Mobile

Welcome to G4's Knuckle Up, where we bring you a byte-sized view of our five favorite mobile games every week. The mobile space is filled with incredible games that will keep you busy for minutes, hours, or even days -- we'll let you know what we're playing and why we're playing it. Here are our top five games this week:

GAME OF THE WEEK

FIBBLE: FLICK ‘N’ ROLL

iPhone | iPad

Fun fact: the same development company responsible for our Game of the Week is also responsible for creating one of the best sci-fi FPS games ever created in Crysis (and its glorious sequel). Fibble: Flick ‘n’ Roll isn’t anything like what I expected Crytek to make when I heard they were making an iOS game; however, that’s definitely not a bad thing, as Fibble is a really fun game with some very high production value.

Fibble’s an alien who’s crash landed on Earth, and it’s your job to help him navigate the house he’s landed in and find his alien friends. Each level consists of a little track for Fibble to roll through, and an environment with beautiful renders of objects corresponding to the room you’re currently in (toys, groceries, etc). Finding Fibble’s alien buddies lets you place them around each track to get to places Fibble wouldn’t be able to go by himself; for example, Byte will launch Fibble into the air if you tap the screen while Fibble is in proximity, getting him to otherwise unreachable areas.

Fibble is Crytek’s first foray into mobile gaming, but it’s a solid iOS title that brings great gameplay and gorgeous production value to your iPhone or iPad. It’s pretty crazy to see the makers of ultra slick sci-fi shooter Crysis also bring us the silly, fun world in Fibble: Flick ‘n’ Roll, but at the end of the day, all that matters is that Fibble is packed with delights you won’t want to miss.

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Ms. Splosion Man is coming to Steam, Games For Windows LIVE, Windows Phone 7, iPhone and iPad. Anything that brings Ms. Splosion Man's unique, funny, explody platforming joy to new platforms is cool by us. Twisted Pixel has teamed up with Iron Galaxy, Fire Hose and Panic Button studios to bring Ms. Splosion Man to her new homes.

“We are extremely excited to work with Twisted Pixel in bringing splosions to mobile devices,” says Iron Galaxy C.E.Bro, Dave Lang.  “Ms. Splosion Man has really deep gameplay that is born from deceptively simple controls, so it’s a great game on any platform.”

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Rockstar Games confirms that Max Payne Mobile will be heading to pretty much every iOS device imaginable in a morning press release. It's compatible with all versions of the iPad, the iPhone 3GS or newer, and the iPod Touch 4.

Android users will be getting Max Payne Mobile as well, with that version launching on April 26. Rockstar promises to release a list of supported devices soon. All versions of the game feature an HD makeover, customizable controls, and some form of Rockstar Social Club connectivity.

Nival’s upcoming MOBA-style Prime World introduces a unique take on the genre by letting players manage their own castle/city and cultivate multiple controllable heroes, all of which can be fully customized to fit each player's particular aesthetic and combat style. Toss in cross-platform integration so you can manage your heroes and castles wherever you are, and you have the quintessential “persistent strategy game.”

For an exclusive look at what Nival has cooking for Prime World, check out the trailer below. If you find yourself bobbing your head to the shredding music, you can thank Moscow-based metal band Solar Deity. The group also composed an original song specifically for the game as well.

Leisure Suit Larry is getting its own kickstarter. Replay Games now owns the rights to Larry, and is behind the push to remake the original Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards. The idea is to give gamers a "return to the one true Larry."  Here's the Leisure Suit Larry kickstarter link.

Loyalty (and cash) will be rewarded with a suite of interesting items, up to having your name permanently included in the game as a secret password. That one will cost you 50k.

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An Angry Birds cartoon series is coming to "all possible platforms," further solidifying developer Rovio's plan to take over the entire universe with their disgruntled avian.

Rovio's head of animation Nick Dorra made the announcement at a media conference in Cannes, France, saying, "I am happy to say we are going to roll out a weekly animation series this year of short format content."

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An iOS version of super-hard platformer Super Meat Boy is currently in development. According to Team Meat, the iPhone game will be rebuilt from the ground up, to work with the touch-screen controls of the iOS. Presumably, the difficulty will remain.

Super Meat Boy: The Game, as the iOS version is tentatively titled, will feature new visuals, a new soundtrack, and new gameplay mechanics compared to the original release.

There's no release date available as of yet.

Welcome to G4's Knuckle Up, where we bring you a byte-sized view of our five favorite mobile games every week. The mobile space is filled with incredible games that will keep you busy for minutes, hours, or even days -- we'll let you know what we're playing and why we're playing it. Here are our top five games this week:

GAME OF THE WEEK

ANGRY BIRDS SPACE

iPhone | iPad | Android

Finally, after numerous expansions and spin-offs, we’ve got Angry Birds Space, the first true sequel to Rovio’s 800lb. gorilla Angry Birds. If you haven’t heard of it... well, you’re probably allergic to electronics and can’t read this site. So does the sequel live up to its predecessor?

In a word: Absolutely.

In a genre where I was convinced there was no more ground to cover, Rovio stopped looking for that ground and turned their gaze to the stars. Angry Birds Space, as its title suggests, takes place off-planet, and the game shines because of it. Launching your birds now also has a gravity element tied into it: fling your bird into the halo of gravity surrounding asteroids harboring those pesky pigs, and use that gravitational pull to alter the bird’s trajectory and crush those green piggies. It feels familiar, sure, but it’s also fresh, and that’s no small feat.

There are very few people out there who haven’t experienced Angry Birds at least once, and it’s safe to say most of us using a mobile device will spend some time with Angry Birds Space. If opening weekend downloads are any indication (Rovio reports over 10 million downloads in a scant three days), I think it’s safe to assume this sequel’s already rocketed into the stratosphere... and beyond.

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Ngmoco Sweden boss Ben Cousins has blown my freakin' mind. According to Cousins, within the next couple of years, we will see a AAA, console game equivalent to the experience of playing Skyrim released as a free-to-play game. 

"I am totally 100 per cent confident --  I will bet large amounts of money -- that we will have, in the next few years, a free-to-play equivalent of Skyrim," Cousins said at the Free-2-Play Summit in London today. "A game like Skyrim, where you accrue skills and equipment over time, that you can play for hundreds of hours, is actually one of the easiest games to develop for a free-to-play model. That would be a big hit."

So why is my mind blown? Because he's absolutely right, and I never thought of it before. All of gaming's recent trends are pointing to it, and we're practically there.

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Minecraft's parent company, Mojang, has made over 80 million bucks. That's what a fantastic gaming idea can get for you -- 80 million bones in only 15 months of operation.

The runaway success Mojang has had with Minecraft might result in some interesting cross-genre possibilities. According to an interview with Carl Manneh, Mojang’s chief executive, in the Financial Times, we might see Minecraft on television.

• VIDEO: Minecraft "Director of Fun" Interview

“We’ve been approached by a number of high-profile Hollywood producers and asked to do TV shows,” Mr Manneh says. “We may do that. It’s hard when you don’t have any experience and someone comes to throw these ideas around. We have so much to focus on with just the game development and growing the business. But if the right idea comes along and the right people that we’d want to work with, we’d say why not?”

Do you think a decent Minecraft TV show could be made?

We received a mysterious image via email yesterday that teases a Spy Vs. Spy game. If you look at the above image, you have all the information we have, although I can tell you that the developer, Robots and Pencils, makes iOS games (including a Words with friends cheating app!), so this probably isn't the AAA Spy Vs. Spy game fans have been craving. Instead, look out for on iPhone/iPad game.

If you're not up to speed, Spy vs. Spy was a series of cartoons that were popular during the "Golden Age" of Mad magazine. The story concerned the black spy vs. the white spy, who spent their days trying to kill each other in various, esoteric ways. It's sort of rooted in Cold War hysteria, and while generally amusing, Spy vs. Spy was never quite as funny as Don Martin or "The Lighter Side Of..." 

Welcome to G4's Knuckle Up, where we bring you a byte-sized view of our five favorite mobile games every week. The mobile space is filled with incredible games that will keep you busy for minutes, hours, or even days -- we'll let you know what we're playing and why we're playing it. Here are our top five games this week:

GAME OF THE WEEK

SKY GAMBLERS: AIR SUPREMACY

iOS

Sky Gamblers: Air Supremacy was one of two games featured at the new iPad’s unveiling event, and that spotlight is well-deserved. This game is a great choice if you’re looking to show off the new iPad’s graphical capability, and it’s also a solid arcade flight game. I hesitate to call it a flight sim, because SG:AS cares not for the constraints of real life: you won’t find ultra-realistic gravity and physics in this title, but it doesn’t matter. You’ll have so much fun playing SG:AS that your brain will forgive and forget those choices almost immediately.

There are a couple low points, namely the atrocious story (or lack thereof), and the game’s seeming inability to deliver a decent tutorial. Some would argue the latter is an egregious error. Since the game isn’t a true simulator, it’s not too tough to pick up the controls fairly easily. There are also four separate types of control schemes to choose from, making it easy to get into the game at any skill level. If you have a new iPad, you must buy Sky Gamblers: Air Supremacy. If you don’t, buy it because adrenaline-pumping shooters are freaking awesome, and because everyone loves a good old fashioned dogfight.

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Angry Birds publisher, Rovio, is sending those foul fowls into space! Angry Birds Space is now available for download for the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Windows, and Android. I'm told the game is considered the "true sequel" to Angry Birds. I assume this means it will answer all the questions left after I beat Angry Birds; like have the birds considered talking to a professional about their anger or will the obvious sexual tension between the birds and pigs be addressed?

Rovio's Angry Birds Space arrives tomorrow, March 22, 2012, and there's a newly released launch trailer to get you in the mood for the pig-killing action. The multi-platform release spans both major mobile marketplaces -- the iOS App Store and Android Market -- as well as digital storefronts on PC and Mac.

The basic concept of slingshotting a variety of birds into elaborate structures with the intention of squashing ball-shaped pigs is still very much alive and well. As the title suggests, Angry Birds Space frames the action against an entirely new environment, forcing players to operate in low-grav and zero-G environments. There are also some very new and very angry birds for you to toss, as you can see in the new trailer.

Source: YouTube

Bethesda, the studio behind Skyrim and Fallout 3 may be working on an iOS game. A recent job listing on ZeniMax's careers website reveals that the company is looking for an experience iOS developer with a familiarity of Bethesda's games.

Bethesda didn't list any details on the type of iOS game they may or may not be working on, which is a shame. But thanks to the processing and graphical power of the recently released iPad 3, it's likely we'll see something pretty incredible. Bethesda could even port their older titles to the platform. Or, maybe, the iOS could be the platform that the rumored Elder Scrolls Online might be coming out for?

Of course that's all speculation, but at the very least I know I'd be interested in playing a game from Bethesda on my iPhone. If you want to get a job in the gaming industry, why don't you check out our How To Get A Job In Video Games: Your Career Resource Guide