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In what could be a landmark ruling, the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) in the UK has ruled that an email ad for Dungeon Keeper, which stated that the game was free, was misleading to consumers.

The ad read as such:

GET DUNGEON KEEPER ON MOBILE FOR FREE! ... DIG. DEVISE. DOMINATE. Build the most badass dungeon ever! Raise an army of diabolical minions and lay twisted traps to destroy any opponents foolish enough to set foot in your lair. MASTER THE HAND OF EVIL Cast powerful spells, pillage and plunder other players’ dungeons, and slap your imps around to make them work harder. A world of wicked fun is right at your fingertips. What are you waiting for, Keeper? Get it for FREE!

The ad also featured a footnote stating "WIRELESS FEES MAY APPLY" and showed a well-developed dungeon. The complainant challenged that the ad was misleading as it omitted significant information.

EA argued that this was not the case, as the app does not require in-app purchases (IAPs) to be bought and that gameplay without IAPs is 'not severely limited.' EA also provided data on 'spenders' and 'non-spenders,' which they said showed that non-spenders were well represented in players who reached the middle and end of the game, in a time not substantially slower than spenders.

EA went on to state that the "average player would expect a free-to-play title to be monetized with countdown timers and premium currency," that they gave "balanced gameplay and provided players with a sense of progression and enabled resource management," and that timers would be still be present in Dungeon Keeper even without any monetization.

In response to this, the ASA assessed that EA had indeed branched three rules of the Advertising Code. Within the ruling, they commented that the ad could possibly mislead players into thinking that their progression would be "unhindered by unexpected and excessively onerous delays," and that it should "have made clear what consumers could expect from the free elements and that in-app purchases would have a significant impact on gameplay." Finally, they stated that "the game had the potential to restrict gameplay beyond that which would be expected by consumers and the ad did not make this aspect of the role of in-app purchasing clear."

As the ASA upheld the complaint, the ad cannot appear again in its current form. EA has also been warned by the ASA to ensure that the limitations of free gameplay and the role of IAPs are made clear in future ads.

An update has arrived for Plants vs Zombies 2, adding the first part of the Dark Ages campaign previously announced at E3. This latest update brings new levels into the game alongside the return of fan-favorite 'Shroom' plants - and a new plant, the Sun Beam. The Knight Zombie and Jester Zombie also make their début alongside Medieval Zombies and more, with these new zombies aiming for your brains as always.

Plants vs Zombies 2 is available now and is free-to-play.

Wardens, rejoice! Heroes of Dragon Age, the visually stunning squad-based battle game that Electronic Arts released last year, has received a big update. Now players have access to the Fortify feature, which binds characters or creatures to heroes in your squad and in-turn ups their stats. EA has also improved the Consume ability to add new fortify slots to upgrade your units.

Best of all, now Heroes of Dragon Age offers ally codes. Now you no longer have to wait to battle someone before asking them to join you. Players can send a unique code to their friends to find them in the game. So grab your buddies, fortify some beasts, and battle your way to infamy.

Heroes of Dragon Age is available on the App Store for free.

A sale has raced in for EA's Need for Speed Most Wanted, bringing the price down to $0.99. No reasoning has been given for this sudden sale, nor is there any end date for this lower price, so those of you on the fence may not have much thinking time.

For those of you looking for opinions on the quality of the game, we at 148Apps gave the game 4.5 stars back in 2012, with the game also carrying a 8.3 rating over on the QualityIndex.

It feels like forever ago when I first had the chance to play MECH (it was called M3CH back then). Despite being pre-alpha, I was actually quite impressed. It's since been announced that the multiplayer mech combat/shooter has been picked up by Chillingo, and honestly I couldn't be happier. I really liked what I played over a year ago, and from what I can see it's only gotten better.

There's still some work to be done, of course, but the game has come a long way. The interface is a lot cleaner, there seems to be more map variety (and better looking maps), and you'll have a dozen different giant robots and weapons to choose from when you jump online to shame your friends in online combat with up to eight players.

MECH will be coming to the App Store later this summer.

The Dark Ages are come to Plants Vs. Zombies 2!

At E3 yesterday, EA and PopCap announced all-new content coming to the ever-popular tactical gardening game. Fan favorites like the Sun-shroom and Hypno-shroom are making a return, along with a new plant called the Sun Bean that makes any zombie that eats it toss out sun energy when struck. The Dark Ages update also includes a bunch of new medieval zombies like the Knight and a tricky Jester that actually chucks seeds back at your plants.

The Dark Ages update for Plants vs. Zombies 2 will be available later this summer.

Like a child's fleeting fantasy, EA Mobile is celebrating a momentous occasion by getting a pony. With The Sims FreePlay having reached 100 million downloads worldwide, the game now has horses. Players can feed, groom, and ride 6 different breeds of horses in their new stables, all part of the Saddle Up update. Also, on May 22, there's going to be a unicorn. Tina Belcher couldn't be happier.

Ultra-popular racing game Real Racing 3 (from mobile stalwart Electronic Arts) has just received a pretty hefty update that adds in a whole new experience.

Now the game has open wheel vehicles in its arsenal - cars such as the Caterham Seven 620R, KTM X-Bow R, Ariel Atom 3.5, and Ariel Atom V8. Additionally, the roster has expanded, adding in the Hyundai Veloster Turbo and Porsche 911 RSR. Drivers are invited to get ready for the renown endurance race with The Road to Le Mans live event.

The update also expands the customization and photo mode, and opens up the option of visiting the collections of others.

We had an opportunity to review Real Racing 3 a year ago; it is available for free on the App Store.

Real Racing 3, known as that racing game from EA with breathtaking graphics, has received an update featuring a massive number of new car customization features. After you've used these new features to tweak your ride's height, its rims, and you've given your car one of a multitude of new vinyls, the update also lets you share your creation with friends using a new "Photo Mode" - allowing you to stop the action mid-race and capture a beautiful shot of your car.

Other new features in this version 2.1.0 update include new cars - Aston Martin’s DB9, Vanquish and V12 Vantage S - to add to your Real Racing experience, support for your favorite MFi iOS 7 controller, "Gold Achievements," and a "New All Star Vendetta Series."

You can get Real Racing 3 - and all the beautiful car tweaking features available in this update - on the App Store for free.

Ah, the Great App Store Pricing Debate. For years people have been arguing over the cost of mobile games. What constitutes “too much?” Where’s the line when it comes to free-to-play monetization techniques? Should developers have deep discounts and temporary giveaways? Should consumers simply expect everything to go on sale and wait accordingly?

The recent Dungeon Keeper debacle is a good example of this. Gamers and critics alike have railed against it for using various monetization techniques and associating itself with the classic PC strategy series, and many point to it as an unpleasant indication of where the video game industry (especially mobile) is headed. It’s an issue that’s almost as complicated as the initial Freemium vs. Premium debate; so let’s take a closer look at everything and try to make sense of it all.

Attention all Dragonborn-no, wait, wrong game. Attention all Chosen-nope, not that one either... Attention all Wardens! Yeah, that's the one!

Heroes of Dragon Age has recently been updated to include a new player-versus-player mode, allowing players from across the globe to fight it out with opposing teams for rare banners, even rarer rewards, and the ability to rub their success in everyone else's face. In addition to the more permanent PvP update, you can also get your hands on Slave Fenris, who is apparently a rare warrior that can induce stun on opponents, for free until February 18 as a sort of Valentine's Day show of appreciation. It's kind of twisted when you stop and think about it, actually.

Anyway the update for Heroes of Dragon Age is up now. And don't forget to grab your elf while you're at it!

Your Source For The Latest App Reviews

Every single week, the 148Apps reviewers search through the new apps out there, find the good ones, and write about them in depth. The ones we love become Editor’s Choice, standing out above the many good apps and games with something just a little bit more to offer. Want to see what we've been up to this week? Take a look below for a sampling of our latest reviews. And if you want more, be sure to hit our Reviews Archive.

Threes

Threes, from Puzzlejuice creator Asher Vollmer and Greg Wohlwend, artist of Ridiculous Fishing and Hundreds, is the first great mobile game of 2014. The goal of Threes is to match together tiles on a four-by-four board by sliding them around. 1 and 2 tiles can be matched together to make 3 tiles, a pair of 3 tiles can be matched together to make 6s, 6s make 12s, 12s make 24s, and so on. Each tile starting with the 3s has a point value that is three times as much as the previous tile, so the game rewards making larger numbers. --Carter Dotson

Toast Time

In Toast Time, players are in control of TERRY (Toast-Ejecting Recoil and Reload sYstem): an English toaster with an arsenal of bread-built projectiles. And, if they choose, a monocle and dapper hat. The bad guys are alien-like blobs determined to steal time by descending on TERRY’s clock in droves. Players tap where they want to shoot, and the bread bullets start flying. An added little twist has TERRY caroming off the ground and bouncing around the screen with each shot. Timing the shots with TERRY’s maneuvers can be the key to passing a level. Especially on levels like “Rabid Fan Base” or “Fannying Around.” Just saying. --Stacy Barnes

LEGO Star Wars: Microfighters

Presumably aimed at the younger market, LEGO Star Wars: Microfighters initially seems quite fun. It’s a shoot-em-up set across 18 different stages, each taken from important battles within Star Wars history, and looks like it would be ideal for twitchy gamers. Turning repetitive all too soon though, and proving really quite dull, it’s not so great after all. Immediately easy to learn, LEGO Star Wars: Microfighters lends itself well to touch screen play. With the player in control of the direction of the aircraft and its weaponry, with it propelling forward automatically, it’s a one or two-finger kind of game. Holding one finger to the screen not only aids in moving the ship around but also in firing at the enemies. Hold two fingers down and a special attack is unleashed, wiping out a large number of them at once. --Jennifer Allen

Orderly

Looking simple yet offering all the features that one could need, Orderly is a very handy To-Do list app. It fits into the stylings of iOS 7, retaining a clean interface throughout. Even better, it should help organize one’s life a little easier. The app starts out offering a fairly extensive tutorial. At first it might seem a little intimidating, which is fairly far from the truth. Orderly is intuitive enough; with regular iOS users sure to be able to understand what goes where. Using a choice of buttons or gestures, it’s simple to set up a variety of different reminders and notes. Rather than restricting users to one line of content, it’s possible to create lists within lists, proving particularly handy for a combination of similarly themed tasks. --Jennifer Allen

Marvel Run Jump Smash!

As a huge fan of superhero games and the world of Marvel, I jumped at the chance to try out Marvel Run Jump Smash!. Disappointment came all too quickly. It’s an Endless Runner in the vein of Jetpack Joyride and one that doesn’t really give players a sense of progression by any means. Players are initially given the choice of controlling either Nick Fury or Maria Hill, with more characters available to play as things tick along within the game. Captain America, Black Widow, Iron Man, and The Hulk are there for the grabbing, assuming one catches their shield shaped icon to switch out to them. --Jennifer Allen

Other 148Apps Network Sites

If you are looking for the best reviews of Android apps, just head right over to AndroidRundown. Here are just some of the reviews served up this week:

AndroidRundown

Arcade Ball

Arcade Ball takes the humble game of Skee Ball to the digital age. Arcade Ball is a pretty standard game of Skee Ball. Players bowl balls down a lane aiming at targets with different point values. Landing the ball in a cup awards that amount of points and the more points that are scored the more tickets are earned after the game. These tickets can be exchanged for prizes. Tokens can also be earned that power a few special moves like bowling three balls at once. --Allan Curtis

Circle Stop

It’s pretty difficult to come up with a game concept simpler than Circle Stop. There is a dot, “rolling” around in a circle in the middle of the screen. Other small dots of various colors are spawned on this circle, and the player needs to touch the screen just when the main dot’s trajectory overlaps with other dots, to get some points. Then the colored dots are removed, and the others are spawned, while the “player” dot keeps rolling and rolling, until the player three mistakes, tapping while the dot is not over anything. Then the game ends and the player gets a score and there’s nothing else. --Tony Kuzmin

Grandpa and the Zombies

Zombies mess with everybody. Why not the elderly? In Grandpa and the Zombies, we get to see what happens when a cranky, indefatigable wheelchair-bound gentleman named Willy decides not to be pushed around – or consumed – by the actively undead. Thankfully, the developer dispenses with convoluted backstory in setting up this saga. Via cutscenes, we get the most basic of zombie apocalypse stories: gramps wakes up in the hospital, with no memory but a sturdy cast. With zombies closing in, he commandeers a wheelchair and rolls rapidly to safety. --Tre Lawrence

And finally, this week Pocket Gamer looked into dodgy Dungeon Keeper ratings, found 11 games better than Flappy Bird (it wasn't hard), reviewed Threes and Final Fantasy VI, picked the best iOS and Android games of January, and told EA to keep its greasy mitts off Theme Hospital. All that, and loads more, here.

EA has started its annual Holiday sale, dropping the price of its paid games to $0.99. For those who like to hang out on the edge or have a little need for speed, games like Mirror's Edge, The Sims 3, Need for Speed Most Wanted, and a whole lot more can be yours for cheap!

You can check out the full list in the App Store.