Rhymes)
Daft Punk
Around The World (Radio Edit)
Santigold
Shove It (feat. Spank Rock)
Kanye West
Amazing
JAY Z
Run This Town
The Dirty Projectors
Stillness is the Move
Nas
The World is Yours
Coldplay
Viva La Vida
Roy Ayers
We Live in Brooklyn, Baby
Justice
Stress
JAY Z
The Bounce
Kanye West
We Major (feat. Nas & Really Doe)
Mobb Deep
Shook Ones, Pt. II
Meek Mill
Ima Boss – Instrumental
U2
Elevation
JAY Z
Public Service Announcement
JAY Z
On To The Next One
JAY Z
H.A.M. (Instrumental)
Kanye West
Mercy (feat. Big Sean, Pusha T, and 2 Chainz)
NBA 2K13 will be released October 2nd, 2012 in North America, October 5th, 2012 internationally for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, PSP, Wii, and PC. A Wii U version will be released during the holiday system. Those who pre-order at participating retailers will receive the NBA All-Star content on day one for free.
Are you a fan of the multiplayer intense Awesomenauts? Do you also own a PC? Then you will be pleased to know that you can now buy the Awesomenauts videogame on the PC platform.
After a long period of not appearing on the PC platform, the game has finally arrived on the PC through the Steam distribution service. There are also plans to release a Mac compatible version of the game in the future.
Gamers can pick the game up for $9.99 / £6.99 / €9.99. The game also comes with some extra goodies for the videogame Team Fortress 2. That’s right, if you pick up Awesomenauts before September 5, you get a hat, a medal and a jetpack.
One last thing, there is also the availability of the games soundtrack on the Steam service. Players should definitely look at picking that up in conjunction with the game.
Check out the trailer embedded below for more info.
Ubisoft released some information, two images and a video walkthrough for Far Cry 3‘s co-op mode. This video introduces the four co-op character and explains the story line for the co-op campaign. The campaign takes place six months before the single player campaign and stars the four players attempting to take back money stolen from them. Players will be able to customize their load outs to suit their play style. Players in co-op mode will have access to skills and abilities found in the multiplayer mode and will be required to use them to assist their team in completing their objectives. In addition, each chapter stars a small competition that will pit players against each other in a skills competition.
In addition, Ubisoft has released a full background on the story and characters featured in Far Cry 3’s co-op mode.
STORY:
When a twisted ship captain sells his black market cruise liner and everyone on it to a warlord named Hoyt, only four crewmbers have the courage to fight back. They band together to fight off the pirates and recover the safe that holds the ship’s profits and the crew’s earnings.
But the captain has different plans in mind. He escapes, taking the money from the safe with him, and takes refuge on Hoyt’s island.
Now, the four survivors must claw their way through the jungle to reclaim what they have lost and exact revenge against the man who wronged them.
CALLUM:
Growing up in the projects of Glasgow, Callum developed an early attachment to knives. At six, he won his first knife fight. At 12, he was already leading a street gang of his own.
After years of dodging serious trouble, Callum’s ruthless spirit finally took its toll. He picked a fight with the wrong man, snapped and incidentally beat him to a pulp. Hunted by police and gang members, he fled Scotland and found a job on the SS Astrid.
Callum has a cynical, black-humored point of view, but becomes aggressive, ruthless and, at times, psychotic when provoked.
LEONARD:
Leonard started out like any other cop in Philly: a good Catholic boy, following in his father’s footsteps. But as he climbed the ranks, his ethics dimmed. He planted evidence, stole from busts, and wasn’t above negotiating a favor from a hot blonde in place of a ticket.
Leonard got things done, no matter what. But in the end, his loose definition of the rules cost him his gun and badge. A cop buddy pulled a few strings to land him a security gig on board the SS Astrid.
In battle, he’s the top of the food chain. He fights with his gut and will use any excuse to crack a vulgar joke.
TISHA:
In her home outside of Las Vegas, Tisha learned to take charge from an early age. Her binge-drinking mother and absent father left her the head of the household, and she’s been a leader ever since.
Tisha joined the army as a combat medic straight out of high school and was respected for her aggressive and focused personality. After four tours overseas, a commanding officer with a personal grudge managed to get her diagnosed with a pre-existing personality disorder, although knocking him out might have had something to do with it. She was booted without benefits. Embittered and sick of home, she found a job on a website for remote medics on board the SS Astrid.
Now that she’s back in the fight, she finds herself more suited to guns than needles and ruthlessly takes on the enemy face-to-face without hesitation.
MIKHAIL:
As a street orphan in St. Petersburg, Mikhail’s youth was marked with abuse and abandonment. It wasn’t until his teenage years that he found his path and fell in with in with an elite league of criminals, known for its strict code of conduct that extolled honor and resistance against authority.
After two stints in jail and years of devotion, he was crowned a leader of his gang and became the right-hand man to his mentor. But when he fell in love and eloped, breaking his league’s code, he was forced to flee and put his wife, Katya, and newborn daughter into hiding. Now he’s working aboard the SS Astrid to earn what money he can to start a new life outside of Russia.
Always one step ahead, he’s calm and collected in battle. His mercy extends to no one.
Far Cry 3 is slated November 29th 2012 in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, November 30th in the UK, and December 4th in North America.
Are one of those players that frequently take the top place in leaderboards within your own country? Then perhaps this competition shall catch your interest.
EBGames and Square-Enix have announced the Hitman: Absolution Sniper Challenge competition here in Australia. Players with the highest scores on the XboxLive, Playstation Network and PC leaderboards will eligible for monthly prizes. However, there is a catch. The catch is that the competition is only open to gamers who pre-order the game at EBGames and registered at the website here and here.
Prizes Include Sennheiser Headphones and Various Hitman merchandise. Check out the Image below for a full list of prizes.
unFed unDead Developer: iParty Mobile Publisher: iParty Mobile Platform: iPhone (reviewed)/iPad Release: 7/7/12 Price: Free (for a limited time) –Available Here
Overview
Casual games are often seen as time wasters. Played while you are waiting for a friend, a bus, or any form of being in transit. This is probably the best time if any, to quote the immortal Homer Simpson on the topic of waiting, “the waiting game sucks, let’s play hungry hungry hippos”. But Hungry Hungry Hippos is a board game, not an iOS game, right? Well okay, that is right, but iParty! Mobile has come pretty damn close to the game with their title unFed unDead.
Gameplay
Okay so, the comparison between Hungry Hungry Hippos is a little over simplified. There is a similar theme however. If you don’t know, Hungry Hungry Hippos is a board game that features four hippos, and a whole bunch of balls in the middle. Slapping the tail extends the animals head and they eat the balls. UnFed unDead follows suit. In the middle of a room there are a bunch of tasty humans. There are four areas to swipe in around the room. Swiping will cause a zombie to burst forth from their hiding place and take a hunk of flesh from the human – thus satisfying their hunger. Of course, swapping hippos for zombies wouldn’t be all too original. So iParty Mobile have added a bit more to the game.
UnFed unDead features both a multiplayer and a single player mode. The two are essentially the same, except that one mode involves more players and a score system for each zombie. That way, you can tell who wins. Single player allows you to use all four arms, giving you a total score. The better the score, the more stars you earn. Although the game is easy to learn how to play – you just swipe at some humans and eat them – it’s incredibly hard to obtain those high scores. Normally I wouldn’t mind, but you need those stars to unlock extra levels. It was some time before I could even unlock the second level. If you aren’t put off by a challenge, by all means, you might enjoy this feature. At first I didn’t mind, but the game rapidly become very same-same. Even after reaching the next level I found myself growing tired of the swiping motion. Luckily there are unique bosses for each level. They need to attack in a specific way for you consume their tasty flesh.
Although single player may grow tiresome after a while – the multi-player side of the game is rather fun. Swiping away with a friend or two as you frantically try and eat the humans who, for some reason, always want to wander around from my zombie, is rather fun. Problem with this is, that the game is for iPhone. The screen is a bit too small, and complications arise when you bump fingers or your vision is blocked. The multi-player mode would work fantastically on an iPad – utilising the large screen so you can play with friends who don’t have the luxury to own such a device. I must admit that it is also funny when friends get struck by a “brain drain” from eating too many humans in a row, but not so funny when it happens to you yourself – ultimately loosing the fight for food!
Visuals and Audio
The game utilises a unique hand drawn visual style, and the dark colours add to the post-apocalyptic theme of zombies. However, it can often look very stark. This is most emphasised by the very minimalistic interfaces. It is interesting to have different themes for each level, and the characters (or food, rather) are always designed in an interesting manner. But still, the game can look a little bland at times. The sound design is very chaotic, with loud yelling/screaming and a lot of heavy guitar riffs. This works pretty well when you are frantically swiping away, especially in the multi-player version
Overall
unFed unDead isn’t a bad little game. It is an interesting take on some simple mechanics that I’m sure most people are familiar with. iParty Mobile’s extension of these mechanics doesn’t hurt the game at all. As a matter of fact, they work well to make it a fun multi-player game. But as much potential to have fun in multi-player as there is, this is still hindered by the screen size of an iPhone. If you aren’t swayed by the lack of high definition graphics when playing it on an iPad, then you are sure to have some fun swiping away with friends. Alternatively, you can wait and see if a specific iPad version comes out in the future.
The Entertainment Software Association welcomed three new members to their trade association today. The new members are GREE, a Japanese mobile games company specializing in social games such as Crime City and Modern War; Mad Catz, a hardware company famous for gaming accessories for a wide range of consumers that has branched into video game publishing and distribution; and NetDragon Websoft, a top Chinese gaming company specializing in online and mobile gaming for the Chinese market. The addition of these three companies expands the ESA to 34 member companies. The ESA represents US computer and video game publishers in lobbying efforts, policy and advocacy issues, and provides multiple services including research and anti-piracy programs. In addition, the ESA owns and operates the annual E3 trade fair.
Dark Vale Games, SuperGenius, and Digital Confectioners have been working together to make a new PvP MMO style game and have released the first gameplay trailer for it. Being designed as a PC exclusive third-person shooter, FORGE pits players against each other on a pure skills basis with no grinding up for levels meaning less time commitment, but more fun playing. The game sees players going at it to kill the other player characters as sacrifice to their god to give them power to escape a grim fate.
In addition, FORGE is currently running a Kick-Finish campaign on Kickstarter. What makes this a Kick-Finish campaign is that the game is pretty well along in production and will be hitting Beta testing and while the game is set to be finished no matter what, the developers are interested in getting funded through those interested looking to pre-order the game, rather than going the investor route. The campaign offers plenty of bonuses from getting greater increments of DLC for free to gaming gear like backpacks and headphones/earbuds.
Players can watch the gameplay trailer below and can check out the Kick-Finish Campaign HERE.
