Crenk » game

Big Fish Games Release New Facebook Game: My Tribe

Steven Finch — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:15:55 +0000

It has been announced by Big Fish Games that they are releasing their second Facebook game, My Tribe.

My Tribe is a game that’s similar to the popular iPhone/iPod Touch game virtual villagers, in that each of the people in the tribe have individual statistics and personalities, and grow in age over time. They may be rebellious and not listen to your orders when you’re not playing the game, and this adds a dimension that makes the game different from games like Restaurant City or Cafe World, where your workers are pretty much brainless as they follow your orders.

“With a player’s guidance, tribespeople develop areas of specialty – for example, construction – to help them accomplish larger tasks like building a ship or a storehouse. They grow from child to youth to adult, learn new skills, have children of their own, and eventually become respected elders. And because gameplay is continuous – your tribe is living, learning, fishing, eating and surviving even when your computer is turned off – it’s especially important for players to check in regularly on the tribe’s progress.”

The social elements come in the fact that players can travel to friends’ islands and help their friends with creating customized clothing and accessories, building shelter, providing food, and making scientific discoveries, all to gain levels and cash.

FourSquare X: Can I Play FourSquare on My Laptop

Steven Finch — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:48:20 +0000

Until very recently there was no way to play Foursquare unless you had an iPhone or similar. Now there is a slick new app called FoursquareX that lets you play the popular geolocation game FourSquare on a MacBook, iMac, or similar.

FoursquareX has the ability to track your friends as they check in at different places, but if you have a mobile computer like a MacBook Pro, you’ll be able to check in, track other checkins, and play the game as you move around.

To get started, you need to start out by getting a Foursquare account, which you can do by going to the company’s Web site at PlayFoursquare.com. If you have an iPhone, Android phone or Palm phone, grab the app too: it’s pretty darn fun.

Now grab the FoursquareX application and start it up.

Petville on Facebook

Steven Finch — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 18:42:53 +0000

Petville seems to be the latest game that is rising fast on Facebook. In Petville users can raise, dress and care for a pet that you create. Visit your friends’ houses and play with their pets to earn coins you can use to make your own house the coolest on the block!

For FaceBook game players, here is another game that will allow you to create your own character, name your pet, give him/her a home. The game was developed by Zynga (the kings of everything Ville!)

Cities XL on Mac: Free Download of Popular Sim Cities Game

Steven Finch — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 21:18:24 +0000

Cities XL is from a French company who thought they would bring out their own take on Sim Cities.

Sadly though they haven’t developed a Mac version of the game, and at the time of writing don’t intend on creating one. You could set up a bootcamp partition and run Cities XL via Windows, but well…I’d rather not have to boot out of OS X to play the game.

Several hours later I have Cities XL running on my 13″ Macbook Pro without using bootcamp or running something like Parallels. Here’s how.

Downloads

I should note that I purchased the download via Steam because the Cities XL site’s purchasing section wasn’t working at the time. These instructions should work fine with a standard install.

You’ll also need to download the latest version of Darwine here.

Installation

Install Darwine as would any normal program.

From the dropdown menu in Darwine (top right hand side of the screen) select Winetricks. In Winetricks install Direct X 9, MS .NET 2.0 and MS Visual C++ 2008 libraries. If Direct X 9 doesn’t install, don’t worry too much because the game will attempt to install it when it is setting itself up. If you have ongoing problems though, grab Direct X 9 from Microsoft direct and try running it.

Install Cities XL.

I had a problem with graphics, although being on a low end Macbook Pro might have had more to do with it. If you get a popup about failure to deal with screen resolution (or similar) the way around it is to change the settings in Wine to “emulate a virtual desktop” (Wine Configuration/ Graphics.) You will need to restart Wine + X11 for the change to take place.

Thats is!

The game itself: not bad, although the online component is over priced and underwhelming so far

Cross Fire: Free Online Multiplayer Shooting Game

Steven Finch — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:16:47 +0000

Cross Fire is a completely free online multiplayer First Person Shooting game.

Gameplay:

It is very clear that the developers have aimed to just build a normal game that everyone will want to play. No photon lasers, No energy fields, Just some blood and guts.

Due to the developers spending less time on the flashy features, they spent a lot more time tweaking the features and trying to provide a complete and finished gaming experience.

Game Modes:

Search and Destroy: You win by either eliminating all members of the oposing team, or by completing set objectives (e.g. defusing or planting a bomb). This game mode is usually played in multiple rounds. The team with the most rounds won being the victor.

Team Deathmatch: An explanation shouldn’t be needed here. Eliminating as many members of the enemy party as possible is your sole mission. There’s only one round, with instant respawns for whoever is killed. The victor is the team that reaches the kill limit first.

Elimination: Similar to Team Deathmatch, only without instant respawn. The team that manages to eliminate all members of the enemy party wins a round. A set number of rounds needs to be won to win the game.

Ghost Mode: This is an innovating and unique game mode, newly introduced by Cross Fire. The Black List members are invisible, but have only a knife and C4. They need to blow up a target, but can be heard by the Global Risk members, who are visible, but have access to all weapons.

Download Cross Fire

Cross Fire is a free 268 MB download. It’s intensive action, but light graphics ensure great fun on both the stronger and weaker computer systems.

You can register here, download it here, and please write down your opinion in the comments section below.

Classic Nintendo Gaming In Your Hands

Luis Sandoval — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 03:33:01 +0000

There’s a lot to be said of the games from our past. I’m just as big a fan of the modern day gaming systems as anyone else, but sometimes we just want to play the classics and by now some of our older systems have collected too much dust, or they just don’t work like they should. So teaming up for a game of Contra, or picking up a game of Spy Hunter just isn’t feasible.

What if it was possible to dust those cartridges off, pop them into an updated gaming system and pick up where your elementary inner child left off. Check out the Retro Mini X Handheld gaming system that does just that. The site claims it’s the “Gameboy that never was,” for all of us that hold the classics near and dear to our heart. Not into the 2.4 inch LED screen? No worries, the handheld system comes with A/V connectors so that you can play on your TV.

For the small price of $50, you get the handheld system, two controllers, and a zapper for those classics like Hogan’s Alley and the infamous Duck Hunt. While the system does not come with any games, that’s why it’s important to dig out those boxes and get those games ready for the wee hours of the night that you’re sure to spend playing these classics again.

Windosill: Free Brain Teasing Game

Dean Sherwin — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 09:45:30 +0000

The Internet is full of little puzzles, games and downright impossible mazes. Windosill is a cool new game that I found which follows along the same lines.

Basically, the game window is really big and each level – or Windosill- consists of a room or scene of sorts. It’s up to you to find the small cube to place above the exiting door in order to proceed. The first couple of levels are easy but at the minute I’m stuck on the level with the big bird! (If anyone gets past this tell me how!)

You can download the full game but at a small price. Other than that, you can play half of the game on-line for free. You can also download the game whether or not you activate the full thing for ‘better performance’.

Check it out here if you fancy wasting hours…and hours…

Tap Tap Revenge 3 Launching Today on an iPhone Near You

Steven Finch — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 16:26:13 +0000

According to Techcrunch and TUAW the new Tap Tap Revenge 3 game for the iPhone and iPod touch should be live by now, but still doesnt seem to be.

The new app brings with it plenty of gameplay enhancements, but the biggest change here is support for in-app song purchases. This means you’ll be able to choose from a roster of premium songs created by well known artists and buy the ones you like — giving users more choice than ever, and giving Tapulous a lucrative new source of revenue.

Tapulous CEO Bart Decrem says that the company has sold over 500,000 premium apps at $5 each, so obviously they weren’t exactly struggling. Now they’re be able to sell track packs through a single application.

Up until now the basic Tap Tap Revenge games have been completely free with Tapulous only selling premium games for specific artists. However, with the release of the iPhone 3.0 firmware in which now allows in-app purchasing, this now means that Tap Tap Revenge 3 costs $0.99 in the USA iTunes store.

Here’s a sampling of the tracks available:

BLINK 182 – “Adam’s Song” / “All the Small Things” / “Dammit” / “First Date” / “The Rock Show” / “What’s My Age Again”

FALL OUT BOY – “Thanks for the Memories” / “Sugar, We’re Goin Down” / “Dance, Dance” / “This Ain’t a Scene, It’s an Arms Race” / “I Don’t Care” / “American Suitehearts”

FOO FIGHTERS – “The Pretender” / “Wheel” / “My Hero” / “Best of You” / “Monkey Wrench” / “All My Life”

THE KILLERS – “Mr. Brightside” / “Sweet Talk” / “Human” / “When We Were Young” / “All These Things That I’ve Done” / “Read My Mind”

Giant Tetris: This Is One Of The Best Video (Arcade) Games I Have Seen In a While

Steven Finch — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 09:16:59 +0000

This kind of thing only happens in Japan. Giant Tetris! (via Kotaku Japan)

Commodore 64 Emulator for iPhone and iPod Touch Has Been Approved by Apple for iTunes Store

Steven Finch — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 11:30:54 +0000

A previously rejected iPhone title offering emulated play of Commodore 64 titles has been approved after the developer made changes to align it with Apple’s SDK. It allows the iPhone to act as a system that was what was once Apple’s staunch competitor.

According to a report by TouchArcade, Manomio’s $4.99 C64 title was rejected in June despite having lined up all the proper licensing rights.

Best Places To Play Risk Online

Steven Finch — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 15:16:08 +0000

Have you ever wanted to take over the world in the same way as either Microsoft or Google? Well there is a board game called Risk that used to be very popular, and I thought I would provide everyone with a couple of places to play the game for free online.

The Facebook application – At last this may truly be it… a Facebook application that is not either completely pointless or annoys the hell out of me. Attack! is similar to Risk and can be played against your friends or anyone else who has the application (2% of Facebook users apparently). Just be aware, no matter how good you think you are… everyone else is better!

Java Risk – When you visit the download site this game sure may not look pretty and you may even think it not worth downloading at all. However the actual game is fairly decent. There are a large range of options and player AI, and even a number of extra maps to download when you get bored of the original. Luckily too, Java Risk doesn’t seem to have gone the way of most small developer games and still gets the odd update. The last one was only a month or so ago and provided an installer for Vista.

Conquest – If you want a nice simple and easy game of Risk then Conquest is a good choice. Unfortunately the AI is very predictable and can be counted on to make the exact same moves and strategies again and again. What this game is especially suited for is Pocket PC’s and you can download a version designed just for that right here.

Play online with LandGrab – This is maybe the best online Risk game I’ve seen. After registering for an account you can start playing. If you particularly like it then you can also purchase a premium account.

iCascade: Rotating Addictive Puzzle Game for iPhone / iPod Touch

Steven Finch — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 09:24:10 +0000

Everyday we get some interesting emails from iPhone application developers who are looking for a bit of extra press and insight into their apps. Today I thought I would run through iCascade a new game for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

iCascade is a puzzle game that comes with a new addictive gameplay. Try to find the right place for your blocks, but think ahead because the playing field rotates! Get points for 3 or more contiguous blocks. iCascade is a very addictive game that really promotes a huge amount of thought process (well for me anyways).

Download from iTunes here.

Mooch: P2P Video Game Trading

Steven Finch — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 17:37:12 +0000

Mooch has just announced that it has launched its peer-to-peer video game trading website to the public. Mooch provides video game players and owners an affordable and simple way to trade their old and used video games.

Instead of exchanging used titles at retail stores for a fraction of the original price, Mooch subscribers can enter a list of the games they have as well as the games they want, and Mooch’s patent-pending trading engine goes to work. Each step of the trading process is intelligently automated, including finding potential trades, balancing each trade, and even allowing users to print postage directly from the site.

A limited number of free accounts will be available during the beta period. Following the free beta, membership to Mooch will require an annual subscription fee of $19.99.

Cmune: Great 3D Browser-based Multiplayer 3D Shooter Game

Steven Finch — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 10:57:22 +0000

The other day I came across a great new multiplayer 3D shooter game. The site is Cmune and they claim to have the first browser-based multiplayer 3D shooter built to be social.

Cmune allows users to play a 3D paintball shooter game within any web browser. Additionally you can play the game in either Windows, Mac or even within Facebook. The game itself is very simple, a user needs to just download a small plugin and then they can create or join in on a game. Paradise paintball has very simple controls and is easy to use and graphics are ok but nothing out of this world.

When the site first opens you are able to choose which game you want to join or even able to create a game and play against your friends. Cmune is a great time waster!!

Dell Download Store Launches With Games, Music and Software at Great Prices

Steven Finch — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 20:49:50 +0000

Dell has finally launched their new download store. Dell has partnered with French company Nexway to release the download store which offers music, games and software. The Dell download store allows all worldwide users to purchase games and software, but there currently is a restriction on music because of “publishing and licencing agreements with [Dell's] digital music partners.”

The music files will be available from major labels and will include leading artists, all without digital right managements solutions as MP3 files.

The store currently sells the Brit Awards 2009 for £9.99; both Play.com and Amazon did not have the album available for digital download.

Single tracks are available for 79 pence but the user interface lacks the intuitiveness of other available solutions like 7digital.

Amazon Launches Casual Gaming Download Store

Steven Finch — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 22:01:51 +0000

Amazon has launched on Tuesday a new video game download store. The site itself can be found here. The initial library offers over 600 games which are all under $10. All casual games are currently for the PC platform, but Im sure this will branch out in the near future.

The store allows customers to download and try any game for 30 minutes, after which point they may choose to pay for the full version.

“We have 88 million active customers who can appreciate the convenience of the true amazon shopping experience combined with the casual games experience,” Greg Hart, VP of video games and software at Amazon, told Kotaku.

While the service currently lacks some of the more popular casual games from top publishers, it will look to expand its selection.

Amazon recently acquired casual game developer Reflexive, which counts a library of over 1,000 games.

iAqua: New Puzzle Game For iPhone and iPod Touch

Steven Finch — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 08:26:10 +0000

iAqua is a puzzle game with the aim of removing all Aquas by rotating each Aqua. If more than four Aquas in same color are aligned in either vertical or horizontal, or they are aligned in a square, Aquas will pop. I cant remember the name of the game exactly but this is very similar to a game already on MSN. However, by making combinations you are able to push your score higher and higher. Players can compete to have the worlds best score.

iAqua is currently for sale in the iTunes Apps store for $0.99 (iPhone) and Free (Trial Version). Click here to check it out.