games Archive

If you are looking to give online dating a try, it can seem like there are a million online dating sites. But what if you want to find a site geared towards finding a geek or gamer? Below I’ve put together a list of 5 sites that offer geek and/or gamer targeting. All of the sites on the list are free to use and most seem to have a decent number of members.

GamerDating

If you are a gamer looking for a gamer, then GamerDating might be the right choice for you. The site is still in beta but it appears to be fully functional. Looking at their user map, the heaviest concentration of users is in Europe. GamerDating offers a blog, forum and people search. A basic search for women seeking men ages 18-75 returned 41 results. The site lists about 2,000 total members.

Cupidtino

Cupidtino appears to be the perfect dating site for Apple fanboys and fangirls. Cupidtino describes their service as, “…the first ever “Mac-inspired” dating site. It’s goal is to bring Apple fans and lovers of beautiful hardware and software design together.” You must be on an Apple device to use the site (I wasn’t allowed in on my PC) and when you sign up, you tell the service what type of Apple device you are looking for. For example, I am looking for a woman, 30-35 years old, who owns an iPad 2 with Smart Cover and once owned an Apple IIe. The service appears to be free and membership including posting photos of yourself, answering profile questions and engaging in the community.

Continue reading “5 Online Dating Sites for Geeks and Gamers” »

This is no April Fool’s joke – this is damn serious. To celebrate the launch of the Amazon Android Appstore, Amazon is offering one application for free each day. Earlier this week Amazon offered the SwiftKey Keyboard for free — now it’s back to $1.79.

Today Amazon is offering the popular game Fruit Ninja for free. The Fruit Ninja team of ninjas note that they have sold over six million copies of the game worldwide. The game creators describe the game as, “a juicy action game enjoyed by millions of players around the world with squishy, splatty and satisfying fruit carnage! Become the ultimate bringer of sweet, tasty destruction with every slash.”

Amazon is also offering Angry Birds Rio for free — this appears to be a longer running deal but if you want the game, I’d suggest downloading soon because there is no specific end date listed. The game is basically the same as the Crush the Castle except instead of chucking rocks and bombs you chuck birds. The free game is ad-free and contains all 60 levels.

To get the free games, you need to install the Amazon Android Appstore onto your Android device. Here’s an overview of how to install the Appstore.

You can download both Fruit Ninja and Angry Birds Rio from the Amazon Android Appstore homepage or from within the Appstore after you load it onto your Android device.

If you are on an iPhone, sorry this deal isn’t for you. You can purchase both games from the iTunes App Store for $0.99 each.

Little known fact about me…I once won a Ms. Pac-Man competition in New Jersey as a young child. I love the Pac-Man franchise and hope to have the money one day to buy the arcade versions of Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man and Super Pac-Man. My favorite is Ms. Pac Man – mainly because of the variety of boards and how lovely Ms. Pac-Man is.

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Pac-Man, Google has created the first interactive “doodle” of their logo. You need to use “a modern” browser like Firefox or Chrome to play. Simply visit Google, click “insert coin” and get your chompin’ on.

If Twitter created this version of Pac-Man, they would give some players extra power pellets and a “multiplier” option which would clone Pac-Man – because it’s important who gets on the leaderboard.

You can also grab Pac-Man games for iGoogle and the iPhone.

Get your Wakka Wakka on! Come back and post your high scores!

A couple of years ago we reported on the launch of Pac-man for iGoogle. Today we’ve learned that Pac-man is now available for the iPod Touch and the iPhone. I wonder what the gameplay is like seeing as you have to hit tiny buttons on the iPhone screen. The game costs $5.99.

Want to feel old? Read this line from Jonathan Kromrey, general manager for Apple Games for Namco Networks, “With tricks and traps, special items and battles against giant ghost-bosses, this isn’t your parents’ PAC-MAN.” Luckily the “old” version of Pac-Man is also available.

Without looking, can you name the orange ghost?

Pacman is great, but where is that hottie Ms. Pac-man? Useless bit of info: I won a Ms. Pac-man tourney in Atlantic City when I was a wee little kid.

At the end of 2007 pizza company Papa John’s announced the ability to order a pizza via a mobile device. Today they are announcing a new game which they call an “augmented reality game feature”. The game is part of what looks like a bigger online campaign called Papa John’s Road Trip.

You take your pizza box, turn it upside down, cut out the Camaro car picture, hold it up to your webcam and then play the game using the car picture. You drive around the U.S. and they sprinkle pizza ads in the game.

Seems like a lot of work especially because you may have a piece of the pizza left and won’t want to cut open the box to get to the special decoder image. You can also printout a game piece from the website.

I like the concept but think it would be more usable if they stuck the game piece to the box rather than having to cutup some cardboard and carry around a greasy, pepper smelling box. In the video below, the woman actually seems to carry the entire pizza box upside down to her office – HA! The other questions for the agency who got the check to create this game are:

• does a person who just finished a pizza want offers for more pizza?
• to keep playing day after day as they suggest in the video, you would need to keep the pizza box around – that can’t be a good thing

It’s all about intent with promotions and since the transaction has already completed, I’d rather see PJ push to an email signup and keep the game clean. Or at a minimum they should know if the person has played the game for the first time provide no offers and on multiple return trips, then provide offers. They should also be able to tell whether a person is playing via the computer printout or the pizza box.

Here’s a video of how the game works…

Mobile phone, gaming device and music player cover replacement service Coveroo has announced the addition of basketball teams and superheroes to their lineup today. Coveroo has partnered with Marvel Entertainment and the initial superhero lineup includes characters such as Captain America, Spiderman, The Hulk, Thor, and Wolverine.

Coveroo has also partnered with the NBA to offer “covers” of NBA teams (e.g. Knicks) or famous players (e.g Patrick Ewing). If anyone purchases Jordan dunking over Patrick, ye shall get it when I see you!

Apparently they use frickin lasers to etch the design onto the cover in full color so it doesn’t rub off like a Bazooka tattoo.

Pricing runs from $10-$60 for the replacement cover. I assume these covers appeal to kids and young adults – not sure anyone in business would slap on a Brenda Walsh cover on their phone. Although for $50 you can send in your own design – now that CN logo might look quite hot on my Samsung Ace!

Coveroo should create an auto-delivery program where every three months a new Coveroo cover is sent to the customer. 

AOL has announced the launch of their latest online content site today. Named PlaySavvy, the goal is to provide a resource for parents to help them figure out the world of console gaming (no online??). PlaySavvy is part of the GameDaily section of AOL’s content network.

Libe Goad, Editor-in-Chief, AOL PlaySavvy said, "Playing video games is one of the top pastimes for children these days, almost more than watching TV. We created AOL PlaySavvy to help parents navigate through all the gaming information out there in order to decide what’s appropriate for their children."

PlaySavvy contains content in the following categories: gaming 101 (all about games), FAQ (apparently with feedback from a parental gaming panel), gaming reviews from a parent’s perspective but with the kids in mind and how-to articles including how to talk to your kids about gaming.

The login functionality uses AOL ids and some of the content is provided by third-parties. While I can’t imagine this site doing massive pageviews, it could help keep parents inside the AOL content network longer which is a good thing for AOL.