iPhone Games

Fans of Joss Whedon's short-lived television show Firefly can look forward to an officially licensed game now in the works for iOS and Android mobile devices. Although the release date isn't scheduled until next summer, the role playing game promises to connect millions of players in a cross-platform competition for survival in the Verse.

Firefly Online (FFO) will feature "a variety of gameplay activities and systems," with players assuming the role of a ship captain. Players will be tasked to customize a ship, find a crew, find a job, and keep flying. Besides trading with other players, captains will be encouraged to "misbehave" and seek adventures, all while using unique social features to connect with other players.

Rovio Entertainment is following up its popular Star Wars mobile game and toy line with Angry Birds Star Wars 2 on September 19th. ABSW2 will feature over 30 playable characters, and Hasbro-created "telepods" that interact with the game. A telepod is a physical toy that represents a playable character within the Angry Birds universe. Players can unlock the characters in the game by individually purchasing the toys, and using their device's built-in camera to activate them. Rovio's new telepods are a lot like Activision's very popular Skylanders toys, which are used with the various Skylanders console video games.

NFC-based video games are becoming so popular that even Disney has taken a crack at them with its planned Disney Infinity series. Disney Infinity is set to launch a few months ahead of Activision's newest Skylanders game SWAP Force on August 18th. It will be interesting to see how consumers respond with so many NFC-based video games / toys being released around the same time. These games can be very pricey after purchasing both the starter sets and individual characters. A Skylanders starter set retails for around $70, and each individual toy costs around $10 to $14. It is unknown at this time how much the individual Angry Birds telepods will set you back.

Jailbreakers who downloaded Square Enix's new game Deus Ex: The Fall on Thursday found a nasty little surprise, the action-based RPG would not let them fire their guns! Deus Ex is not the first app to block jailbreakers, DirectTV and a few others games also don't support jailbroken devices. However, Deus Ex is $7 to download, and Square Enix gave no indication that the game would not support the 7 million jailbroken iPhones and iPads floating around the world.

Of course, the jailbreak community responded quickly by releasing a fix called xCon to the ModMyI repo in Cydia, but not before Square Enix felt the backlash. On Friday, the Japanese video game developer issued this statement through Eurogamer:

While iOS gaming fans can download Infinity Blade II free for a limited time, other news related to the franchise is not so positive. According to MacRumors, Chair Co-Founder and Creative Director Donald Mustard officially confirmed that Infinity Blade Dungeons has been abandoned.

The highly anticipated prequel to the Infinity Blade universe garnered rave reviews when previewed last year. Unfortunately, after first delaying the game then putting the project on hold, Epic Games had to cancel the project after the studio working on the game closed.

Warner Bros. has discounted all of its mobile games in the Apple App Store to only $0.99. This is good news since most WB titles are normally around $5 each. The sale includes the newly released Man of Steel and the LEGO versions of Harry Potter and Batman. Here is a list of some of the more popular WB games in the App Store:

Man of Steel - Based on Zack Snyder's blockbuster movie with the same name, Man of Steel allows you to utilize the powers of Superman to stop General Zod and his evil henchmen. The game is compatible with with all current iOS devices.

LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 and Years 5-7 - You can now get the entire LEGO: Harry Potter series for only $2. Compatible with the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.