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Lady Gaga teams up with Zynga, FarmVille players get first listen to new album
In the latest of bizarre moves the eccentric artist is known for, Lady Gaga has teamed up with Zynga to celebrate her new album, Born This Way. This partnership will encompass special events in two of the developer’s biggest games: FarmVille and Words With Friends. “I want to celebrate and share Born This Way with my little monsters in a special way that’s never been done before,” said Lady Gaga.
The first listen of Born This Way will take place in FarmVille, when you visit the neighboring GagaVille farm. This space comes decked out with unicorns, crystals, and un-released songs from the highly anticipated album.
Words With Friends, the popular Scrabble knock-off on iOS and Android, will host a series of contests where you can win prizes like tickets for one of her upcoming concerts and a signed copy of Born This Way.
Lastly, you’ll be able to grab a free download of the album when you purchase a $25 Zynga game card at Best Buy. You gotta admit, this shows just how big gaming has become when the most popular artists are doing game deals, with exclusive first listens nonetheless.
Pulse: Volume One coming out May 5 for iPad
Philadelphia independent studio Cipher Prime is releasing their third game this Thursday. Pulse: Volume One is a rhythm game and marks Cipher Prime’s first foray into the iPad world. Pulse takes advantage of the multi-touch functionality, challenging players to keep up with the music and “tap notes as they are crossed by the pulse as it expands in time with the music.” The music is provided by local Philadelphia artists and supports “genres from chip-tune to nerdcore to death metal.” The gameplay video above is from Indie Game Mag, and makes me want to buy an iPad right now.
Cipher Prime’s previous games were Auditorium (on the PC, PS3, and PSP) and Fractal (on the PC), so their fans are at war over whether or not they approve of this jump to the mobile gaming scene. So far, it’s gotten some great press. (My favorite quote comes from Pocket Gamer: “A package so thoroughly well put together that you’re reminded of why music games were popular in the first place.”)
Cipher Prime is part of Philadelphia’s flourishing video game scene, and can be found this weekend at the Too Many Games Expo from May 6-8. Stop by. Tell ’em Nicole sent you.
Sony announces PlayStation Suite-certified tablets
Are you looking for an iPad alternative? Sony has announced that they’ll be releasing the “Sony Tablet” this Fall.
The Android 3.0-powered devices will come in two form factors: the 9.4-inch “S1” and the dual-screened “S2.” Both tablets have been certified as PlayStation Suite compatible, which you can see for yourself with the awesome Crash Bandicoot demo in the trailer above.
The dual-screened S2 is very clearly patterned after Nintendo’s DS design, with content-specific control buttons overlaid on the bottom screen while the action takes place on the top screen.
Sony didn’t announce a retail price for the S1 or the S2.
PopCap goes experimental with 4th & Battery label
As if Plants vs Zombies wasn’t weird enough, PopCap Games has announced 4th & Battery, a new label for “smaller, simpler, and sometimes edgier games.”
“4th & Battery is a pressure valve intended to keep our heads from exploding,” explained Ed Allard, Executive Vice President of Studios at PopCap. “The PopCap brand has become closely associated with ultra-high quality, polish and attention to detail – which is a great thing. But our standard game development process is therefore long and involved, and doesn’t really accommodate all of the creativity pumping through our collective veins. 4th & Battery gives us a way to quickly try really strange or marginal ideas, and to give our designers a safe area to hone their chops.”
“Expect weirdness,” Jason Kapalka, Chief Creative Officer at PopCap, added.
To that end, 4th & Battery has announced their first game, Unpleasant Horse. The iPhone title will be added to the App Store later this month and it definitely brings the crazy:
Players take on the role of – wait for it! – a strikingly unpleasant horse that sports wings and advances through the game by destroying small birds and landing on more pleasant horses from above. Landing atop other horses enables the player to force them earthward into a perpetual meat grinder for extra points and special bonuses.
The Witcher: Versus available on iPhone
Fans of the PC RPG series can now take their adventures with them on the go. This mobile installment comes courtesy of Chillingo, a subsidiary of Electronic Arts, known primarily for publishing Angry Birds and Cut the Rope. The game is described as a “dark and fierce” turn based battle RPG where players hoard weapons, skills, and abilities and take on powerful opponents in combat. Tight.
Angry Birds Rio free for Android via Amazon
Here at Warp Zoned, we try to keep you covered on all the latest gaming deals with our Daily Scoop. Every now and then we miss something, and occasionally a huge score comes out of nowhere after it’s already gone up.
Such is the case with our good friends at Amazon who are offering Angry Birds Rio for Android for FREE. The game giveaway lasts all day today, so if you’re running the popular OS on your mobile phone, there’s really not much else to say: get it!
Doodle Jump hopping to XBLA, iPad
It seems like ages ago, but before a flock of Angry Birds took over the App Store, Lima Sky’s Doodle Jump ruled the roost. Today, the mobile game is celebrating a big milestone and jumping to new destinations.
First things first, Lima Sky has proudly announced that ten million copies of Doodle Jump have been downloaded in the two years since its release. Just goes to show you that an addictive game can suck in a lot of buyers if the price is right.
But iPhone and Android owners will soon have to share Doodle Jump with their iPad and Xbox 360-owning friends. Set for release sometime in 2011, the iPad version of the game will include brand new content while the Xbox 360 version will be released through the Xbox Live Arcade (naturally) and include Kinect support.
But don’t worry iPhone fans, the iPhone version of Doodle Jump will receive a free multiplayer update “very soon.”
Posted in News
Tagged Doodle Jump, Mobile, Xbox 360
Disney Interactive cuts jobs
Disney Interactive is currently downsizing, apparently in a pretty substantial way, as nearly half of its 700 member staff may be getting the boot. Disney calls the layoffs a “restructuring process” in its statement. Variety reports that many were anticipating the layoffs as many key players left the division last year, including Graham Hopper, who spent the last eight years building the studio into a formidable entity in the gaming industry. New talent is coming in to upper management, including John Pleasants, CEO of Playdom, which Disney acquired last year. Disney’s current CEO Bob Iger said Pleasants would “focus on turning those businesses into profitability” and “diversifying our presence in the business, so we’re not reliant on one platform that’s obviously facing challenges.”
While terms can have multiple connotations in the business context, he may be referring to last year’s Epic Mickey, which released exclusively for the Nintendo Wii, a console that is notoriously difficult for third party developers to find success on. Epic Mickey was panned critically, but is apparently the fastest selling game in Disney Interactive’s history, pushing 1.3 million copies last December.