games - page 26

Indie favorite Shovel Knight is getting a new, free update based on a popular bad guy from the first release.

Called Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows, the new expansion will include a whole new way to play in the Shovel Knight universe with new levels, music, art, and platforming. The villainous Plague Knight, master of alchemy, is the star of this new addition, which will come along with the original game, Shovel Knight, and as a free update to owners of the original game, which won over 70 Game of the Year awards in 2014.

Check out the video below to see all the chaos of this action-packed expansion.

It’s a bit late in the game, but YouTube has the resources and brand-name cache to take on video game streaming juggernaut, Twitch, as it turns on the lights of its much anticipated game streaming service Wednesday.

YouTube Gaming is the new portal, separate from the Google-owned video giant’s regular video website, that will aim to capture the flags, hearts and minds of gaming’s streaming technorati, some of whom can make upwards of $8,000 per month just letting people watch them play video games.

Twitch is the 800-pound gorilla of the video game streaming world; in fact, YouTube tried to buy the service sometime before Amazon snapped it up. Will YouTube bring in both current customers as well as crushing Twitch in the process?

Even if this upcoming game from indie studio Heart Machine wasn’t already so hotly anticipated, I’d be caught up in its gorgeous art style.

Hyper Light Drifter seems to channel the 8- to 16-bit visual look of games like Sword & Sworcery while also connecting classic Legend of Zelda-type environmental puzzles and Diablo-style action RPG fun together in an awesome mashup that’s sure to get my attention and money when it releases next year.

Check out the second official trailer below for a better taste of what this game is promising.

It’s the weekend, which means that it’s time to relax, kick off your shoes, and download some great apps. And, man, have we got some picks for you this week!

Check below for our list of the best of the apps of the past 7 days, which demand a place on your Apple device right this moment:

Close to two decades after it first burst onto our PlayStations and PCs, Square Enix’s RPG masterpiece Final Fantasy VII has finally landed on iOS in its original form.

Celebrate the great news by checking out the trailer below:

Bethesda’s runaway hit game Fallout Shelter is getting a well-needed dose of new stuff today, including several balance fixes, some new threats to your vault, and a handy robot assistant who can help you collect resources and scour the wasteland for you.

No-one wanted to love last year’s RollerCoaster Tycoon 4 Mobile more than I did. And no-one was therefore more crushed when the “game” turned out to be the soulless, cash-demanding corpse of a once-great franchise-turned-freemium nightmare.

If you join me in that opinion, you can rest easy since RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 just hit the App Store — bringing iOS gamers the straight-up port of the PC classic they deserve, complete with touch controls and not an in-app purchase in sight.

Apple Metal, introduced at last year’s WWDC, gives developers low-level access to the GPU to maximize the graphics and performance potential of their games. Now Android gamers are going to get a taste of that, too.

No, Apple isn’t bringing Metal to Android — but Google is adopting an alternative called Vulkan.

A brain-training iOS game can reportedly help improve the memory of patients with schizophrenia, thereby letting them lead more independent lives.

It’s the weekend, which means it’s time for Cult of Mac to run down the week’s best apps. From guerrilla filmmaking to guerrilla warfare, and silent messaging apps to RSS readers, we’ve got something for everyone.

Check out our picks below:

Minecraft is no stranger to beautiful user-made worlds, but this recreation of the deep sea feels special, even by Minecraft standards.

It actually feels like you’re in a submarine, sinking deep beaneath the waves into an underewater world.

Anyone who enjoyed last year’s smash hit Flappy Bird should take a minute to check out the excellently (if ironically) titled new iOS puzzler, Red Game Without a Great Name.

Putting you in control of a mechanical bird maneuvering its way through 60 levels of steampunk-inspired obstacles, the game takes a page from the Flappy Bird playbook, but tacks on the challenging addition of swipe-based teleportation for a genuinely original proposition.

Trust me, it’s a lot of fun!

The zombies are here and they’re standing around waiting to be blown to bits. See, these are “Stupid Zombies” and the object of this third installment in the franchise is the same as the first two: use a knowledge of physics to bounce bullets around each level and kill as many zombies as you can with each shot.

Stupid Zombies 3 offers over 100 different levels to blast your way through using a shotgun, flare gun, or grenade launcher (it’s bouncy!) to rid the world of these intellectually challenged individuals who experience undeadness.

Check out the trailer below to see what I mean.

Get ready to spend your time chomping dots and eating ghosts with this amazing version of arcade classic Pac-Man, one of the most recognizable games of the past 35 years.

Designed by the original Pac-Man creator Tōru Iwatani, Championship Edition (CE) came out for the Xbox 360 in 2007, and it was the best ever remake of the arcade original.

Now Pac-Man CE DX, an improved version of the game that released onto Xbox 360 in 2010, is here for your iPhone or Android smartphone, and I’m betting you’ll spend some serious time playing it.

Phenomenal survival game, This War of Mine, is now available on your iPad (and select Android tablets).

The team did a fantastic job of creating the atmosphere of war from the perspective of the civilian’s caught up in it. The game’s visuals, music and play mechanics all work together to create an utterly compelling experience as a non-combatant trapped in a war zone, hungry and vulnerable.

It’s something every one should play, and now that it’s on sale for mobile tablets, everyone can. Check out the launch trailer below.

Get ready to waste entire days of your life as Don’t Starve, an endlessly life-threatening survival game from Klei Entertainment, is headed to your iPad as of July 9.

Don’t Starve: Pocket Edition will only run you a tasty $4.99, and it’ll be worth every penny. I can’t count the number of hours I’ve spent walking my little Edward Gorey-inspired characters around the various environments in game, dodging spiders, avoiding fish-men and collecting tons of resources to make sure I don’t actually starve to death.

To have this sweet time-suck of a game on my iPad? Pure bliss.

Minecraft has always let you tell your own story with it’s open-world sandbox game. You can dig, build, fight zombies, and even explore amazing worlds built by other Minecraft fans and find your own way to play.

Now, though, Telltale wants you to immerse yourself in a new authored story that will be released episodically. Titled Minecraft: Story Mode, the upcoming game features a ton of famous voice-over actors to bring the story to life.

Take a listen to the trailer below and see if you can at least figure out who the main character, Jesse, is.

If you’ve been itching to put a real-life Pip-Boy on your wrist via the $120 collector’s edition of Bethesda’s highly-anticipated role playing video game, Fallout 4, and you own an iPhone 6 Plus, you may be out of luck.

The larger handset will not be supported for the wristband, but you can still run the companion app when the console and PC game comes out later this year.

If you’ve ever wanted to own a garage full of incredible super cars from the likes of Ferrari and McLaren, then you’re in luck. Virtually, at least.

NaturalMotion’s CSR Racing 2, the sequel to 2012’s hit drag racing game CSR Racing (an iTunes App Store Essential game), is headed to iOS devices soon and wow is it a tour de force of graphical fidelity. The light in the game’s garage caresses every curve of these hot automobiles, shining back the deviotion the development team obviously put into each and every loving shot.

“CSR2 lets players experience the thrill of attaining not just one, but a whole garage of the most desirable cars on the planet,” writes Torsten Reil, CEO of NaturalMotion, “and it feels as close as possible to the real thing. That’s because each car, down the stitching on the seats, is built without compromise to its real-world beauty, integrity and authenticity.”

Check out the gorgeous teaser trailer below.

Post-apocalyptic free-to-play iOS game Fallout Shelter is proving that engaging gameplay and treating your players like valued customers pays of huge dividends.

Developer Bethesda today revealed that the game, only just released, has pushed aside all other takers in the App Store, becoming the top downloaded game in 48 countries, and the top downloaded app (including games) in 25 more.

Looks like a fun, quality game that doesn’t trick you into buying in-app purchases can be successful after all.

For years, King.com’s Candy Crush Saga has been one of the App Store’s top earners. The addictive match-3 game was considered the crowning success of the freemium app genre, and although the growth of Candy Crush Saga has been slowing over time, it still dominated the App Store’s ranking charts.

But there’s a new king in town. A post-apocalyptic king. Fallout Shelter, Bethesda’s adorable nuclear bunker sim, has dethroned Candy Crush Saga as the App Store freemium game to beat.

Gamers aren’t turning to magazines — or even websites — as much as they used to. These days, you’re more likely to find them on YouTube or Twitch to watch Let’s Play videos, Minecraft machinima, or streaming League of Legends matches. It’s a bold new world, and YouTube wants to capture a little more of the video gaming market with its new YouTube Gaming site, which will also have its very own app for mobile devices and gamers on the go.

Everything YouTube gaming related will show up in this new space; now when you search for “Call” on YouTube Gaming, you can be sure that you’ll get Call of Duty videos only, and not “Call Me Maybe” music videos (as if that’s a bad thing).

Mobile games — especially those with a multiplayer component — are making more money than traditional handheld games, says a new report by mobile analytics agency, App Annie. The company partnered with the International Data Corporation to show the growth in mobile gaming over the past year, and how it’s skews toward mobile and multiplayer gaming.

Poor console makers; they hardly knew what hit them. While they still have life in them, and the games tend to be deeper and of a higher quality, it seems as if most gamers would rather just play on the device they already have with them; their iPhone or iPad.

Virtual reality had its coming out party Thursday morning with a live-stream presentation from the Oculus Rift team. VR is coming ever closer to becoming a true platform, with games that you can stream from Xbox and PC as well as those that will run directly on the Rift itself.

VR is a fledgeling technology with its share of quirks, even though it’s been a topic in computer science and gaming circles for decades. Just like Star Trek’s holodeck, we’ve all wanted to immerse ourselves in our gaming and fantasy environments and VR holds that promise. With early reports of nausea and other motion issues, the newly-improved devices have a lot to make up for.

The Oculus team is hard at work at doing just that, with improvements to both the hardware and software to ensure a fun, comfortable experience for most gamers.

Uber, the disruptive (and controversial) ride-sharing service, has a real problem. If you want to corner the market on the backs of a global workforce of what are essentially freelancers, how do you ensure that they all know how to use your system? And, more importantly, how do you replenish your supply of willing Uber drivers.

The San Fransisco company thinks that a video game may be the answer. Called UberDrive, it will be available on the App Store for anyone who wants to take a virtual trip as an Uber driver.

“UberDRIVE is a compelling representation of what it’s like to be an Uber driver-partner on the platform,” said Mike Truong, a senior product manager at Uber, in a statement. “Through the course of playing the game you can get a sense of how much money you can make using your own car and driving on your own time. With the sign-up flow embedded directly into the game it makes it really easy to start the sign-up and screening process right then and there.”