Tag: EA Mobile »

It looks like SimCity BuildIt is finally getting a break from all those disasters. The mini-sim has recently been updated with a new Beach Boardwalk for you to develop and expand.

The Sims Freeplay is awesome, but as any fan will tell you there's no such thing as having too many outfits - in real life or otherwise. Thankfully, Electronic Arts feels the same.

The game's new update adds what Electronic Arts describes as the "most requested" feature in its history: Sunset Mall.

Per the App Store page, Version 5.11.0 brings:

• Grab your besties and come on down to the Sunset Mall, there are over 16 new shops bursting with new outfits
• Dresses, shoes, coats, and more! Your Sims never looked so good, with over 500 new clothes for all age groups
• Show off the latest trends on the Catwalk with the new Modelling Hobby. Strike a pose to unlock new shops
• Strike! Meet up with friends and try your hand in the Bowling Hobby. Knock down those pins to unlock the Juice Bar!
• Take your new crush on a first date to the Burger Bar and order a milkshake for two – unlocked when you complete the Sunset Mall Quest
• Kick into healthy habits with the new Juice Bar, and slurp up a tasty refreshing juice with you and your friends – master every move in the Bowling Hobby to unlock it!
• Experience Lunar New Year with your family! Hang up lanterns, and cheer on the lion dancers in the Lunar New Year Quest – coming Feb 14

We had a ball formally reviewing The Sims Freeplay, so much so that we put together a concise gameplay guide, too. The Sims Freeplay remains free (with in-app purchases) on the App Store.

An update has been brought upon us for EA Mobile's CCG-inspired installment in the Dragon Age series, Heroes of Dragon Age. This update brings a new divisional leaderboard system, a newsfeed, and the Nexus: a new area for Player vs Environment (PvE) adventures.

The Nexus provides players with events for multiple difficulty levels. If players manage to progress through Nexus maps, they will find themselves rewarded with gold, gems, and exclusive heroes.

Heroes of Dragon Age is available to download for free from the App Store now.

Witchcraft has come to The Sims FreePlay in its newest update, adding Spell Casting and Broomstick hobbies to the free-to-play title.

The Spell Casting Hobby allows players to conjure up collectibles and hatch their own Pet Dragon, whilst the Broomstick Hobby lets players to rocket up into the clouds. Players will also find themselves owners of some free gifts to celebrate this, the spookiest part of the year.

The Sims FreePlay is free to magically appear download from the App Store now.

After Homer accidentally caused a meltdown that wiped out Springfield, it was up to you to rebuild it.

Now The Simpsons Tapped Out, by EA Games, asks us to prepare for battle with their new Clash of Clones update. You can raise up your army of nerds led by a barbaric Homer to raid your neighbors' castles. Just make sure you don't neglect your own defenses.

You can download The Simpsons Tapped Out for free on the App Store.

EA Mobile has announced that Madden Mobile, the latest Madden installment to make its way to iOS, will make its debut on the App Store on August 26. The game will allow players to create their own team made up of the best talent from the league, both past and present. Once created, players can then take their teams into three different game modes.

One game mode, Live Events, will provide players with quick challenges that will dynamically update throughout the season and will offer rewards, including coins and player packs. Players will also be able to take on friends and rivals alike in head-to-head offensive shootouts and try and take their team to the Super Bowl after battling their way through a full 16 week season.

Madden Mobile will run into the endzone that is the App Store on August 26.

EA has soft-launched a free-to-play version of Peggle in the New Zealand App Store, our sister site Pocket Gamer reports. But this appears to be a similar situation as to Tetris a few years ago: EA has removed the original Peggle from the App Store in that territory, making this quite likely the one version of Peggle that will be available in the future. This version features boosts, a level progression similar to Candy Crush Saga, and is optimized for portrait displays.

Time will tell if this is a portent of things to come, but it might be a good idea to keep a backup with the original version of the game and of the game's IPA file in iTunes handy.

I suppose it makes sense that FIFA 14 should get an update, what with the impending World Cup and all.

Yes, the popular iOS football (sometimes we Americans can get it right) game has just been updated to include the World Cup Brazil national teams, new Matches of the Week to compete in, and even the Adidas Brazuca ball. I'm not much of a sports fan so I have no idea why a ball is that important, but it's obviously something of a big deal so who am I to judge?

You can download the newly updated FIFA 14 right now for free.

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.

Heroes of Dragon Age sees EA taking the deep backstory of the Dragon Age series that BioWare helped to create and allowing players to create armies of characters throughout the series' history, taking part in famous battles throughout the mythology. It's a free-to-play game currently in testing in Canada, and we're featuring impressions and a video of it in this latest edition of It Came From Canada!

All the combat is automatic, with players having no real say in what happens: just sit back and watch as everyone takes turns fighting. Players set up their lineup of fighters and then hope that they are advantageous in battle. Although there are strategy elements: using an army of the same type of character will give everyone a boost, and upgrading a character by consuming other ones can help turn even a poor fighter into someone who might help win some battles.

Yes, consuming other characters. Getting new characters is done through a card system, and consuming unused characters (really just a card system without much of the card metaphor) can upgrade a character's stats. It's kind of disturbing when it's characters consuming other characters.

There's an asynchronous battle element, too. Players can take on other players, or at least their current army, to get rewards. Of course there's the lengthy campaign to take on as well, which takes players through various challenges with the ability to repeat them to get additional rewards, including premium currency. There's energy systems for both multiplayer challenges and the singleplayer campaign.

Interestingly, for those who haven't had much experience with the franchise the game's language and characters are virtually indistinguishable from a brand new intellectual property, so don't think that there's a need to be previously exposed to the franchise to enjoy this one. The type of automatic combat is seemingly meant for a more casual, laid-back experience: it's something seen in other mobile MMORPG type games as well.

Heroes of Dragon Age does have a high learning curve early on, though - there's a lengthy tutorial section, which I explore in the video below. If all goes well this should be available internationally very soon, but soft launches are an art, not a science!

After taking a year to experiment with Madden NFL Social, and then pulling it from the App Store never to be seen again, EA Mobile has decided to try again with taking Madden and making it into a free-to-play turducken. Madden NFL 25 is not the 2025 version of Madden, but is instead named in honor of the series’ 25th anniversary (and quite possibly a way to make next year’s version Madden NFL 14 without anyone being the wiser).

This entry in the preeminent series of American football isn’t actually available in America – well, the United States at least – as EA has decided to test the game in Canada first. This is despite Canada playing a weird game of football with only three downs, longer fields, and something called a rouge. This is American football, exclusive to Canada, making this one strange set of circumstances for an episode of "It Came From Canada."

The opening tutorial reveals that with the touch controls, this is a much simpler game than the full console versions. But all the important functions are there, all done with gestures. Teams can be built and improved upon through card packs, which can add players from other teams to one’s own team. Yes, it would be possible to get Aaron Rodgers on the Bears, sacrilegious though it may be. There’s the ability to play just standard games, but the bulk of the game seems to be set in challenges and missions, with an energy system to boot.

There’s an asynchronous multiplayer mode where it’s possible to take on someone else's team, but they’re not actually playing defense; it’s just taking turns playing offense against a computer-controlled defense. The personal element comes in taking on their customized team lineups.

It’s likely that this is as much a test of server load more than it is with monetization as many limited-local releases tend to be, so with the console versions of Madden NFL 25 releasing on the 27th, it’s quite possible that this will be available worldwide on or around then. Until then, enjoy our hands-on footage of the Canadian version of the game.

EA showed off several of their new titles at the St. Regis Hotel in San Francisco today at GDC 2013, one of which being their Blitz take on Tetris. Appropriately named Tetris Blitz, this has two-minute sessions of the classic tetromino-dropping gameplay. The smart brick placement controls from the controversial revamp of Tetris have been refined, with easy manual placement options as well. Powerups can be bought, with special weekly powerups also available. The game is planned for this spring for iOS as a free-to-play title.

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Wow, what a month it’s been for racing fans. Specifically Real Racing fans! You might recall how we kicked things off with our three-part series documenting the history of the Real Racing series, Firemint’s (now Firemonkeys’) approach to designing the first two games, and a peek at Real Racing 3’s Time Shifted Multiplayer that everyone’s been talking about. If you don’t recall you should give them a read. You know, for science or something. Not because I wrote them and am proud of my work or anything.

Of course that was just the beginning. There was also our look at Real Racing 3’s first true hands-on demo. And of course that whole free-to-play business that turned into something of a debacle. Let’s not forget the seething jealousy that was undoubtedly felt when we all found out both New Zealand and Australia were getting the game a couple weeks earlier than the rest of the world!

Before we knew it, Real Racing 3 was only a week away. Our lord and master, Jeff Scott, really dug into the mathematics at play and analyzed the in-game economic structure, for better or for worse. Blake Grundman followed with a look at the top 5 drool-inducing rides players can get their hands on (thus far), and soon after that Carter Dotson stepped up with a look at the 5 most alluring real-world racetracks on offer. Finally, the week was capped off with Carter’s in-depth look at Time Shifted Multiplayer while Jeff hopped back in the driver’s seat (sorry, I’m only human) one last time to bestow his Real Racing wisdom with an impressive number of tips and tricks. We also reviewed it, of course.

Get Racing - we've got prizes!

Since it’s been something of a non-stop Real Racing 3 party here at 148Apps we wanted to draw things to a close with a bit of style. Which is why we’re going to capitalize on all the spirit of Time Shifted competition and challenge you, our readers, to a race. Specifically the Pure Stock Challenge, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Nissan Silvia (S15) Showcase Cup race pictured above. I think I’ve typed that out correctly. Why this event? Because it requires one of the first cars new players will have access to and doesn’t allow for any other; providing as even and easily accessible a playing field as we could find.

All you have to do is drive your heart out. Snap a screen shot (hit the Power and Home buttons on your iOS device at the same time) of your best time and post it in the comments below along with your Game Center username. We’ll pick random winners from all of the entries and post the results here on Monday (3/4) afternoon.

The prizes? We'll give away three $10 iTunes gift cards to spend how you see fit. Although in the spirit of the contest we’d suggest something like, oh, maybe the Race Car Booster Pack that includes 65 gold and a 2010 Dodge Viper SRT10 ACR-X?

Update: We'll contact our three winners via email. Thanks for playing and look for more Real Racing 3 contests coming up soon.