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Friday, January 13, 2012

Mafia Wars Missions feature adds character like Gang Busters

Mafia Wars Missions
Now that the Inventory Page overhaul has gone live for mobsters worldwide in Mafia Wars, how about adding a face to the otherwise sometimes mundane Jobs in the game? In fact, make that a lot of faces. Without notice, Zynga has introduced a new Missions feature to the game that not only streamlines the Jobs process in Italy and New York, but introduces new characters and possibly more purpose to your actions in the game as a result.

Appearing on players' home page directly above the recently introduced news reel, digital mobsters can click on either the Italy symbol or what looks like a file folder to access the Job they're currently on in Italy or New York, respectively. Clicking either icon a second time will cause a drop down box to appear containing the tasks you need to tackle for that chapter and the Boss you'll have to take out, if there is one. (There is almost always a Boss.) Additional information includes the Mastery Item you have to look forward to and a short blurb to the left from a character, egging you on to complete the task at hand.

But there's something odd about this new Missions feature. The Missions that it supplies you appear contextual, or based on your current progress in the game beyond mere Jobs. For instance, clicking on the file folder icon will not only remind you of Jobs that need to be completed in New York, but of other tasks like mastering a Job Tier or robbing more properties. These otherwise arbitrary actions will now reward players with extra cash, experience and loot if completed through the new Missions feature. It seems that Zynga is looking to give players new guidance in the game while streamlining the experience for veterans, giving them things to do beyond their normal routines. According to a blog post on the Mafia Wars Blog, this is only the beginning for the new and improved Mission in Mafia Wars, so stay tuned for any changes.

Game of the Day: Snow Lemmings

Pump It
Music games are rare in the social gaming world and impressive ones are even more elusive, but Pump It on Facebook dishes out what techno fans (i.e. this guy right here) have craving for. Developed by French company MXP4, Pump It is an amalgamation of sorts between Dance Dance Revolution and the Simon electronic game by Milton Bradley, but without the stinky, quarter dropping nerds at the arcade and the need for a bulky device. Throw in some of today's most popular house, trance and hip hop artists and Pump It becomes a refreshing entry into the emerging world of music games on Facebook.

Find more of our trance-induced thoughts on Pump It after the break.

Pump It Main Menu
Before we say anything, let's get one thing out of the way. Pump It is damned hard to find on Facebook. Simply searching either "Pump It" or "MXP4" through Facebook turns up nothing. After doing some intense digging, you'll find Pump It through one of four applications: "Tiësto, Play with it!," "David Guetta, Play with it!," "Lloyd Banks, Play with it!" and "Ministry of Sound, Play with it!" While we do have kind words for the game of Pump It, this needs to be fixed by MXP4 as soon as possible. Quite frankly, it makes absolutely no sense to have the game appear within four different applications for each of the game's four initial artists.

After choosing one of the four artists Pump It--recently released in public beta--currently has to offer, you'll be able to either invite your friends to the game (more on that later) or choose a difficulty. Trust us, go with "Easy" on your first attempt as there a mildly steep learning curve. The game begins as soon as the track does, with what appears to be a speaker as the playing field. In rhythm with the song, purple, blue, pink and orange lights will begin to travel to the center of the speaker within each of its four quadrants. In order to keep the song going, all you need to do is move your mouse into the quadrant that is currently glowing before the beam of light reaches the center.

Pump It Points
No clicking or exact timing is required to successfully score on a beat. Your mouse just needs to be positioned over the quadrant when the light hits the center to score points. However, later on precision will matter as lights begin to appear in multiple quadrants at once, forcing you to discern the correct timing based on their position in reference to the center. The general rule of thumb in Pump It is to always move your mouse to the light that's closest to the center to ensure you're keeping time. Successfully timing a beat correctly in one quadrant five times in a row will double the points scored for good timing in that quadrant until you lose the beat, which will become quite often in the harder difficulties at first. Scoring the bonus in all four quadrants will reward players with an extra 10 thousand points.

Alright, we lied when we said no clicking is required. Keeping a successful chain of 50 consecutive beats will fill up a meter in the center. Once it fills completely, you'll be prompted to "Pump It," hence the name. Clicking on the button before the meter runs out will multiply your score for a time and boost what MXP4 calls Crowd Energy, which serves as a multiplier as well. It becomes a challenge to balance "pumping it" with maintaining your bonuses in more difficult songs, making Pump It one of the more demanding social games out there--certainly refreshing amongst the legion of simulator games.

There isn't much of a social element to Pump It outside of challenging friends and posting your scores, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Just look at the PopCap approach with games like Bejeweled Blitz and now Zuma Blitz and you'll see how effective it can be. Throw in unlockable tracks through repeat plays and the occasional contest for singed albums and merchandise and Pump It becomes one roaring social game in more ways than one.

Click here to play Tiesto Pump It on Facebook>

Click here to play David Guetta Pump It on Facebook>

Click here to play Lloyd Banks Pump It on Facebook>

Click here to play Ministry of Sound Pump It on Facebook>a
Another day and another game - the game of the day rolls on. Today's game is Snow Lemmings - a game where you control a giant snowball and try to grow it as large as you can. Save as many snow lemmings as you can in the fastest time. Collect snow lemmings, snowmen and snow mounds. Collect five baby lemmings to spawn a Momma Lemming. Avoid Obstacles such as trees and boulders.


Important side note: Just by playing The Game of the Day you will be entered into a monthly drawing to win a FlipCam HD. You don't need to do anything else, just play! The more you play, the more chances you have to win. For more information on the Game of Day check out the official Game of the Day hub.

Play Snow Lemmings Now -->

Facebook thumps to Tiesto, Ministry of Sound and more with Pump It

Pump It
Music games are rare in the social gaming world and impressive ones are even more elusive, but Pump It on Facebook dishes out what techno fans (i.e. this guy right here) have craving for. Developed by French company MXP4, Pump It is an amalgamation of sorts between Dance Dance Revolution and the Simon electronic game by Milton Bradley, but without the stinky, quarter dropping nerds at the arcade and the need for a bulky device. Throw in some of today's most popular house, trance and hip hop artists and Pump It becomes a refreshing entry into the emerging world of music games on Facebook.

Find more of our trance-induced thoughts on Pump It after the break.

Pump It Main Menu
Before we say anything, let's get one thing out of the way. Pump It is damned hard to find on Facebook. Simply searching either "Pump It" or "MXP4" through Facebook turns up nothing. After doing some intense digging, you'll find Pump It through one of four applications: "Tiësto, Play with it!," "David Guetta, Play with it!," "Lloyd Banks, Play with it!" and "Ministry of Sound, Play with it!" While we do have kind words for the game of Pump It, this needs to be fixed by MXP4 as soon as possible. Quite frankly, it makes absolutely no sense to have the game appear within four different applications for each of the game's four initial artists.

After choosing one of the four artists Pump It--recently released in public beta--currently has to offer, you'll be able to either invite your friends to the game (more on that later) or choose a difficulty. Trust us, go with "Easy" on your first attempt as there a mildly steep learning curve. The game begins as soon as the track does, with what appears to be a speaker as the playing field. In rhythm with the song, purple, blue, pink and orange lights will begin to travel to the center of the speaker within each of its four quadrants. In order to keep the song going, all you need to do is move your mouse into the quadrant that is currently glowing before the beam of light reaches the center.

Pump It Points
No clicking or exact timing is required to successfully score on a beat. Your mouse just needs to be positioned over the quadrant when the light hits the center to score points. However, later on precision will matter as lights begin to appear in multiple quadrants at once, forcing you to discern the correct timing based on their position in reference to the center. The general rule of thumb in Pump It is to always move your mouse to the light that's closest to the center to ensure you're keeping time. Successfully timing a beat correctly in one quadrant five times in a row will double the points scored for good timing in that quadrant until you lose the beat, which will become quite often in the harder difficulties at first. Scoring the bonus in all four quadrants will reward players with an extra 10 thousand points.

Alright, we lied when we said no clicking is required. Keeping a successful chain of 50 consecutive beats will fill up a meter in the center. Once it fills completely, you'll be prompted to "Pump It," hence the name. Clicking on the button before the meter runs out will multiply your score for a time and boost what MXP4 calls Crowd Energy, which serves as a multiplier as well. It becomes a challenge to balance "pumping it" with maintaining your bonuses in more difficult songs, making Pump It one of the more demanding social games out there--certainly refreshing amongst the legion of simulator games.

There isn't much of a social element to Pump It outside of challenging friends and posting your scores, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Just look at the PopCap approach with games like Bejeweled Blitz and now Zuma Blitz and you'll see how effective it can be. Throw in unlockable tracks through repeat plays and the occasional contest for singed albums and merchandise and Pump It becomes one roaring social game in more ways than one.

Click here to play Tiesto Pump It on Facebook>

Click here to play David Guetta Pump It on Facebook>

Click here to play Lloyd Banks Pump It on Facebook>

Click here to play Ministry of Sound Pump It on Facebook>

FrontierVille Flash Mob Party: 50 Horseshoes, five winners, be there

Flash Mob Party
Just before most of us take a long weekend for Christmas, Zynga will be throwing a Flash Mob. Alright, don't freak out. Not literally, but on the FrontierVille forums. Starting tomorrow at 11 a.m. PST sharp, a forum thread will open up on the FrontierVille forums for yet another Flash Mob Party trivia contest. A Zynga community manager will ask five sets of questions to you, the freakishly-knowledgeable pioneers, for a chance at one of five stashes of 50 Horseshoes. The first player to answer a set of questions correctly will win.

Do you have the mental fortitude, or strangely large amount of homestead facts memorized, to become a FrontierVille Master? Stay tuned to the forums tomorrow, have that FrontierVille Wiki page open and F5 key firmly underneath your fingertip for when this Flash Mob overtakes the FrontierVille forums at 3 p.m. EST.

FrontierVille Caroling Collection: Harvest things at random for success

Large WreathThat's the way to do it, folks. Along with the 12 Days of Christmas Goals in FrontierVille comes a brand new collection with absolutely no rhyme or reason. The Caroling Collection can be completed right now, but at the moment there is no solid information on how to better your chances at nabbing each item. Here are all five items that you'll essentially find at random:

    Sheet Music
    Tuning Fork
    Caroling Candle
    Hand Bell
    Music Stand


With players reporting over on FrontierVille Wiki finding the items through almost every task imaginable from tending Neighbors' Pigs to collecting the Cabin Daily Bonus, we honestly can't say how exactly to complete this Collection. Though, finding all five items will reward you with one Large Wreath (pictured right) and 100 XP. Considering its random nature, we imagine this Collection will only be around for a limited time. So, erm, go about your business as usual and the Caroling Collection should be yours... eventually.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

CW's The Vampire Diaries series now a 'fang-tastic' Facebook game

Launched today, The Vampire Diaries: Get Sucked In follows the heels of BBC's announcement for Being Human, another popular supernatural drama set to become a Facebook role-playing game.

The CW's The Vampire Diaries (adapted from a novel series by L.J. Smith of the same name) is a show about a female high schooler's romantic entanglements with two vampire brothers and the mysterious events surrounding their town.

Fans of the show can now visit Mystic Falls anytime instead of just Thursday nights, thanks to developer Arkadium and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. Though Arkadium is best known for creating Mahjongg Dimensions and bringing Cooking Mama to Facebook, they've done work for The CW before, producing a Facebook game for the hit teen drama, Gossip Girl.

Gallery: The Vampire Diaries: Get Sucked In

Promising to draw upon "key plot lines," the game is currently divided into chapters, with eager fans having already completed chapter one and are now impatiently awaiting chapter two. When you begin, you're dropped into a fog in the middle of a dream, where you meet two of the show's three major characters--Elena and Damon. You get two item-fetching missions that are essentially a tutorial, then wake up to your first day at the Mystic Falls High School. An interactive map allows you to navigate the key parts of campus, your home, and the town, including the Mystic Grill restaurant. And while there's no voice acting, there's plenty of readable dialog and the music absolutely works to enhance the mood. It's all a very immersive experience.
The Vampire Diaries game map
Arkadium has clearly done its research. While I've not seen the series, the developer has created a game that completely indulges and rewards the most loyal fans while crafting enough intrigue to not alienate the random player who wanders in. The ultimate indulgence for fans is the mini-game "Mystic Trivia," which you can only pass if you have arcane knowledge of events in the show, such as, "Who is the warlock Bonnie flirts with, then messes with in Season 2?" or "What is the color of Damon's eyes?" This Facebook rendition of Vampire Diaries is clearly aimed at the lovestruck fan girls out there.

And speaking of fan girls, the game will know if you're male or female and tailor certain missions to you accordingly. In one mission, female players are sent to the cheerleading squad tryouts, while male players are sent to the football team. Though when you begin, no one asks what your gender is nor does the game ask you for a name. You're basically a cipher, and the characters in the game treat you as a student or a peer.

That the developers would allow such ambiguity is certainly worthy of notice. It'll be interesting, if there's more to it further down the road. Aside from trivia, there's a simple hidden object mechanic that takes up the bulk of the gameplay, followed by the "Mystic Pix" mini-game, which has you compare two screenshots of the show side-by-side.

FarmVille could crop up on the big screen, Toy Story writers say

Hey, if the Angry Birds are getting their own flick, why not? During an interview with IGN about their work on Skylanders: Spyro's Adventures, Toy Story writers Alec Sokolow and Joel Cohen hinted that they're in talks with Zynga about writing up a FarmVille movie, most likely for theaters. Of course, the writers didn't mention the mega popular farming simulator directly.

"So, yes, we will continue writing movies," Sokolow and Cohen told IGN. "We are also working on several new and very exciting opportunities. We're in conversations with Zynga to do something with one of their brands. Can't really say too much on that front yet, but 'Old MacDonald' didn't have a factory, if you get our drift."

That pretty much confirms it, but when contacted by IGN, the game developer declined to comment. That's most likely because no official announcement has been made regarding a film. (But we bet that some form of a press release is being written up right about now.)

You know, we normally cringe at the thought of a film based on a video game, much less on a game that has little to no action or plot. But we're cautiously confident, considering the writers behind one of the greatest animated films of all time are in on the potential project. Just forget about those ... other movies.