Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Just catching up with the Internet chitter-chatter suggests that a couple of announcements may be incoming. Perhaps most predictably is that following Popcap sending a Save The Date August 2nd 2010 with a zombie hand attached people are speculating that Plants Versus Zombies 2 is going to be announced. More unusual is the news that leaked out in advance of next week’s San Diego Comic Con is that the EA’s panel will feature “a brand new, Sci-Fi Action-RPG based on the DNA of Spore.” VG247 speculate this could be “Darkspore”, which EA trademarked earlier in the year. This will have to go some to actually impress people, but you can see the logic in doing an action-RPG based on some of the still-brilliant character-creation technology. I’m at San Diego, so will try and bring you an update straight from the con floor, unless I’m lying, passed out on the con-floor. Which is far from unprecedented.

Via an act of minor skullduggery, Popcap’s Peggle (PEGGLE!) sequel may be had for nil-dollars. All you need to do is pop over to their site and sign up for their new Popcap Passport service (expect newsletters, inevitably), and then you can gift Peggle Nights to a friend – or to an alternative email address of your own. Cheeky! Oh, and there’s a collection of bonus levels to be had for similar costlessness here. The Passport sign-up email takes a little while to arrive by the way, so don’t freak out and write an all-caps letter to your MP if it doesn’t reach your inbox immediately. In other Popcap news, Plants vs Zombies is now on iPhone. Apparently a couple of people own those.

Except not as sexy as that sounds. There’s a webgame version of Plants Versus Zombies available. It features three game modes – 14 levels of Adventure, Endless Survival and Vasebreaker – with 12 plans and 6 zombie types. And a new zombie type. Crikey. The biggest problem for me it actually shares with the new game. I lost my save, so would have to play through all the tediously easy early adventure levels to get to the actually interesting challenge modes. But for newcomers to the game, it’s a fine place to newly come.

Zuma’s Revenge, the sequel to PopCap’s original ball-blasting puzzle game, has now been released for $20. You can judge whether it’s worth such an outlay of cash by playing the 100mb demo, which can be found over at the official site. The new game features new modes, power-ups and such, but it’s very much in line with the original, and perhaps not the finest hour for our favourite puzzle gaming company.

PopCap have just released the chains holding us back from letting you know they’ve a new game on the way. A follow up to Zuma, called Zuma’s Revenge, it’s a reinvention of the frog-spitting ball-matching puzzler that PopCap say has lots of new bits and bobs in fancy new graphics. New modes, new mechanics and new power-ups. Possibly new contention from Puzzloop fans. The original sold an incredible 17 million, which by our calculations means everyone at PopCap is carried to work on golden thrones, where they spend their days playing real-life games of Bejeweled with real-life jewels, which they then stuff down their pants while laughing. Video and full press release for the new game below.

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I kan spel reel gud! Hear iz mi reevoo off Popcaps brand nu puzzle-actchun gaym Bookworm Adventures: Volume 2, wich haz mayd mee evun betta at spellink. I hop yoo lik it.
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Doubtful about the spelling magic of Bookworm Adventures 2? I can barely stand to look at you. But there’s hope. There’s a demo. Head to PopCap and download the one hour version of the game, and then spell your little heart out! Spell like you’ve never spelt before! Spell words that make your heart sing, your soul sour, your family faint in wonder. Spell, my children! SPELL!

(Below are some of the screenshots I considered for this post.)

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Bookworm Adventures 2 is now officially released. This is: Good News. Only announced a month ago, there was barely time to get excited about it. We will have the world’s most important opinion about the game early next week, but in the meantime you can read the world’s second most important opinion about it over on Eurogamer. It begins, helpfully, like this:

“The magic of spelling is a lost art in the European isles. Technology is now so advanced that if you say a word incorrectly it appears with wobbly red lines in the speech bubble above your head. Young people tweeting pods from their mobile Xboxstations care not a jot for the inclusion of vowels. Local Spelling Stations are closing down all around the continent. Spelling is going the way of the apostrophe.”

I don’t mean to be controversial, but I think all people who prefer Peggle over Bookworm Adventures should be sliced into ham and banished to the moon. Wait, no, that’s not true. I do mean to be controversial. Because of course it’s ridiculous to even compare the two games, just because they’re from the same developer. One is a game about bouncing a ball and pretending any positive results were due to skill, and any negative were random bad chance, and the other is the intellectual pursuit of personal betterment through challenging word puzzles. Chalk and cheese – it’s madness to say that one is better than the other even though one is. By the by, PopCap have just announced there’s to be a Bookworm Adventures 2 in a month! Hooray. We’ve already started pathetically pleading with them for review code, and will bring you all the information as soonfully as possible. (Peggle is of course great – I suppose – and don’t forget there’s a new free WoW version.)

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Oh, Peggle. I remember when you were just an innocent wee lad, our precious little boy, wouldn’t say boo to a goose. Now you’re out there in the big wide world, rubbing shoulders with the elite with nary a backwards glance. Just don’t forget that you’re still, you’re still Peggle from the block.

Yes, we’ve had Official Orange Box Peggle, Disappointingly Similar Sequel Peggle and Played Within World of Warcraft Peggle. Now we get, simply, World of Warcraft Peggle – 10 free, standalone bonus Peggle levels.
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We have all played Plants vs Zombies by now. And we all have a favourite plant, right? Maybe it’s the triple pea plant. Maybe it’s the sweetcorn catapult that lobs hunks of ghoul-paralysing butter. Maybe it’s the impressively apocalyptic Jalapeño pepper. For me, there is no question. Tall-nut is my super-unit, the answer to all my problems, the nemesis of all zombies. My one true love.

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