iGame Radio

Are you miffed when you waste your morning clicking away at Bejeweled Blitz only to have your top score obliterated by your Facebook-hacking nephew? Annoyed as heck when your level 100 deadly ninja army is defeated by a cheating level one wimp? Ever wonder what these jerks are like in real life? Apparently they act about the same in person as they do online…
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Machinarium is back, and this time for the iPad 2. Amanita Design has finished their port of their popular Indie strategy puzzler, but only to the iPad 2. We spoke to Jakub Dvorsky of Amanita, and he regretfully stated that to keep all of the animations and details, they needed more memory than a 256MB iPad would give. Follow the path of the little robot searching for his girlfriend in this wonderful post-human game of love and revenge. The iPad 2 version is available for $4.99.

Sketch Games has released a new take on an old idea. ArkanoArena takes the arcade game Arkanoid and merges them with some new gameplay mechanics and great Steampunk visuals. You won’t just be blasting breaks in the traditional sense…you’ve got powerups and upgrades to add into the fray as well. This game that was previously released for iPad is now out for iPhone for $1.99.

Lastly, PopCap Games has released a major update for Plants vs Zombies for iPhone. This wildly popular tower defense game pitting zombie against plants now sports nine mini-games from the original PC/Mac version, a new micro-game, and Game Center Achievements. The mini-games include favorites Walnut Bowling 2, Bobsled Bonanza, and ZomBotany 2, while the micro-game seems to be a take off on the original digging to China achievement in the iPad version, called “Race to China”. Mini-games come in packs which can be purchased through in-game coinage earned, or purchased via in-app purchases of $0.99.

• Machinarium
• ArkanoArena for iPhone
• Plants vs. Zombies

Cause you can never get enough talking unicorns, PopCap Games has announced the launch of Peggle HD for the iPad. Peggle HD includes Game Center support and an in-app purchase option for the complete Peggle Nights.

Peggle combines elements of pinball, pool and pachinko to create a completely different kind of game experience. The game challenges players to use skill, strategy and luck to clear progressively more difficult levels of orange pegs by firing a small silver ball from the top of the screen. Stationary and moving obstacles along with numerous power-ups and special effects combine with dynamically-assigned peg colors to make each level unique every time it’s played.

The Game Center support includes 29 achievements, with cutesy names like First Bjorn. There’s also a Trophy Room that you can win awards and build a shrine to yourself.

A quick jump onto the App Store reveals that players are complaining, however, about the graphics, declaring them to be fuzzy or blurry and difficult to see or read the fonts. Hopefully PopCap will have a fix for this issue very quickly.

For a limited time, Peggle HD will be available for an introductory price of $2.99 with the in-app purchase option of Peggle Nights for $0.99, meaning you can get two games for $3.99. Thereafter, the games will be available for $4.99 and $1.99, respectively.

 

What’s inside this episode:

• Host Omaha Sternberg goes it alone to talk about the week’s news in Mac and iOS gaming. First up, Omaha talks about the rumored PopCap Games purchase, and whether it makes sense for EA Games to be the buyer.
• Paragon Studios announced that City of Heroes is going to a hybrid payment model called City of Heroes Freedom that includes a free to play membership. She’ll talk about the different memberships and what this means for City of Heroes.
• Tim Langdell, the trademark troll, got soundly sued in the UK court. Omaha talks about the depth of his fraud and why corporations have a responsibility to not enable this behavior.
• LEGO Universe also announced a hybrid membership model with a F2P membership, but this one’s a bit different from CoH. Omaha talks about what this means for LEBO Universe.
• Omaha briefly details EVE Online’s Incarna release.
• Phil Harrison thinks Apple will BE the game industry in the future. Omaha gives a brief view of what that might look like.
• Omaha mentions her sponsorship of this year’s uDevGames Contest and reveals the poll results from last week.

Music Notes:

• Digital Droo produced our theme music here at iGame Radio.
• Matt Jarvis for featuring music from Osmos.
• Bobby “Glorian” Slavov and Victor Stoyanov for featuring music from Eschalon: Book 1.

PopCap Games has launched an auction of cool and unique PopCap art pieces on eBay whose proceeds will support two nonprofit organizations. Launched last week, the auction will continue through July 12 in a series of weekly auctions.

The collection includes a 6 foot-by-6 foot DJing Plants vs. Zombie painting and other sketches, a Zuma-themed ceramic tea set, a Peggle-themed ceramic sake set, original hand-drawn concept art from several PopCap franchises, and more. There will be nearly 40 one-of-a-kind items up for bid, each representing a piece of PopCap history. All of it is for sale with 100% of the proceeds benefiting the Starlight Children’s Foundation (U.S.) and SpecialEffect (U.K.) to help children with serious illnesses and their families cope with their challenges.

The items will be auctioned in four waves of nine items each available for just 7 days. The first week’s worth of items will finish bidding in just under an hour, and the amounts show how much fans are interested. The personalized sketch that will be done with input from the buyer post auction opened bidding at $1 and was well over $400 yesterday. The second week’s bidding has already begun, so bid early and often!

UPDATE: PopCap Games sent me a note that their update has been delayed till mid-June. Ah well, so many zombies to take care of anyway…

Com2uS has released what they call the “definitive tower defense game”…Tower Defense: Lost Earth. Available for iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad, Lost Earth has players journeying to the future with the last expedition from earth as they battle to gather resources and defend humanity on a hostile alien planet with endless waves of enemies. With over 40 campaigns, 6 challenge maps, and 5 world maps encompassing mountain ranges, ice lands, lava terrain and more, Tower Defense: Lost Earth includes 4 game play modes, 10 types of enemies, 4 weapons and up to 9 tower types, with many more in DLC upgrades coming soon. Tower Defense: Lost Earth is available for $2.99 for iPhone/iPod Touch and $4.99 for the iPad.

PopCap Games has announced a major update that will happen in mid-June to its immensely popular game Plants vs Zombies for iPhone and iPod Touch. The flower defense game pitting zombies against the powerful vegetation features additional content, mini-games, and achievements. Included in the update is the Zen Garden to the mix, wherein you can now raise your own plants for coinage. More updates are promised for later in the year, but as always these are all free.

Ricky Carmichael’s Motocross Matchup has also received an update. The free-to-play racing title is based on the motorcycle racing career of all-time champion Ricky Carmichael, and includes a full motocross racing experience complete with GameCenter-supported online play and voice chat, graphics with full retina support, and tons of customizations for your bike and ride. The update adds in retuned pricing schemes, unlimited gas for unlimited racing, and many player requested fixes. You can dowload the update through the iTunes App Store.

PopCap Games has announced a new experimental label to release weird titles through. 4th & Battery will allow PopCap developers free reign to try different ideas in short formats for PC, Facebook, and iPhone.

Named for the intersection in Seattle where PopCap’s headquarters are located, 4th & Battery will release smaller, simpler, and sometimes edgier games…some of which will be aimed at mature audiences. “4th & Battery is a pressure valve intended to keep our heads from exploding,” explained Ed Allard, Executive Vice President of Studios at PopCap. “4th & Battery gives us a way to quickly try really strange or marginal ideas, and to give our designers a safe area to hone their chops.”

The first title to be released is one such game. Unpleasant Horse is a strikingly unpleasant horse that sports wings and advances through the game by destroying small birds and landing on more pleasant horses from above. Landing atop other horses enables the player to force them earthward into a perpetual meat grinder for extra points and special bonuses. Available later this month for the iPhone and iPod touch through the App Store, Unpleasant Horse will be released for free, though whether the game will be a freemium title with in-app purchases or not is still unknown.

 

What’s inside this episode:

• A review of Snark Busters: Welcome to the Club, by Alawar Entertainment. A unique and different take on the hidden object genre. A great set of puzzles to wrap your brain around, set inside the fashionable theme of steampunk. Definitely a keeper.
  
• Also, a review of Bejeweled 3, by PopCap Games. Bejeweled 3 doesn’t bring anything new to the table as far as gameplay mechanics, but it doesn’t need to. It’s still addictive as hell, and shines with PopCap’s signature love of games. We’ve got another winner.
  

Appular has released Neo Defender 2, which was announced earlier in the month. A modernized Asteroids set in deep space, your craft must be defended at all costs. As the sole defender of the last surviving craft, you must avoid defeat by blasting away illuminated geometric space enemies that multiply and disperse!

Freeverse has released a new freemium game, Flick Winter Carnival. In keeping with their flick franchise, Flick Winter Carnival allows you to play all of those carnival games of old with a flick of the finger. Included are Bottle Smash, Old West Shooting Gallery, Ring Toss, and Fortune Teller…where you can get your fortune told by Voltare the Wise. Or you can get your photo taken at the photo booth. Freeverse is touting the physics within the game, delivered by the NVIDIA PhysX engine, and console-quality graphics. The game also includes in-app purchases, like the Bling pack and the Adventure pack. The game is free for download from the App Store, and includes both an iPhone and iPad version.

Entering the App Store with some totally new IP, PopCap Games has released Escape Rosecliff Island, a hidden object game for both iPhone and iPad. After an unexpected storm, your left shipwrecked on a mysterious private island. Solving puzzles through 25 scenes is your only way out. PopCap has included three game modes, Island Mode, Unlimited Seek & Find, and a mystery bonus game mode that is unlockable within the game. On-demand hints and five different types of mini-games round out the game. Escape Rosecliff Island is available on the App Store for $4.99 for the iPad version, $2.99 for the iPhone version.

PopCap Games has released Bejeweled 3 into the wild, and as those who are fans of Penny Arcade know, we urge you to avoid the trap door and the darkness within. You can get the game today on PopCap’s website, as well as popular portals and retail outlets, for US $19.95.

The first true sequel to the franchise in the past 6 years, Bejeweled 3 boasts twice the game modes of its predecessor as well as eight mini-games and a complete revision of sound and graphics. Included are four new “secret” modes…Butterflies, Diamond Mine, Ice Storm and Poker…that bring new interpretations on the Bejeweled theme.

Along with the standards, Classic and Zen, Lightening mode has been added for a bit of Bejeweled Blitz action. Butterflies and Ice Storm seem to be time variations, where you have only a certain time to get the matches before losing. In Poker, you have to create better poker hands from matches, while avoiding so-called “outlawed” hands. Diamond Mine involves matching at the bottom of the screen and gathering gold as you do.

The game has been released for the PC and Mac. The system requirements include:
Mac OS X 10.5-10.6.x
Intel Core Duo 1.66GHz or better processor
1+GB (minimum)
320+MB of harddrive space
128+MB (minimum), 256+MB (recommended) of VRAM
An Internet connection is required to register/unlock game trials — including those delivered via CD-ROM