We’ve still got some Casual Connect coverage in store for you guys, starting with this news from Polish developer Artifex Mundi. You might recognize them as the publishers of several popular adventure games on Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8, including Nightmares from the Deep, Abyss, Dark Arcana, and Enigmatis.

We spoke with Tomasz Grudzinski and Mariusz Szynalik of Artifex Mundi about their plans for mobile Windows platforms. It turns out Artifex Mundi has four or five games in store for us this year! Head past the break for video previews of three of those games, including sequels to Enigmatis and Nightmares from the Deep, plus a fresh new title called Deadlings.

Nightmares from the Deep: The Siren’s Call

This is the sequel to Nightmares from the Deep: The Cursed Heart, but you don’t have to have played the previous game to understand the story. This one stars Sarah Black, a woman who journeys to the mysterious village of Kingsmouth. There the citizens are afflicted by a curse that slowly turns them into fish people. She’ll have to save the citizens, rescue a mermaid, and survive sea monsters over the course of the adventure.

Enigmatis: The Mists of Ravenwood

The first game in the Enigmatis series is Enigmatis: The Ghosts of Maple Creek. This one takes place shortly afterward. The player is still in pursuit of the villainous Preacher, who escaped at the end of the last game. The story starts out in the Ravenwood Heritage Park, where a horrible creature has attacked a young girl and her parents. You’ll have to avoid the creature and rescue the family as you continue chasing after The Preacher.

A melting pot of adventure, puzzles, and hidden objects

Enigmatis: The Mists of Ravenwood

Nightmares from the Deep and Enigmatis are both Hidden Object Puzzle Adventure (HOPA) games. As adventure games, they feature involving stories and exploration. Narrative is Artifex Mundi’s strong point, and these stories are brought to life with animated cinematics and fully voiced dialogue.

To progress through each game’s mysteries, you’ll have to solve a variety of puzzles and locate numerous hidden objects. These titles offer multiple difficulty options, so you can make the puzzles as challenging or as easy as you want.

Deadlings

Unlike the other two games, Deadlings was developed by another Polish developer called Nimbi in cooperation with Artifex Mundi. The two studios worked together last year when Artifex Mundi published Nimbi’s tower defense game 300 Dwarves for PC and iOS. Deadlings uses the Unity Engine thus will make the jump to mobile Windows platforms as well.

As this one comes from a different developer, it’s also part of a different genre than Artifex Mundi’s HOPA games. Deadlings is a puzzle platformer in which a team of scientists carry out experiments using hapless zombies. Players directly control the zombies, each of which has its own unique powers. The first zombie can only jump, but soon you’ll gain creatures that can climb and do lots more.

Deadlings is farther from completion than Enigmatis and Nightmares from the Deep, but it already has an appealing and distinctive art style to match its clever premise. The levels are short, sweet, and should be perfect for phone and tablet play.

A great year for adventure

Nightmares from the Deep: The Siren’s Call

Artifex Mundi believes in Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8, and they’re showing it by releasing a bevy of games this year. We’ll soon be reviewing the current Nightmares from the Deep and Enigmatis titles in preparation for the new ones to come. Download them now if you’d rather not wait!

• Nightmares from the Deep: The Cursed Heart – Windows Phone 8 – 249 MB – $2.99 – Store Link
• Nightmares from the Deep: The Cursed Heart – Windows 8 – 475 MB – $6.99 – Store Link
• Enigmatis: The Ghosts of Maple Creek – Windows Phone 8 – 183 MB – $2.99 – Store Link
• Enigmatis: The Ghosts of Maple Creek – Windows 8 – 430 MB – $6.99 – Store Link

Most of the developers we spoke with at Casual Connect last week weren’t there specifically to promote games for mobile Windows platforms. But one team came for just that reason; submitting their Windows Phone and Windows 8 game to the Indie Prize Showcase contest. The game: Fling Theory from Vancouver-based Coding Jar Studios.

You might remember Fling Theory as one of the six games that Microsoft and its partners launched during GDC back in March. It also happens to number among the first Unity releases for Windows Phone 8. Jodon Karlik, the studio president and Doug Insley, technical artist walked us through Fling Theory’s gameplay, development process, and possible Xbox Live plans during our chat. Get all the details and see the video after the break!

A game you can throw yourself into

Fling Theory is a physics-based puzzle game that takes place on an incredibly small scale. Instead of flinging birds around, you’ll play as a microscopic electron in a scientist’s lab. The goal is always to get from one side of the test chamber to the other. Along the way you can collect stars in order to receive higher level ratings.

The puzzle element comes from the game’s scientific themes. When controlling an electron with a positive charge, it will repel away from positively charged atoms. Other particles with the opposite charge will attract your electron. You’ll have to use these magnetic fields of influence to get your electron where it needs to go without crashing. More complex levels even allow players to switch their charges back and forth in order to negotiate various hazards.

The free base game of Fling Theory contains 23 levels and takes two or three hours to complete. It’s also supported by ads, which players can pay to disable. Coding Jar also sells an extra level pack as well as a bundle with both the level pack and disabled ads. On Windows Phone 8, the bundle costs $1.29. On Windows 8 it rings up for $1.99.

More than a fling

Coding Jar’s two-man team are graduates of Microsoft and Nokia’s App Campus program. Applicants receive a financial award as well as training in mobile technology, design and usability, and marketing support. In return, Fling Theory launched as a timed exclusive on Windows platforms.

The team’s experience with Microsoft has been extremely positive. In fact, they’re likely to make Windows 8 the lead platform on their next game too. That game is too far off to talk about just yet.

As an Xbox Windows Phone fan, I had to ask Jodon whether he would be interested in releasing Fling Theory as an Xbox Live title. Coding Jar is actually quite interested in Xbox branding, but they say the ball is in Microsoft’s court. That said, the developers have already discussed upgrades for a potential Xbox version such as adding online leaderboards, daily challenges, and speed run challenges.

Step into the test chamber

Let’s hope Microsoft remembers Xbox Windows Phone again and picks Fling Theory up as an Xbox title. In the meantime, you can support this Windows Phone and Windows 8-friendly developer by downloading their game. If you like it, be sure to snag the level pack!

• Fling Theory – Windows Phone 8 – 13 MB – Free – Store Link
• Fling Theory – Windows 8 – 14 MB – Free – Store Link

When I reviewed Order & Chaos Online last week, I didn’t beat around the bush – I called it the single best Xbox Windows Phone game. No other game compares in scale, depth, or online multiplayer functionality. But that doesn’t mean it’s a perfect game, either. Like any big game it suffers from an assortment of bugs and glitches.

On Friday, Gameloft published what will hopefully be the first of many Order & Chaos Online updates. This particular update (which requires users to redownload the full 1012 MB game) doesn’t fix all of the known bugs, but at least it’s a start. Head past the break for details!

A ubiquitous patch

Order & Chaos Online is a paid game, but it also contains a shop that sells nothing but premium items. Hey, that’s how you make a game with more content than practically every retail Xbox 360 game and only charge seven bucks for it – you offset it with In-App Purchases. Dedicated players don’t mind the IAPs – they allow them to get special things that casual gamers won’t care about.

The problem at launch was the premium shop, run by a non-player character named Ubiquitous Nick, was broken on multiple levels. After choosing to access the shop by talking to Nick in a town or pressing the Nick’s Shop button from the player menu, the shop front displayed at a gigantic, non-resizable resolution that made browsing extremely difficult. Not only that, but actual purchases were impossible to make out.

Ubiquitous Nick's shop at launch

Considering that Ubiquitous Nick is a major part of the game’s monetization strategy, it should come as no surprise that Gameloft rushed to fix Nick’s shop in the version 1.1 update. The shop now displays at a much more reasonable resolution, and several users have been able to successfully buy Nick’s wares.

Halfway fixed

Ubiquitous Nick's shop after the version 1.1 update

Welcome as it is, the patch appears to have been something of a rush job because Nick’s shop still has issues. The images that make up the shop, including menu items, background, and purchasable items, may or may not actually show up when you visit it. I couldn’t get a screenshot with all images displaying properly for this article. Additionally, the items within the shop are not categorized properly.

Given Gameloft’s track record with updates, it’s hard to say whether they’ll return to Nick’s shop once again and fix it all the way. When Ice Age Village launched with broken social features, Gameloft put out a quick update that kinda-sorta fixed the problem, but not really – and that was the last update we’ve seen for it so far.

However, Order & Chaos Online is a higher profile release than Ice Age Village. Besides, as an MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online RPG) Order & Chaos depends on a stream of future updates in order to keep players invested and spending money.

We can reasonably expect that Gameloft will add new content to it someday (such as the update that raises the level cap from 60 to 70). Hopefully at that point (if not much sooner), the publisher will properly fix Nick’s shop, the Relic’s Keep dungeon, and any other issues that continue to vex players.

Back to the adventure

Don’t let the critical nature of this article scare you away from Order & Chaos Online. Nick’s shop is important, but only to a relatively small portion of the user base. The bugs I’ve encountered do nothing to deter my enthusiasm for the game. If you’re an active player too, don’t forget to stop by the WPCentral Guild forum thread and see about joining our guild!

Order & Chaos Online– Windows Phone 8 with 1 GB RAM – 1012 MB - $6.99 – Store Link

In the last week or so we’ve brought you interviews and announcements from German developers Handy Games and Flare Games. Now we’ve made it a trilogy by speaking with Exozet Games, the studio who brought popular board game Carcassonneto Xbox Windows Phone last year.

Matthias Hellmund, the Head of Mobile Development at Exozet, sat down with us to discuss the development process of Carcassonne, its online multiplayer, and even the notorious grinding Achievements! Few game makers come prepared with as many development stories. Head past the break to learn the full picture behind how Carcassonne arrived on Windows Phone.

The road from board game to Xbox Windows Phone

The physical Carcassonne board game was first published in 2000. In 2011, Exozet released their mobile adaptation for Blackberry, Java, and Android phones. The Windows Phone version began its earliest stages of development in early 2011 while Exozet worked to complete the Android version.

2011 was a happier time for Xbox Windows Phone. Back then, Microsoft actually approached Exozet about developing a mobile game with the Xbox branding. The developer had already released a few Windows Phone apps for other publishers, so they knew something about working with C# and Windows Phone 7. Exozet wanted to release Carcassonne on as many platforms as possible; hence they chose it as the game to port.

Development hurdles

Carcassonne’s development was challenging for a number of reasons. For one thing, Microsoft would announce and eventually released the Mango (Windows Phone 7.5) update while Exozet worked on their game. This forced the game maker to flash and test various beta Mango builds along with their title, adding to the development time.

In March 2012, another product launched as Exozet toiled away on their game: low-end Windows Phone 7.5 Tango devices. These phones had only 256 MB of RAM instead of the 512 MB found in other Windows Phone 7 devices.

Naturally, the lower system RAM meant that games and apps had less memory to work with on these value-priced phones.  Because Carcassonne was so far along in development when Microsoft announced Tango, Exozet reluctantly abstained from reworking the game to run on 256 MB devices.

Xbox Live games don’t just release in one or two countries; they appear in a number of markets across the world. The extensive international nature of the release required Exozet to translate Carcassonne into more languages than they had ever done before. The hardest part of the translation process was reworking the game’s UI for Asian character sets (Chinese, Japanese, etc).

Paving the way for Online multiplayer

Finally, Carcassonne was one of the first Xbox Windows Phone 7 games to support online multiplayer (Battleship beat it to release last summer). Because nobody else had created online Xbox games on phone before, Exozet couldn’t look to existing knowledge or code bases when creating their multiplayer mode.

The Partner.net test environment and the actual Live environment also differed somewhat. The game experienced significant and frustrating online performance issues upon its release, which were almost entirely out of Exozet’s control.

Thirteen months after starting the project, Carcassonne finally launched on Windows Phone in October 2012. Check out our full review to see how it measured up to expectations. And be sure to watch the video interview above to see Matthias’s response to our review criticisms!

More board games in the future?

While there’s no question that the developer’s ability to test Carcassonne’s online mode before release was insufficient, Exozet still speaks fondly of the overall experience.  Microsoft responded to their communications quite promptly, often providing highly technical feedback for the developer to use.

Windows Phone Carcassonne players might have noticed that the game supports downloadable expansions, but none were ever released. Exozet actually prepared at least one expansion, but Microsoft chose not to publish it. It’s a shame – if Microsoft had continued funding Xbox Windows Phone development, Exozet might have brought their adaptation of The Settlers of Catan board game to Windows Phone as well.

Carcassonne– Windows Phone 7 and 8 – 45 MB - $2.99 – Store Link

Samurai vs. Zombies Defense is a action packed tower defense styled game for your Windows 8 computer or tablet. You play the role of the heroic Samurai that must defend his village against brain hungry hordes of zombies.

Samurai vs. Zombies Defense has power-ups, upgrades, and a mini-game to keep things from getting stale. Add attractive graphics and challenging game play and Samurai vs. Zombies Defense is a welcome addition to our Windows 8 Xbox gaming library.

Traditionally, Samurai warriors were charged with protecting their villages from threats. While the more common threats came from rival clans, invading armie with Samurai vs. Zombies Defense you must defend your village from the undead.

Game play is rather simple. On the computer, you use the keyboard directional arrows to move your Samurai. On a table or touch screen you tap the screen in the direction you want the Samurai to move. Samurai vs. Zombies Defense also supports Xbox game pads.

Samurai vs. Zombies Defense's game screen has your level progress, health meter, coins/gem counts and sushi supply running across the top of the screen. Along the bottom of the screen is your available allies and bonus attack controls. As your Samurai approaches the zombies, he'll start his attack with a bow and arrow and when he gets within striking distance, he'll use his sword. Attacks are automatic so you can concentrate on moving to attack the zombies or retreat to avoid getting your brains eaten.

As you take hits from the enemy, your health meter will begin to deplete. You can eat sushi to gain some health back or simply back away from the action to regain your strength.

The objective is to take the fight to the zombies and protect your village's gate. To help you in your defense, you have a collection of allies that can be summoned. Along the bottom of the screen you have icons for the various allies available.

Samurai vs. Zombies Defense Allies

The allies include farmers, swordsmen, bowmen, soldiers armed with spears and more. They span a wide range of strengths and abilities and are progressively unlocked as you progress through the game. You have an energy meter at the bottom corner of the screen that will slowly replenish. If you're energy levels build high enough, you can upgrade the meter where more energy is produced. Just keep in mind the troops are generated at your village gate so it may take a few seconds for them to catch up to the action.

Samurai vs. Zombies Defense Bonus Attack

Your bonus attacks rest at the bottom right of the gaming screen and will give your Samurai a boost of power that helps take out the zombies. As you take out the zombies you earn coins and gems that can be used prior to each level to upgrade your Samurai, your allies, a few stationary defensive units or purchase health related items that will keep you in the game. You have revival tokens that will bring you back from the dead and sushi that will replenish your health.

Samurai vs. Zombies Defense Upgrade Shop

If you need more coins or gems you can get a jump on things through in-game purchases or play Pachinko to earn coins, gems and other bonus items. The balls you earn while playing the game will open up this mini-game and is accessed through the Shop Screen that appears before each level.

Samurai vs. Zombies Defense: Zombies Rising Mode

You also have bonus levels where you guide your army of allies as a spirit warrior and eventually you can unlock the Zombies Rising mode where you can play the role of the Zombie Samurai. Game play is just like the Classic mode but you play the zombie, defending the Gates of Hell (their version of a Village Gate) from the Samurai and his allies.  Where the Samurai has allies in the Classic mode, the Zombie Samurai also has allies to draw upon.  They're just more of the undead variety (i.e. legless corpse, etc.).

Graphics are rather nice, animations are entertaining, there is a ton of gaming involved and overall, Samurai vs. Zombies Defense is a challenging, fun game for your Windows 8 devices. If you install it on multiple devices, your progress is saved, allowing you to pick things up where you left off. The gaming experience was equally enjoyable from a computer or tablet.  Maybe one day we'll see Samurai vs. Zombies Defense ported to our Windows Phones to add a mobile gaming aspect to things. 

Samurai vs. Zombies Defense is a free Xbox Game for Windows 8 and you can find it here in the Windows Store.  

If there is one thing we don’t like about Microsoft it’s when they put an end to good ideas that seemingly didn’t get a fair chance.

Such is the case with Galactic Reign, the distinctive space-battle and strategy game that co-launched on Windows Phone and Windows 8 just a few months ago. The game allowed people to play online against other Xbox users and to continue the game on their phone or tablet, seamlessly. The game’s real unique feature was the custom rendering of space battles, giving users a new way to appreciate war.

Now in their support forums, Microsoft has announced that the game will no longer be available after August 15th, which is in just three days. The game’s online servers which power the system, will be taken offline December 31st.

Color us crushed.

The game, which costs $4.99 on Windows Phone and Windows 8 (though users only needed to purchase it once for cross-platform play), will evidently not be refunded unless you put up a fight with customer service.

But why?

Microsoft only gave the tersest non-answer to the question ‘Why?’ by stating:

“We continually explore new games and entertainment concepts.  Galactic Reign was a great cloud-based video rendering game exploration that we are going to bring to a close.”

There are either two explanations for the change: the business model just did not work out (and not enough people were playing to justify the costs) or the game itself was a test-bed for newer technology (that you paid to be a part of). While the second answer probably has some truth in it, we suspect that it was simply not cost-efficient to run those servers with so few players.

In fact, as much as we love the game, we found ourselves often forgetting we had ongoing battles with other opponents. The game is turn-based, meaning games could go on for some time, especially if someone didn’t play their turn.

Even worse was Microsoft’s answer to the question will there be any future Galactic Reign games released? The answer is no, meaning this is the end of this unique experience.

We understand Microsoft has a business to run, but we can’t help but be upset at such a cancellation. The game has massive potential and had it gone to iOS and Android along with some actual promotion, could have potentially taken off bringing much needed attention to the mobile Xbox universe. The game has a high 4.5 Star rating in the Store from 366 reviews, but that number of reviews is quite low for an Xbox Live title.

You can read our detailed review of Galactic Reign here and if you need to re-download it before it goes, you can pick it up here in the Store.

Source: Xbox Forums; Thanks, ActiveNick, for the tip

Having reviewed Gameloft’s Order & Chaos Online last week, today we look at the publisher’s latest release UNO & Friends for Windows Phone 8. That’s the title, not “UNOFriends” as it’s inexplicably listed in the Windows Phone Store. It’s free and runs on all Windows Phone 8 devices (even low end ones), so it’s definitely worth a look.

One simple card game

UNO is a very simple Crazy Eights-style card game that anyone can learn in a couple of minutes. Four players compete to be the first to play all of their cards into the discard pile. Each turn you can either play a single card or draw a card. Cards come in four colors, and you can only play cards of the same color or face (number of symbol) as the card played before you. If you can’t play a card, you draw one, slowing your progression towards an empty hand.

The general interface in UNO & Friendsworks decently well, with players able to drag or double-tap a card in order to play it. But actually selecting the right card can take a few tries because they’re so tiny on-screen. And strangely, this game doesn’t sort cards in your hand or allow you to sort them. They just appear in a random jumble, making them harder to look through than necessary.

Every time you play your second-to-last card, you must exclaim UNO. Fail to do so and another player can issue a challenge, forcing you to draw two cards. Calling an UNO is easy enough thanks to the button at the bottom of the screen, but people still forget to do it sometimes.

One mode, lots of play time

UNO & Friends requires an internet connection to play and does not provide a single-player experience. It offers twogame types: private or public games.

In private games, you can invite 2-3 friends. They will receive a toast notification. But everyone has to be present in the lobby in real-time, so you basically need to set up the game through other means before inviting if you expect people to actually come while the lobby is open. I suppose the real-time requirement is necessary since UNO games go on for way too many turns to be fun asynchronously.

Thus the main way to play is public games, in which you get matched up against three other players. UNO & Friends doesn’t provide any rule customizations or the like, so it basically consists of an endless succession of multiplayer matches using the standard rules. It works well, other than games frequently failing to start (thus returning everyone to the title screen).

Gameloft wisely added a progression system to keep people coming back for more than a few games. After a game ends, every player receives points depending on which places they came in, their current level, and whether they completed a bonus objective. Points contribute towards leveling up. With 100 levels to attain, UNO fans will be busy for a long time.

One bonus objective per game

The addition of bonus objectives adds a little pizazz to the tried and true core game of UNO. These include tasks like playing a card on its identical match, challenging a missed UNO, and more. Complete the objective and receive 10 extra experience points after the game ends. Little nuisances: you don’t get a notification during the game itself, nor can you view the objective after the match begins.

Unfortunately, the bonus objective implementation is fairly buggy. Some objectives like “Play cards 1-4 during a game” won’t ever count as completed, even if you did exactly like what they said. Others actually seem to cause the disconnection issues I mentioned earlier. The “Add a friend” objective would be so fun and easy if it worked. Instead, it either causes a disconnection or the game will start but only allow one person to play cards while everyone else looks on helplessly as pictured above.

More than one currency

UNO & Friends has a two-currency system that free-to-play critics will hate but everyone else probably won’t mind. You can buy either currency with real money but you’re never required to do so. The first currency, gold tokens are required to play matches. Run out of tokens and you can’t go on for a while.

Every 45 minutes you get to scratch a card that will reward 2-6 free tokens. But stockpile more than 10 or so tokens and the free scratches stop coming till your supply depletes, so you can’t just save up a ton of tokens either. Basically the scratch system encourages players to check in throughout the day and actually do some playing.

The second currency, silver coins can be spent on six different boosts before each game. The only one worth buying will increase the number of points earned by fifty percent, helping players level up faster. The rest get too expensive to warrant a purchase.

Silver coins can be earned in several ways: playing, gifts from other players, and weekly leaderboard challenges. UNO & Friends has its own in-game friends list that includes Xbox Live friends and people befriended inside the game itself. People can send gifts to five friends per day – the gift will be a random quantity of silver coins or gold tokens. As for the leaderboard challenge, you’ll get a lump sum of coins depending on your overall rank for the week.

It’s easy to miss, but the game also has a shop that sells card decks, backgrounds, and graphical effects in exchange for silver coins. Annoyingly, the shop lacks a buying confirmation. Touch an item in the store and you bought it.

Less than one way to communicate

UNO is a social game by design, and UNO & Friends does well by allowing Windows Phone users to play together. But unlike the iOS version, Gameloft forgot to add a way for players to communicate. You can’t text or voice chat during a game, which totally kills the social aspect. You can send dinky little gifts to each other in-game, but they don’t get saved or do anything.

It’s the exact problem I lamented in an editorial earlier this year. Because Microsoft doesn’t provide a built-in chat interface or require developers to create one of their own, most online Windows Phone games just don’t let players communicate. Of Gameloft’s online games, Order & Chaos Online is the only one with a proper chat system – even though many of their iOS versions support voice chat.

To be fair, the iOS game only received a chat feature last week, so maybe our version will be updated with chat in the future.

20 Achievements

Most of the Achievements are cumulative rewards for actions you’d complete over time anyway. There is one for inviting five friends to private games. Luckily they don’t have to join, so you can just send out some invites without actually playing.

The two hardest/most time-consuming Achievements are for completing 50 bonus objectives and reaching level 100. Bonus objectives would be a cinch if not for the game not crediting some of them and some of them causing games not to start. I’m at level 41 and I’ve completed just over 30 objectives so far.

As for reaching level 100, that will take at least a few weeks of play. It takes 100,000 experience points to hit level 100. Remember to always purchase the point booster before every game in order to cut down on grinding time.

One Overall Impression

Gameloft’s UNO & Friends is a very good game that just needs two things to be great: some bug fixes and a chat system. Even without those fixes, this version is far more enjoyable (and longer lasting) than the previous UNO game.

The core game is great for social settings in that it doesn’t require much attention from players – just see what you can play every hand and maybe watch for missed UNOs. Since this version currently lacks a way to talk to other players, I like to play it while watching TV or listening to an audiobook. If you’re looking for a low attention game to zone out with, give this one a try.

UNO & Friends– Windows Phone 8 – 51 MB – Free – Store Link

Inka Madness is an awesome little platformer for Windows Phone, which is free for the time being. The player is tasked with taking Atuq, the favourite son of the ruler Inca Tupac Qhari and a great and fearless warrior who the gods have chosen, on the important mission to free his siblings from an awful curse and remove chaos from the Inca Empire. 

The title is also available on iOS. As with any platformer, the player can jump, attack and move left to right across multiple biomes. Battling numerous enemies, it's worth picking up if you're a massive fan of indie games that offer hours of gameplay. The game has also been updated a handful of times in the past, adding new features and optimising overall performance. 

You can download Inka Madness from the Windows Phone Store for free. There are humorous moments coupled with exciting gameplay and cute graphics. A perfect combo. Thanks, Szilix14, for the tip!

Awesome Chase is a new Windows Phone 8 game that puts you in the middle of a combat arena where you have to drive your car through various open courses, battling enemy cars, blowing them up and collecting various odds and ends.

Awesome Chase four game modes, four car classes, sixteen power-ups and six different gaming arenas. It is a fast paced game for your Windows Phone 8 device that has a certain level of appeal.

Awesome Chase Main Menu

The main menu for Awesome Chase has options to play one of the two main modes, play a survival mode and access the game's store where you can purchase upgrades. You're gaming settings sit along the left side of the main menu and include sound/music on or off and access to your player profile.

The Awesome Chase Store is where you can go to buy upgrades to your existing fleet of cars or buy new cars to increase your fleet with the cash you earn on missions/levels.

You have two main gaming modes with Awesome Chase.  The Survival Mode is just as it sounds. You try to survive enemy attacks for as long as possible. You also have the "Play" mode that has three unlockable game modes within that includes Death Match, Capture the Flag and Rush Hour. You being with Death Match where you are tasked with certain objectives, avoid being wiped out by the enemy and for added bonus see how many of the enemy cars you can take out along the way.

Awesome Chase Mission/Level Objectives

As you complete the Death Match levels, Capture the Flag becomes available and once you complete those levels you will find Rush Hour becomes unlocked. All totaled there are eighty-four levels or missions to tackle with Awesome Chase.

When you first start playing Awesome Chase you'll be taken through a tutorial that explains what the icons are for and your gaming controls. Awesome Chase lacks a help section or the ability to repeat the tutorial so you'll need to pay some attention to things.

Awesome Chase Game Screen

The gaming control is limited to steering your car. Acceleration and any weapons fire is done automatically. A virtual steering wheel sits in the lower right corner of the screen. The car doesn't turn on a dime and it does take a little time to get used to the steering response. Don't be shocked if you find yourself constantly running into things or missing your target all together.

Your health, ammunition count, money and experience stats line the top of the screen with your mission objectives and timer sitting at the bottom center of the screen. Mission or level objectives are laid out before each stage and you have a set time to meet those goals.

As you run around in circles avoiding and attacking enemy cars, you collect items such as shields, health points, and weapons that appear at random on the screen. The challenging part of things is that your enemy cars are trying to collect the same items.

Awesome Chase Game Screen

Overall, Awesome Chase has potential. I would have liked to have seen a help section for reference and the mission title sits at the top of the screen, minimizing your field of view. You already lose a good bit of the playing field with the on-screen steering wheel. It would be nice if that mission title banner would disappear after a few seconds to open up more screen real estate.

Graphics are a little on the minimal side but it works, there is plenty of gaming involved with Awesome Chase and once you get used to the steering, the game does begin to grow on you. Not sure if Awesome Chase can hold up to marathon gaming sessions but it's not bad for shorter spurts.

Awesome Chase is a free game for your Windows Phone 8 device that you can find here in the Windows Phone Store.

Gameloft’s UNO & Friends launched earlier this month. Since then, two weeks have gone by with no new Xbox Windows Phone release (unless we count Chaos Rings, which we’ll get to in another article). Once again, the Xbox Red Stripe Deal is left to pick up the slack.

This week’s sale game can’t even begin to match the quality of last week’s Rayman Jungle Run sale, but it should still please Achievement hungry bargain shoppers. Collapse! from Game House is on sale for 99 cents. It went on sale back in February 2012, but at the higher $1.99 price point.

In non-Xbox Red Stripe Deals this week, the delightfully retro RPG Legends of Descent from Awesomer Games and the handy Package Trackerapp from Itecture.consulting (?) are each on sale for a dollar as well. Dash past the break for details, screenshots, and Store links!

Collapse!  (Windows Phone 7 or 8)

Regular price: $2.99 Sale price: $.99 Download size:  18 MB Store Link

Collapse! is a simple puzzle game in which players slide blocks up and down to make colored matches. It’s a simple but fun puzzle mechanic. The sprawling Adventure mode offers plenty of twists on the standard gameplay, plus a simple character customization system. Progressing through Adventure also unlocks extra game types in Quick Play.

Now here’ why Achievement hunters will want to buy Collapse! posthaste. For better or worse, this game has the easiest Achievements of any Xbox Windows Phone game. You can seriously get them all in 20 minutes or so. Check out our full review for more details.

Legends of Descent (Windows Phone 7 or 8)

Regular price: $2.99 Sale price: $.99 Download size:  35 MB Store Link

Order & Chaos Online has the modern RPG/MMO style of gameplay covered, while Chaos Rings is the quintessential JRPG. What about classic CRPGs (Computer RPGs) though? Enter indie game Legends of Descent. Boy that is an uninspiring title. But Descent (if we overlook the rough character art) boasts an appealing isometric art style that instantly evokes Ultima VI, a beloved RPG of yesteryear.

Players take on the role of a dwarf guy who wakes up after his town has been ransacked by invaders. He’ll set out through a massive dungeon in order to find loads of loot and avenge his bearded people. This looks like a really deep game (no pun intended), so RPG fans might want to give it a try.

If you’d rather not buy it for a dollar, Awesomer Games also offers a free ad-supported version. Hey Awesomer, your game's Store page live tile needs to be 252 pixels square, not 200!

Package Tracker  (Windows Phone 7 or 8)

Regular price: $2.99 Sale price: $.99 Download size:  6 MB Store Link

I could have used this app last week when a package from a publisher failed to arrive on time (it finally got here on Tuesday). Package Tracker allows you to track packages from all kinds of carriers. It even supports lockscreen notifications.

Features:

• Cloud synchronization: Sync your packages and settings on all your Windows 8 and Windows Phone devices
• Live tile updates (push notifications) for changes of the package status- Barcode scanner for scanning package labels
• Bing map showing the last known position of a package
• Webview showing the carrier's website- Pin packages to the start screen
• Details of a package with complete tracking history
• Share package status via mail
• More than 60 carriers are available (if you miss any carrier, please contact us and tell us a corresponding tracking number!)

Thanks to Marcel for the tip!

We didn’t exactly get a new Xbox Windows Phone release this week, but Windows Phone 8 gamers DO get something new to play. Square Enix’s Chaos Rings, one of the highest profile games on the incompatibility list, is finally Windows Phone 8 compatible!

The game launched only for Windows Phone 7 back in March, hugely disappointing Windows Phone 8 RPG fans. Earlier this week it started showing up in the Store on Windows Phone 8 devices, but couldn’t actually be downloaded by most users. Just an hour or so ago, several of us managed to download it at last. The game's Store web page was down all week and just came back up as well. At last!

Four stories, one huge adventure

The story of Chaos Rings revolves around eight people who must participate in a mysterious tournament against their wills. The winners receive eternal life while the losers unfortunately stop living. Each of the four pairs has their own short playthrough (around six hours), and finishing everyone’s story opens up a conclusion to the entire tale. Plus some equipment earned from enemies carries over between those stories. On the whole it’s a clever way to make the game digestible for mobile audiences.

Graphically, Chaos Rings works much like Final Fantasy VII. In the overworld, backgrounds are pre-rendered and characters are 3D. During battles and cinemas, everything uses 3D graphics. The original game dates back a couple of years, but the character designs still impress. The Windows Phone version gets two black borders on the sides, as opposed to Final Fantasy's single larger border. Chaos Rings also has a fantastic soundtrack (only available on iTunes, argh) and Japanese voice acting (with English text, of course).

Achievement preview

Square Enix’s previous RPG Final Fantasy had nothing but secret Achievements, so nobody could tell what the Achievements actually were without consulting an outside source like our guide. Chaos Rings thankfully has just one secret Achievement and it’s for fighting a boss after completing everything in the game.

The rest of the Achievements come from completing each scenario and maxing a character, which I’m told is relatively painless if you know what to do. Just make sure NOT to go through the Original Door after completing a team’s scenario, as you’ll miss out on that scenario’s Achievement.

We’ll go into more detail in our full review, after I’ve had time to play through everything for myself.

Not for the faint of wallet

Chaos Rings’ new Windows Phone 8 compatibility is nothing but good news for RPG fans. But people who think everything should cost a dollar or less are in for some disappointment with this one, as it’s the single most expensive Xbox Windows Phone game to date.  At $9.99 it actually costs a dollar more than the iOS version, which isn’t too uncommon but still worth noting.

Considering the iOS version launched at $12.99, it could have been worse. We are talking about a big budget RPG that offers more than 30 hours of gameplay and could easily sell for $30 as a 3DS or Vita retail title (but it IS downloadable on Vita). If this one sells well enough, maybe we'll get the prequel Chaos Rings Omega and Chaos Rings II as well. What do the RPG fans in the audience think?

Chaos Rings– Windows Phone 7 or 8 – 775 MB - $9.99 – Store Link

Thanks to EasyPeasyJD, Mark Tepper, and everyone else for the tip!

Windows Phone Central Game Roundup: Air Combat Games

Over at the Windows Phone Store there is a healthy selection of games to choose from. You have games where you battle zombies, solve puzzles, race cars, play board games and other genres that can be rather challenging. In this week's roundup, we focus in on games involving air combat.

Games where you pilot your planes through various missions, battling enemy aircraft and saving the day. Some are more strategy oriented while others are more of a straight forward shoot 'em up style.

Dogfight (free): As the title implies, Dogfight is a World War I era air combat simulator for your Windows Phone 8 device. The game reminds me a lot of the Xbox Windows Phone game Rise to Glory but with more flight controls and maybe slightly scaled back graphics (which aren't shabby in their own right).

While you have combat missions and an assortment of plane to pilot you also have the ability to battle friends online in a multiplayer mode. Membership is required but is free.

Flight is controlled by a series of on-screen levels on your plane's instrument panel and by your Windows Phone's tilt sensors. It takes a little time to get accustomed to the steering sensitivity but it's nothing a few practice runs won't take care of.

Dogfight is a free, ad supported game for your Windows Phone 8 device that you can pick up here in the Windows Phone Store. You can get rid of the ads through an in-app purchase of $1.99.

Furball Over the Front - Deluxe (trial/$1.99): Here's another World War I air combat game. This time instead of viewing everything from the cockpit, you have a ring side seat.

There are two story modes, one where you are an Allied pilot and the other a German pilot, that follows thirteen historical campaigns from WWI that involves over one hundred missions. There's also a quick play and endurance mode just in case you need more gaming to keep you busy. Furball Over the Front has six different planes ranging from the Sopwith Camel to the German Fokke E that you can pilot plus five historical Aces to battle.

You control your plane's horizontal position with your Windows Phone tilt sensors with bomb deployment and machine gun controls on-screen. You also have two controls to spin your plane away from danger.

Game play has enemy planes entering the screen from either side and straight at you from the background. Graphics are decent and game play rather challenging. Furball does have an arcade feel to it but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

There is a trial version available for Furball Over The Front or you can opt for Furball Free (Allied) which is a sample version of the Allied story mode. The full version of Furball Over The Front is running $1.99 and you can find it here in the Windows Phone Store. It is available for both Windows 7.x and 8 devices.

Steambirds (trial/$$1.99): Steambirds is a turn based air combat game that is played from an overhead viewpoint. Steambirds has sixteen missions and a local multiplayer mode (pass and play).

Steambirds is more about strategy than action, although the action isn't too bad. You have flight arrows that you set to guide your airplanes during your turn. Once set, tap play and the combat round goes into motion.

Playing fields are touch scrollable and zoomable. Graphics are nice and gives Steambirds a game board type feel to it. As you progress through the levels of play you get to control multiple planes with a wide assortment of weapons that goes beyond the front firing machine gun.

Steambirds has been around for sometime and is a fantastic combat game for your Windows Phone 8 or 7.x device. There is a trial version available with the full version of Steambirds running $1.99. You can find Steambirds here in the Windows Phone Store.

Aces of the Luftwaffe (free): Aces of the Luftwaffe is an arcade styled air combat game that has you fighting off wave after wave of Axis planes and tanks as you pilot your plane to take on the game's bosses.

Flight control is done by touching the screen and guide your plane by sliding your finger about. When you touch the screen, your planes main guns fire automatically. Bonus items are dropped as key enemy planes are wiped out that will give you two wingmen and increase your plane's fire power. You also have a panic button that will send in a squadron of planes to wipe out the enemy planes currently on the screen.

Aces of the Luftwaffe is a fast paced, arcade styled game for your Windows Phone that has excellent graphics and challenging game play. It's a free game and available for your Windows Phone 8 device here in the Windows Phone Store.

Air combat games may not be everyone's cup of tea but they can be a fun way to pass the time. We've listed four that are well worth the try and if you have a favorite air combat game, toss out your recommendation below in the comments.

Here’s a good tip for you if you’re a fan of the endless runner Jetpack Joyride. On the Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 versions, just about everything in the Stash (the game’s store) is free today.

Bug or giveaway? We’re not sure but it’s worth checking out.

Indeed we bought just about everything we could from unlocking levels to new outfits to utilities on our Surface Pro. On Windows Phone we were able to do the same as well, collecting a ton of achievements too. However, after about every second “free purchase” the game would freeze on our Lumia 925 and Lumia 1020, making the process…well, a process, though it seemed to be random too. We didn't experience the same on Windows 8 though, making it much easier.

We checked with Halfbrick’s Twitter account and this doesn’t look to be a temporary sale. In fact, our tipster told us this:

“There was some sort of a crash yesterday, I had lost all credits and Jetpack Joyride was not working. But they are now back and items are free.”

The game does look to still be having stability problems as on an initial load it seems to be crashing the game, at least on three of our phones. After that, it crashes after a few purchases, requiring us to hit the Windows key, jump back into Games and re-launch. It eventually exits the game and we have to repeat the process.

On our Surface Pro, just about everything is free

We’re not sure if Halfbrick is doing this to amend for yesterday’s crash (plausible) or if it’s a glitch. Regardless, you are more than welcome to give it a go.

If you haven’t downloaded Jetpack Joyride yet, you’re really missing out on what is an excellent game.

Jetpack Joyride – Windows Phone 8 – 36 MB – FREE – Store Link

Update: A ton of you are noting in comments that you don't have anything for free, so here at WPCentral, we must have magic phones and tablets as our pictures don't lie! Now pardon us, we're going to go use our Golden Piggy Pack and blast money at scientists. (But seriously, sorry if you can't get this deal. We verified with a few people that this works.)

Update 2: People are having luck by uninstalling and reinstalling the game, then trying the Stash. That makes sense as we fresh installed the game on our three phones. 

Thanks, Sholokov, for the tip!

Halo: Spartan Assault is Microsoft's attempt to bring the popular IP to the mobile device. Selling millions of copies on consoles and the PC, the Halo series has accumulated many fans and we're set to see that base number grow as more titles are released.

Available on Windows Phone 8, the game has been restricted in the US to just Verizon Wireless customers through a 30-day exclusivity deal. This has now ended.

Taking place in-between Halo 3 and 4, the third-person action game provides hours of entertainment within the universe you know and love. Here's a quick look at Halo: Spartan Assault if you've not yet checked it out yet:

We've checked the store and can indeed confirm that we're able to download HSA on hardware running on US networks other than Verizon. You can download Halo: Spartan Assault from the Windows Phone Store for $6.99. Requires Windows Phone 8 and 1GB RAM (an update for 512MB devices should be not too far off).

Not sure about buying? Don't miss our Halo: Spartan Assault review which compares both the Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 versions!

We’re nearly done with our Casual Connect gaming coverage. At the San Francisco-based gaming industry event, I interviewed a number of Windows Phone and Windows 8 developers. One of the largest of those developers is Advanced Mobile Applications (AMA). Founded in 2004 and based in London, AMA is a sister company to Ubisoft, who publishes some of their games.

During the event, AMA’s VP of Sales Jean-François Denis took the time to show us several of AMA’s Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 titles. Today we look at two of those: the recently-released Hills of Glory 3D (also available for Windows 8) and the upcoming Babel Rising 3D. Yep, a new Windows Phone 8 version of Babel Rising 3D is coming. Learn more and see both games in action after the break!

Hills of Glory 3D

Please note that the version shown in our video is an older build and that the final game runs at a smoother frame rate. It’s also perfectly smooth on Windows 8, depending on your hardware and display settings.

Hills of Glory 3D takes place in a cartoony World War II setting. Players must defend a bunker from an invading army using eight different weapons. You can tap to fire guns, swipe to drop fire from a helicopter, press and hold to drop a circular artillery blast, and more. The more powerful guns take time to recharge, but they make it easy to kill multiple enemies at once and get combos.

During battle, downed invaders will drop crates. Shoot them to receive their contents. You’ll find health, coins, instant ammo refills, and even collectibles. Get enough collectibles to unlock new upgrades in the shop. Each time you play you’ll earn coins for that shot; you can also buy more coins or a coin doubler via In-App Purchase (IAP).

In my brief time with Hills of Glory 3D, it seems like a good, engaging alternate to traditional tower defense games. No sitting and watching the fight here! It includes 21 highly replayable missions and an endless mode to keep war-loving players busy.

The game is already available on both Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8:

• Hills of Glory 3D– Windows Phone 8 – 99 MB – Free – Store Link
• Hills of Glory 3D (Free) – Windows 8 and RT – 105 MB – Free – Store Link
• Hills of Glory 3D (Paid) – Windows 8 and RT – 105 MB – $3.99 – Store Link

Babel Rising 3D

iOS screens

The original Xbox Windows Phone 7 release of Babel Rising 3D is not exactly a beloved game. A poor port, the campaign actually becomes impossible to complete at a certain point. It’s also incompatible with Windows Phone 8.

Well, the good news is that Advanced Mobile Applications and Ubisoft are set to release a Windows Phone 8-specific version of Babel Rising 3D in the near future. The previous version was handled by a different studio and got rushed to release. This new version comes directly from AMA and will match the iOS game in quality and features.

For those who haven’t played it: Babel Rising allows players to play as a vengeful god. Your worshippers have decided to build a tower to the heavens – a tower of Babel, if you will – and it’s your job to smite them into ashes and not allow them to use birth control no matter how much it makes sense to do so. You’ll smack them down using a variety of destructive powers including lightning, floods, earthquakes, and even meteor showers.

Now, the bad news: the new Babel Rising 3D won’t be Xbox-enabled! Many developers we spoke with at Casual Connect didn’t see the benefit of the laborious Xbox certification process, something they are unaccustomed to on iOS and Android. But at least Windows Phone 8 will now have a chance to play Babel Rising, even without Achievements.

Babel Rising 3D will be free-to-play when it launches on Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 later this year. We’ll have more to share from Advanced Mobile Applications soon!

Zombies Can't Jump is a relatively new Windows Phone 8 game that pits you against hungry hordes of zombies. It's a defensive game that exploits the Zombies inability to jump by having your characters build a tower of crates and defend that position against wave after wave of zombies intent on eating your brains. While the zombies may not be able to jump, they can smash the crates and lower you to arms reach.

Graphics aren't too shabby, game play is fairly challenging and if you are into the zombie genre or just looking for a game to pass the time with, Zombies Can't Jump is worth a try.

There are two game modes with Zombies Can't Jump. You have the Story Mode and Survival Mode. The Story Mode is a multi-level where you advance from level to level, wiping out the waves of zombies. Survival Mode has two options, Heroic Stand and From Dusk til Dawn, where you simply see how long you can survive before the zombies overtake your position.

In Story Mode the first level is a tutorial that will walk you through the game's controls and objectives. You control Pappi and his daughter who sit center screen. They are armed and must build crates to stand on and remain out of the reach of the zombies.

Zombies attack from the left or right side of the screen and while the characters will open fire on the zombies automatically, you will need to tap the screen to point them in the right direction. If the zombies reach the crates they will smash them, lowering your characters to the ground. You can rebuild the crates but your character can not fire on the zombies while building the crate. You can use one character to fire upon the zombies while the other builds their crate.

As you progress through the levels of play additional weapons and defensive items become available. You also have a Survival Rage mode (activated by the angry smiley face button) where your character's weapons convert into a high powered machine gun or rocket launcher. The rage mode lasts for a few seconds but is a great way to take out larger groups of zombies.  Additionally, as additional Rage Weapons become available you can assign different weapons to each character to increase you rage power.

Zombies Can't Jump plays like many tower defense games where you have to manage your players and their defenses as the threats develop. You may have to wait to rebuild a crate until you finish obliterating a wave of zombies or get one character to cover things while the other rebuilds the crate. The spike balls are great defensive barriers that can be used to keep the zombies away for short bits of time. But again, they take a few seconds to deploy. Seconds the zombies can use to knock out a crate.

All in all, I liked the animations and graphics, the sound effects and music are catchy, and game play is challenging enough to keep the game from gettting stale. Zombie genre aside, Zombies Can't Jump is a fun Windows Phone 8 game to pass the time with.

There is a free trial version available for Zombies Can't Jump with the full version running $.99. You can find Zombies Can't Jump here in the Windows Phone Store.

Yesterday we brought you a look at Advanced Mobile Applications’ Hills of Glory 3D and the upcoming Windows Phone 8 version of Babel Rising 3D. AMA, you’ll remember is a sister studio of Ubisoft. They’ve worked with a number of gaming franchises, including the Android version of Townsmen (coming to Windows Phone from Handy Games).

Today we conclude our Casual Connect USA coverage for the year with first looks at two more upcoming games from AMA: Animal Park Tycoon and Yeti Rising. Both games are due out on Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 later this year.

Head past the break for the full hands on video and more details!

Animal Park Tycoon

At first glance, Animal Park Tycoon looks like another Ice Age Village-style city building game. But this game is actually much more closely related to classic simulation games like Theme Park. And since Microsoft chooses not to release its own Zoo Tycoon for Windows Phone, Animal Park Tycoon is the next best thing.

Players start out with a tiny zoo which they’ll manage and grow. The first order of business will be placing a few animals around your zoo. Acquiring all of the animals in a collection gets you special rewards, too.  Animals are a big responsibility though; you’ll need to feed them and care for them when they’re sick. And that upkeep costs money.

To bring in the money your zoo needs, you’ll have to manage ticket prices. Raise prices too high and you’ll scare off the visitors; keep them too low and the zoo won’t grow. Other management tasks include building various concession stands such as hamburgers and ice cream, and even hiring workers to take care of the place.

On top of the realistic aspects of running an "animal park," players will have access to other fun activities. There's the animal races, for one. Bet on which of five animals will win the race. You might win money or even a rare creature. And like other building games, you can of course visit friends' zoos.

Animal Park Tycoon is a free to play game, so of course it has the standard two types of currency. You’ll never need to buy currency to progress through the game though. And here’s what makes this one so much more exciting than Farmville-style games: no waiting! Build something and it’s instantly built. The game doesn’t keep going while you’re away though – again, it’s refreshingly close to a classic simulation.

AMA hopes to release Animal Park Tycoon on Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 by September.

Yeti Rising

If Babel Rising was too religulous for you, perhaps this yeti-themed take will warm your heart. You’ll play as a gigantic yeti – the mythical snow creature – as cartoonish climbers assault his mountain. Tap the screen and use various powers to bring the snow down and keep them at bay.

Of the games AMA brought for us at Casual Connect, Yeti Rising is the farthest from release – hence the brevity of the hands-on video. But we can expect it by the end of the year on Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8. It will be free to play, so everyone can get in on the yeti defense action.

Water Rings is a Windows Phone 8 game that is modeled after the childhood water game, just without the need to fill things up with water.  Just like the child's game, the goal with Water Rings is to float a series of rings through water and land them on pegs.

Water Rings adds spiffy graphics and sound effects to an entertaining casual game for your Windows Phone.  Water Rings may not appeal to everyone but it's not a bad game to pass short bits of time. It's also a great gaming title to have in the Kid's Corner for our younger audience.

From the main menu of Water Rings you have options to jump into the game, view your playing stats, access the settings, view the about screen, rate the app and upgrade to the ad-free version ($.99). Settings is basically turning on/off the various sound effects of the game and turning on the Kid's Mode (easy mode). You also have a help section and a mute button on the main screen.

Game play is spread out across ten levels with levels progressively adding more rings and pegs to the playing field, ranging from one peg and three rings to three pegs and thirty-three rings.  Where the classic toy game has button plungers to generate the bubbles and currents to guide your rings, with Water Rings you tap the screen to generate the bubbles and tilt the Windows Phone to guide the rings on to the pegs.

Water Rings is really a simple game to pick up but you'll be surprised how challenging guiding those rings on to the pegs can be. Especially when your score is based on how fast you can get all the rings on the pegs.

Water Rings Toy

The graphics with Water Rings is really nice and gives the game a nice aquarium feel to it. Sound effects aren't bad either. Water Rings may not appeal to everyone but the developer has done a commendable job of replicating the classic toy water game.

Water Rings is a free, ad-supported game for your Windows Phone 8 device. You can get rid of the ads with a $.99 in-app purchase. Water Rings can be found here in the Windows Phone Store.

It looks like Rovio is getting on the ball with delivering Angry Birds updates as the original version for Windows Phone 8 got bumped to version 3.2 today and this isn’t just bug fixes, folks, it’s new stuff.

The fresh update adds the Red’s Mighty Feathers episode, which ought to bring 15 new levels to Windows Phone 8 (assuming it’s getting feature parity with other platforms).

So what is Red’s Mighty Feathers episode? Glad you asked.

From the updated game description:

“The #1 app of all time gets a fun new update! You may be an expert pig popper, but how will you cope with a moving target? One bird stands between the egg and the advancing pig army in the all-new Red’s Mighty Feathers episode. The fearless Red Bird faces wave after wave of Bad Piggies in their crazy contraptions. But wait! He now has some magic feathers from the Mighty Eagle himself – giving Red incredible new powers as he darts toward those pesky pigs at incredible speed!”

What makes this interesting is that this new episode by Rovio was only rolled out at the beginning of July for iOS and Android. While we still had to wait an extra 48 days, that’s still a fairly decent turnaround for Windows Phone and at least closes the gap, if only slightly.

You can watch a trailer of the Red’s episode above to see it in action. If you have a Windows Phone 8 device, you can grab the update in the Store right now.

Angry Birds Classic – Windows Phone 8 (including 512MB) - 19 MB - Store LinkThanks, Sharath S., and others for the tip!

Three Xbox Live games that were branded as Nokia exclusives for Windows Phone have been made available to all owners of all Windows Phone devices.

Bejeweled Live Plus, Zuma's Revenge, and iBomber Defense, have all been made their way into the Windows Phone Store for general consumption on Windows Phone 7 and 8.

So what are they all about? In our review of Zuma's Revenge, we described the game as thus:

"Zuma is a variation of the match three puzzler in which players control a frog and fire colored balls from his mouth at an oncoming line of balls. If the balls reach a hole at the end of the pathway, you lose a life or fail the level. To stop that, our fearless frog must break some balls. Matching three or more balls with a fired shot of the same color destroys that group of balls. Simple stuff, but there are some deep underlying mechanics as well…"

Meanwhile, Bejewelled Live+ should be familiar to most casual gamers. From our review:

"Bejeweled Live+ puts the first Bejeweled Live to shame. It has way more content and yet costs two dollars less, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the original game gets de-listed whenever Live+ becomes available to non-Nokia users. Heck, Live+ even trumps the recently released Bejeweled Live for Windows 8 as well since that one lacks Lightning and Zen modes."

And finally, iBomber Defense is a unique war strategy game for Windows Phone, bringing quite a bit of fun to the mix. Once again, from our review:

"Alright, so iBomber Defense doesn’t run as well as it should and the Achievements are crazy hard and slow to come by. It’s still my favorite traditional tower defense game (in the Xbox WP lineup) though. The graphics and setting are less flashy than geoDefense, but much more visually interesting. Continuing the comparison, turrets in this game always cost the same amount and have the same stats, unlike geoDefense’s crazy variable stats. iBomber provides a smoother and more cohesive experience."

The three games are all published by Electronic Arts, a long-time maker of Xbox games. We haven't seen any formal announcements, but it looks like it could be part of an agreement between EA and Nokia to get these games to a wider audience after a certain amount of time. We've seen other Nokia-exclusive games like the Mirror's Edge, get released later on after a stint of being offered only to Nokia phone owners, so this is certainly not unprecedented.

The trio of games can still be found in the Nokia Collection on your Nokia phone or in the general population of games.

You can get Bejeweled Live Plus, Zuma's Revenge and iBomber Defense in the Windows Phone Store, each for $2.99.

Thanks for the tip, Er. Akshat!