Yesterday kicked off week 3 of PopCap Games’ art auction to benefit the Starlight Foundation (US) and Special Effect (UK), both great causes that aim their help at sriously ill or injured children. This 4 week long auction is an opportunity for PopCap fans to take home a piece of PopCap history, not to mention some great looking one of a kind art pieces and help out some phenomenal charities in the process. The original pieces available this week are:

• Plants vs. Zombies Dr. Zomboss Original Concept Sketch
• Bejeweled Neon Blue Diamond
• Zuma’s Revenge Underwater Stage Concept Painting on Canvas
• Peggle Splork Drawing
• Zuma Blitz Ceramic Tea Cup & Saucer Set
• Personalized Sketch by a PopCap artist
• Plants vs. Zombies Zombie Head Costume
• Plants vs. Zombies Concept Sketch on Canvas
• Plants vs. Zombies Zombie DJ Painting

Head on over to the PopCap auction to bid on your favorite before next Tuesday! 100% of the proceeds will go to the charities mentioned above.

As the first week of PopCap Games’ unprecedented auction of unique game art pieces comes to a close, fans are gearing up for the second wave of displayable history to bid on. The first week’s auctions brought in nearly $1700 for the Starlight Children’s Foundation in the United States and SpecialEffect in the United Kingdom, and with the second week’s lineup, it promises to continue that trend.

Starting today until next Tuesday is your chance to take home a Plants vs. Zombies Peashooter costume, a Plants vs. Zombies ceramic bowl and mug set, a Plants vs. Zombies Organ Grinder Zombie concept sketch on wood, a Plants vs. Zombies XBLA player house concept sketch on canvas, a Plants vs. Zombies diorama, a Zuma Tiki Gods original concept sketch on paper, and a Lex Bookwarm original sketch on paper.

Check them out at PopCap’s ebay page and help raise funds for these two nonprofits dedicated to helping seriously ill and disabled children. Starting bids range from $1 to $350.

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GSN.com recently announced it crossed a huge threshold in 2010 with some of its most popular PopCap games. Just last year alone, players were awarded $60 million playing their cash tournament adaptations of PopCap favorites like Bejeweled 2, Zuma and Chuzzle. PopCap fans (and any fans of great games) who want to get in on the fun can head to GSN.com to join in tournaments for real cash prizes.

“At GSN Digital, we strive to be the platform where users can play the titles they know and love,” states Peter Blacklow, EVP, GSN Digital. “Bejeweled 2, Zuma and Chuzzle are three great titles that are extremely popular among our players, and we’re thrilled to provide social competition where players can win real cash prizes.”

GSN Digital also offers cash prize competitions in these popular PopCap titles: Bejeweled Twist™, Bookworm™, Dynomite!™, Mystery P.I.™ and Plants vs. Zombies™.

I will say that GSN.com is where I first found some of my favorite games I still play today, including Dynomite and Zuma. It’s a great way to play against others, for those of us who have a competitive spirit, and a good alternative to other social gaming sites where you only play against people you know. You can play for cash or for fun! Head on over to GSN.com today.

The same basic rules apply to the game as in the original. Match a set of like-colored balls and you generate points, the more chain matches, combo and gap shots you make the better the score. If you make matches fast enough, you get a speed bonus and become one “hot frog!” And by “hot frog,” I mean your green guy becomes a blazing amphibian ready to blow up large segments of ball chains for three shots. The score multipliers are back in this game, so watch for the balls with marked with a number and an “X” beside it to get extra points. Periodically, fruit appears and if you can shoot ‘em, do it. Your score will be happy you did. Treasure chests sometimes replace the fruit targets. When hit, the chests will reward you at the end of the game with little vials of “mojo.” Fear not, your head will not explode like the Fembots in Austin Powers due to “cross-mojulation.” No, this mojo is like currency in Zuma Blitz. With each ball you hit, you get one mojo bottle. The more mojo you have the more special powers you can buy to use in your game. With each new level you pass you gain experience points, idols (which help unlock powers/mojo), and refills on mojo and lives. And all this for free? Yes, but if you find yourself wanting more mojo or lives, you can always pay with facebook credits (via credit card/paypal) to get refills if you can’t wait. My recommendation to PopCap would be to let players accumulate mojo at a faster level and to create a short tutorial on how the idol and mojo purchasing system works.

Aside from the few hiccups in the beta, PopCap keeps the game fresh and fun with a new board each week. The graphics are still stunning like it’s precursor, Zuma’s Revenge and if the tribe-like music doesn’t get you in the mood to play, I’m not sure what will. Highly addictive, fun and to quote my little green frog friend, there’s nothing better to play if you need a little “oooga and perhaps booga” in your day. Anyone else starting to hear drum-beats?

This year at Casual Connect Seattle, I was fortunate enough to sit down with some of the folks from PopCap and talk industry trends, social gaming in general, and more specifically, the much anticipated Zuma Blitz. Overall, it seemed like they were in sync with the opinion that there is and has been a pretty obvious shift in the casual gaming space toward social gaming, but still respect the notion that sometimes, we do still want to just sit down and enjoy a game without the pressure of beating each others’ scores or getting in all of our good moves in under a minute. So, there is talk of integrating social feature into their existing games, giving players the freedom of playing solo, or send some smack talk to their friends, getting into the competitive spirit.

Having said that, the main topic of conversation was the upcoming speedy, completely social, competitive version of our favorite ball blasting frog hopping bonanza, Zuma Blitz. Here’s what I found out… They weren’t just inspired by the success of their first Facebook Bejeweled Blitz, they learned from its journey as well, and plan to send Zuma Blitz off on a similar one. It’s all about the gradual. Zuma Blitz is set to start rolling out on Facebook in the next couple of weeks. It will roll out little by little to more and more people over a few weeks to help ensure continuity (how do we get to the front of the line?). In addition to the progressive release, the gameplay will start players off steadily as well, so as to get used to a couple of different power-ups at a time before introducing new ones, using an ‘experience points’ system to unlock features and and “a ‘treasure chest’ virtual currency-based system for obtaining in-game power-ups. The more you play, the better you can score.

Zuma Blitz is played just like previous incarnations of Zuma, with players shooting colorful balls at a creeping snakelike composition of other colored balls to blast groupsof three or more of the same color, trying to keep from being swallowed up. However it wouldn’t be called Zuma Blitz without a time limit… So, you get a minute. However, taking the blitz a bit farther, there are opportunities to make the right match for additional 5 second increments. Now, not only are players fighting to stay alive, but also to not run out of time. Brilliant!

I had the opportunity to play a few rounds at level 2, which included some familiar power-ups and challenges. But the added complexity of also trying to extend the time without the hope of “finishing” the level actually creates a new, more focused Blitzy state of being. The level I got to play was one of the final levels from Zuma’s Revenge. But, along with the regular Blitz weekly tournaments, where they reset the scores and conduct their prize drawing, they will be changing up the actual level we play every couple of weeks as well. Genius! That sounds like the perfect way to keep it fresh and keep our Blitz mojo flowing. I had to stop myself after playing twice, both recognizing and respecting the full extent of the addictive nature of the Blitz. Zuma Blitz is no exception. I can’t wait!

What do you think about the increasing emphasis gaming companies are putting on the social aspect of gaming? Are you looking forward to playing Zuma Blitz?

Following the huge success of Bejeweled Blitz, PopCap Games is taking Zuma to Facebook with the all new Zuma Blitz, allowing players to match ball-blasting wits with friends.

“We’ve received a ton of feedback regarding how players consume Bejeweled Blitz and other leading social games, and incorporated a number of those insights into this initial phase of Zuma Blitz, with more to come,” said Jason Kapalka, co-founder and Chief Creative Officer at PopCap. “Zuma is a very different game than Bejeweled, so the social adaptation has gone in different directions. Zuma is already a fast-paced arcade game, so the challenge was to make it feel approachable to players of all skill levels, even with just sixty seconds to play.”

Like they did it would Bejeweled Blitz, PopCap plans to take it slow with Zuma Blitz, allowing it to over time,with the addition of new features and ways to play. New features available from the start with Zuma Blitz are expected to include:

· Weekly tournaments and leaderboards

· Regularly introduced new levels

· An “experience points” system to unlock additional features and capabilities

· A “Treasure Chest” virtual currency-based system for obtaining in-game power-ups

· Time extenders, score multipliers and the “Hot Frog” speed mode

· A peek at friends’ stats, medals, and achievements to see how they stack up

“Once again PopCap is bringing a beloved game to the Facebook Platform and enhancing already successful game play with social features and functionality,” said Gareth Davis, Facebook Platform Manager. “Zuma Blitz will provide a fun and engaging way for our more than 400 million users to play with their friends on Facebook.”

Being a huge fan of Facebook, Zuma, and Bejeweled Blitz, I am so looking forward to the new Zuma Blitz. After Zuma’s Revenge, it will be great to see how PopCap renders our favorite little frog in an even faster paced explosive good time.

If you haven’t sent out your Mother’s Day card yet, then both PopCap PlayFirst have some solutions for you!

In honor of mothers everywhere, and their “empire building” game, Chocolatier, PlayFirst is making it possible for us to send a virtual sweet treat to our moms. Hop on the PlayFirst website and send your Mom, Grandma, Nana, Stepmom, wife, or any of the other lovely mothers in your life a treat and help make her mother’s day special.

PopCap is offering a great Mother’s Day special on one of their most popular titles, Zuma. From now until May 10th, you can get Zuma for your Mama at 75% off the regular price! That’s just $4.95 for some great stress busting, ball blasting good times. http://www.gamingangels.com/?p=25506

PopCap

This Saturday only, January 16th, Popcap Games is donating 100% of its sales from PopCap.com to relief efforts in Haiti. PopCap has teamed up with Partners in Health to help everyone show they care and make a difference.
If you have been thinking about getting yourself or someone you love some Plants, Zombies, Chuzzles, Jewels, Peggles, or Zumas to play with, now is the perfect time. Just head on over to PopCap.com and download any PopCap game(s) THIS Saturday and know that 100% of your purchase price will go to help earthquake relief in Haiti. And hey, you get an awesome game to boot.
For more details visit PopCap’s official news page.

For kids and parents: Wonder Rotunda is an adventure website that mimics the World’s Fairs of past and exposes children to the wonders of our world, including African wildlife, the human body, business, American government, nutrition, film making, classical music, and space exploration. It allows them to explore areas that interest them, earn badges and accomplishments, and encourages them to believe they can make a difference in the world, without parents having to worry about advertising or chat. Foster dreams and self esteem with a membership to Wonder Rotunda. Costs are $12 a month or $45 a year
Check it out here.

For Tweens and Teens: Earlier this year, Legacy introduced three games based on the iconic high school movies, Clueless, Mean Girls, and Pretty in Pink. Though these games are appropriate for adults as well, the subject matter and game play make them especially suitable for tweens and teens, giving them the opportunity to play their way through high school in the style of different generation’s sagas. Clueless offers fashion and style sense exploring the vastness of the teenage fashion looks of the ‘90s. Mean Girls offers mission based adventures with match three puzzles scattered throughout, allowing players to choose personality traits and act in the way of meanness or niceness. Pretty in Pink is a hidden object game in which players explore different relationships and play their story out to one of three possible endings. All three games are pretty true to the movies they represent and give a great entertainment value.
Available as a download from: Legacy Interactive for $10 each
Clueless Review
Mean Girls Review

For Everyone: In case this one somehow slipped through the cracks for your favorite gamer, it should be tops on the list! Quite possibly my favorite game of the year, PopCap‘s Plants vs. Zombies offers a chance for everyone, naughty or nice, to defend their brains against the onslaught of hungry zombies by harvesting the power of the sun and propagating the perfect plant platoon in the day, night, front lawn, the pool in the back, on the roof, and in the fog. Welcome the tower defense genre to the casual games space. This game is crazy hilarious fun no one should have to go without – it’s the holidays!
Appropriate for: Tweens through Adults. Parents use their own discretion with children.
Available From: PopCap Games
Plants vs. Zombies Review

For those who appreciate hidden object games, The second installment of Her Interactive’s Nancy Drew Dossier series, Resorting to Danger is a great choice. In this new Hidden Object Mystery game, players help the young, clever detective in her attempts to find the culprit behind bombings at the Redondo Resort. The additions made to this chapter in the Dossier saga improve upon the already positive original. Resorting to Danger offers a unique perspective on the hidden object genre and is riddled with mini puzzles that spice up the mystery.
Appropriate for: Tweens through Adults.
Download or Box Game Available From : Her Interactive

For the puzzle fans: the must have game is PopCap’s newest hit, Zuma’s Revenge. This sequel to the beloved Zuma truly takes the ball shooting color matching action to the next level in a crazy fun way. Zuma’s Revenge gives the puzzle gamer new ways to blast their way through level after level by firing colored balls to try to demolish the chain of colors, and opens their eyes to boss battling, tournament style play, and scoring challenges, all with a laid back, tropical backdrop. Give the gift of this lovable frog and all of his crazy (and comical) shenanigans.
Appropriate for: Tweens through Adults.
Download Available from: PopCap.com
Zuma’s Revenge Review

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For the Time Management Gamers: Try Sandlot Games’ newest Cake Mania game, Cake Mania: Main Street. This game continues on the journey through Sarah Evans’ life as she returns to her home town of Bakersfield with some of her friends to rejuvenate Main Street and bring things back to the way they once were, with happy people and fun attractions. This is a great time management game because it’s like getting four in one. There are four different types of shops to open and half of the profits go to sprucing up the town. Great characters and options make this one a fun time.
Appropriate for: Tweens through Adults – the images may be fun for kids, but the complexity can get to be a bit much for them.
Available from: Sandlot Games
Cake Mania: Main Street Review

For the Word Worms out there: PopCap’s Bookworm Adventures 2 is a great addition to anyone’s library. In Bookworm Adventures 2, Lex once again sets off on a word creating journey through the pages of some adventureful stories – this time with help! He gets to take companions that he has rescued with him that lend him their powers to strengthen him. weaken his enemies, or add more power ups to the words he (the player) creates. PopCap’s humerus adaptations of familiar characters from fairy tales and other types of stories pump up the entertainment value as well in this vocabulary building game – and there is even a dance-off!
Appropriate for: Spellers of all ages!
Available from: PopCap Games

For Online Gamers on your list, you might consider gifting a membership to Pogo.com’s premium service, Club Pogo. After 9 years of playing at Pogo.com, I was fortunate enough to be able to experience the greatness of Club Pogo. If the badge collection, double jackpots, and virtual pet aren’t enough, access to a multitude additional games and the absence of ads and intermissions is definitely worth the $5.99 a month. Club Pogo is a great way to give gamers opportunity to find some new favorites as well as play some of the best Pogo originals and downloadables from other top companies.
Appropriate for: Adults, mostly due to the censored and uncensored chat ability.
Available from: Pogo.com

Stocking Stuffers:

The first one is Sandlot Games’ Kuros. This is truly a beautiful game visually as it takes place in the world of Glyph among the metal, water, air, fire, and aether. At its core, it’s a hidden object adventure to restore elemental balance in the world of Kuros. Katya’s wit coupled with other captivating characters and variety of incorporated mini games provides the hidden object gamer with a plethora of new experiences. It’s a great way to escape into another realm for a little while and be entertained and challenged.
Appropriate for: Tweens through Adults of all ages.
Available from: Sandlot Games for just $6.99
Kuros Review

The second is Big Fish’s Drawn: The Painted Tower. This is another work of art, a beautiful piece of animation as reviewer lisalu put it. Drawn: The Painted Tower is an exciting adventure puzzle hidden object game in which players try to rescue the youngest daughter of a family with the curious power to draw things that would then come to life. The ease of play and flow of the story makes this one a great stocking stuffer that will give the casual gamer in your life something entertaining and lovely to look at this holiday season.

Basic Idea as I See it: Little froggy jumps ship and floats (with the help of a comical sail) through a storm to mysterious island. Big bad Tiki Bosses threaten to squash little froggy… So little froggy blasts through levels upon levels, shooting colorful balls to fight Tiki Bosses and win happy life.

Graphics: For Zuma fans, there is no comparison between the old and new Zuma graphics. It’s like the first time you put on glasses and can see – everything! Who knew it could be so crisp? For fresh Zuma eyes, prepare to be dazzled with sharp pictures, attention to detail, interesting movement (sometimes the lines of balls twist and turn on themselves – or each other), and enjoyable colors. Zuma’s Revenge artwork and graphics are stunning from the water to the fire to the faces on the little balls – I mean, come on, it’s a puzzle game! Every time I open it, I see something new. My favorite are the water levels in both sight and sound.

Sounds: Zuma’s Revenge sounds the same as Zuma, only enhanced. The music takes you to the island, but doesn’t shove the island down your throat. Both the music and the cues change appropriately with the phases of the levels and somehow bring forth just the right amount of stress forcing the player to up their game (or totally choke). Sometimes, I just stopped and listened to the spooky wakuwaku voice after beating a Tiki boss… spooky. And the voices at the end of each level remind me of this kid’s show, Zaboomafoo (please let me know if you have any idea what I am talking about). All in all, the “sounds” do really augment the game nicely.

Controls: Point and click, aim and shoot, however it’s said, the controls are simple to grasp, but surprisingly tough to master, taking travel time into consideration. Some of the power ups make the timing a little easier (accuracy, for instance, makes the ball shoot faster to take some of the guesswork out of timing and minimize the mistakes). Zuma’s Revenge also changes up the way the frog moves. He can jump do a different location in some levels and slide across the screen in others.

Flow: Difficulty gradually rises through each of the modes, preparing the Zuma warrior for the challenges to come. Zuma’s revenge seems to be set up similarly to Bejeweled Twist and Bookworm Adventures 2, with the adventure mode being kind of the introduction to the more difficult modes of the game. This suits the complexity pretty well, but for those who are used to the Adventure mode being the meat and potatoes of the game, DON’T STOP THERE!!! There is much, much more!

Fun Factor: If I ever really did this, I would have been ROFL several times while playing this game. I did almost fall out of my chair at the… end… of the adventure levels. I mean, I haven’t really ever been that into Zuma, I will admit, but I can’t stop playing this one. From the witty loading bar at the beginning to the defeated Tiki bosses, the Zuma’s Revenge humor is something I can truly appreciate. Oh, and blasting little balls, trying my hand at Iron Frog, and obliterating colors are pretty fun, too.

Female Aspect: There is not really a female in the game itself, at least not having to do with the actual game play, it’s like there’s a girly frog, she’s pretty important, but she doesn’t get much face time.

Replay Value: I don’t think I will ever stop playing Zuma’s Revenge. Or, I don’t think i can stop playing Zuma’s Revenge. Okay, what I really should say is I will never finish playing Zuma’s Revenge the first time through… But even if I do, I will still play it. Anytime. There are opportunities to play for short or long periods of time, interesting challenges, and just good old classic Zuma action – but better.

Final Thoughts: To me, Zuma’s Revenge is the epitome of what a sequel should be. You take the game play that people are already hungry for, double it, spice it up, twist it around, and serve it up on a fancy plate with a good laugh. Well done.
Now, for some reason, I think I will have ham for dinner…

*No actual frogs or Tikis were hurt in the making or playing of this game! *

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**Review Copy provided by PopCap Games does not effect the outcome of this review.**