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TUAW's Daily App: Volcano Escape
Here's another day-and-date release for you -- Volcano Escape is brand new on the App Store today, and it's an interesting take on the Canabalt-style genre. It asks you to run up a series of platforms inside a volcano rather than across rooftops like usual. The controls are a little floaty, unfortunately, but I think it's designed that way, as you can basically double and wall jump your way up the various stages. There's a button for shooting, and shooting various enemies will turn them into stone that you can then jump off of on your way up. Aiming is pretty tough, though, so sometimes it's easier to just dodge the baddies and move on. You can also get access to power-ups as you run, and your progress is constantly marked in the game, so you're often just trying to beat your last record. There's Game Center integration for leaderboards and achievements, and you can submit scores to Facebook and Twitter to brag about a particularly good run if you can pull one off. Things aren't quite as polished as they could be (I still love Monster Dash for this type of gameplay), but the idea of adding vertical platforming to the mix is a good one, and hopefully, it will spawn a little more innovation in titles like this. Volcano Escape, as I said, is brand new and available on the App Store for US$1.99.
Irreverent confession: An interview with Faxion Online's UTV True Games
You're dead -- so sorry, chap! Fortunately, that doesn't mean your gaming adventures are over. On the contrary, according to Faxion Online, they've just begun. In the world of Limbo, players are pulled between the forces of heaven and hell as they fight each other through the physical manifestations of the seven deadly sins. Curious about Faxion Online, we sat down with UTV True Games to discuss the deep issues of beta, religion and epeens. Massively: How's the progress toward closed beta coming along? UTV True Games: It's coming along at an insane pace. The team is focused and beating away at the long list of tasks that loom before us all prior to launching beta as well as the game. We are working on zones, abilities and items, along with wrapping up features and tightening the nuts and bolts of various aspects of the game. The team was able to catch their breath over the holidays a bit, so it's going to allow us to have a good strong kick to the finish.
TUAW's Daily App: Push-Up Wars
I'm a big fan of DailyBurn for tracking weight and nutrition. While a lot of iPhone users stand by the Lose It! app for that sort of thing (and rightfully so, it's a good one), I prefer to have a service that's accessible from any browser, and DailyBurn (formerly known as Gyminee) is the one I've tried and liked the best. Earlier today, while adding far too many calories to my nutrition record (CES and its various events are not being kind to my diet this week), I noticed that DailyBurn has another app out called Push-Up Wars, designed to help you track your push-up ability. Just like the main app, Push-Up Wars allows you to enter and register how many push-ups you're doing each day, and then the app will track your progress both among your friends and on a global leaderboard level. Push-Up Wars is notable even if you're not an exercise fanatic, just because it's the first app I've seen that's not a game, technically, but still uses Game Center. You can earn ranks and achievements as you "level up," and then see global and friend-based leaderboards. Registering push-ups requires you to take a video of you doing the exercise (only uploaded if you agree to do so), so the app requires a video-enabled iPhone or iPod touch -- no dice on older versions. But it's an interesting idea that's executed quite well, and if you want to get serious about powering up those arms, Push-Up Wars might be able to help.
Sega resets Sonic 4's leaderboards due to cheating
Look, Sonic the Hedgehog is fast. He can run faster than the speed of sound, but even if he ran full speed through Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1's shortest level, it would still take him longer than 0'00"00 to do it. That's just physically impossible, even for an improbably proportioned and colored hedgehog. And since some hackers have posted those times and impossible scores on the game's Xbox 360 leaderboards, Sega has decided to go through and reset the whole thing. That means you might have to go back and try to re-earn that record time you picked up on Lost Labyrinth Act 2 (no easy feat). But you might not want to grab that controller right yet -- Sega hasn't actually announced a fix, just reset the leaderboards. So there's a good chance the hackers will still hack, and there will be another reset to come. Thanks for nothing, cheaters. Can't we all just let the hedgehog run? (Also, cheating at Sonic? Where did our innocence go?)
Chime charity drive to end Dec. 1, with XBLA update
Sometimes lost in the rabid daze of "good" deals this Black Friday week are genuine opportunities to spend a little money on good causes. If you've been meaning to pick up "that charity game" on XBLA -- and in doing so, donate 100 percent of your 400-point purchase to charities, including Save the Children and Starlight Children's Foundation -- you have until December 1 to do so. Come next Wednesday, Chime's 10-month charity drive will expire, at which point the game will be updated to donate 5 percent of all $5-purchase royalties to publisher OneBigGames, which then passes the donations along to its charity partners. Additionally, the update will remove the game's high-score cap. "Now that this cap has been removed it will finally be possible to discover the best Chime players in the world," game director Brynley Gibson, of developer Zoe Mode, said in an announcement. "This fix has been a long time coming and is absolutely one made for the fans; we hope it tides them over until we can announce our plans for where we are taking Chime next."
Dungeons and Dragons Online introduces guild leaderboard
Updates to the new guild renown system in Dungeons and Dragons Online continue with the addition of a renown leaderboard. The leaderboard, which was added yesterday, is divided by server. You can adjust the list further by guild name (alphabetically), number of guild members, amount of renown, or guild level. There are still a few improvements to be made -- some of the guild links are incorrect or don't work, for example. The listing for number of guild members is linked to characters rather than accounts, and many players have requested that an account-based number be made available. Check out the leaderboard as well as the forums to see what everyone's saying about this new addition.
Capcom joins OpenFeint social gaming network on the iPhone
While Microsoft has Xbox Live as an official network, and of course Sony has PlayStation Network, the iPhone doesn't yet have an official social gaming network, at least not until Apple's Game Center is unveiled later on this year. Until then, a company called OpenFeint has been connecting gamers on iPhones with leaderboards and achievements (which is why you'll often see their logo appear in your iPhone games). And while most of the developers signed on to OpenFeint so far have been pretty small, it's starting to reel in the big fish -- Capcom has signed on to hook its games up to the OpenFeint service. The service will first appear in Capcom's Dark Void Zero and Hatchlings iPhone games, and both OpenFeint and Capcom say they are excited about the possibilities of working together. Of course, the release of Game Center may change the relationship, depending on what features Apple offers later this year. But OpenFeint says they're planning to offer services even on top of Game Center's planned featureset (Capcom has confirmed they want to use OpenFeint X, a platform for serving up virtual goods on the iPhone even beyond what Game Center will offer). So it sounds like even after Apple's official network is released later this year, Capcom will still have a use for its new partner.
iPhone OS 4.0: Apple announces Game Center, a social gaming network for the iPhone
This is huge -- Apple has announced Game Center, an official social gaming network for the iPhone, coming to the device along with OS 4.0 this summer. So far, there have been a few social networks vying for an audience in the form of OpenFeint and Ngmoco's Plus+ system, but Apple's going official, bringing in friends lists, leaderboards, achievements, matchmaking, and so on all to the iPhone themselves. Jobs said on stage in Cupertino that they will combine GameCenter with the App Store's over 50,000 games and entertainment titles. It'll be extremely interesting to see how Apple's network interacts with App Store titles, and it looks like OpenFeint and the like have some serious first-party competition.
Game Center is basically Xbox Live for your iPhone
We knew Apple was serious about treating the iPhone and iPod Touch as gaming devices, but at its iPhone OS 4 event (liveblog here) it just dropped the gauntlet: Game Center. "Gaming is extremely popular on the iPhone and iPod touch. We have 50,000 games," Apple's Scott Forstall trumpeted. "Let's compare that to the competition ... the PSP and DS ... we blow them out of the water." While we're not going to start pointing out relative quality differences here, we will say that iPhone now has one very powerful differentiator that neither the PSP nor DS have: "a social gaming network." Forstall unveiled Game Center, which he said will make "gaming even better on the iPhone." With matchmaking, game invites, leaderboards and achievements, this is pretty much a carbon copy of Xbox Live, but on your phone (Windows Phone 7, beat to the punch!). This is a "dev preview for OS 4," which will be available today for you devs out there. Everyone else, you've gotta wait until "summer."
Rumor: Microsoft's Live support coming to free Windows games; Minesweeper, Solitaire and more
Microsoft is allegedly preparing to implement Live functionality into the free suite of games that comes with all Windows-enabled PCs: Solitaire, Chess, Checkers, Spades, Hearts, Backgammon, Minesweeper, Purple Place, Spider Solitaire and Freecell. This tip comes courtesy of our trusted source (who accurately predicted Lucidity, NBA 2K10 Draft Combine and Tecmo Bowl: Throwback). Reportedly, each Windows game will not only get Achievements, but also chat and leaderboard support. While unconfirmed by our source, we'd anticipate this to be a free update. If true -- and hey, our tipster's batting a thousand (that's sports talk for reliable) -- adding Live functionality to these games would be an ideal gateway for Microsoft to usher new users into Live and the Achievements system. After registering a free Games For Windows Live account, a new user would be able to instantly start building Gamerscore cred with the free games included on Windows PCs. It's Drug Dealing 101 -- give 'em the first fix for free, and they'll be hooked!
PSN leaderboards point to top game downloads for January
Gamasutra wasn't able to get its hands on year-to-date PSN sales data directly from Sony, but it has come up with some interesting conclusions based on an unscientific look at ... leaderboard stats. The site broke down January's new releases, as well as a few other games that sold well last month, and the big debut of the month appears to be Hustle Kings, which added over 39,000 players to its ranks. Assault Heroes only picked up 754 new players, but given that it's a game that actually came out in 2006 on the Xbox, that's not a big surprise. PSN also offered up its "10 for '10" sale in January, and Uno came away from that event with a whopping 87,000 new players on its leaderboards. Braid and Critter Crunch also did well, adding 20,000 and 17,000 new players to their leaderboards, respectively. Keep in mind that these numbers are far from official, and not complete anyway -- Vandal Hearts: Flames of Judgment, Thexder Neo and Matt Hazard were released on PSN last month, and none of those games are included in this analysis, due to unreliable or nonexistent leaderboards. But it is probably fair to say that PSN had a pretty good month in January, especially with the games featured in its "10 for '10" sale. More of that, please.
Rockstar revamps Social Club's online leaderboards and stat tracking for Gay Tony
With the release of this week's second Grand Theft Auto IV expansion The Ballad of Gay Tony, the game's developer has decided to update the online multiplayer statistics tracking in order to reflect the new multiplayer game types. The addition of "BASE Jump" to the mulitplayer as well as "new, tighter Deathmatch arenas" helped spur the leaderboard overhaul, according to the developer blog. The various new additions being made due to the DLC will even get their own section on the Rockstar Social Club, presumably for the four of you tracking your new GTAIV DLC stats after Modern Warfare 2 releases in a couple weeks.
Digital Chocolate to use OpenFeint for scoreboards, achievements
Developer Digital Chocolate (who, according to that recent slideshow report, is one of the most frequent publishers of content to the App Store) has announced that they'll be going with OpenFeint for their social networking features. We've been covering OpenFeint for a while here on TUAW (and we've interviewed them before as well). The platform is designed to let devs add social features and multiplayer to their apps quickly and easily. And that's exactly what Digital Chocolate will be doing with it, apparently -- they'll be putting scoreboards and achievements into their games on the App Store.This hardly means the end of the ongoing battle over social networking and app developers on the store. But platforms like OpenFeint, Plus+, and others continue to stack up developers under their respective umbrellas, and it remains to be seen just who will prevail.
OpenFeint introduces multiplayer, Flick Fishing goes Plus+
The battle of the social gaming services on the iPhone continues. OpenFeint's latest weapon is multiplayer -- they're working on a way for games developers on the iPhone to quickly include multiplayer (it doesn't actually say real-time, so we'll assume it's the mix of ghosting and turn-based multiplayer that they talked about in their interview with us) in their games. They're asking interested developers to sign up to the open beta program, and they'll start rolling out the functionality soon. Even though it seems early in the process, it's a pretty cool idea, and it could definitely serve to set OpenFeint apart even more from the other services trying to attract developers to their social and multiplayer features. Speaking of social features, Freeverse told us a little while ago that they were going to use ngmoco's Plus+ for their games, and apparently they've now integrated the popular Flick Fishing with the service. The additions allow for leaderboards, in-game achievements, and multiple profiles and saves on one iPhone, so you can compete with your friends on other iPhones or right there on your own. Flick Fishing was already an excellent game, and with the added social functionality of Plus+, it's worth heading back out onto the water to compete and compare your games with your friends. As I've said before, having multiple companies competing for these social functions is turning out to be a real boon for consumers and developers alike. All of these services are able to bring out a lot of cross-game features that developers by themselves would have taken much longer to put together on their own.
Halo Wars stats wiped, may not come back
Hey guys, we've got some great news: Convincing girls in bars with bizarre priorities that you're the world's top Halo Wars player just got a heck of a lot easier. Shacknews reports that all of the game's leaderboards were wiped out by a glitch in Xbox Live and developer Robot Entertainment says that they may not ever be recovered.To that one poor soul who actually was at the top, we can offer only this pat on the back, along with the assurance that even though it seems like this tragedy has made his hours of Halo Wars sacrifice meaningless, it's simply not so. ... No, they were meaningless way before that.
Trophy leaderboards coming to European PlayStation site
The PSN's Trophy system continues to get updated. Most recently, PlayStation.com users (in Europe and America) have been able to track their Trophy progress online. The next update to the European site (and presumably, the American site as well) will allow users to compare Trophies with friends and even see leaderboards for specific titles. This example image shows friends going up and down in rank with their completion of Uncharted: Drake's Fortune.Certainly, this isn't a revolutionary feature, but it's certainly a welcome one. Update: The European site already features portable PSN cards -- will America ever join in? What other Trophy-related features do you want on the PlayStation site?
Free Realms to cost five bucks a month, membership details revealed
With the launch of Free Realms coming up next month (and beta even closer!) it comes as no surprise that the official website has been updated with tons of information. The biggest piece of news is concerning what an optional membership (IE paid subscription) entails. Here's the full run-down of what a 4.99 per month membership grants someone: 5 extra jobs Ranking on Free Realms' leaderboards Up to three character slots 400 extra items and quests Now, it's our assumption that as time goes on more and more benefits will manifest themselves. Things like new jobs, items, quests and possibly entire zones. Of course, to keep free players interested we're sure older premium content will trickle down to the free accounts. But remember, this is all speculation until SOE makes some kind of official announcement.[Thanks, Thee]
Lips getting complete overhaul with title update
Microsoft has announced a number of changes coming to your living room Lips performance, just in case the latest batch of content wasn't enough to make you press your mouth to the game's sparkly mics. The coming title update includes several fixes and "highly-requested" features, such as leaderboards and a much-needed option for microphone calibration. Also on the way is a "significant change" to Lips' scoring system, promising an overhaul of how the game detects changes in pitch and vibrato. After the update, Microsoft notes that players will no longer be able to simply blow into the mic or mumble their way through tunes and still hope to reap galactic rewards. No exact release date has been announced, though we expect the change to drop on stage sooner rather than later, and have already begun massaging our vocal chords for our next off-tune performance.[Thanks, Ofri]
DS Daily: Walk with Everyone
Nintendo's Personal Trainer: Walking uses its wacky pedometer doodad to tabulate your step count every day and send the data back to the DS. This data goes to Nintendo for use in step count leaderboards. You can compete to top the charts like in many other online games, except the competitive activity here is exercise.Does the idea appeal to you? Do you think vying for the top spot on a leaderboard will inspire you to walk more? Or are you extra awesome at walking and looking forward to the chance to show that off with numbers?%Gallery-33410%[Screens via Wiiz]
Check out your guild's ranking in Warhammer Online
A website called Warheap has recently set up a guild leaderboard system for every server in Warhammer Online. The whole thing is easy to navigate and allows you to sort the top guilds by rank, renown, renown per member, members and average rank. It's also possible to list guilds for both factions on a server or a single faction. Everyone's going to have a differing opinion on what matters most to be considered a top guild on a server. It doesn't really matter though, as people just love to gloat. Saying you're number one is a huge thrill for anybody in just about any situation. The existence of those giant foam fingers are proof enough that being able to point and gloat is what matters most when it comes to leaderboards. To quote the fabled worlds of a pop-culture schoolyard bully, "HA! HA!" or something to that effect. Did you enjoy this? Make sure to check out our Warhammer guides: Massively's Character Creation Guide and our WoW Player's Guide to Warhammer. Plus, don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!
