gaming - page 8

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.

If you’re a fan of iOS gaming you’ve probably visited (or should visit) TouchArcade, which just so happens to be the largest and oldest iOS gaming website on the Internet.

Featuring news, reviews, guides, interviews, and one of the best iOS gaming forums you’ll find anywhere, TouchArcade is a great resource for anyone who feels like we’re currently in the middle of something of a golden age for mobile gaming.

But the site needs your help.

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.

If you’re one of those word game fiends that has a list of Words With Friends games as long as your arm, you now can actually use that long arm to wear your games on your wrist.

Zynga just updated its hugely popular Words With Friends app to include Apple Watch features, so you never have to go another second without knowing when it’s your turn to spell “ZA” or “MUZJIKS” for the win.

An upcoming mobile game will throw players into the struggle immediately following the death of the Emperor in Return of the Jedi.

Star Wars: Uprising, which is due out later this year for iOS and Android, is a real-time strategy game that picks up after the destruction of the second Death Star at the end of the third film as the decapitated Empire struggles to maintain control over the galaxy.

Check out the announcement trailer below.

Dominations is one my new favorite games on my iPhone; it combines the gameplay of Clash of Clans (build a city, attack other cities) along with a more historic approach. You’ll take your city from Bronze Age to the Space Age, upgrading your warriors and defenses along the way.

Developer Big Huge Games has scored a big huge hit with this one, garnering 7.2 million downloads across the App Store and Google Play in the space of 60 days.

Players have racked up some serious activity in game, too, as you can see in the infographic below, prepared by Big Huge and publisher Nexon Games.

Developer Bethesda Softworks released a trailer for Fallout 4, the upcoming installment in its franchise of post-apocalyptic role-playing games.

The video doesn’t include any gameplay, but it does feature a whole lot of voiceover from series narrator Ron Perlman. Check it out below.

If you’re a gamer, odds are you have a perfect run, high score or really impressive combo that you list among the highlights of your “career.” Personally, I TKO’d Mike Tyson in Punch-Out!! when I was 10 or 12, and I did it when everyone else was out of the room. But I swear it happened, you guys.

Unless you have enough free time and determination to play one thing until you can beat it with your monitor turned off and your keyboard flipped around, however, your greatest moments can’t hope to compete with the four amazing speedruns shown in the videos below. These players have left “good” far behind them, passing through “really good,” across “crazy good” and over “suspiciously good” to enter a realm of pure skill in which merely beating a game is considered “a start.”

These people play a bunch of difficult titles pretty well, is what I’m getting at.

I went outside for the first time today. Working at home is an easy way to get a bad case of couchlock, so I like to try and get out for little 15 minute breaks when I can.

Today was a bit different. I downloaded and installed a game some buddies of mine are raving about on Facebook: Ingress.

I launched the app, followed the instructions, and was hooked. What started as a 15 minute walk to try out a new mobile game became a 45-minute obsession as I roamed my neighborhood, looking for portals to hack, collecting XMP particles to power my technological takeover, and finding a little feature of my ‘hood I’d never known about before.

Want to get obsessed about a new game? Want to maybe get in a little better shape? Be sure to download Ingress and see what everyone’s talking about.

Imagine exploring a creepy house full of eerie and unfamiliar sounds, supernatural horror dripping from every bannister and behind every mysterious, creaking door.

Now imagine entering such a disturbing environment when you’re blind.

Cassie is the blind young protagonist of Perception, a horror game from many of the folks that worked on Bioshock Infinite and Dead Space, and she’s been dreaming of this house for some time now. When she finally figures out it’s real, she heads off to investigate it, using only echolocation–sound into visuals–to confront and solve the ghostly mysteries within.

There’s a gloriously tense trailer, too, from the perspective of the wisecracking teen, Cassie. Check it out.

Console game developers are trying to break into mobile, and they’re using casual genres to break into the scene.

For instance, when gamers hear about Insomniac Games, they might think of classic platform games like Ratchet and Clank, first-person shooters like Resistance: Fall of Man or next-gen console title Sunset Overdrive. What those hypothetical gamers might not think of is a match-three or endless runner iPhone game. But game makers can’t afford to ignore the mobile scene these days and Insomniac is no different, as evidenced by the company’s new tower-defense game, Bad Dinos.

“It’s obviously a huge market,” Brian Hastings, chief creative officer at Insomniac Games, told Cult of Mac, “and we’re seeing an entire generation of players who are getting into mobile first, before anything else.”

Luca Redwood, the main powerhouse indie developer behind EightyEight Games, has taken the last three years of his life to make a sequel to critical darling match-three game, 10000000.

Sadly, it’s not named 10000001, but rather You Must Build a Boat. In it, you actually do need to build a large, ark-like boat with all sorts of rooms and defenses and such, and you outfit your boat by running dungeons and matching items to kill baddies and get past obstacles in them.

Sound weird? It is, but it’s also going to be stupidly addictive. If it’s half as engaging as 10000000, you’ll be playing this on your Mac, iOS device, or Linux box long into the wee hours of the morning.

Check it out.

There have been plenty of rumors about the refreshed Apple TV set to arrive at WWDC, but two of the biggest concern the fact that it will feature a revolutionary gesture-based user interface and a new focus on gaming.

Possibly tying into that is a newly-published patent from Apple, which describes a pattern projector which would use laser beams to map the 3D space between the device and a user — thereby allowing a person to carry out motions as a way of interacting with specific apps.

And, yes, that includes games.

Legends of Tomorrow is the latest DC Comics-inspired bit of television from The CBS/Warner Television Network (The CW) to get a preview trailer, with quite a lot of awesome packed into its four minutes.

You’ve got a girl with wings and a past-lives complex (Hawkgirl), a deceased assassin (White Canary from Arrow), a pair of criminals (Heatwave and Captain Cold from The Flash), a goofy billionaire a ton of tech (The Atom, also from The Flash, played by Superman Return‘s Brandon Routh) and a combustible half a hero (Firestorm) played by venerable character actor, Victor Garber. Oh, and a Dr. Who favorite (Arthur Darvill) playing a time traveler (Rip Hunter) from the future.

So many variables, it could go either way, of course. Check out the promising trailer to make up your own mind.

Blake Reynolds, lead artist at Dinofarm Games (Auro, 100 Rogues), has come to the conclusion that “pixel art” is over. He’s decided to hang up his digital pencil tool and create art for games that current audiences can understand.

“Auro,” he writes, “is likely to be the last Dinofarm Games title to feature pixel art.”

The iPhone is probably the best, most portable gaming device around. Even so, sometimes nostalgia kicks in and you miss your old Gameboy.

The Arduboy is a new, credit card-size console that is just as portable as an iPhone, if not more so. And it can play all the old 8-bit games your iPhone can’t.

How do you keep a jaded gamer engaged on the small-screened Apple Watch? Strand a young astronaut on an alien moon and ask that gamer to keep the doomed traveler alive.

That’s exactly what happens in Lifeline, which is simply the best game I’ve played on the Apple Watch so far.

If you’re like us, you’ve been playing the crap out of the amazingly addictive online arena game, Vainglory, since it came out for the iPad and iPhone, ganking enemies from the safety of the bushes, releasing the Kraken, and pushing down the lane to smash the opposing team’s base crystal to win the game.

While the development team at Super Evil Megacorp has released updates in the past, they’ve just dropped the most major update yet: the introduction of a character skin system to customize the look of your heroes as they dash across the map, wreaking havoc and crushing the enemy team.

There are six new heroes with two tiers of customization out in the update today, with a ton more to come.

Here’s how it’s going to work.

If you’re looking for new games to explode onto your Mac, look no further than these three “best of” gaming guides from one of the most Mac-centric gaming voices on the web, Mac Gamer HQ.

Featuring the 10 best strategy games, the 10 best first-person shooters, and (just published!) the 10 best MMORPGs — all only for Mac gamers — these three lists are bound to point you in the right direction, letting you set your sights on some amazing Mac gaming experiences without having to buy and try them all yourself.

From James Bond’s laser Rolex to Maxwell Smart’s shoe phone, spies have always been suckers for wearable tech.

To salute secret agents’ fondness for the latest gadgets, the makers of Spy_Watch crafted their new game for the latest cutting-edge device — the Apple Watch. And, like clever spymasters, there’s a twist: They paired this super-modern smartwatch with a vintage videogame mechanic to make a compelling game suitable for a gadget the size of Dick Tracy’s famous wrist radio.

“The idea is to immerse yourself in the idea that you are a spymaster controlling a spy out on missions,” Vince Farquharson, COO of Spy_Watch developer Bossa Games, told Cult of Mac. “To make it feel like they are a real person and that this is really happening.”

Hearthstone addicts players rejoice! Blizzard’s incredibly compelling digital card game is now optimized for your iPhone or iPod touch.

We’ve heard rumors that some folks even use their iPhone while in the bathroom. Gross! If you’re one of those people, though, get ready to never stop playing Hearthstone again.

Sure, the video game company behind mega-hits World of Warcraft, Starcraft II, and Diablo III has had a version of this easy-to-learn, hard-to-master two-player collectible card game on the Mac and iPad since 2013, but this is the first time you’re able to play it on the small screen without any jailbreaking or hacking needed.

“Hearthstone is now officially supported on iPhone and iPod touch,” says the App Store description. “…Featuring an all-new intuitive interface hand-crafted for the mobile experience, it’s never been easier to take Hearthstone with you anywhere you want to play.”

Helsinki-based developer Everywear Games surely had to rethink the way they pitch when they decided to make an Apple Watch game. Runeblade, the team’s casual fantasy-adventure made only for the Apple Watch, will launch onto Apple’s diminutive third screen later this month.

“The game is designed to be played in 5-15 second sessions and builds over time as you progress through the journey,” said CEO Aki Järvilehto in a statemnent. “We’re excited to help pioneer game development on Apple Watch with a fully original title designed specifically for smartwatch gaming.”

The team has released a trailer to tease the game, and it looks interesting, if a bit tiny. It is a game meant to be played on your wrist. With one hand.

Ah, Pong, the first video game I ever played! If you’re like me and feeling nostalgic for the retro-goodness of Pong, Pac-Man, or even Space Invaders, boy are you in luck.

Pacapong is a new free game that mashes up all three of these fantastic classic video games into one lovely multiplayer package that you can play on your Mac (or PC/Linux box) right now. How they all fit together is a mystery even the developer isn’t aware of.

“I’m actually not sure why,” developer Dick Poelen tells Cult of Mac, “but it started with adding Pac-Man and the maze to Pong. That seemed to make sense.”

Note: Chosen is available for free right now but the ability to sing and judge is invite-only for now. As a special treat for Cult of Mac readers, however, the first 500 folks that enter the code 313 into the app after downloading it will be able to get in and participate.

David Hyman is no stranger to the music business, having sold MOG to Beats when the headphone company wanted a music subscription service. He was the CEO at Gracenote before that, and the director of ad sales at music blog Addicted to Noise before that. Hyman even served as interim CEO at Neil Young’s PonoPlayer.

At the Game Developers Conference this March, Hyman sat down with Cult of Mac to show off his latest music project: Chosen, a new game that marries the idea of fan-made YouTube music videos with the American Idol-style competition television, all on your iPhone.

We sat down with Hyman at the chic Hotel Zetta at the beginning of March in San Francisco, where he demoed Chosen, Hyman’s latest foray into making music accessible to all of us.