kingdoms of camelot
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Daily iPad App: Kingdoms of Camelot: Battle for the North is a freemium gem
Many of my fellow gamers look down on the "set-it-and-forget-it" style of social freemium games, but I have a soft spot in my heart for them. For me, the genre's appeal started with We Rule a few years ago, and continued with Battle Nations and Dragonvale. There's a definite addictiveness and appeal to real-time based gameplay. Kingdoms of Camelot: Battle for the North by Kabam won't change your opinion of the genre, but it represents its strong points well. This is Kabam's first iOS title, though the company has titles on Facebook and in browsers. Don't confuse this game with the group's other game called Kingdoms of Camelot. Kingdoms of Camelot: Battle for the North is a brand new title, designed specifically for mobile devices. My main issue with it is that it looks bad on the iPad. It seems like it was designed for a much smaller screen. But the UI is still clean and simple, and the game's quests intelligently lead you through what needs to be done. As you play, you can interact with other players. Kabam's experience with social networks undoubtedly accounts for how nice that experience is. Kingdoms of Camelot probably won't change your world (especially if you've already decided that you dislike this type of game), but if haven't tried this genre, it's worth your time. Who knows, perhaps you'll find yourself getting invested in all of the cottages, farms, and barracks that slowly become grow burgeoning empire.
MySpace launches Games Lab, aims to tackle social gaming
Like a pokey little puppy, social network MySpace has announced that it's starting up a Games Lab to try and beef up the gaming space on the site. A pilot program has been underway for a while now with TheBroth and Meez, and MySpace has now announced Playdom as a partner in building the platform. Rival network Facebook has been growing in leaps and bounds, especially in the gaming space, but now MySpace wants to leapfrog its success on the music side into social games. Will it work? There's a lot of money still to be made in social games, and there's no reason why MySpace couldn't grab its own piece of the pie. But MySpace is certainly coming late to the game, so if it can garner an audience, it'll likely be a fraction of what Facebook already has running.
