Category: Games

Rovio, the developer team behind the Angry Birds franchise, has pushed out a big update to Angry Birds 2 for Android.  The update brings 80 new levels to the game, Hamsterdam and Mississpiggy River chapters.  There are also improved treasures with bigger awards for players.  Perhaps the most noticeable change is the completely new home screen in the game.

The new home screen completely changes from the old, world map view that has been in the game since its initial release.  Now you see all of the birds in your flock in the center of the screen.  The world map, the arena and the daily quest are all large icons on the right side of the display.  It is a much cleaner and simpler design.

Age of Empires: Castle Siege has been available on Windows Phone since 2014 and was a banner game for that platform.  The developer, Smoking Gun Interactive, worked closely with Microsoft on the real-time strategy game and up until last week, you could only get it on Windows Phone and Windows 10.  Last week it launched for iOS and now it looks like we Android users will get the game in March.

For those not familiar with Castle Siege, the game is a top-down tower defense style game where you select a civilization and begin building your empire.  The game starts with plenty of step-by-step tutorials so even if you have never played AoE you will get the hang of it pretty quickly.  Picking your civilization is important as each one has unique skills or technologies to it over others.  If you have played in the past then again, this will feel familiar.

As a Formula One fan, the desire to play a reasonably realistic game based on real drivers, teams and circuits has been there for a long time.  The challenge has been the lack of such a game.  Sure the console games are fantastic from Codemasters but on mobile devices – both Android and iOS – there were F1-style games but nothing that would truly satisfy a fan of the sport.  That changed when Codemasters, the developer behind the console F1 games, released their mobile centric game, F1 2016.  While it doesn’t have the level of controls or customizations that the console level game has, F1 2016 is a remarkably well developed game with outstanding graphics, real teams, real drivers and, of course, real circuits.

I have been playing F1 2016 since the day it was released and I will admit, despite the hype, that I was skeptical that it would be a good game playing experience.  Happily, I’m wrong.  It is a great playing experience.  It’s not perfect but it is fun and challenging and that should keep F1 fans who want to turn a few laps at Monaco, Spa or Silverstone, happy and satisfied.

Dawn of Titans, the new RPG from NatualMotionGames, has hit the Play Store as a free download.  The game features impressive graphics and excellent game play in a tried but true gaming format, particularly on mobile devices.  With your army and the support of titans, your quest is to expand your kingdom and territory by defeating your enemies in a series of pre-defined scenarios as well as against other players kingdoms.  You can also create alliances with other players to both raid and take control of lands to grow your own kingdom.

To add some fun to the game, you can add powers and other strengths to your titans so you can more easily conquer your enemies.  You can even fuze strengths from one titan to another to create a “super titan” – once you get your castle to level 7. 🙂

It has taken a long time, over a year in fact, but crossword players on Android can rejoice this morning.  The New York Times Crossword app has finally come to our favorite platform after a year of availability on iOS and Windows Phone.  Yes, Windows Phone before Android.  Perish the thought!  Now you can subscribe and play the daily crossword from the paper and have access to over 20 years of crossword puzzles from the news source.  If crosswords are your thing, then your wait for arguably the best and most well known source for them is over.

The app starts you off on a 7 day trial which gives you full access to the daily crossword from the Times.  If you want to continue to have access to that daily puzzle on your phone or tablet, it is $6.95 per month (NYT digital subscribers do get a discount).  You will also have access to quick mini puzzles and puzzle packs which will be updated regularly.

After some delays, FIFA Mobile for Android is finally available in the Play Store.  The football (soccer) franchise app has been completely redesigned and purposely built for mobile devices.  That means that the team at EA Sports has significantly shrunk the game from a near 200MB install to only a 68MB install on your phone and it is much more optimized for touch play.

The game has a huge amount of playing options.  You have 30 different leagues from around the world, 650 real football teams and some 17,000 real players.  It makes it a true football experience for those who love the Beautiful Game.