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Brace Yourselves! Flappy Bird Returns!

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flappy bird Do you remember Flappy Bird? Back in 2013, it was an addictive and frustrating game that turned players into true junkies and brought creator Dong Nguyen an unexpected fame and fortune.

If you never played it, let us sum up the game’s main features for you: everything you had to do was to guide a small non – aerodynamic bird through a series of pipes, just by tapping on the smartphone’s screen. The thing was, if you crashed the bird into an obstacle or didn’t manage to keep it floating, the game was over and you had to start all over again. Imagine cohorts of people not giving up after the first try…

Translated into real life, reports showed that a gazillion of people got addicted to the game and turned it into an incredible hit.

It was so successful, Dong Nguyen was making around $50,000 in ad revenue per day. On a less positive note, the game received a lot of critique for its addictive features and Nguyen felt suddenly under tons of pressure, both professionally and personally. He felt somehow guilty for delivering the world just another dangerous drug and decided to forever remove the game from the app marketplace.

This took place in February this year, but after a few months of silence, Nguyen resurfaced and spread the word: Flappy Bird returns, with new and improved features and a less – addictive potential. In an interview for CNBC on Wednesday, Nguyen revealed that the game would return sometime August this year and would bring a multiplayer version. This somehow changes completely the notion of “gone forever”, but we are not the ones to judge.

According to the journalists who covered the topic,

The new version will be enabled for multi-player gaming, so you and your fellow addicts can complete in real time. Nguyen also plans to make the new version of the game less addictive to users, though how he plans to do that is unclear. Nguyen could create levels within the game, so users don’t have to start from scratch every time their bird crashes. He could also create a tiered difficulty system. Regardless, based on the craze that resulted from the first release of the game, Flappy Bird 2.0 will still breed some serious addicts.

Now that we know Flappy Bird returns, we can’t wait to see it and burn our fingertips in order to keep that bird flying. After Nguyen removed the original game from the app stores, a myriad of copycats invaded the world. Some of these almost identical games witnessed certain levels of success, but most of them were clearly inferior to the Flappy Bird. As we said, we still don’t have details on the exact changes Ngyuen plans for the game, but there is still a lot of time to find out!

Alz, The Game About Loss of Memory and Loneliness

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alzAt a first glance, you might think that games are being built to give room to some of our traits and skills to express themselves and get enhanced with practice. Even First Person Shooters teach players something (besides violence), not to mention that some famous strategy games are able to even build the players’ stronger problem solving skills and lateral thinking abilities. All in all, games are here to entertain us, and even if we spill our enemies’ virtual blood, we can still call it a day with a feeling of satisfaction in our hearts, for leveling up or making all sorts of achievements. However, here we have Alz, the game about loss of memory and loneliness that puzzled and thrilled many game reviewers and experts. It may depress you a bit, and apparently, this is a good thing, as it teaches people a few things about their frail humanity and gives them a direct insight into the world of people suffering from memory loss and its consequences. Alz is supposed to be a not-so-subtle reference to Alzheimer’s, but not everybody agrees. However, let’s see what this is all about.

What is Alz, The Game About Loss of Memory and Loneliness?

Its developers, quoted by the guys at Hyperallergic, say that Alz is

A short game. Well more like a short film. Well more like an experimental short film in ever-so-slightly interactive of a format.

Basically, your faceless character wanders around a surrealist world with few choices to make, surrounded by a puzzling environment, backed – up by a somber piano music fine – tuned by Broove. The game experience lasts for a few minutes, but it was described as touching beyond belief, as it throws you into a world you are sure you know a lot about, but in truth, you have little idea of how people with memory loss feel, and Alz is here to give you a sense of a reality nobody wishes to experience. The game is free to play and available online at Newgrounds. The best description for this game comes, however, from Allison Meier (at the Hyperallergic):

a poem-length immersion in the world of someone caught in the confusion of memory loss.

4 Racing Video Games to Try in 2014

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Need for Speed: RivalsCar games are a favorite among gamers, having a very broad audience. More or less, each of us likes cars and dreams of driving supercars like Ferrari, Porsche or Lamborghini. Until that happens in real life, here are 5 racing video games to try in 2014

Need for Speed: Rivals, our top choice in terms of racing video games

Need for Speed remains today the most popular series of car games for PC. The last game takes place in the fictional town Redview County and allows you to get into the role of a racer or a cop. In both cases there is a career mode, but the main attractions remain the varied roads with a total length of about 160 kilometers and, especially, the ability to climb, at least virtually, on board of famous sports cars.

Grid 2, for those who like it classic

For those who prefer to have available classic cars, Codemasters has released Grid 2, a sequel to the title Race Driver: Grid in 2008. Here’s your chance to get into the cockpit of old cars up to 40 years, you’ll drive through various real places on Earth. You start with some standard cars that later you will be able to improve or change depending on your performances.

F1 2013, the official game of Formula 1

F1 2013 is the official game of Formula 1 and puts you in the shoes of a racing driver in the 2013 season of Formula 1. You can compete with any of the 22 pilots and probably you will try to beat Sebastian Vettel and his Red Bull Racing during the 19 races of the season.

The Crew is all about novelty

The Crew is a title that promises to come up with two attractive and relatively new elements. The first is the open space with the opportunity to explore the United States without rules imposed such a circuit configuration, while the second refers to the ability to form teams that battle for supremacy on the many trails. How well will The Crew meet user expectations we’ll be able to see in the second half of the year.

Kindle Fire Voted Best Android Tablet For Playing Games

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The result of a survey carried out by IDC and App Annie has come up with some surprising result. The survey related to the people’s choice of the tablet they would prefer for playing games. Also, the survey concerned Android running tablets only. While the Apple iOS platform is the preferred platform among gamers, what the survey has revealed is that Android devices too are fast catching up in this aspect. However, what has come as even more surprising is that it is the Kindle Fire that has been voted to be the most popular device for playing games. Surprising since the Kindle Fire which its makers promote as a device primarily for reading ebooks among other things has beaten dedicated gaming devices such as the Nintendo 3DS on its march to the top slot.

Kindle Fire

So what is the best tablet for gaming? That’s subjective, of course, but a new study shows it may not be the device you think. While most still turn to iOS for gaming, the Android realm is catching up quickly. While we focus on tablets like the Nexus 7, we’re way off base. In fact, we’re not even acknowledging the people’s choice.

The survey also indicates that between tablets and smartphones, people prefer the smartphone for playing games. So the Kindle lost out when it came to a match against the smartphone users for playing games. If the PS Vita is also taken into the study, Android smartphones would yet win hands down which goes to show the extent of the coverage and usage of Android smartphones in the market today. There is the other aspect of dimension where the smartphones now coming in such size that tablets are losing out on that count too. The above applies to the 7 inch tablet that has been reeling under pressure from the phablet or big screen smartphone segment.

The Android market is catching up so far as gamers choice goes which till now has been quite iOS centric. There is the App Store which provides developers a good ground for distributing their games which does have a measurable effect on users’ choice of the physical gadget. It was also noted that iPod had received many votes in the survey which means the simple games are also something that many people like to play.

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