Personalized video games, made by you! It’s not often that you can give a gift that’s both techie and do-it-yourself, but there is a solution: Jumala.

Jumala is the game of making games and it’s in beta now for PCs. This small Seattle-area start-up offers a robust –and deceptively simple—app for creating, testing and sharing video games that you make yourself. The graphics are gorgeous and the possibilities endless. The best part? All it will cost you is your time.

Download the Jumala app (http://jumala.com/download) and you’re off and running. Choose a template to start with and start raising—or razing—mountains, painting terrain, placing objects and deploying enemies. Make it a quick silly game for Grandma, or a complicated magnum opus for the hardcore gamer in your life.

My husband and I got married in Hawaii at Christmastime three years ago and I’m making him a game that features equal parts palm trees and snowmen. I can’t wait to see his face when he gets his hands on the game that I made just for him. It’s from the heart, and I’m having a blast leveling up my design skills and hearing the satisfying ka-ching as I earn Spark to spend on bigger and better palm trees.

Happy Holidays everyone!

Oh I know a certain GamingAngels editor that would love this! PDP just announced that they have created Alliance and Horde iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S cases. This is a new line and the Alliance and Horde symbols are the first cases to be released on PDP.com and GameStop locations. The cases are $29.99 each.

“We’re excited to offer World of Warcraft players a new way to show their enthusiasm for the game wherever they go,” said Bill Otte, SVP of Sales and Marketing for PDP. “Players can proudly display our new line of Horde- and Alliance-themed iPhone cases as a badge of honor — or as a challenge to their rival faction.”

For Blizzard fans that may not play WoW, PDP will be coming out with Diablo III and Starcraft cases! Which is pretty cool! I can’t wait to see those designs! The Diablo III case was at Blizzcon (I thought I saw that). Android fans, don’t be sad….cases are coming your way too!

Who says guys can’t have a softer side? Industry Vets, Christopher Cherubini and David Chiapperino have created Jupiter Moon Studios. Christopher is from Activision/Infinity Ward as a Lead Artist for Call of Duty and the Modern Warfare series. David comes from Disney having worked on Pirates of the Caribbean and Toontown. They plan on creating their own IP.

Jupiter Moon’s first title will be for the iOS. Bunny Popper will be released this December. Bunny Popper was created with accessibility in mind. Basically gameplay can be done with one finger. Don’t let the cute look fool you, these bunnies are evil!
The premise of Bunny Popper is, “evil inflatable bunnies from outer space are invading a carrot farm. The carrots need you to stop the hoards of hares from taking them away!”

Mom’s don’t have to worry about passing their iPad or iTouch device to their kids to play. Bunny Popper’s target audience is moms and their kids. No worries about influences from Call of Duty here. There are 16 levels plus 4 bonus levels in the game and you get a bonus achievement for popping every bunny in the level.

Jupiter Moon is located in Los Angeles and while not hiring yet, but they expect to grow in 2012, so watch their Bunny Popper. Jupiter Moon plans on expanding to developing titles for a variety of platforms including console.

Angry Birds is more than a game now, it’s plushies, Halloween costumes and baby clothes. Rovio is celebrating a new milestone by crossing 500,000,000 downloads. This is across multiple devices/browsers and apps.

Think you play too much Angry Birds? You’re not alone. Rovio released information about players’ time with the game, with a total combined playtime of 200,000 years and 400 billion in-game bird launches.

Next up animation and more licensed products.

It is a first person shooter where you pick up contracts from icons on the map. Each one explains who to take out or shoot with a tranquilizer gun. Everything takes place starting with the map that has locations for your Safehouse and a Store. On the map the location icons reveal more about the story line. Or contacts give you assignments to fulfill.

Gameplay is mainly centered around the shooting and the variety if guns available in the game. You play as a lone sniper hidden in the rooftops of the city. But your character is not immune to the barrage of bullets that may come at you from below.

If you shoot a civilian, you loose. Some contracts are timed and you have to take out a number of targets or get a boss, or you fail. Your character can die too. That reduces your resources. You need energy to play, and if you waste it by failing then you might have to spend some time out from the game while you wait for your energy to build up again.

When you do well and get headshots and complete missions within specific times, you will earn more energy, credits and money. You need all there it seems in this game. That’s how they get you. If you like that sniper gun which costs four hundred credits? Be careful because those credits sell for $19.99 in real money. The Energy which can be restored by food items that replenish it. Of course you need Credits that you buy with in-app purchases.

The game features 17 Story mode missions, as well as an unlimited number of Random Missions across 5 locales for theoretically endless replay value as you level up your character and buy new weapons and ammo to use on missions. Obviously, there’s in-game currency that is used to help generate revenue, and similar to Gun Bros., there are 2 different forms of currency you can purchase to help you in your assassination attempts. You can buy in-game money ranging from $1.99 for $12,000 of in-game money to $49.99 for $350,000 of in-game money. You can also buy credits, ranging from $1.99 for 30 Credits, to $49.99 for 950 Credits. This is a similar model to how Gun Bros. worked, and Glu is likely hoping for similar success with this model for Contract Killer. Contract Killer also comes with Game Center support for leaderboards and achievements, and is a universal app for the iPad as well.

Glu have released plenty of traditional paid apps on the App Store, but appear to be embracing the freemium model between this, Gun Bros., Deer Hunter Challenge, and World Series of Poker Hold’em Legend. It will be interesting to see if they continue to embrace the traditional paid model for their other future releases, or if they follow the ngmoco:) model of just releasing freemium apps, or if they do something similar to Gameloft’s freemium model, by continuing the traditional paid app model, but offering free downloads, and offering to unlock the full app via in-app purchase. Check out a trailer and screens of the game below, available now.

Enemies come in waves monsters with swords and axes come at you on all sides. The character is difficult to move and the control stick does not work as fluidly as I am used to from other games with virtual joystick. Frequently he is being jumped from behind because of sluggish controls and an inability to automatically turn to face the attackers. You have two basic type of attacks on tap for the right hand. A quick attack and a heavy attack. Beneath the health bar is a heat meter, and when it is filled a greater attack power can be summoned. He sort of grunts and squats and force waves emanate off him as though he needs a dose of Gas-X.

The backgrounds and the hordes that you have to clear all all a barrage of garish colors all smashed together. You’ll see fuchsia lady bug swarms, heaps of poison spiting green ooze and tall purple crystals dripping with the turquoise waters of fountains. It has a funny over the top art style interpretation that has great resolution.

As each wave comes at you it gets bigger. Thankfully the areas expand too. There are various rewards. Some are straight forward treasure chests. You can keep doing battle until your inventory runs out of power ups and health potions.

You accumulate three types of medium of exchange, you have your experience points. And coins and gems. Killing gleans the experiences points and another factor which is soul remains. The soul remains are a multiplyer you earn by surviving successive waves. Soul remains are transformed at a ‘hearth’ into coins. Coins are used at the shop on new items. Experience points level you up.

Gems are the currency used the freemium currency. Those are earned when clicking ads, watching videos or by in App store purchase. They try to entice you with the better gear armor and weapons, buffs for your character and other bonus deals. Gems can be converted into coin but not vice-versa.

Like other Glu games it keeps annoyingly asking me to log into to Facebook. I don’t want to. I wish it would stop asking me every time. My scores for this game aren’t that important that I want to post them. I’m not likely to want to invite anyone to play through Facebook either, but if someone wanted to, it is more than available. You can play with a friend, or take their character with you on a mission. What I found even more irritating about this aspect of the game is that they repeatedly show a female barbarian warrior avatar with robust cleavage imploring you to add friends. I am wondering if she is playable in the multiplayer? I haven’t found it said anyplace that she is playable though.

Eternity Warriors is a good mindless diversion. It is brightly lit and you don’t have to do much except for tapping the attack buttons. It is a good one for taking up your time while you are doing something else or waiting around and you want something that doesn’t require your full attention. Eternity Warriors best asset is that it is free.

In Companions there are two game modes, which are the quick play ‘Single Map’ mode, and the Campaign mode. Each of the members of the four person team has a little backstory. The controls are simple taps on the characters and then a tap on the enemies to attack. Each party member has three special skills that they can equip at a time. They are limited by cool down times as you would normally see.

Graphics are limited. It’s very pixelish. You don’t actually see your characters in three dimensions. They look like little icons, or pac men. I’m not one for retro style gaming, it might be a love it or hate it type of choice of tastes. I prefer the newest most cutting edge in graphics and gameplay. The old days don’t hold any charm for me. Also the characters are so tiny and hard to see, it is difficult to know what they are doing. For the amount of graphics that are here, it might as well be a text adventure.

There were a few things that bugged me with this game. Annoyingly your characters will not attack correctly unless they are in range of the enemies and facing the right direction it’s a pet peeve of mine. I thought we were done with that old problem, now that we’re using iPads. I don’t know what they were going for here when they have competition like Order and Chaos by Gameloft to contend with. The group formation and party-wide commands do make the game act more like a strategy game, or even a puzzle game than an RPG.

Another problem is that the four of them are always are always static Minotaur, Female Elf, Human, and Dwarf and are not customizable. There are three classes to choose from for each of the the races in the four member party that changes up their stats, but still not enough to make it interesting, or to keep up with other iOS games. This one still needs some work because when you tap a particular character and nothing happens it leads to unnecessary deaths.

Companions has an inventory system, with randomized drops falling you can collect loot. Although there isn’t any shop, yet anyways. There is a way to control time in the game which is different. Called a ‘tactical pause’ it stops the game while you set up. The time is limited, but it provides a work around for the other troubles in the game.

Though Companions isn’t a perfect game it will appeal to those who like strategy games and don’t mind a challenge. If you go into it without expectations you may find it to your liking. It has the retro ambiance to it that some people really like.

It has superior graphics, and a beautiful art-style for the backgrounds. There is lots of magical glitter around. Special effects move the cutscenes and animations along with cleverly used transitions. There are flowing fountains and decorative ponds surrounded by gardens. The animal Guardians in the game who are outfitted with brass fittings that are able to translate animal to human speech. The animals aren’t the only nod to steam punk in the game. Entire areas look like they have been detailed with shiny brass whatnots. It is beautiful, and once again like the first Empress of the Deep, all those pipes and plumbing, electronics and arcing electricity, is very reminiscent of the original game of Myst. My iPad Screen Shots:

Make your own animation

Far from being just a static hidden object puzzler, the game keeps you thinking. Although the puzzles are very easy to solve, the objects aren’t always easy to see or where you would expect them to be. Of course there are locked doors and passageways, but you will have to use all of your puzzle skills to get past them. One of the best parts of the game is the sound. The music is pretty, and it changes from one area to the next. The underwater bubble noises are soothing, and you do hear a little bit of whale song added into the mix.

The full version of the game is worth the price. They also did something different and they have a Collector’s Edition with extra content. The very best part is that you can enjoy a lengthy Free demo of the game from the Apple App Store.

I had done an interview with someone from Aerial 7 so I checked out what they had. I found this set of Aerial 7 Tank Headphones in a Hello Kitty motif. I wanted them immediately, but I forced myself to really look around first to make sure that it wasn’t just the Hello Kitty design that was drawing me in.

I had many needs to fill. I wanted a headset because I had enough with ear buds. I wanted a decent mic for recording vocals at home. Being able to plug it into an acoustic electric guitar could come in handy for tuning, or practice while the TV is on. It had to be stable enough to handle Skype and not add additional static. Whatever I chose had to be compatible with all of our Apple devices too.

The Aerial7 Tank Headphones feature a 57mm Driver which gives a fairly robust sound quality. They are very comfortable, and have a small enough setting for my size. It came in attractive packaging. The instruction manual was very brief though, and could have been an actual booklet to help explain how each attachment is used in more detail for people who don’t know. For my purpose, just a short description and picture of each cord that they had was enough.

The set Includes a soft cloth case to carry the headphones and the variety of cords all together. The whole thing is compact enough to fit inside the niche in a guitar case, or easily hold an iPod as well as the headphones and the cords, in your purse or a beach bag. It is definitely worth it having the soft feeling of the foam on the ears. The sound is more round and holistic, the stereo separation is much more effective. They cut out background noise such as an air conditioner very well too.

These Tanks, while offering a very cute addition to my collection of Hello Kitty skins and covers for my eQlectronics, are extremely multi functional and handy. There are the many applications for these. I can use them for song writing Apps on my iPad, or gaming, as well as listening to music on iPods. It has those 3.5mm iPhone® – Skype™ adapters which means I can plug the alternate cord with the red and blue ends into my netbook PC for meetings on Skype, and for podcasts. All I have to do is switch over to the cord with the built in mic, or the 3.5mm input plug and 3.5mm iPhone that were included. It also came with a very long coiled DJ cord that can be plugged into a mixer. The fatter plug 3.5mm – 6.3mm (1/4″) adapter is included too. With everything it comes with and the way it sounds, it seems reasonable for the price. I just hope they will last.