Last year, my interest in Scrabble was brought to life with the release of the Scrabulous Facebook application. It was a good time challenging Facebook friends to old-fashioned word battles, and destroying them all with my superior wordsmithing skills. Or not. If you wanna test me, feel free to challenge me on Facebook. So what’s the point? Well, the moment that I saw that EA had released a version of Scrabble for the iPhone and iPod touch, I had to grab it immediately.  I mean, an official Scrabble game for the mobile device that I use more than any other? What’s not to love about that?

Well, we will tell you. Step on in for our full review of the Scrabble app for iPhone.

Click to continue reading EA Scrabble iPhone review

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We are seated for the Electronic Arts E3 2008 Media Briefing. We start the conference off right, with a montage of a ton of upcoming EA titles, focusing on some new sports titles, upcoming Sims releases, and a bunch of casual games like Monopoly, Boogie, and Operation (aw yeah!) Of course, Spore is also featured here as well.

John Riccitiello hits the stage to talk about what EA has this afternoon to show us, and he says they won’t be doing PowerPoint, statistics, or sales figures. Instead, they are going to focus on the games, and we will be hearing from the people that make the games.

Rod Humble of The Sims Studio comes out to talk about The Sims. He announces Sim Animals. in this game you create groups of animals and their friends, habitat, etc. Some animals are friendly like deer and rabbits, while wolves and bears can stir up trouble. We then get a trailer. We get a baby cub bear interacting with a squirrel, and then a fox joins the fray. It seems that you basically control the game by using the world as your UI, you have a hand similar to Black and White. Will be exclusive to Wii and Nintendo DS in January 2009.

Click to continue reading E3 2008: Live from the EA Media Briefing

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Okay, Wii Fit launches in May 21 peeps. Stores are throwing signage up all over the place, and it appears the first actual test of your fitness will be fighting the crowds in an attempt to get your hands on the game. We’ve already seen it going for as much as $210 USD on eBay - and the game costs less than $100. Yeah, this is gonna be fun. Thanks, Nintendo.

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Finally, Nintendo’s answer to the original game experiences in the Xbox Live Marketplace and Playstation Network has arrived in the form of WiiWare. Unlike the Virtual Console titles we are used to from Nintendo on the Wii, all WiiWare titles are original games. Small developers can get to work on creating some of these smaller casual games. WiiWare titles cost between $5 and $15, and as of today, you have six to choose from. We have full descriptions of each after the break.

Click to continue reading Nintendo WiiWare launches

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I’ve recently been playing the hell out of PixelJunk Monsters, a game that we feel is one of the shining stars of the Playstation Store. If you haven’t yet tried it, seriously, go download it. The 2D strategy game is something that we almost can’t stop playing once we start. This is why we are happy to hear that Q Games has made it known that the first expansion pack for the game, titled PixelJunk Monsters Encore, is set to drop on May 1. We can expect a new island, called “Toki,” which will feature an additional 15 levels, as well as a little bit of housecleaning behind the scenes to the overall game mechanics. Even better still, the expansion will include five new songs by Otograph.

Visually, there are a few tweaks here and there that we can expect - weather effects, new tree shapes, and a few other small upgrades. Nothing over the top.

No word yet on pricing details, but this is DLC for a fairly inexpensive game, so it shouldn’t cost much.

Read More | Destructoid

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Nintendo is keeping the hits coming with their announcement that the long-awaited Wii Fit will be launching here in North America on May 19. The game, which comes packaged with the Wii Balance Board, will be sold for $89.99 - about 1/3 the price of the Wii console itself. So yeah, a tad on the expensive side for a game, but it comes with a fairly unique peripheral, so what are ya gonna do? If you are one of the first 1,000 to pre-order the game at the Nintendo World Store in midtown Manhattan between April 18-20, you even get a free Wii Fit T-shirt. Here’s to fanboys playing balancing games in the hopes of getting in better shape!

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If you’re a fan of the Guitar Hero and Rock Band, we’ve got a T-shirt for you. The design on this tee bears a striking resemblance to the faux guitar that comes with those, games so you’re guaranteed to be the star of the show when wearing one. Or for ultimate geekiness, you can crank up some Led Zep and make like the lad in the photo above. But we suggest you only do that around those who truly “get you”. Available in both men’s and women’s sizes for only $12 USD.

Read More | Gifts.com

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Last year we featured lots of Space Invaders stuff, such as the bling, welcome mat, tote bag and even a baby mobile. Well we just found out the classic video game turns 30 this year.  To celebrate, manufacturer Taito and New Era caps have teamed up to release a collection of seven black, fitted-style 59Fifty caps embroidered with the game’s characters. We think they’re a tad pricey at $57 each, but think of how great it will go with this scarf. According to StrictlyFitteds.com, the caps are available at Cap Collector One and New Era.

Read More | Strictly Fitteds via Gizmodiva

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Those of you lurking around the iTMS Games section may have noticed a recent addition for a Guitar Hero-esque iPod game named Phase: Your Music is the Game. The nice thing, though, is that this game isn’t just a rip-off of the GH formula, but a clever new game designed by the folks at Harmonix (and thus released by MTV/Viacom). One really cool feature of the game, as well, is that the rhythm action takes place to music you have stored on your iPod. Get it? Your music IS the game.

Phase is currently on sale for $4.99 at the iTunes Music Store.

Read More | iTunes

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Microsoft announced that starting at midnight GMT on Wednesday, they’ll be reducing prices for a select number of Xbox Live Arcade titles for one week, ending at 11:59 Tuesday October 2nd. This is similar to the Labor Day sale they ran earlier this month where they dropped the prices on Gauntlet, Zuma and Dig Dug.

The titles featured this time around are Bankshot Billiards 2, Hardwood Spades and Frogger.

The price reductions are less dramatic here, the earlier labor day sale halved the prices of the games while these are marked down less severely: Bankshot Billiards 2 normally goes for 1200 ($15.00) Microsoft Points but has been reduced to 900 ($11.25); Hardwood Spades and Frogger are both usually priced at 400 Microsoft Points ($5.00) but have been dropped to 300 ($3.75). Still, if you were considering any of these games as possible purchases, now might be the time to jump on them. Perhaps combined with the Best Buy/Halo 3 Live promotion you can have yourself a few days of super-cheap online gaming.

Read More | Gamerscore Blog

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