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From prime-time sitcoms to late-night TV to a fashion accessory for pop stars, Doodle Jump is everywhere, CBS News Correspondent Jeff Glor reports.

"It's addicting," one New Yorker said.

So what is it?

"It's just a very lovable little character," Igor Pusenjak, Doodle Jump's creator, said.

It's the brainchild of Pusenjak and his brother Marko Pusenjak, immigrants from Croatia. Last April, they had an idea inspired by their own, well, doodling. Their four-legged cartoon creation is always jumping up, guided by players' hands, avoiding the bad monsters and UFOs and reaching the good trampolines.

Fifteen months later, it's a cultural craze, and Igor Pusenjak said it's made him a lot of money.

The game just passed the 5 million download mark for Apple's iPhone, and since the brothers get 70 percent of profits, that's $3.5 million. … Read more

Banzai Rabbit challenges you to save the world playing as a superhero rabbit mutant. The story borrows from sci-fi classic "The Fly," as early on a rabbit, a flea, and two scientists get caught in a cloning accident that spawns the main character as well as his nemesis, an evil flea genius. Gameplay revolves around action like the old classic arcade game Frogger. Your job is to navigate Banzai Rabbit across traffic to save humans before they are infected by a deadly virus that transforms them into bugs.

Your enjoyment of this game depends largely on how much … Read more

Daredevil Dave is a funny, quirky, stunt-based arcade game that offers limited gameplay but lots of heart.

The game's personality and humor--surely inspired by premillennial celebrity weirdo Super Dave Osborne--is evident from the main menu and the tutorial, as you play a self-absorbed and proudly reckless (but still somehow lovable) motorcycle daredevil, portrayed with pop-up cartoons and hyperbolic voice-over.

The game has 18 levels in all, ranging from more-conventional stunts involving trucks and flaming hoops to utterly ridiculous situations with lava, sharks, helicopters, and bombs. In each stunt, your goal is to hit the landing ramp as precisely as … Read more

Chop Chop Runner is a side-scrolling nonstop-running game featuring Iro-san, the ninja hero of platformer Chop Chop Ninja.

Chop Chop Runner shares the premise of other nonstop-running games, but with a twist. You constantly move from left to right across randomly generated terrain (faster and faster as the game progresses) and you tap once to jump (the longer you hold, the higher you jump). But what makes Chop Chop Runner different is that once you're airborne, you can tap again to attack enemies and obstacles, ranging from squads of samurai to giant cobras, flaming skulls, and exploding barrels and … Read more

Shot Sports Software's Jump Shot Basketball was the first Windows NBA management simulation game online and has been in constant development for years. The effort shows in its level of detail and sophistication. It accurately simulates what it's like to take charge of an NBA team as owner, general manager, or head coach. You can create leagues, teams, and players, or join an Internet league and compete online. You can play unlimited seasons in franchise mode, draft players, present awards, manage finances, even set arena seating and other factors for each team's town. There are probably worse … Read more

Jet Car Stunts is an exceptional arcade driving game in which (as you might guess) you drive a jet-powered car through a series of stunt-inducing tracks.

This app makes terrific use of the iPhone and iPod Touch interface, with four customizable touch-screen buttons (accelerate and brake/reverse, and jet engine and hand-brake/air-brake) and accelerometer control for both steering and (when you're airborne, which is often) your pitch and roll. The game is split between two different but equally well-developed modes: 11 speed-heavy Time Trial levels with more traditional race-type tracks, and 25 architecturally inspired Platforming levels that focus … Read more

With more than 100,000 apps in the iTunes App Store and huge success around the world with the iPhone, it would appear Apple has done just about everything right with the launch of its first mobile handset. But as any iPhone app developers will tell you, the app approval process is less than ideal, with some developers waiting well beyond Apple's 14-day waiting period and sometimes longer to get their apps approved. Though Apple has stated it is working on the app approval process, there has been little in the way of progress if you ask iPhone app … Read more

Canabalt is an elegant and addictive side-scrolling game with an extremely simple interface and premise. You play a suit-wearing office-worker who is running and jumping across a series of rooftops and other structures, while you see the city behind you in the midst of some sort of mysterious giant-robot assault.

The interface is very straightforward: you run left to right automatically, steadily picking up speed (if you avoid obstacles), and you tap the screen to jump, with the longer you press, the farther you jump. That's it. But as you run, you have to contend with all sorts of … Read more

We've written before about Brutal Legend, the just-released video game starring big-screen funnyman Jack Black. Produced by Tim Schafer, who has several cult classics (from Grim Fandango to Psychonauts) under his belt, the game has built up a lot of positive industry buzz, but is also in danger of being overshadowed by a flood of fall 2009 blockbusters, from Uncharted 2 to The Beatles: Rock Band.

Does Brutal Legend--a wide-ranging action/adventure about a foul-mouthed heavy metal band roadie who gets smacked on the head and wakes up in a D&D-style fantasy land--have what it takes to rock gamers this holiday season?

Dan: Having seen and played a few segments of the game at different times over the past eight months, I was eager to have a chance to spend a weekend playing through a bigger chunk of the main campaign. Several hours in, Brutal Legend has done an overall excellent job of treading the very fine line between comedy and gameplay--but not without some serious stumbles along the way.

I'd be the first to say I'm not a Jack Black "fan," but this is clearly a role he was born to play. He's apparently into it as well, and shows up as himself for a clever live-action intro video. The game's writing is sharp, even if much of it is clearly constructed from contextual one-liners that Black's character, Eddie Rigg, spouts off in a semi-random fashion.

But we ended up having more fun listening to the dialog than playing the game itself. Brutal Legend doesn't seem to know if it wants to be a hack-and-slash action game, an open-world exploration RPG, or a squad strategy game--as Eddie picks up small armies of head-banging locals to order around with basic follow/stay/attack D-pad commands.

Perhaps trying to mash all these genres together caused a few of the rough, unfinished edges we saw. Cut scenes and in-game dialog crashed awkwardly into each other, cutting off characters mid-sentence. Transitions between dialog and action scenes were abrupt and sometimes disorienting.

But despite some muddled ideas, we kept going back for more, drawn in by the Frank Frazetta-style art (think '70s metal album covers) and inside baseball music biz jokes--and as someone who has spent some time in a self-parodying heavy metal band, that's high praise.

Jeff: It's tough to name a game that has as much hype this. It's probably because of the talent involved in the game; Jack Black has sported a Brutal Legend T-shirt everywhere he's gone for the last year and voice work comes from rock legends like Lemmy Kilmister (Motorhead) and Ozzy Osbourne.

Brutal Legend is unique, in that you'll experience a variety of gameplay genres mashed up together inside. The game incorporates open-world driving, action/adventure, real-time strategy, and elements of role-playing.

If there's one thing the game does right, it's establishing the metal atmosphere.… Read more