Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc. today announced that Frogger Frenzy Free is now available for iOS devices. Frogger bounces his way to a new adventure filled with fast-paced pinball action, featuring unique stages, special modes and Facebook Connectivity, allowing players to compete with their friends via their Facebook account.
In Frogger Frenzy Free, fans can defeat new and old enemies to rescue Lily and save Frogger’s home from the evil clutches of RoboCroc. It’s pinball with a twist as Frogger curls up into a ball and rolls, flips and leaps his way to victory. Gamers can play on incredibly detailed pinball tables with 3D rendered graphics, ramps and realistic physics. Players can also use flippers to shoot the ball up ramps, hit targets and unlock special modes including BOSS BATTLES, FROGGER FRENZY and MULTIBALL. Featuring three action-packed tables including the Swamp, City and Space Station, gamers participate in tournaments to show the world who is the ultimate pinball master. Special power-ups and bonuses are available by leveling up, hitting the targets and completing loops.
As an added bonus, Frogger fans can connect with their Facebook account to compete with their friends and get access to their unlocked achievements and power-ups on both their iOS device and Facebook.
Frogger Frenzy Free is available now for free on iOS devices. For more information, please visit www.facebook.com/froggerpinball.
The award-winning Star Trek game casts players for the first time ever as Kirk and Spock in a totally original co-op experience worthy of gamers and fans. Set in the new canon of director and producer J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek (2009) reboot, players will be immersed in the game’s rich story and action-packed combat. Under development by acclaimed Ontario-based developers Digital Extremes (Bioshock 2, Dark Sector, The Darkness 2), Star Trek features an original story by BAFTA award winner and God of War writer, Marianne Krawczyk, in collaboration with the writer/producers of the new Star Trek films, Bob Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof.
Star Trek is in development for console and PC release in early 2013.
Today Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and DC Entertainment revealed that Catwoman, DC Comics’ feline fatale, will be featured in the upcoming superhero fighter, Injustice: Gods Among Us, an all-new game in development by NetherRealm Studios, creators of the definitive fighting game franchise Mortal Kombat.The game is scheduled for release in 2013 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and the Wii U.
Injustice: Gods Among Us debuts as a bold new fighting game franchise that introduces a deep, original story featuring a large cast of favorite DC Comics icons such as Batman, Cyborg, Harley Quinn, Nightwing, Solomon Grundy, Superman, The Flash, Wonder Woman and many others. Set in a world where the lines between good and evil are blurred, players will experience heroes and villains engaging in epic battles on a massive scale.The game is scheduled for release in 2013 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and the Wii U.
If you are young enough the “silver ball” probably doesn’t mean much to you or it is the relic in the corner of a video arcade. In years past it was the cornerstone of electronic gaming and as common as Coca-Cola. It started off humbly, slowly evolving into the game we see today. But as it becomes a relic in the arcade Zen Studios is breathing new life into it on the console.
A Brief History Lesson:
The game we know of as “pinball” dates it’s origins to the late 1700s when bored aristocrats grew tired of their table version of bowling and made the pins permanently upright sticks off which you would hit a ball and ricochet the ball into a hole in the table. So they went with the obvious name: Bagatelle! (named after the chateau it was developed in).
Over a century later a guy in Ohio added a spring launching system, the “pins” became metal and around sixty years later the proper American capitalistic touch of “coin-operated” was added. Electricity and action bumpers were soon added but it wasn’t until 1947, 15 years later that the first flippers came into play.
The rest is history until the “Golden Age” of pinball which arrived in the 1970s when microprocessors, circuit borders and electronic screens made pinball machines true electronic gaming with all the literal bells and whistles getting joined by voices and videos. The same technology that took them to their peak was their demise when “video games” came along in the 1980s.
You may ask why, who cares about all this history stuff. It is by studying the history of a subject with the latest technology in mind that leaps forward are made.
The Absence of Zen And The Entrance Of Zen Studios:
Ever since the first video game was developed, programmers and developers have tried to master the physics of the ball. A rudimentary version was developed and strangely for a long time not improved upon. That ball for Pong didn’t change much over the years and every attempt had some physics error. Video pinball games were played more for challenge than nostalgia because either the ball had a floating feeling on the table or drop like a rock. Gone was the rhythm that developed on the table as the ball shot off flippers and hit chaotically around on the bumpers until your flippers brought the ball back into an orderly path.
On a real pinball machine you could judge where the ball would go depending on the flippers angle, speed of flip and speed of ball. All that was lost in the video game era unless you happened to find that rare arcade that had what was usually a movie or television show themed pinball machine tucked in the corner yelling out challenges and clanking it’s flippers and bumpers. Then along came Zen Studios.
I’ll freely admit I didn’t pay attention to them at first. I sighed sadly and made plans to visit the pinball history museum in Vegas where I could get my hands on dozens of machines, some being the early prototypes of the electronic ones but all amazing and playable. It wasn’t until my editor sent me some tables to try out that I discovered Pinball FX. The physics for the first time were right spot on. You got so lost in the game you forgot you weren’t hitting real flippers and wearing out the muscles in your hands. If you calculated a shot at a ramp like it was real life or guessed about how the ball would trigger on the bumper you found yourself right.
Crossing The Generation Gap:
Getting the physics right might be enough to win over an old school gamer like me but would today’s gamer, who might get bored just watching a ball bounce around, they crossed it with modern video game technology. The animatronic figures that would click open their mouths or swing from side to side in the old days have been replaced with 3D figures moving naturally around the tables. On the Marvel tables there are heroes and villains that battle across the board all while maintaining a realistic game table and realistic ball physics.
The difficulty and complexity of the table vary as well so not only is there a hero or villain from the Marvel Universe for you to root on, the tables all have their own touches.The Spiderman one has weblike rails for the balls to ride on all over the table for example.
One of my favorite tables is Paranormal, I am kinda fascinated with such things anyways so this tongue in cheek take on the X-Files has you investigating, with your ball, such phenomena as the turnpike (ramp) looking for the Jersey Devil, out on a Loch with Nessie mewing like a llama and my personal favorite and hardest part: the haunted house full of doors, one that leads to another dimension.
The table I have the most mixed feelings about Ms. Splosion Man, where you are supposed to save Splosion Man by fighting your enemy on a board so pink and baby blue that Hello Kitty would squint and run away! It is a fun, action packed table but so much pink and blue!!
Last Call:
This was an unorthodox review because I felt to truly appreciate what Zen Studios has done you had to know a bit of the history of pinball and how its rich history has been bastardized in video gaming until Zen Studios came along. I’ve seen fully electronic tables in arcades that cost a few bucks a play that aren’t as good as these tables which once you buy, you own. Add to this that they are constantly coming out with new tables and you can bet pinball is back and not leaving again anytime soon.
Ok let’s face it: for a lot of people the zombie parts of the COD franchise are a favorite if not the favorite part of the game. Originally an unlockable level at the end of the game, COD zombies was so popular a themed map set came out called Call of The Dead allowing for you to play iconic characters from horror and supernatural genres was released and an iPhone port of COD zombies came out a couple years back which allowed players to satiate their zombie shooting need on the move. Now they have come along with Call Of Duty: Black Ops Zombies for the iOS and Android and the questions arises, did they bring the zombie killing love again?
Storyline:
Wait… you need a storyline? With few exceptions the storyline of zombie hunting is simple: kill them before they eat you. Sure there can be a love story or the tragedy of lost loved ones, but this is the simple facts: kill them before they eat you. If you are fine with finding yourself in a room with a gun and zombies coming at you and just knowing you need to survive you should be fine with most zombie games, this one included.
Graphics and Sound:
To survive and be a solid player in the COD franchise, graphics require a minimum of quality and sound has to enhance the experience and seriously draw you in. This game does both and takes it up a notch. It really felt like a console title rather than a portable port and the sound works great. Do yourself a real favor and play this in a dark room. During my review time I was in a cabin in the woods with the lights out and the front door unlocked in the middle of the night. The atmosphere in game and out of game matched so much I was jumping at every noise and not being near conservative enough with my ammo.
Gameplay:
Since it has to be designed to work without control buttons or a keyboard setting up the control system of such a complex shooter can be troublesome if not downright frustrating both to the developer and the player. This is where the developers were really smart on how they worked with it. After trying the control system and finding myself frustrated I went to look into the control options and found that there were three ways to set them, all very different and all catering to a different style of game play that phone users have become accustom to. With the choices of joystick, tilt or swap modes I found myself using my thumbs over virtual joysticks and improving my game immensely. It is to each their own as are many of the gameplay options. I found myself using the autolock on enemies when shooting even though traditionally I am a one shot, one kill, put a bullet in the zombie’s brain kinda guy. The iron sights are pretty clunky at first, with more practice it gets better and that really is the best way to conserve ammo but it quickly became a tradeoff between staying alive and saving ammo and the staying alive won out. Go hardcore and just do iron sights and you will progress, but it is a bit of a learning curve. Weapons can also be upgraded so that you don’t have to sweat iron sights when blasting with a shotgun or tossing an explosive so just pick your upgrades to match your playstyle and you should be golden.
But Wait… There’s More:
Fans of the old school looking and playing COD Arcade will be happy to know that it is unlockable pretty quickly and easily with just a little time investment. In no time you will be blasting in all directions in the top down shooter which makes me all nostalgic for games like Smash TV. Since the controls are pretty straight forward for this game they translate extremely well and you will find yourself blasting away everything in sight.
Last Call:
Fans of the Call Of Duty franchise and fans of zombie games will both find this a great game, those who like both will find their two great tastes that taste great together on the road. It’s graphics and quality live up to the franchise name and though the controls may be a little difficult to get used to at first once you find the style you like and the weapons that suit you, you will find yourself killing long into the night wherever your life and phone take you.
After the Back To The Future trilogy everybody wanted a hoverboard. There were even hoaxes that the hoverboard was was real and in a lab somewhere or that in just a few more years prototypes the film had based their boards off of would be available to consumers. I still want my hoverboard. Where is my hoverboard? How come NASA or MENSA or some other group of daydreaming geeks didn’t get me my dang hoverboard??? Ok now by the time they do come out with the hoverboard I am likely to break my hip the first time I ride it. So I have to settle for the next best thing: Axon Runners.
Storyline:
What do you think this is Back To The Future? Who needs a story… wait, there is one, kinda. In the future there is this air stream thingy that suicidal hoverboarders ride through. One of these hoverboarders loses his friends and asks you to help find them. You don’t, so instead you find yourself cruising the air streams and representing, kinda like early skateboarders did in pools.
Graphics And Audio:
The graphics head toward the comic book/concept art style with a touch of Tron and Blade Runner thrown in. By Blade Runner I mean the architecture and by Tron I mean the light outlining element. Otherwise it really is it’s own beast. It is fairly well detailed for areas you aren’t supposed to see clearly even, so that if you find yourself out of bounds you won’t see plain blank areas but details you might have missed had you done better. This is probably partially due to the fact that this game was sponsored (co-created by Coca-Cola) and could afford to go deeper into detail or maybe it is because of the learning curve when you start and how as a result you find yourself flying off course and around or through the side sections of the course so they figured a lot of people would see them. Either way the detail is nice and not only draws you in but makes you feel better about wipeouts since you get to sometimes see a nice section you would have normally missed.
Gameplay:
You might have noticed in the previous section I mentioned “the course” and that is because at the end of the day this is a race against time game. It is well done, nicely themed and has the hoverboards I have always dreamed of and never gotten (still bitter), but it is a course racing game with great controls tailored especially to the iOS. The controls all make sense, aren’t at all clunky and have a use and design that, though could be tailored to another system, fit this one perfectly. To jump you push up from your guy, the more you jump the faster you go. You move your finger around the screen where you want to go and since you are in tunnels with holes in them you can ride the sides and top by just sliding your finger there.
When upside down if you do a double jump just right you land at the bottom of the tube right side up. You get weapons from your hoverboard to destroy some obstacles and you even get bonuses and points for taking some out (particularly the blue bottle shaped objects which are Coca-Cola bottles without the label). The main goal though is to go through as fast as possible, dying as few times as possible (unlimited lives) while collecting as many yellow balls of light (orbs) as possible. Shooting slows you down but can also clear your path for jumping and speeding up so there is a degree of strategy to it.
Last Call:
This game is challenging and addictive and is a great way to pass time on the go, standing in line, long road trips, etc. There is a free version with the first few levels if you really aren’t sure about it but at $2.99 you might as well just pick up the whole game. It plays better on the iPad than on the iPhone, bigger screen to move on, but it is great on the iPhone too. And for a brief moment in time, you finally get that hoverboard you always wanted.
The Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Collection #3: Chaos Pack is available to purchase for gamers on Xbox Live. The Collection #3: Chaos Pack will introduce gamers to the brand new Special Ops Chaos Mode, in addition to offering three all new FACE OFF Maps and four new Special Ops Missions. Call of Duty: MW3 Collection #3: Chaos Pack features the four brand new Special Ops Missions – Vertigo, Arctic Recon, Light ‘Em Up and Special Delivery – and the three new FACE OFF maps – Vortex, U-Turn and Intersection.
Collection #3: Chaos Pack also introduces a new way to play Call of Duty. Special Ops Chaos Mode delivers a frenetic form of combat that demands players to outlast waves of enemies, while chaining kills on maps littered in power-ups to achieve the highest possible score on fan-favorite multiplayer maps Resistance, Village, Underground and Dome. Collection #3: Chaos Pack is available now on the Xbox LIVE Marketplace for the Xbox 360 for 1,200 Microsoft Points, or $14.99. Collection #3: Chaos Pack will be released on other platforms at a later date.
IRVINE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today notified its players that there was unauthorized access to some Battle.net account information.
The unauthorized access included email addresses associated with Battle.net accounts in all regions, outside of China. Additional information from accounts associated with the North American servers (which generally includes players from North America, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia) was also accessed, including cryptographically scrambled versions of passwords (not actual passwords), the answer to a personal security question, and information relating to Mobile and Dial-In Authenticators. It’s important to note that at this time, Blizzard does not believe this information alone is enough to gain access to Battle.net accounts.
Based on Blizzard’s investigation to this point, credit card and other customer payment data does NOT appear to have been accessed or affected. As a precaution, however, Blizzard encourages players to change their Battle.net password and any similar passwords used for other purposes.
Upon discovery of the unauthorized access, Blizzard took quick action to close off the unauthorized access and notify appropriate law enforcement. Investigations are ongoing and Blizzard continues to work with authorities and security experts.
Blizzard Entertainment president and co-founder Mike Morhaime issued the following statement:
Players and Friends,
Even when you are in the business of fun, not every week ends up being fun. This week, our security team found an unauthorized and illegal access into our internal network here at Blizzard. We quickly took steps to close off this access and began working with law enforcement and security experts to investigate what happened.
At this time, we’ve found no evidence that financial information such as credit cards, billing addresses, or real names were compromised. Our investigation is ongoing, but so far nothing suggests that these pieces of information have been accessed.
Some data was illegally accessed, including a list of email addresses for global Battle.net users, outside of China. For players on North American servers (which generally includes players from North America, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia) the answer to the personal security question, and information relating to Mobile and Dial-In Authenticators were also accessed. Based on what we currently know, this information alone is NOT enough for anyone to gain access to Battle.net accounts.
We also know that cryptographically scrambled versions of Battle.net passwords (not actual passwords) for players on North American servers were taken. We use Secure Remote Password protocol (SRP) to protect these passwords, which is designed to make it extremely difficult to extract the actual password, and also means that each password would have to be deciphered individually. As a precaution, however, we recommend that players on North American servers change their password. Please click this link to change your password. Moreover, if you have used the same or similar passwords for other purposes, you may want to consider changing those passwords as well.
In the coming days, we’ll be prompting players on North American servers to change their secret questions and answers through an automated process. Additionally, we’ll prompt mobile authenticator users to update their authenticator software. As a reminder, phishing emails will ask you for password or login information. Blizzard Entertainment emails will never ask for your password. We deeply regret the inconvenience to all of you and understand you may have questions. Please find additional information here.
We take the security of your personal information very seriously, and we are truly sorry that this has happened.
Even when you are in the business of fun, not every week ends up being fun. This week, our security team found an unauthorized and illegal access into our internal network here at Blizzard. We quickly took steps to close off this access and began working with law enforcement and security experts to investigate what happened.