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LEGO Universe pre-orders coming soon
With the closed beta humming along very well, the team at NetDevil have finally given us a pre-order date for the upcoming family-friendly MMO of awesome, LEGO Universe! For those who want to jump on and get your orders in, you'll be able to do so starting this Friday, May 14th. While there's currently no information on pricing available, we do know it will be on a monthly subscription model. Of course, for LEGO maniacs, this is a no-brainer. Not only will everyone who pre-orders get to launch into this crazy fun MMO first, but they'll also be treated to a special limited-edition LEGO Universe astronaut to display proudly with their LEGO collections (or on their desks). There will also be an in-game code to unlock the accessories to match, so your character can flaunt their super-cool spaceman style. Players who are interested will want to point their browsers at the official LEGO online store on Friday to snap up a copy of the game when they go on sale. We'll let you know if we hear anything more on pricing.
TUAW at E3: Castle of Magic hands-on
Gameloft was kind enough to show us their whole upcoming stable of iPhone and iPod touch titles at E3 last week, and the most impressive game we saw in their "party bus," parked outside the Los Angeles Convention Center, was Castle of Magic. It's a 2D platformer with colorful and great-looking 3D graphics in which you play a young wizard trying to get a girl back. So it's pretty well-tread ground, especially as platformers go (so named because you spend the game jumping from platform to platform), but it's one of the first straightforward examples of the genre on the iPhone.The game's controlled with a virtual d-pad right on the screen, as well as two ability buttons that change depending on whatever powerups you have at the time. And powerups are found throughout the game world -- there are five themed overworlds to choose from (space, water, ice, forest, etc.), and three levels each within those worlds, and while the kid can pick up some abilities any time (a magical beam to shoot enemies with is a pretty common one), each world also has its own ability (you can be a spaceman in space, Robin Hood in the forest level, a swordfish while swimming, and so on). The game's graphics are immensely charming, and given that, like most platformers, there's plenty of doohickeys to collect, there's a good amount of replayability here as well.
