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Word Fighter is a cool upcoming — wait for it — word fighting game from the wonderful dudes over at Feel Every Yummy. We went hands-on with an alpha build earlier this year at GDC, and now you can see the game in its more finished glory. Feel Every Yummy has just released a new look teaser showing off its next-level Street Fighter-Meets-Scrabble action and also a few of its new-look characters. Depressingly, none of them are TIME-award winning Brad Nicholson, but what can you do, eh?

In case you missed our earlier coverage, basically the game goes like this: you spell a word from jumbled letters on a 5×5 grid over the course of three timed and turn-based rounds. Letters have point values, so the more points, the more possibility that you’ll live through the man-on-man conflict.

If you’re going to be around at PAX Prime, you’ll be able to go hands-on with the game, too before its eventual Fall 2011 release on the iPad, iPhone, and the Android operating system. If you won’t be in attendance, well, you’ll just have to wait like the rest of us.

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A new trailer for Fish Labs’ graphically gifted new-fangled version of Galaxy On Fire 2 [$9.99] has surfaced on the Inter-webs. As we’ve reported previously, this new sheen is presumably the result of Fish Labs’ Tegra 2 versions of the game, except ratcheted up for the Mac and the all-powerful iPad 2. It looks amazing.

Sadly, Galaxy On Fire 2 Full HD — that's its real, full name — is still set to be a stand-alone product. In an old message board post, Fish Labs told our community that this decision allows for a different pricing model and keeps consumers from being confused with the new screenshots and videos. Also, a new game means the studio won’t have to mess with any conflicting version bugs, especially in the game save arena.

In case you didn’t catch the text, this is still a beta preview of the title. It is slated for a full release later this fall across iOS, Android, Windows, and the Mac. No pricing has been nailed quite yet, but I'd imagine we'll hear about that pretty soon as its release spirals ever closer.

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Let's talk about big money (no big prizes) for a second. Financial news site Bloomberg is reporting that Angry Birds creator Rovio Mobile is ‘considering’ taking a strategic investment from an 'entertainment company' to expand their wares to China and fund the upcoming movie. If it goes through, unnamed sources indicate that this investment would give Rovio the value of about 1.2 billion. I love it!

These mysterious sources aren’t indicating what parties are interested in investing. We agree with analyst superstar Michael Pachter when he suggests that EA, Zynga, or even Disney are the likeliest possible investors. All of these companies have a huge stake in the mobile space, and obviously wouldn’t mind getting a piece of the Angry Birds action. Disney definitely needs the most cred out of all of these publishers.

Fake, but you get the idea.

If you needed an indication of how popular Angry Birds is outside the world of the App Store or Android, look no further than your local Wal-Mart. Kiosks with Angry Birds plush toys are starting to appear. Also, several stores are carrying shirts with the iconic catapult games’ various winged mascots.

Love it or hate it, you already knew Rovio’s bird game is a powerhouse. I wonder how much longer this can last, though.

[Via Bloomberg, Joystiq - Image 1 via A Kid's Pencil, Image 2 via Gadget Sin]

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We don't generally follow sales figures of non-iOS devices too closely, but this was just too good to pass up– Especially as a silly Friday news story. Marco Arment, creator of Instapaper whipped up a graph today utilizing data he compiled from GamePro, Daring Fireball, and The Wallstreet Journal to show just how poorly Android tablets are selling compared to obscure video game systems of the past:

Arment notes that the HP TouchPad was not included because they've yet to release sales figures. Similarly, the iPad was omitted from the graph because its 30 million units sold skewed the scale too much. Also, the front-runner in the chart, the TurboGrafx-16 totally owned. You can play a few of its games in the TurboGrafx-16 Gamebox [Free], although it's missing most of the more memorable titles aside from Bonk.

Anyway, this just really puts things into perspective with how much the iPad is dominating the tablet market. It's not exactly news that the Blackberry Playbook isn't selling well, but moving fewer units than the Virtual Boy? That's just crazy.

[via Marco.org]

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Orange Pixel’s Meganoid [$.99] now has more content than before. The ultra-stupid hard platform game has been updated with a serious dosage of levels, bringing the ‘normal’ mode up to a stellar 90 different offerings. Sarge Mode (read: hard mode) is now up to 80 courtesy of this latest update pass, which also ushered in Game Center support, several bug fixes and tweaks, and the once Android-exclusive “Oreah Mode,” a backwards variant of the game. A total of 50 levels from this have been added.

On the studio’s official blog, Orange Pixel notes that it’s attempting to bring the total of all three modes to 100 levels, which explains the whole “more to come line” we’ve heard. When not dropping more content into Meganoid, it’s busy with its next platformer, INC.

If you haven’t checked out Meganoid, feel free to read our review. It’s a good mash-up game with super responsive controls and a fun lo-fi art and sound direction. It might be a little too hard for its own good at times, but we dug it overall.

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Back at Mobile World Congress, held in early February in Barcelona this year, Fish Labs was showing off some incredible looking version of Galaxy on Fire 2 [$9.99] running on Nvidia's Android-based Tegra 2 devices. Here's the demo video of the graphical tech they were showing off, which admittedly was much more impressive when you saw it running on an actual device:

Per the latest press release to come out of Fish Labs, it sounds like they've taken this Tegra 2 version, and turned the graphics up to 11 for the Mac and the iPad 2. Now for the bad news, Galaxy on Fire 2 Full HD will be a brand new game on the App Store, and won't be an update to the existing game. A Fish Labs post in our forums explains this is to solve issues like being able to show the high-resolution screenshots without confusing people, not forcing all non-iPad 2 owners to keep an extra 800MB of unutilized graphical assets on their device, prevent game save inconsistency, and it will allow them to price/update each version individually.

Here's the good news: This new version of the game looks awesome:

For the rest of the screenshots (and there are a bunch) head over to the Fish Labs site. This Fully HD version of the game is expected to launch this fall, and I can't wait to play through the whole thing again on my iPad 2.

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After being an Android exclusive for half a year, Pachinko Frenzy [Free], the latest from ngmoco, has arrived on iOS hoping to whet the appetite of Pachinko addicts everywhere. While that itch is certainly scratched with this game, Pachinko Frenzy’s freemium underpinnings unfortunately detract from the overall gameplay to the point where only the most hardcore of Pachinko fans will continue to play the game for longer than a few sessions.

For those unfamiliar with the early 20th century Japanese gaming device, we gave a good explanation of it in our review of the 2009 Pachinko [$0.99] iOS game. Essentially, small metal spheres are launched into the Pachinko machine with the goal of hitting as many stationary pins as possible, racking up points and generating more balls. Pachinko Frenzy takes this further by incorporating mini-games that can be earned when every pin on the board is lit up.

Mini-games range from trying to keep a single ball live for as long as possible, to trying to hit as many consecutive pins on one ball, and more. Do well in these mini-games and prizes can be earned, including collective trophies that can unlock new boards when enough of them are collected. Overall, Pachinko Frenzy does a good job emulating a standard Pachinko board, assuming you aren’t put off by the excessive anime motif. Just make sure that you have the latest generation of iOS devices, as Pachinko Frenzy isn’t compatible with anything earlier (and does occasionally slow down on the iPhone 4, no less).

Where the game starts to falter, unfortunately, is in its freemium implementation. The game starts out with only one board unlocked, and you can only unlock additional boards by “selling” 1000 balls or by collecting all the trophies associated with a locked board. Acquiring 1000 balls appears to be an exercise in futility, as you start out with 50, and it’s extremely slow going trying to earn more than that (unless you’re some kind of Pachinko Savant). The developers predicted this, and included the option to purchase additional balls as IAP, but as of this writing, IAP hasn’t been implemented yet. This leads to trophy collection as the only other alternative to unlocking the additional boards, which is definitely possible but would take an extremely long time. Odds are most players would probably lose interest in the one board before any additional ones could be unlocked.

One of the goals of Pachinko is to feed the addiction of possible reward by playing a game based mostly on random chance. If you’re looking for a time-waster that accomplishes that, or you’re a fan of Pachinko, you can’t go wrong with Pachinko Frenzy. However, don’t think you’re going to be unlocking new boards any time soon, unless you put in a good deal of time or money (once IAP goes live).

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If you're the kind of person whose feathers get ruffled whenever free to play is mentioned, you should make sure you're sitting down before reading the rest of this post. We liked Glu's Gun Bros [Free] quite a bit when it was first released. As mentioned in our review, it really does provide a cool twist on the dual stick shooter formula via the bro system which allows you to play in a asynchronous co-op mode where you can bro up and bring a friend's bro into your game to help you slay waves of monsters. A recent update even added realtime online multiplayer via 3G and WiFi.

The rub of Gun Bros is an extensive upgrade system to keep you coming back on a daily basis shooting up bad guys to progressively unlock bigger and badder gear upgrades. Of course, like all free to play games you can sidestep this time sink by purchasing the premium currency "war bucks" with real-world dollars. Alternatively, you can do things like watch advertisements, sign up for Netflix, or even online dating sites to earn "free" war bucks.

What are you working towards with all of these war bucks? Well, the mack daddy of all premium unlockable guns is The Kraken which promises to instantly vaporize all nearby enemies. The Kraken sells for the modest sum of 3499 war bucks, and assuming you're buying them in the largest 710 war buck pack for $99, that's just under $500 real world dollars for a gun in a video game. Crazier yet is that The Kraken used to only cost 1400 war bucks, the price was raised.

Surely no one is biting at this though, right? Well, videos on YouTube show otherwise:

Now, I realize that the entire idea around the business of free to play games involves essentially having no top-end for how much a player can spend on the game. In fact, Flurry Analytics even mentions these so called "whales" in their recent analysis piece where they found that 30% of the total revenue from the "over $20" bucket of their report comes from people actually spending more than $50 in free to play transactions.

The whole thing seems pretty wild to me– But hey, in the interest of doing business I suppose if you've got players that are dedicated enough to your game to spend the equivalent of $500 for a single unlock, why wouldn't you give them the ability to do so?

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Words With Friends [$1.99 / Free] is headed to Facebook. Social giant Zynga Games announced the platform flip this afternoon with a delightful teaser image. Normally, I’d be a little annoyed by the lack of information, but really, what is there to say? Words with Friends is an extremely simple riff on the Scrabble formula with basic visual do-dads and mechanics that we’ve been enjoying for quite a while on iOS.

I’d imagine the reason we don’t have many details here is tied into the fact that nothing meaningful has been changed, aside from the addition of new Facebook-y social elements.

Let's talk about those for a second. PC Mag is reporting that users will be able to sync their iOS and Android games to this particular version. Also, you'll be able to, somehow, post about your current game on your foes' walls. Cool!

Zynga is heavily invested in Facebook, and as you know, the With Friends creator NewToy was grabbed by the mega publisher earlier last year. It only makes sense that we’re seeing its games (under a new name) on this specific platform, too.

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When Silver Tree Media's Cordy [Free] was released for Android a couple months ago, it got some good buzz based on its visuals alone. Now it's finally on iOS, coming in two flavors via in-app purchase: a universal HD version for $4.99 or a standard SD version for $1.99. Cordy is a 2.5D platformer with a lot of charm, and even if the gameplay doesn't offer up too many new ideas, the artistic design alone is well worth taking a look at.

While a quick glance at Cordy is going to bring to mind two console games, Little Big Planet and iomillo, the gameplay is far more rooted in the likes of Sonic the Hedgehog. You control Cordy with left, right and jump buttons as you attempt to gather a set number of batteries to complete a stage. The physics of Cordy's jump are a bit off, feeling both floaty and uncontrollable at the same, so it's a good thing the game doesn't try to incorporate any precision sections and instead lets you just hop around clumsily.

You'll also eventually get an additional button that serves as an all-purpose context sensitive control. Here you'll be moving blocks, swinging across caverns and controlling other tricks. The free version of the game comes with only four levels, but you'll unlock a total of 27 with the in-app purchase. There are also plenty of other egregiously priced IAP's, including color options and various hats.

The levels are diversified based more on the gameplay gimmick of each section than a visual style. Between the four different worlds, each comes packed with a different trick up its sleeve. For the most part, it's a series of retro styled activities – move a box here to get there, jump on a spring to get there, put an object in a thing to unlock a thing. That's not a bad thing, but if you're looking for innovation and environmental diversity, Cordy's not interested in either.

What it does do well is combine the speed-sensitive gameplay of Sonic the Hedgehog and light puzzle elements into one. Since Cordy's running gains momentum, you'll find yourself cruising up and down little hills to time a jump at the right moment to get the most distance. The same goes for the springboard sections, which feel like they're pulled straight out of the blue hedgehog's playbook. As far as puzzling is concerned, the game keeps it lightweight and exploration based. You have to find all of the batteries to finish the level and to do so you'll need to dig into the environment to root them all out. In this instance, it would be nice to have some type of map or objective system in place. It's rare you'll need to backtrack because you miss one, but it does happen and can cause occasionally force you to restart a level.

For the collectable freaks, there is a three-star system in place based on several different goals for each level. There's a star earned each for completing a level in time, one for collecting a set of gears, and one just for finishing the level. You can go back to get each star any time you want, which is basically required as it's next to impossible to get all three in a single run.

Here's a trailer from the Android version of Cordy which looks just about identical to the iOS game:

It's the visuals of Cordy that are going to turn the most heads though. Since the world isn't populated with many enemies, the game spends most of its time on the look. Each level can work in a variety of ways, either sticking to a simple, two-dimensional plane, or by flipping you around in a somewhat 3D fashion. It'll even toss you across different planes by the end of it. It sticks to the same palette throughout, and although it looks great, it might be nice to have something other than green grass to run on. That said, there are two different versions of the game and the main difference between the HD and the SD is the draw distance. Play on an iPad in HD and you can see far off into the distance, with fully animated clouds and balloons and the like. Play in SD and you'll get a drab, static background.

Cordy doesn't bring a whole lot of innovation to the table, but, even with some slightly off physics, it's a game that makes a lasting visual impression first and plays well-enough second. The 27 levels will take a bit of time to get through and if you're interested in going back and getting all the stars you'll have plenty to do here. If you appreciate the exploration elements of a platformer and aren't concerned too much with combat, Cordy will be a great experience.

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