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Details sprout for Plants vs. Zombies for XBLA

Call of Duty: World at War has a zombie mode, as does upcoming content for Red Dead Redemption. However, the undead in those titles don't munch the life out of plants as they do in PopCap's Plants vs. Zombies. The tower defense game that debuted on PC and Mac last year will make its way to the Xbox Live Arcade in September the publisher said Monday.

The game's full achievement list leaked this weekend, but on Monday the game's publisher provided official, substantiated details on the game, including the aforementioned release window, as well as its … Read more

Who's more annoying: Android or iPhone fanboys?

Ah, there's nothing like a good platform war to stir up the emotions. We've seen plenty of battles over the years. Old stalwarts like Windows versus Mac and Xbox 360 versus PS3 always manage to light up the message boards. And I still miss all the personal attacks I got from HD DVD versus Blu-ray wars. But nothing seems to get people more worked up these days than Android versus iPhone.

Take a recent post I did on the 20 most-wanted features I'd like to see in the next-generation iPhone, which may be called the iPhone 5. The comments section immediately degenerated into a battle between iPhone versus Android backers. Here are some samples from the melee.

Android camp:

zizzybaloobah: "You can waste your time wishing for a phone w/these features, or get an Android phone that already has them."

javawebdeveloper: "@Bonesbautista, @slickuser No, you are giving the typical iPhone fanboy response: You are so convinced that the iPhone is the best thing since sliced bread that you cannot accept that a competing device has features that the iPhone does not have, so you denigrate them as being unimportant, hazardous, or only 'for geeks'. If they are implemented in iPhone 5, then they will magically transform into Apple innovations."

Ebraheem: "Anyone thinking that ports are a synonym for holes really shouldn't be talking about security. iOS has 65535 ports, Android has 65535 ports, Windows has 65535 ports, and pretty much anything that has a TCP/IP stack has 65535 ports! Typical non-geek mentality, thinking you understand technical details when you don't."

Sourdust: "So the author [David Carnoy] basically wishes the iPhone were more like an Android phone. As other have written, just buy an Android and be done with it. It seems the real wish here is for Android phones to run the iPhone OS. But that would have been a much shorter article (one sentence) and might not have been published."

Apple camp:

bonesbautista: "Typical response from Android fanboys. Too much kludge with stock Android, too many complaints of poor RF with most of the HTC smart phones. The new iOS is missing a Today screen and better notifications. Android? Meh."

slickuser: "Typical geek (Android) mentality! By the time iPhone 5 is out, Flash would be on a lifeline."

MaLvaDo39: "Why do you want an Android? Just another fake iPhone...follow the leader is all Google and Microsoft could ever do."

NeonRazor4: "Since you seem so eager to write about missing features, why not write an article about the features you want from the Motorola Droid 2 or the Blackberry Storm 3? Why do you feel such a need to nitpick the iPhone? Sure it's missing a few features, but there are many other phones that are missing some features we wish it had. Yet, they don't get the same amount of vicious scrutiny as the iPhone does..."

Chandyyyyyy: "Alrighty. So I'm not a geek or a nerd, but I understand the argument and what each person is saying if that helps you understand where I am coming from. I have an iPhone along with thousands of other consumers. I'm not a fanboy. But I couldn't care less about which phone is better. I'm very happy with my iPhone, and I see many more iPhones than droids htc or whatever. What the iPhone has that other phones do not is an iPod. That's no better than any other mp3 player, but it's the top brand of mp3 player. It's convenient and easy to use, even older folks have one."

As you can see from these comments, some lines are being drawn and some stereotypes are being formed. Here's how I envision the two sides see each other based on some of the vitriol going around. (Yes, these are sexist descriptions, but 85 percent of our readers are male. If you're part of our female audience, feel free to comment with your views on all of this). … Read more

Who needs big speakers?

When it comes to speakers, size does matter. Big speakers clobber little ones in two ways: they can play louder and make more bass. But since the market demands increasingly smaller speakers the question comes up: can small speakers ever sound better than big ones? Well, the answer is sometimes and in some ways, but great-sounding small speakers are never cheap.

The best-sounding small speakers I've heard in quite some time came from a pair of Anthony Gallo Acoustics Reference Strada speakers ($995 each). The speaker is comprised of two small, stainless steel spheres, each with a 4-inch woofer; the spheres straddle a cylindrical tweeter that produces exceptionally broad dispersion. The Strada doesn't make much bass, so I heard it with the matching Gallo TR-3 cylindrical subwoofer. The system was sweet, detailed, dynamically alive, and very, very natural sounding. But it costs over three grand and doesn't have the muscle of a hefty floorstanding speaker for the same or fewer dollars.

So if you plan on never, ever listening to loud music or having a party, and room-shaking bass isn't a priority, wee speakers might be the way to go. How tiny is tiny? Obviously, size is relative, but I'd rate any speaker that is either less than 7 inches high, or has a smaller than 4-inch woofer as a tiny speaker. If your room is large--say anything bigger than 15 by 20 feet (300 square feet)--don't even think of buying small speakers. … Read more

PopCap on the iPad, 3D, and crying goats (Q&A)

It's been a good year for PopCap Games. The Seattle-based developer and publisher has found success in its latest title--Plants vs. Zombies, which was recently ported over to the iPad and now sits in the top 10 grossing apps on the platform.

But what might be more impressive than that is the continued growth of the company's now 10-year-old title Bejeweled, an iteration of which is available as an application within Facebook. According to the company, the 11 million or so monthly active users average a staggering 43 minutes per session. All this for a game that only lasts a minute.

PopCap CEO David Roberts and co-founder John Vechey stopped by the CNET offices last week to talk about these two titles, as well as a few other topics, like digital-rights management, 3D gaming, and competing social games like Zynga's Farmville. Here's an edited transcript of our interview.

Q: When the iPhone first came out, you guys had one of the first Web apps. Was that more of just a tech demo? What's the backstory on that? John Vechey: Someone had actually made it. They didn't actually call it Bejeweled, but it was basically Bejeweled. We were like, "this kind of sucks, but it's kind of half-way there, and they used their own operating stuff." So we contacted this guy in Poland, and were like, "Hey, we'll give you some money to fix it up a little bit and respond to our feedback, and we'll buy it from you," and he said, "That would be awesome!" So that's how that happened.

Didn't you do something similar for one that could be played within World of Warcraft? Vechey: Someone did a Bejeweled-type game in WoW that was also kind of neat, but then it was kind of crappy in all these ways, so we said, "Hey this is pretty cool, want to make it Bejeweled?" and it turned into the same sort of deal. That guy now works for us.

David Roberts: John was trying to get him to come work for us before he finished college.

Vechey: He did! My arguments worked! It was like, "What do you want to do after you graduate college?" and he said "make games and work for a games company like you guys." We're like, "All right, so you can spend two years to do the thing that you can do right now, it's your choice."

Roberts: Our anti-education person John Vechey...

How long did it take to port Plants vs. Zombies to the iPad? Vechey: Two months maybe?

Roberts: It actually didn't start until the iPad got announced, so we didn't know about the iPad before it got announced. So it wasn't very long. The team was working a lot of late nights.

In these ports, who decides what features make it and which ones don't? Vechey: There's a producer who's in charge of them, and they're working with the developers and the original game developer to find that balance. And really, the producers have to be experts in the platform and know what should be kept, and what shouldn't be kept, and then know when to include the original game designers.

For example, Xbox is a platform that we go to. And we think of it more of an "adaptation" than a port, so we do end up doing a lot of changes. So Peggle on Xbox, for example, had multiplayer. Every Xbox game we're going to make is going to have multiplayer. For Peggle they spent a lot of time making the multiplayer mode and working with Sukhbir Sidhu, the original game designer, and they have to own that [game] and design it, but really get good feedback from the original game teams.

Speaking of Peggle, you guys promised you'd be bringing the game music to the iPhone version of Peggle in a future update. This was late last year. Is it still coming? Vechey: Is the future gone? No, the future is still coming.

Roberts: I thought we shipped that already. I guess we didn't.

Vechey: I have a feeling that might have been an empty promise. But I'm going to stick with "the future is not passed yet!"… Read more

preGAME 11: PSP roundup

This week on preGAME we bring you a trio of some of the most unique PSP games around. That's right, on today's episode we bring you live demos of Fat Princess: Fistful of Cake, Patchwork Heroes, and Echoshift. Joining us on the phone to chat about the PSP version of Fat Princess will be Matt Morton, the U.S. producer on the game.

But first, we'll take a look at the just-released teaser-trailer for one of the most acclaimed mashup fighting games around. Join us as we screen the first-ever video for Capcom Vs. Marvel 3! Sure the game may not be out for another year, but Mark tells us why this title is so important. Next, we'll talk about some of the most highly anticipated Xbox Live Arcade games due out this year. From Limbo to Sonic the Hedgehog 4, there's something for everyone on our list.

Been to a 7-Eleven lately? The company has announced that after a successful trial, used console games will be available for sale in most of the nation's stores by September. Games will go for $20 or lower and classic consoles may soon be supported as well.

Next we'll chat about publisher Ubisoft and the announcement that it will soon be removing paper instruction manuals from games to reduce the cost of production and help prevent waste. Finally, Mark and Jeff discuss software piracy and how it affects portable gaming consoles the most, especially now that Nintendo blames it for a 50 percent sales drop in Europe.… Read more

Why Apple's iBooks falls short of Kindle--for now

In case you haven't noticed, Amazon's changed gears a little bit when it comes to its Kindle platform. If you look at Amazon's homepage, you'll notice a different message. Now that the iPad is here, no longer is Amazon just advertising the Kindle e-reader front and center, it's all about the Kindle app, which is available for a variety of devices.

As I've argued all along, Amazon is ultimately more interested in selling software (e-books) than hardware (the Kindle), so the whole multi-prong app effort is key to its strategy of dominating the e-book market. A lot of people talk about how closed the Amazon system is (it uses its own format for its content while the rest of the industry, including Apple, has standardized on the ePub format), but in terms of accessing your library from multiple devices, Amazon is actually the most open and flexible. (Note to Nook owners: You can move an e-book from your Nook to your iPhone, but the Kindle app's page-syncing feature, which takes you to the last page you read on either device, isn't available yet).

So while we can sit here talking about walled gardens all you want, what people really want is the freedom to move their content around.… Read more

Plants vs. Zombies for iPad gets hot and buttered

The iPad's bigger screen real estate has held some of the biggest promise for fans of tower defense games, and iPhone and iPod Touch best-seller Plants vs. Zombies from PopCap could be one of the best early examples.

The iPad version of the title, dubbed Plants vs. Zombies HD, was leaked last week along with a slew of other iPad games through Apple's iTunes Web interface for apps. At $9.99, it costs more than three times its smaller sibling.

However, the iPad-optimized version brings the game nearly up to parity with the versions found on PC and Mac computers, which cost twice as much. This includes the proper top placement (instead of the side) of all the weapons and resources you must work with to defeat your zombie foes, as well as survival mode, which lets players try to stay alive for as long as possible. For many of those who have finished the game's campaign, this is the mode of choice, and something that was sorely missing from the iPhone version.

iPad users also get a new (and exclusive) mini-game mode called "buttered popcorn," which makes use of the iPad's multitouch display. As PopCap explains it:

Players attack zombies by first "buttering" them up before firing corn-cob cannons at them. To defeat the growing hordes of zombies, players can touch them to place butter on their heads. With the multitouch user interface, players can select up to 11 zombies at a time, targeted for 'buttering' by the powerful cob cannons.

Presumably, by selecting "11 at a time," PopCap means players are expected to use their nose, or the help of a friend, to select the extra zombie beyond their own 10 digits.

PopCap says it's sold 650,000 copies of the title for the iPhone and iPod. Users who have already paid for that version will, of course, still be able to play it on the iPad, but will need to buy a copy of the HD version if they want to take advantage of all the new features and extra screen real estate.

More screens after the break. Click on any shot to see it in its native iPad resolution.… Read more

The 404 542: Where the babysitter's on fire (podcast)

A lot of critics accuse The 404 of resorting to juvenile humor for cheap laughs, and even if that's absolutely true, we've never had an actual 14 year old call us out on it...until this morning, when young Daniel showed up at the CNET office! Dedicated 404 listeners will remember Daniel as the kid who got robbed for his iPhone, so he joins us on today's episode as a junior podcaster to tell his story. And don't worry--his mother is fully aware of his location.

Daniel is visibly excited about the first topic of discussion, … Read more

Wake up refreshed and kill zombies with plants: iPhone apps of the week

Before we get to the apps today, I have a couple of news items to tell you about. First, there is a sale right now for the game I wrote about in last week's post, Space Miner: Space Ore Bust (was $4.99; now $1.99). I really can't recommend this game enough (I'm still playing whenever I get a chance), so if you were waiting for the price to come down, now is the time to pull the trigger.

Also, a new Apple patent application, reported by AppleInsider, suggests that a future handheld device will have … Read more