Games

Angry Birds Friends has hatched from Facebook into a full-fledged iOS and Android app.

Available as of Thursday at both Apple's App Store and Google Play, the free game offers a socially-network twist. You compete against your Facebook friends as you try to take down those bad piggies.

All the points you rack up by slinging those angry birds are compared with those of your Facebook friends to see who emerges the winner.

Angry Birds Friends offers new tournaments each Monday promising new challenges, daily rewards, and a chance to take home the gold trophy.

Read More: Angry Birds Friends flocks to iOS and Android

EA has detailed the list of Origin games it will offer to customers affected by the disastrous launch of SimCity.

All copies of SimCity registered on Origin before March 25 will give applicable customers a chance to pick one free game from the following list: Battlefield 3; Bejeweled 3; Dead Space 3; Mass Effect 3; Medal of Honor: Warfighter; Need for Speed: Most Wanted; Plants vs. Zombies; and SimCity 4: Deluxe Edition.

The games provided, with the exception of Sim City 4, are all standard edition.

Read More: EA lists free games as apology for SimCity launch mess

According to an official invitation sent to Gamespot, Electronic Arts and DICE plan to "celebrate a new era of Battlefield" at an upcoming Battlefield 4 event in San Francisco on March 26 at 7 p.m. PT. The event occurs during the 2013 Game Developers Conference that takes place from March 25-29.

For those craving more information about the upcoming shooter, well, there isn't much to work with at the moment.

What we do know is that Dice plans to release a Battlefield 4 beta this fall, and that during a call with investors last month, EA CFO Blake Jorgensen said the game looked "stunning" on the PlayStation 4.

On the unofficial side of the coin, gaming blog Kotaku leaked a supposed image from BF4's box art, which features a tank and a highly detailed armored male character with a sniper rifle and pistol. The blue and orange color scheme (commonly seen in BF3) makes a return, and one of the in-set pictures that floats near the solider could depict Shanghai's skyline -- perhaps indicating a larger Chinese presence in the upcoming game.

Read More: Battlefield 4 reveal set for March 26

An anonymous SimCity developer says the game does not do most of its calculations "in the cloud," so an offline version should be possible.

An anonymous developer who worked on the new SimCity has revealed that the game does not do most of its calculations "in the cloud," directly contradicting what developer Maxis and publisher EA have repeatedly claimed.

In defending the troubled game's always-online requirement, the game's makers have said an offline mode would not be possible, due to "a significant amount of calculations" being done in their servers. Not true, the source told respected PC blog RockPaperShotgun.

"The servers are not handling any of the computation done to simulate the city you are playing," the developer says. "I have no idea why they're claiming otherwise."

Read More: SimCity could easily work offline, claims anonymous developer

Virtual city planners faced a crisis this week as a plague of server issues kept SimCity 5 gamers from connecting. This meant that building virtual roads, zoning communities and all other jobs involved in creating a city in the game couldn't be accomplished.

While essentially a single-player game, SimCity 5 requires that players have an Internet connection to play, and apparently the digital land rush after the game was released on Tuesday created problems for publisher Electronic Arts and the game's developer Maxis.

"We are experiencing extremely high server volume and it's preventing some players from gaining access to the game," said Rachel Steinberg, spokesperson for EA/Maxis.

"Our server team is working around the clock to resolve this issue so that we can get the rest of our fans into the game," she told TechNewsWorld. "We are aggressively undergoing maintenance on our servers to add the necessary capacity to meet the demand. Players may continue to play throughout the weekend, but we want to note that performance will fluctuate during this time. We thank our fans for their continued patience."

Authentication Measure

The question is why a single-player game would need an online connection -- and the answer is security. Digital piracy remains a problem, and Electronic Arts now requires that many of its games -- even those played offline -- be authenticated via an online connection to its Origin services. This has been largely successful in ensuring that the games aren't pirated.

"Piracy has been a massive drain on the industry, and companies have been blaming it and game resale on their falling sales performance," said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group. "As a result, they are aggressively attempting to correct the problem through streaming and pervasive connections which destroy game play in places where networks aren't always available or free, like planes."

The irony is that playing games such as SimCity, which oftentimes include sandbox modes of free and simple play, can be an ideal way of passing the time while flying. The authentication requirement could turn off players who spend a lot of time up in the air.

"That clearly eliminates a lot of the value of the game for a part of the audience," said Enderle.

Read More: Swamped Servers Barricade SimCity From Players

A UK-based charity is sponsoring a weekend hackathon, but those invited won't be using their coding talents to advance any business causes. The 40 programmers, gamers, graphic designers and other specialists will spend the time designing a smartphone game that can let average users help with cancer research, and three of the world's largest technology companies -- Amazon, Facebook and Google -- will be assisting in that effort.

Cancer Research UK is organizing the event -- code-named "GeneRun" -- that combines crowdsourcing, big data and gaming. The hope is that a smartphone game will be released to the public this summer.

People playing the game will actually be looking for common changes in genes that make up breast cancer tumors; those changes, caused by a gain or loss of chromosomes, can help explain which mutations drive the cancer.

"They're attempting to build a massive game that will put the collective minds of thousands on this problem," Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group, told TechNewsWorld. "It's a very interesting idea, but I expect they will run into some serious challenges in making it happen with regard to how they parse the data and apply the collective results."

Shall We Play a Game?

Cancer Research UK is looking into the genetic flaws spawning cancer in an attempt to find ways to diagnose and treat patients based on their genetic fingerprint. This research produces vast amounts of data that has to be analyzed with the naked eye.

The data to be analyzed in GeneRun is gathered from microarrays, which measure gene expression. Right now, computer algorithms can spot changes in the number of genes. However, identifying exactly when those changes start and stop demands the human eye, as these changes are too subtle for computers to detect. That identification will help trace exactly which genes are involved in the evolution of the cancer.

The collective power of hundreds of thousands of people worldwide analyzing the data through a game format could drastically speed up research, according to the charity.

Getting Tech Companies Involved

Once a format has been developed at the hackathon, an agency -- not named by the charity -- will build the game. Amazon, Facebook and Google will provide both infrastructure and brainpower.

Amazon Web Services will provide the technology platform on which the final game will be hosted. It will supply hackathon participants with free tresources and technology expertise. Facebook UK will contribute experts from its London-based engineering team, and Google will provide financial support. The search company will also host the hackathon at "Campus," a coworking space in East London.

Amazon, Facebook and Google did not respond to our request to comment for this story.

Read More: Hackathon's Goal: A Smartphone Game That Scores Points for Cancer Research

Activision Publishing, Inc. and leading independent developer Eutechnyx today announced the February 2011 release of NASCAR The Game 2011 for Xbox 360(R) video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, PlayStation 3 computer entertainment system, and Wii. With a fresh infusion of real world detail and blistering racing action, NASCAR The Game 2011 completely redefines what fans can expect from a NASCAR racing game.

NASCAR The Game 2011 has been built from the ground up to make a thoroughly new experience. The team started by speaking with the people who know NASCAR best - the fans - and took that insight to the teams, drivers and officials to completely embrace what makes NASCAR America's #1 motorsport.

Duke Nukem Forever, the game which was promised as way back as 1997, has finally been given a new release date which will see the game coming out in 2011.

The history of Duke Nukem Forever is a long and rather convoluted one which culminated in 3D Realms the maker of the game settling out of court with publishing house Take-Two and eventually collapsing as a company is 2009.

Now Gearbox Software has taken the mantle and the game will come out in 2011, according to 2K on its Twitter page.