Physics

We expected it for months, we heard rumors of its existence, and now photos have appeared seeming to confirm that a PlayStation phone is real. Such a device could simultaneously revive the flailing PSP platform and inject a truly gaming-ready smartphone into the Android ecosystem capable of competing with Apple.

We have our wish list of features we'd like to see, but based on what we've seen thus far, details are scarce. Some tech specs have been reported, but beyond that, there's a lot we still don't know. Among the many uncertainties, several unanswered questions come … Read more

Take-Two Interactive expects digital game sales to grow at a rapid clip, the company's CEO said in an interview yesterday.

Speaking to Bloomberg Television, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick predicts that overall digital game sales will account for up to 40 percent of the company's business within the next three years.

"I think you can see digital distribution to be 20, 30, 40 percent of our business," Zelnick told Bloomberg Television. "However, I believe our business is going to grow, so I don't think it actually takes a bite out of retail, and I doubt … Read more

For the first time ever, more companies are suffering from electronic theft than from physical theft, according to the results of a poll released yesterday by risk consultancy Kroll.

The firm's fourth "Annual Global Fraud Report" (PDF) found that the amount of money lost by businesses to all kinds of fraud rose over the past 12 months to $1.7 million per billion dollars of sales from $1.4 million, a gain of more than 20 percent.

And with that overall increase came a notable shift, with electronic theft just edging out physical theft. The theft of … Read more

Ever since tearing through the 15 new Angry Birds levels released last week (which took all of about 20 minutes), I've been in a bit of a funk.

I mean, let's face it, once you've finished the game, there's little appeal in flinging the same birds at the same pigs. And new levels are too few and far between.

Where's the next pig thing? (Sorry, next big thing.) Where's the clever new game that can satisfy my craving for cutesy characters and whimsical, physics-oriented action? Where is the successor to Angry Birds?

It's … Read more

Farm Break is a free, sheep-themed arcade puzzler with cute art direction and decent level design.

The game's central schtick--as revealed in a children's-book-style prologue slideshow--is that you're helping three larcenous sheep escape from a farm, by outsmarting and outmaneuvering the many traps (i.e., puzzles) set by the farmer. You alternately control three different sheep (Sally, Knuckles, and Big Jim, each with their own sounds and personality), using their various characteristics (e.g., Sally's strength, or Big Jim's ability to squeeze through small spaces) in tandem to defeat the game's 25 physics-based puzzles … Read more

QUEENS, N.Y.--They did it, mostly: The artists and engineers who dreamed up, built, and now operate a large-scale version of the classic board game Mousetrap took center stage at this weekend's World Maker Faire at the New York Hall of Science, with the aim of flattening a New York taxi with a two-ton safe through a series of deployments of their massive Rube Goldberg machine. Standing guard were the Lifesize Mousetrap operators--a half dozen clowns, a few women in tasteful burlesque costumes with mouse ears and tails, and a man in a gorilla suit.

If this all … Read more

The CD is fast approaching its 30th anniversary, and it's looking a bit tired. Funny, the LP is more than twice as old and its resurgence is ongoing. Not just among oldsters playing records they bought decades ago; a fair percentage of young bands are releasing new vinyl pressings.

CD box sets and remastered CDs, like the Beatles catalog that came out in 2009, still sell in big numbers. I remember when the CD was introduced, the media predicted the LP would be gone in just a few years. Now it's starting to look like the LP will … Read more

Glass Tower 2 is a physics-based arcade puzzler with some similarities to falling-block video games and the tabletop classic Jenga.

You start each level with a precarious tower of glass blocks--blue ones, which you need to break, interspersed with red ones, which you need to drop safely to the bottom of the screen. You get points for every blue block you break, and you lose points and a life (out of 10 lives to start) for every red block that falls over the side. The challenge comes in choosing which blue blocks to break, and how quickly, as you try … Read more

You can't turn around in the App Store without tripping over physics-based puzzlers and games with a hand-sketched, graph-paper aesthetic--but Doodle Bomb still manages to be a fun, above-average entry into these two crowded subgenres.

Your goal in Doodle Bomb is to throw bombs--as few as possible--to escape each level. From your torn-out-paper perch, you're trying to blow up a green control panel to open a door and end each level. Along the way you have to blow up blue control panels to activate parts of the environment (such as hinges or wheels) and either avoid or exploit … Read more