plantsvszombies
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'Animal Crossing: New Horizons' may actually be good for you
An Oxford study tapped into data from Nintendo and EA.
'Plants vs. Zombies 3' is on the way and you can test it now
Six years after Plants vs. Zombies 2 staggered into the world, the next entry in the series is on the way. PopCap Games is hard at work on Plants vs. Zombies 3, and it's already offering you the chance to pit flora against undead fauna once again.
EA adds a new battle mode to four-year-old ‘Plants vs Zombies 2’
Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time was pretty highly anticipated when it came out in 2013. The title got a couple expansions early on, but we really haven't heard much about the lane-based castle defense game since then. Now, however, it looks like publisher EA and developer PopCap have a completely new high-score comparing player-vs-player system called Battlez mode. If nothing else, this might give us all a reason to hop back into the four-year-old title and try something a little new.
'Plants Vs. Zombies' is becoming a theme park attraction
If it's not Mario or Shepherd and the Mass Effect crew, it's... plants and zombies. Cedar Fair Entertainment, which runs 14 park attractions across the US, is working with EA on two attractions for Great America in California, and Carowinds in North Carolina. Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare will be adapted into what the theme park is terming a "digital attraction". This means that it'll be able to substitute in and reprogram the ride later for sequel content -- which sounds a whole lot like its namesake. Carowinds will get the PvZ attraction, which will open next year.
The battle for exclusive games has come to smartphones
It's like Sega and Sony all over again. We don't mean the hardware arms race (although that's certainly happening), but how the smartphone world's two top players are now fighting over the most popular games... and their sequels. Gaming is one of the top money-spinning app categories on smartphones and tablets and according to a WSJ report, both Apple and Google are trying to get popular games and their developers on their side. The companies promise headline placement in their respective online stores and prominent ads around the app portal, in exchange for exclusivity, or at least a lead. This was apparently the case for Plants Vs. Zombies 2 last year, where Apple got a two-month lead over the Android version -- and it's not the only one.
Watch a 5-year-old spam the spacebar to access his dad's Xbox Live account
Kids: they're our future, and apparently are also great at finding backdoors within video game security measures. Take 5-year-old Kristoffer Von Hassel from the San Diego area, for instance. His parents were curious about just how their son was accessing games on Dad's password-protected Xbox One profile. Well, as KGTV in California reports, it was as easy as spamming the space key on the password verification screen. If you thought Kristoffer's dad would be mad though, you'd be 100 percent wrong. The elder Von Hassel works in computer security and was pleased as punch when he learned how. The father and son team reported the backdoor to Microsoft, and Redmond rewarded Kristoffer with a year of Xbox Live, four games and $50. Had you been abusing this exploit yourself and were wondering why it went away, well, now you have the answer. The most ironic aspect of the whole ordeal? In the video below, Kinect recognizes the younger Von Hassel's guttural vocalizations and takes him to the Xbox One dashboard -- most of the times we ask nicely to launch Titanfall nothing ever happens. [Image credit: KGTV]
Plants vs. Zombies 2 launches worldwide on iOS, offers true free-to-play gaming
If you didn't get early access to Plants vs. Zombies 2 on iOS, now's your chance to play -- PopCap's backyard defense game has just launched worldwide on the App Store. The time travel-themed sequel significantly expands on the original with new plants, new zombies, between-round maps and touch-controlled power-ups. We've tried the game, and it's a welcome refinement of a mostly familiar experience. For some, though, the big change in PvZ2 may be its sheer accessibility. This is a genuinely free-to-play title -- you can see virtually everything it has to offer without paying a dime. In-app purchases are largely restricted to perks, such as coin packs. The developer doesn't yet have a schedule for PvZ2 releases on other platforms, but those who have at least one iOS device can engage in herbal warfare at the source link.
Daily Update for June 27, 2013
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen. Subscribe via RSS
Plants vs Zombies 2 coming next year
PopCap has made an announcement that will be music to the ears of flower-planting undead fighters everywhere: Plants vs. Zombies is getting a sequel, due in spring 2013. Unfortunately, no details have been announced yet; PopCap says that the game will have "new features, settings, and situations" but that's about it. That's probably not a problem, however, as fans will probably be happy with any new PvZ content they can play. Another thing that hasn't been announced yet is platforms. Traditionally, PopCap has launched its titles on PC first then, as it did with Plants vs Zombies, release them on other platforms such as iOS and gaming consoles. But Plants vs. Zombies has been a huge hit on mobile. PopCap, as part of EA, has also been increasingly focusing on mobile as a way to sell its mass-market casual games. So hopefully it won't be long before we see this title on iOS -- with luck it might be on release day.
Plants vs. Zombies updated with new mode
We haven't heard very much from PopCap on iOS lately. There was the Zuma's Revenge launch a little while ago, and before that was just the Bejeweled shakeup last year. So it's good to see the company is still working on the platform. The latest evidence of this is a surprise update for Plants vs. Zombies, out now, which brings a few shiny new features. The biggest new feature is an endless version of the Vasebreaker minigame, where you attack vases around the lawn, hoping that there are plants in them rather than the walking undead. There are nine levels of the new mode, and the highest levels must be unlocked with coins, either by earning them or in-app purchase. There are also new achievements, and the iPad version has finally gotten the Zen Garden update, as well as four new PopCap-themed minigames: Slot Machine, Zombiquarium, Portal Combat, and Beghouled Twist. I believe these originally debuted on the Steam version of the game, but they're now on iPad as well. These updates, for the iPhone and the HD version, are free to download, and available right away. PopCap's an excellent developer, and it's good to see it's still behind their past iOS releases.
Music video: iPhone games get real
This video by Australian band Hey Geronimo is the cutest thing. The group painstakingly recreated scenes and characters from popular iPhone games for their song, "Why Don't We Do Something?". I love the Angry Birds in the car, the flying Fruit Ninja fruit and the cat battling Flight Control airplanes (plus that flight attendant -- meow!). My favorite, however, is definitely the little Cut the Rope doggie. The video looks great as they nailed the look of each game. It's pretty much the perfect thing to watch on a busy Friday afternoon. Enjoy, and have a great weekend!
Plants vs. Zombies updated, and a few other app deals
PopCap has updated the Plants vs. Zombies iOS app with a few new game mode options, purchaseable with the in-game currency at Dave's crazy store. The modes are all different and available in purchases of three each, featuring everything from a mode where you fight invisible zombies to a special bowling mode, and even a variant of PopCap's own Bejeweled called "Beghouled Twist." If you don't want to earn the in-game currency yourself, PopCap's also offering in-app purchases for in-game coins that will unlock each of the modes, so that's another way to go. Elsewhere on the App Store, EA has released Snood Free, a free version of the popular Bubble Bobble-style game (along with Snood Free HD for iPad). This version leaves multiplayer out and contains ads, while the original paid versions of the game are still online. Disney has also launched a lite version of the popular JellyCar 3, so you can now try that one out without any additional cost. And finally, Illusion Labs' Touchgrind BMX app has gone universal, so anyone who owned the iPhone version can now download the iPad version for free.
Apple App Store, iPhone 4 awarded Guinness World Records
Guinness World Records has awarded Apple several world records today for the App Store and the iPhone 4. Additionally, several iOS developers were also awarded world records. Here's the breakdown from the Guinness World Records 2011 Gamer's Edition: Fastest-Selling Portable Gaming System -- iPhone 4: Guinness states that the iPhone 4's first-day sales estimates of 1.5 million make it the fastest selling game system in history. By comparison the PSP only sold 200,000 units its first day and the Nintendo DS sold 600,000 units in its first week. Most Popular Application Marketplace; Largest Downloadable Video Game Store; and Largest Launch Line-up of Any Gaming System -- Apple App Store: As of the time Guinness made its records decision, the App Store had over 6.5 billion downloads and 259,470 apps for purchase or free download making it the most popular downloadable app store in the world. Of those apps, 37,362 were games, making the App Store the largest video game download store in the world. Finally, when the App Store launched on July 10, 2008, the App Store featured over 500 apps, including 145 games, making it the "Largest Launch Line-up of Any Gaming System." Apple wasn't the only one to receive app accolades, however. iOS developers were also awarded titles by Guinness: Angry Birds got Top Paid-For App Store Game in Most Countries with more than 6.5 million downloads; Plants vs. Zombies was awarded Fastest-Selling iPhone/iPod Strategy Game with 300,000 paid downloads in its first nine days on sale; and Tap Tap Revenge was awarded the Most Popular iPhone Game Series with a combined 15 million downloads for all the Tap Tap games. Guinness World Records 2011 Gamer's Edition is available on Amazon. [via LA Times]
The best iOS apps I used in 2010
After looking back over Mac and Mac/iOS hybrid apps, it's time to look at the best iOS apps of 2010. As before, this list comes from my particular experience over the past year with these apps. 1) iCab Mobile (US$1.99, universal) is a replacement for mobile Safari. While it is hindered by the fact that iOS doesn't have anywhere to set a "default browser," and therefore most URLs that you open from the Springboard or email/Twitter/etc... will open in Safari, iCab offers plenty of features that make it worth the effort. It is the first app on my dock, and I much prefer it over Safari. Although it uses the same rendering engine as Safari, it comes with a host of features that Safari doesn't have. iCab Mobile will let you download files, which you can either offload to your computer later or upload to Dropbox from right within the app. Tap and hold an image, and you can save it right to your Dropbox. iCab on the iPad also does "real" tabs, with a visible tab present (it will auto-hide when not needed, if you want). You can set it to open links in new tabs, or open only links to different domains in new tabs. It has content filtering built-in, as well as module support for things like Instapaper, viewing HTML source or even downloading videos from YouTube. It also has a forms manager and a kiosk mode, and as Mike pointed out in November it supports VGA mirroring for presentation use. Web browsing is one of the primary uses of my iPad, and iCab Mobile is well worth the minimal asking price. Find out more at iCab Mobile's website. See the rest of my choices below.
iPhone apps on sale for Halloween
Happy Halloween weekend! This is my favorite holiday of the year, not only because it's a fun time for parties during my favorite season, but also because it seems to be an excellent time for developers to put a little something special into their apps -- like put them on sale. There are quite a few sales hitting the App Store this weekend -- Sega has some of their titles on sale again (including Ecco the Dolphin and the great Shining Force), and Namco Bandai is doing the same. You can pick up Bit.Trip Beat and the original Pac Man game for just a buck each, among a few other good deals. PopCap has brought Plants vs. Zombies down to a buck for the holiday, and EA has a "Monster Sale" going on, too, with Wolfenstein RPG, Snood, and more on sale for just one cent less than a buck. All treats, no tricks on this Halloween weekend. There will probably be a few more sales announced before the weekend ends -- we'll try to keep an eye out for them, and let you know when we see them. Want even more quick app sale announcements? Watch our Twitter feed -- we'll often post quick free app and sale app notices there.
Sunflower sings about blood elf druids
It's no secret that we love Laura Shigihara, the composer for Pop Cap's amazing Plants vs. Zombies and now the voice of Cataclysm's singing sunflower pet. Shigihara has stepped into the WoW machinima world with her own original song and video, Blood Elf Druids, an adorable song making a plea to Blizzard for the inclusion of blood elf druids. Shout-outs to Tooga the turtle are pretty obscure, which makes it even more fun. It's adorable, catchy and a great first shot at machinima. There's even a behind-the-scenes video posted here. If this is the quality of song we're getting for the first video, I cannot wait to see what's coming next. An orc ballad, perhaps? I can only hope.
148Apps creates an App Hall of Fame
Jeff Scott of 148Apps has finally revealed his App Hall of Fame project -- he started it up about a month ago, and asked a number of personalities around the iPhone/iPad app scene (including yours truly) to nominate and then vote on a few App Store apps, with the eventual goal of inducting them into a Hall of Fame. We made our nominations and voted a little while ago, and the first inductees into the store are now listed on the site: Angry Birds, Flight Control, Doodle Jump, Shazam, Evernote, Plants vs. Zombies, Pandora, Simplenote, the official Twitter app, Instapaper, Homerun Battle 3D, and Fieldrunners. You've probably heard of all of those already, but that's the point: the Hall of Fame aims to honor "the very best mobile applications and games." There will be 12 inductees honored every month going forward, so the collection should grow bigger pretty fast. The nomination process is all done by the selection committee (not the public), but if you want to follow along, you can sign up on the mailing list (and have a chance to win some of the nominees for free every month). It's a fun project -- the App Store has been around long enough now that some super popular apps have risen to the top, and this is a good way to keep track of the absolute cream of the crop over the App Store's whole life. At the same time, I'm sure we'll see some interesting decisions in the months to come, so stay tuned for that.
Singing Sunflower companion pet voiced by Laura Shigihara
If you're a Plants vs. Zombies fan, you are quite familiar with Laura Shigihara, the composer for the PopCap Games plant-a-thon. She is also the voice behind the Plants vs. Zombies theme song. On her blog today, Shigihara confirmed that her voice will be used for the companion pet, the Singing Sunflower, which players receive after completing the Peacebloom versus Ghouls minigame in Hillsbrad. How awesome is that? Besides being fun and kind of novel if you're into PvZ, you get a pretty cool reward for finishing the quest: a "singing sunflower" pet! I actually had no idea this information was public until Hashimoto linked me to TotalHalibut's video earlier tonight... incidentally, I was right in the middle of recording the sunflower's voice when I watched it. ^_^ I am so excited about voicing a WoW-pet because what can I say ... I'm a big nerd. Peacebloom versus Ghouls is a minigame/quest in Hillsbrad that puts the player in charge of Brazie the Botanist's garden of ghoul-destroying plants. If you've played Plants vs. Zombies, you'll feel right at home. Defeat wave after wave of ghouls and you will claim your very own Singing Sunflower companion. These new facts continue to illustrate the intimate and awesome relationship between Blizzard and PopCap, bringing good tidings to gamers who are fans of both excellent companies. Hopefully, more collaborations like this are in store for the future.
Dear Aunt TUAW: Where's my Michael Jackson Zombie?
Dear Aunt TUAW, PopCap Games recently released an update to Plants vs. Zombies boasting "multiple performance enhances and bug fixes" (sure, but I never had an issue on my 3GS). Now, the King of Pop Zombie is nowhere to be found! He's replaced with a zombie with an orange Afro, white 70s leisure suit and orange shoes. Why? Why remove the King of Pop? Was there a threatening lawsuit? Can you all find out for us and get the scoop? I won't be updating anytime soon now. Thank you from your loving nephew, Alejandro
Plants vs. Zombies breaks records on the iPhone
PopCap has released some sales information on their latest iPhone game, Plants vs. Zombies, and it's a runaway hit: the game has sold over 300,000 copies in just the nine days it's been out on the App Store, which means the company has garnered over $1 million in sales already. Very impressive -- first, we had an app make a million total, then a company was making a million a month, and now PopCap has done the same in just over a week. So what's their secret? It's a high quality game, first of all, and PopCap has a reputation for making those already. Second, the game itself had a fairly high profile even before release, since it was extremely successful on the PC as well. And finally, you have to think that the price figures in as well -- I thought the game would sell for PopCap's usual $5, but they actually sold it two dollars less than that. They'd probably have still made a lot of money, but I don't know if they'd be talking about 300,000 sales at a price just two dollars higher. Then again, the game is already available for free online, so maybe the quality and PopCap's profile played a bigger part than the price did (they also trumpet the fact that Bejeweled 2 is also one of the top five grossing apps on the App Store). Congrats to PopCap on all their success. Oh, and our free time called, too. It surrenders.
