Section: Gaming News, Handhelds, iPhone & iPod Touch, Genres, 2D, Action, Strategy, Updates, Apple App Store

Square Enix’s long-awaited debut to the Apple “gaming” platform has finally arrived. Crystal Defenders is up on the App Store right now for $7.99 as well as a free “lite” version of the game if you want to give it a test run.

Crystal Defenders is a strategy/defense game similar to tower defense games, except instead of towers players use units based on various Final Fantasy-related jobs (Black Mage, Archer, etc.). The goal is to protect your party’s crystals from the waves of enemies.

Based on the iTunes profile for the game, the full version will offer “over 300 stages of action in one of three different game versions.“

• In W1, players can learn game basics.
• In W2, the introduction of Power Crystals opens up new doors, allowing for deeper, more detailed strategies.
• Finally, the complex maps in W3 will challenge even the most seasoned players

.

Meanwhile, the lite version of the game offers up “20 waves” of enemies on W1 only.

Players can opt to use the virtual control pad or simply tap an area to place units. Selecting options is as easy as tapping the center button of the control pad.

I’ve been checking out the lite version and it’s a really good game so far. I’ll reserve a final judgment after I download the full game and play through it but, if you own an iPod Touch or iPhone, you owe it to yourself to at least download the lite version.

Photo Gallery [Gamertell]

Full Story » | Written by Kris Rosado for Gamertell. | Comment on this Article »

Section: Gaming News, Features, Rumors, Consoles, Xbox-360, Genres, 3D, Action, Adventure

When Crackdown made its debut on the Xbox 360, reviewers both praised and criticized its interpretation of the open-world formula made popular through the successful releases of the Grand Theft Auto series.

However, regardless of any disparagements that were heaped on the game, it sold well enough commercially to raise demand for a sequel. To many gamers, the prospect of having a super-powered being leap over tall buildings in the name of justice would be the perfect means to begin their new year.

Interestingly, while the prospect of a Crackdown sequel has been shot down in the past, the likelihood of it coming to fruition has increased, thanks to a 1UP report that Microsoft is funding a start-up studio titled Ruffian Games, with the singular of working on Crackdown 2.

However, the decision to take this action did not necessarily please Real Time Worlds studio developer Colin Macdonald who remarked that he was doubtful that Microsoft would hand over the reins of one of their highly-regarded franchises to a lesser-known development company.

Macdonald also made it clear that he would be “gutted” if he was not involved in the Crackdown 2 project but emphasized his wish that the game be done justice with an established development team. This statement, when taken on its own, does not heap a great deal of praise on the developmental talents of Ruffian Games, even though its team does comprise some former Real Time Worlds staff members.

All in all, I hope that Crackdown 2 sees release sometime in the future. It remains the only game that truly encapsulated the “open-world” method of execution.

Read [1UP] Via [Videogaming247]

Full Story » | Written by Jason Townsend-Rogers for Gamertell. | Comment on this Article »

OK – so about a month ago I posted a concept about how to use Wordpress as a DAM (Digital Asset Management system).  I felt pretty good about things – but have been thinking about it more and more lately.

I think some of the magic missing was the extra contetual and semantic stuff.  Here is a revised plan which may help with that.

Free DAM

The concept leverages a WordPress plugin which will go out and “harvest” content called WP-O-Matic.  It can be used for the dark side, but we’re using it from the white hat side – only for good.  It allows you to setup campaigns which can go out and get summaries. We will need to modify the plugin to grab complete articles, again – this is only valid for content we own the rights to…stealing content is bad.

After the content grab, we need to get some more context – this is where we leverage the open calais project.  (I still cannot pronounce that!)  They have a web service which can take a feed and add come back with extra goodness.

The OpenCalais Web service analyzes text and provides semantic data such as:

• Names of persons mentioned in the text
• Names of companies mentioned in the text
• Events described in the text such as bankruptcies and mergers

The results of the analysis can later be used to evaluate the text, by humans or machines. For example, a person interested in news stories relating to a specific merger, might find the Open Calais semantic analysis useful in determining the relevance of a specific article.

Then we move to open project #2 – one of my all time favs, Zemanta.  (I’m been a fan of these guys for awhile – Andreaz and the crew have got a great thing going and I applaud them when ever I can.)  So we run the new feed through Zemanta’s API and we get the tags and cats.

Then you add it to the WordPress DAM and bada-boom, we’re storing content.  The next steps will come later – when we add a plugin for users on Wordpress, Drupal and others for easy insertion into their new creations.

OK – let me know, are we moving forward, sideways or off base all together?

Related articles by Zemanta

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Section: Gaming News, Game-Companies, Developers, Publishers, Web-Sites

Free Radical, the studio behind the recent flop Haze and the beloved TimeSplitters series, has closed it’s doors this week, according to a report by Kotaku. Unfortunately it looks like the closing is for good. The most painful part (for fans of awesome, not-so-serious FPS games, anyway) – the post states that the studio was working on a new TimeSplitters game.

Boo on the economy. Seriously. Best of luck to all the employees who are now jobless.

Read [Kotaku]

Full Story » | Written by Danielle Riendeau for Gamertell. | Comment on this Article »

This page was last modified 20:54, 17 December 2008.

I was browsing my Google reader and found an update to my Facebook Developer wiki RSS…and what do you know – they have updated the page.

We have the ability to “WP-FacebookConnect adds Facebook functionality to Wordpress using the Facebook Connect APIs. It provides single-signon, avatars, and newsfeed publication of comments. “

I was really pushing the WordPress developed BuddyPress – which is an add on for WordPress Multi-User, but I’mbecoming more conviced each day that FacebookConnect (or FriendConnect by Google) is a better way to go.  It seems like these are well established social networks which will server as great leverage for the killer platform, WordPress.

Let me know what you hear.

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Section: Gaming News, Consoles, GameCube, Wii, Handhelds, DS, Game-Companies, Developers, Distributors, Publishers, Updates, Wii-Virtual-Console

Nintendo promised us that the North America chapter of Club Nintendo would be available by the end of the 2008 year and sure enough, only 15 days until 2009, Club Nintendo is now officially live.

If you have already signed up for a “My Nintendo” account, you can use that login information and anything you already registered on that account will be transferred over to you Club Nintendo account, meaning you will have coins to spend from the get-go.

If you don’t already have a My Nintendo account, all you need to do is fill out your name, age, and email address (also choosing a username and password) and you’re all set to start registering those Nintendo products for coins. An “Intend to Buy” survey allows you to earn an additional 10 coins when you register your purchased (now previously intended-to-buy) game.

Coin values for Nintendo games (specific point values for systems weren’t detailed) are as follows:

• Wii games = 50 Coins
• Nintendo DS games = 30 Coins
• Wii Shop Channel games/Wii Channels = 10 Coins

As for spending your coinage, Nintendo already has a few items available for you to “purchase” although none are as sharp as that Super Famicom Wii controller Nintendo gave to the Japanese clubbers (Japanese get all the luck). There is at least one decent item on the list – the official North American version of the DS Game & Watch Collection. The Game & Watch Collection contains three Game & Watch Gallery games for 800 coins.

A poster on NeoGaf took this screen shot of all the prizes earlier today, yes they are the official prizes:

Way to finally include North America, Nintendo!

Official Site [Club Nintendo]  Read [Joystiq] Also Read [Gamertell]

Full Story » | Written by Kris Rosado for Gamertell. | Comment on this Article »