FarmVille-creator Zynga acquires new target: Angry Birds

After the acquisition hungry Zynga lost out on Bejeweled creator PopCap (which was purchased by Electronic Arts for $750M), AllThingsD says that the social game maker has purportedly set Angry Birds maker Rovio in its sights. The two companies have purportedly been talking about a deal, though official sources are staying mum for now.

There are plenty of reasons that these two companies would make fine-feathered friends, mostly a combination of the fact that Rovio has ambitious plans for Angry Birds, aiming to hit 1 billion downloads (what better way to do that than by harnessing the power of Zynga's existing audience) and that Zynga has been focusing more on its mobile games business of late (maybe as a way to stop relying too much on Facebook for its success).

If Zynga does manage to capture Angry Birds, our first bet will be on just how soon the company would migrate the mobile gaming hit to Facebook, much like it recently did with another big mobile 'get,' Words with Friends.

Bejeweled Blitz tutorial video says, 'Multiplier cubes are your friend'

Want to rake in those high scores in Bejeweled Blitz like those friends of yours who seem to have way too much time on their hands? Well, listen to this guy and you might be well on your way. YouTube user bejeweledtips, who claims his real name is Wladscaw, posted a highly educational and even more entertaining video describing the power of what he calls "multiplier cubes." First, Wladscaw demonstrates a normal level in which he manages to achieve Blazing Speed, but still comes away with under 100 thousand points.

Enter the "multiplier cube." In his second round, Wladscaw scores over 300 thousand points with relative ease using multiplier cubes. And thankfully, this well-informed and articulate fellow goes into detail of just how he did it. Apparently, blowing up 12 jewels in a row will multiply your score for every subsequent set of jewels destroyed. When you reach upwards of seven multiplier cubes, that turns out to be a ton of points. But we'll admit, Wladscaw's enchanting Russian accent does a much better job of explaining than my hideous Philadelphian accent ever could, so enjoy. Check out his YouTube channel for even more tutorial videos. Now, if only our friend Wladscaw would start producing Zuma Blitz tutorials.

Games.com's 2011 Social Gaming Predictions: How did we do?

Well, not to toot our own horn, but beep-beep. As it turns out, we did pretty darn well, thank you very much. At the start of 2011, the Games.com team sounded off on what we thought would be the top trends of the year. It's been a crazy year of ups and downs, bringing about the most impressive social games to date.

Almost more importantly, 2011 also brought the most interesting developments. And we pretty much called the lot of them. Some might call it back patting, but we call it ... a retrospective. Here's how we did in our predictions for 2011:

The Mobile Explosion
Our list devoted entirely to the best mobile social games of 2011 pretty much sums this one up. Social games broke out on mobile phones in a big way this year, so much so that some traditional companies have either focused huge portions of development to the genre or simply reorganized entirely to that end. Zynga released eight mobile social games this year alone. Boom.

3D is Gonna Take Off
Hey, we never said social gamers were going to dig it. Numerous 3D games came out on Facebook this year ... and none of them did as well as we might have hoped. However, the push for 3D games on social networks hasn't slowed down. Flash Player--what almost all social games are made in--now supports 3D. Better yet, the hardcore games creation tool Unreal Engine now supports Flash, as does the Unity Player. Next year will be different, we promi--wait, never mind.
CityVille
CityVille Shall Fall
Alright, so this one didn't happen at all. But we came pretty damn close, right? We know, horseshoes and hand grenades, but at least The Sims Social threatened Zynga's stranglehold on the social game market. While EA and Playfish's social masterpiece has been on the decline for some time, it still has disrupted much of its competitor's top games.

Interactive Billboards?
We're sad to say this prediction was 100 percent on the money. Unfortunately, branding in Facebook games has only become more popular. Just look at the number of celebrities featured this year in Zynga's top games. At least we've seen some gems that make sense, like Indiana Jones's takeover of Adventure World. Farmers Insurance in FarmVille was clever, too, but an ad is an ad.
Zynga zTag Project Z
The Zynga Network
While it wasn't exactly what any of us expected, Zynga announced Zynga Direct, popularly referred to as Project Z. We figured this would be The Big Z's move to escape Facebook, but the social network appears to be baked right in. This leaves us wondering just what value zTags, similar to Xbox Live's gamertags, will add for its fans much less Zynga.

The Advent of the Advergame
Another sad-but-true prediction, advergames, or branded games as some like to call them, exploded in 2011. Almost every TV series you can think of--from Weeds to The Vampire Diaries--has launched a companion social game. In fact, Game of Thrones will soon get its second tie-in Facebook game. At least that Dexter Facebook game was pretty neat-o.
Order & Chaos Online Facebook
Facebook MMOs Go Big Time
Not quite. We've certainly seen more MMOs come to Facebook in 2011, though none of which were any good nor successful. The combination simply makes sense on paper, but perhaps it's just not a good fit for the more casually-minded social gamer. Now, if you count Facebook-connected MMOs, we were right without a doubt.

The Fat Cats Get Fatter
Zynga acquired some 17 companies since 2010. How's that for fat cats? Hell, EA bought the biggest name in casual gaming for a whopping $1 billion. Looking at the disparity between even the top two Facebook game makers and the rest of the market, according to AppData, we'd say this estimation was about accurate, wouldn't you?

Facebook Gets Friendly Again
While social game makers will never see the viral success they did in early 2010 ever again, Facebook has made strides to support its game creator community. Sure, Zynga has quite the deal with the social network, but the company has made numerous changes to how games are presented on the network for all developers. Although to the dismay of many, Facebook even championed the top games on the platform with the rest of us.

By our math, that's seven out of 10. Not too shabby, huh?

What do you think of our predictions for 2011 compared to what actually went down this year? How did your own predictions pan out?

Plants vs Zombies's Crazy Dave finds his calling: hip hop music [Video]

Cray-Z Wabby Wabbo
Unintelligible stammering backed by some smooth zombie croons, but hip hop nevertheless. In this new video by PopCap, Crazy Dave (you know, the guy who sells you stuff?) from Plants vs Zombies takes a shot at making a hip hop video. Of course, you'll never know what the guy is spitting out rhymes about, as he can't say much more than "wabby" and "wabbo."

In fact, that's exactly the title of Cray-Z's--Crazy Dave's most fitting stage name--debut video, "Wabby Wabbo." According to its description, Ded Jam Records decided that the world deserved to hear Crazy Dave's mindless blabbering in a more appropriate format: rap music. (Let the flaming in the comments commence!)

We don't want to ruin all the surprises, but just know this: Cray-Z, like just about all successful hip hop artists, seriously loves his bling, expensive cars and collaborating with back-up vocalists for seconds at a time. Oh, and a fan-favorite zombie makes a show-stopping vocal contribution ... literally.

Considering all the work PopCap has been up to on the game already, we're guessing this is just how the team prefers to spend their free time. And please, guys, if your free time results in more comedy gold like this, definitely squeeze in more of that free time. Check out the video below.


[Video Credit: PlantsVsZombies]

Are you a fan of Plants vs Zombies? What about PopCap's hilarious videos surrounding its games? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment