Tag: The Simpsons Tapped Out »

Be warned, it is indeed the end of the calendar year, and as such, you're going to see a metric tonne of "holiday-themed" updates to your favorite games on iOS before the New Year. The latest update is to EA's The Simpsons: Tapped Out.

You can fill your virtual Springfield with new limited-edition characters, quests, buildings, jobs, holidays decorations, buildings, and trees, along with holiday-themed content like Santa Homer, Santa's Village, and (natch) Santa's Little Helper.

NEW FEATURES:
· New Characters – Go on a binge with Barney, blast Sideshow Mel from a cannon, and have Santa Homer endure whiny kids' wishes. And it wouldn't be Christmas without Santa's Little Helper!
· New Buildings – Steal a copy of Bonestorm from the Try-N-Save, roll a strike at the Bowl-a-rama, and feed the reindeer at Santa's Village.
· Put Up Lights & Decorations – Decorate Springfield with a Holiday tree or light adornments for all the homes around town.
· Santa Coins – Players can perform holiday jobs and collect Santa Coins that can be used to unlock unique prizes.

EA Mobile announced the first content update to its freemium title, The Simpsons: Tapped Out, today. Check out the new features below:

NEW FEATURES

· New Characters – Laugh at the mishaps of others with Nelson (Haw-Haw!), admire the snapdragons with Martin, and shake down kids for lunch money with Kearney!
· New Buildings – Collect book fees with the Springfield Library, stare at Neptune with the Springfield Observatory, and collect welfare with the Muntz House.
· New Decorations – Enjoy the elegance of the broken down washer, broken down dryer, and shooting car of the Muntz house, or plant flowers and frolic in the butterfly tent with Martin.
· New Quests – Make Kearney dance a jig, serve detention with Nelson, and more!

So EA's The Simpsons: Tapped Out is coming back to the App Store this week. Why was it pulled in the first place?

Says Kotaku:

"Quite honestly, we bit off a bit more than we could chew to start with," EA's Peter Moore said on stage at Gamescom while making the announcement. "D'oh!"

It hasn't been a good few weeks for EA Mobile. With the disastrous launch of Battlefield 3: Aftershock and the eventual permanent removal of the game. And now The Simpsons: Tapped Out has disappeared from the App Store.

We have reached out to EA Mobile press relations for a statement on why the game was pulled and when or if it will return, but have yet to hear back. The help page for the game mentions that it was removed due to server capacity issues.

To ensure current players have the best possible experience, we've temporarily removed The Simpsons: Tapped Out from the App Store to limit the game’s server capacity to its current players and address connectivity and lag time issues.

If you’ve downloaded the game, you can continue to play. Actually, your experience should only improve as we work on a solution. As soon as we have resolved these issues to handle greater player capacity, we will return The Simpsons: Tapped Out to the App Store...

EA launching a game with server capacity too low? A problem they traditionally have on console titles, but that's a new one for mobile titles. But, honestly, I don't think that server capacity is the only problem with the game. While not as bad as Battlefield 3: Aftershock, it does have more fundamental problems beyond just server capacity.

For one, The Simpsons relies on EA's frustrating Origin game network to play the game. There's nothing that a game developer can do to be less inviting to a new user than putting them through a frustrating 5 minute account creation procedure at the launch of the game. Origin is EA's attempt to capture more of the "user graph" in the EA gaming universe. But for users it's a painful process totally devoid of any reward. Origin engineers seem to be trying to make the process as difficult as possible. And if you do actually get logged in you are rewarded with a grand total of nothing useful. Game Center works, it's easy, my gaming friends are there, not in Origin. In addition, Game Center doesn't require the user to sign in to every game for it to work. Game Center just works.

The other problem, as Brad detailed in our review of The Simpsons: Tapped Out, the game relentlessly pushes you to spend money. Not because you want to have more fun, but because you are annoyed. A trait that is unfortunately common on a badly designed freemium game from a traditionally core gaming company. How many times have we seen this from other companies like Glu and Gameloft? They all seem to struggle to get the balance between fun and making money. And EA seems to be falling into the same traps. The key that they don't seem to understand is to make people want to pay to make the game more fun, don't annoy the user into paying.

I'm sure we'll see The Simpsons: Tapped Out back in the App Store soon. They will fix the server capacity issues and get things going again. I doubt they will fix the fundamental flaws in the game though.

Okay, so this turned out to be a rather large list. Best just skip the formalities and get right to the good stuff.

Arm Wrestling Evolution - AWE - We have every reason to love "extreme" boxing games. It's like an instinctual thing. But take the general concept of over-the-top characters, an awesome art style, special moves, and combine it all with arm wrestling? That's attention-grabbing on a whole new level. Also, my apologies for the pun. I swear it wasn't intentional.

The Simpsons: Tapped Out - A city-building game featuring The Simpsons. Yeah, this totally won't get a ton of attention. Still, I think it's more than worth a mention. I mean we get to build our own Springfield. And interact with characters like Apu, Homer, Bart, etc. I can only imagine how many downloads it's going to get.

Sky Settlers - Okay so it's yet another city-building game (of a sort). That doesn't mean it's not without its charm. I mean, building a floating city in the sky is cool. And it's got a nifty cartoon art style. Plus it's free and all that.

RPS Rumble - Melding puzzle gameplay, Rocks, Paper, Scissors rules, and garish Luchador masks is so ridiculous it's borderline genius. It's not exactly bursting with free content, but what's there is more than solid enough. And it can keep someone busy for quite a while depending on their personal skill level. Plus it's goofy, and goofy is almost always cool.

R-Tech Commander: Galaxy XD - I know I'm a sucker for sci-fi stuff, but this one honestly looks pretty cool. RPG elements, strategy stuff, armada customization via ship classes and equipment, and a nifty visual style? Yeah, I'm totally sold. Which is even more cool because I don't actually have to buy anything.

Zombie Panic in Wonderland - The bizarre WiiWare shmup has officially come to the App Store. And it's free. I think paying absolutely nothing to blast through waves of disfigured Wonderland denizens as any of seven characters with multiple weapons to choose from is a sweet deal. I mean, who wouldn't think that?

Idonia - So help me I love character customization. So the idea of setting up a 3-person team (with 5 classes to choose from), then finding and equipping them with special gear (lewt drops!!!), and powering them up with special skills is quite alluring. Of course it's also got upgradable weapons and armor. And online PvP multiplayer. It's also free, people.