Inside Social Games

If you were to go up to a gamer — an older one, at least — and ask them what the best fighting game ever made was, they would probably tell you Street Fighter II. The title has been one of the most popular and well balanced fighting games for decades and certainly one of the most famous arcade games to date. If you don’t believe that, just look at how many versions exist. Nevertheless, last week gave birth to the anticipated release of Street Fighter IV on the iPhone.

Developed by Capcom, it is certainly one the top five biggest ports to the device, joining a list containing such titles like PopCap’s Plants vs. Zombies or Electronic Arts’ Rock Band. However, currently priced at $9.99 in the App Store, one has to wonder if the price matches the hype.

Currently, the game offers eight playable characters from the classic franchise, including Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, Blanka, Dhalsim, Guile, M. Bison, and Abel. It is a bit disappointing to only see a fraction of the characters from the series – though the most important ones are there – but considering that the game is a fraction of the price of the console version of Street Fighter IV, it’s understandable.

When players start up the game, they are presented with three modes, Tournament, Dojo, and, of course, multiplayer. Likely, however, users will start with the tournament mode as the majority of these players are probably Street Fighter fans already, and don‘t need training — and probably don’t have another person with an iPhone readily available.

This mode is essentially the “Story Mode,” from previous Street Fighters, sans the actually story. It still follows the same progression curve as far as game play goes, though. Users battle computer controlled characters one by one with ever increasing difficulty. The abilities are more or less the same as any other Street Fighter title, so it isn’t terribly hard for a veteran of the game, once you get used to the controls (more on that a bit later).

What really makes the game different is the new Dojo mode, which has been described on numerous occasions as “Street Fighter boot camp.” Consider this a challenge/tutorial mode. Players will be given increasingly advanced win conditions and a time limit in which to complete them. For example, one challenge will focus on combos, asking the player to do X attack followed by Y attack, with increasing complexity for each successive challenge. Another might teach the elements of using special attacks, you know, Haiduken, by blocking all damage done by normal attacks.

Regardless of the lesson, each completed challenge will be ranked either S, A, B, or C. In order to proceed to the next level, at least a C is required. Nonetheless, for those that enjoy things like achievements, a lot of longevity will be garnered out of the Dojo, for S ranks are actually extremely difficult to get, and there are a ton of different challenges. But then again, we were never Street Fighter arcade champions either.

As interesting as Dojo mode is, the real glory comes from the multiplayer. Obviously this isn’t your Facebook-style asynchronous multiplayer, and it is certainly not for the weak. Using Bluetooth, players can sync up and fight each other in some classic arcade mayhem. Surprisingly, with the right people, it’s about as much fun as any console or arcade version.

There is one annoyance to get used to though. The controls. Capcom does the best it can, but it really just comes down to placing the classic arcade joystick and its four buttons on the touch screen. As has been stated in past reviews, this just doesn’t work as well on the iPhone because there is no tactile feedback, and any serious game player can tell you that they feel where their fingers are, not see. Unfortunately, for a fighting game of this caliber, there isn’t really a viable alternative to the control scheme. Once you do get used to it, however, it’s not so bad; though it is frustrating to lose because you had to look to see where your thumb was for a split second.

Luckily , there is one saving grace to the controls. Capcom is certainly aware of the lack of tactile feedback, and does its best to mitigate the issue, allowing players to customize their controls. You can actually drag them anywhere you want until you’re comfortable (a great thing for lefties), change their transparency, and actually change the overall size! That last one, is certainly a godsend for those people with big fingers.

If you have an iPhone or an iPod Touch, and you’re a fan of Street Fighter, this is a game for you. Though it doesn’t have everything that the console rendition of Street Fighter IV has, it is still an excellent port, and has plenty of the nostalgic elements – from fighter specific levels to familiar taunts – for long time players. Granted, the controls take some series getting used to, and for most, it’s going to probably hit or miss. Nevertheless, once you get the hang of it and get into some multiplayer action, this application will become $10 well spent.

If there is one type of game that seems to circulate more often than any other around the web and mobile devices, it’s tower defense. For the most part, these games are a dime a dozen, but every once and a while, a developer does something interesting with this tired genre. This time, it is a quirky, $0.99, iPhone app called Tweet Defense from the Promethium Marketing Group and GrinLock Limited.

As far as tower defense games go, Tweet Defense is still fairly standard. Players choose from 10 different maps and construct various towers to try to take down enemies before they get from Point A to Point B. As expected, towers vary in strength, abilities, and cost: Some are cheap with high rates of fire, some do area of effect, some are short range, but powerful, and others boost whatever defenses you have currently up. However, each tower has a unique, garage-built look that adds a bit of flare to this basic gameplay.

Conversely, the enemies, in this case, zombies, come in their own odd shapes and forms. This includes the basic Sneakie zombie that attacks in hordes, the hard to kill, and overweight Blubberbie zombie, and borderline uncouth Mombie that spits out two baby zombies (called Zuppies) when she dies. Unfortunately, there are only five types of zombies, but with a zany, cartoon style, they are all amusing to watch.

Beyond visual style, Tweet Defense also increases the difficulty of the game through the maps themselves. Most of the time, these types of games have a set path that the player can easily see, with towers placed around it. In this app, harder maps have no such luxury, and towers can be placed anywhere. Normally, this might not mean anything, but in Tweet Defense, should a tower be in a zombies way, they’ll just plow right through, destroying it in the process.

Quickly, the app becomes a game of strategic placement and money management. In regards to the latter, it works like virtually any other tower defense title. Towers can be upgraded or scrapped, and money is earned for each enemy slain. And don’t think upgrades are optional, as even though the game starts off easy, things can quickly get out of hand and the player even more quickly overrun.

With all this talk of the game design itself, it is easy to forget the main gimmick of Tweet Defense. Per its title, the game is actually connected directly to Twitter. No, this isn’t about tweeting achievements, but rather, a user’s social activity on the network itself, influencing gameplay. Once a user logs into their Twitter account, Tweet Defense actually picks up on your friends, followers, and the number of tweets you have made in order to grant users significant bonuses in the game.

To break it down, the more friends you have, the faster rate of fire your towers get. More followers will give you greater range. And the total number of tweets increases damage. In addition to this, there is a daily Booster that will grant random bonuses such as cheaper towers.

As unique as this use of Twitter is, Tweet Defense also incorporates the social platform OpenFeint to improve longevity with standard leaderboard rankings, and a fairly sizable list of achievements for players to earn and boast about.

Without a doubt, this iPhone app has one of the most curious and unique social integrations we have seen to date. Moreover, the game is actually fun and more than just a gimmick. Could Tweet Defense do more as a tower defense title as a whole? Absolutely. Even a little more variety in the zombies would by prudent in improving overall quality; especially considering the game’s visual style. Nonetheless, this is an app that show that, in game design, just looking at something in a different way can lead to more creativity.

Over a year ago, we saw one of the first 3D games on Facebook, Paradise Paintball. At the time, the game was reminiscent of old PC first-person shooters (FPS) such as Delta Force. However, it was seen more as a proof of concept to the Unity Engine’s 3D capabilities on Facebook, and felt unfinished. Well, the game’s been about for some time now, and Cmune’s paintball FPS looks very different — and better — today. And it’s also available on a wider range of social gaming platforms.

Again, the game is an FPS that pits players into synchronous battles with each other in either team matches or free-for-alls. The idea is to rack up as many “splats” (kills) as you can before time expires. Of course, that’s a game 12 months past, and a little bit has changed since then.

Aside from visuals, such as foliage in the game’s tropical settings, looking significantly better, players have a handful of weapons at their disposal. Like the original version, there is still a pistol, machine gun, grenade launcher, and sniper rifle that all players enter a game with. Some weapons still feel stronger than others, but with five maps, as opposed to the original two, none of the weapons feel that much stronger.

The level design, overall, is not too bad. Most of the levels, save Lost Paradise, are small enough and have enough cover that a sniper can’t often sit unopposed, and a grenadier needs to be a surgeon with their shots lest they end up blowing themselves up. More than this, however, is the introduction of random items and power-ups throughout each world.

There are items floating about the various levels that grant users one of two types of power-ups: Player Power-ups or Weapon Power-ups. The former includes increasing movement speed and jumping height, which, by the way, is very cool, a “secret power up,” the ability to walk on water, and, well, ammunition. Each of these add a nice enhancement to play, and nothing is so powerful that an experienced player cannot handle it.

The latter, the weapon power-ups, are another story. These can be frustrating, and include “Old Man,” which slows you down (not a big deal); “Drunken Master,” which blurs the screen, making it more or less impossible to see; and the coup de grace, “Flipper,” which is quite possible the most obnoxious ability ever conceived. It turns the entire player upside down and puts everything backwards, making it not only dizzying and disorienting, but pretty much guarantees that you’re about to die.

That said, if you’re worried about dying, get used to it. It’s going to happen a lot. Most of the games people play – at least among Facebook’s 48,000, or so, monthly active users – are free-for-all games. These are usually unlimited time, and just meant to be fun, but some of the levels are so small that you’d be lucky to live 30 seconds.

Another change is that players can now improve their avatars Battlefield-Heroes style. Every day the user logs in, they earn 500 points which can be used to buy a handful of items to increase their chances of survival in battle… or just look cooler. Each item can be bought for either one, seven, or 30 days and include everything from a shotgun, to special hair and clothing, to body armor. Every weapon and piece of actual armor costs Credits, a virtual currency, that must be bought via PayPal or Zong, or earned through offers (however, the latter is currently only on Facebook, and an almost unnoticable link next to the giant PayPal buttones). Basically, if you want to spend money, you get rewarded, but not so much if you are loyal and play a lot. Furthermore, a recent study by Offerpal Media and comScore, just last week, showed that only 22.8% of players are willing and able to buy virtual currency or goods, yet 52.3% are likely to complete marketing actions for it. Basically, that means that Paradise Paintball’s monetization methods are limited.

Nevertheless, the game was still fun. Granted, the majority of social network users prefer asynchronous game play – as most do not consider themselves gamers – but Paradise Paintball was good enough to win the award of “Best New MySpace App” during the Game Developer’s Conference, 2010. Furthermore, with the game on Facebook, MySpace, Apple Dashboard, and Cmune’s own game portal, it’s hardly doing bad. Overall, it just needs a few tweaks here and there in the monetization department, but beyond that, if you like free shooters, this isn’t a bad one to try.

Apparently, the end of the world isn’t going to be a nuclear war, the rise of Skynet, or even a biological weapon that turns us all into zombies. No, evidently the end will be cybernetic cats and radioactive elephants. Well, at least that’s the image that Islamabad-based social developer White Rabbit paints with Feline Frenzy: Robot Wars.

The game is a quirky, simple, arcade-shooter that has cyborg storks dropping cyborg cats onto the flanks of a simple hut with a giant cannon on the roof. Using the arrow keys and space bar, players rotate the cannon right or left in an attempt to shoot the balloons that are floating the cats down to safety. Unfortunately, your ammunition cache is comprised of mere boots, so hitting the balloons and sending the evil felines plummeting to their doom is all that will work. However, four reaching the ground safely on either side spells failure for the player.

The goal of the game is to last as long as you can, and brag about it to your friends later. As players shoot the various storks and cats, they score points (which of course means there is a leaderboard system), with more being earned the quicker they hit the target. However, the catch is that for every shot fired, it costs points, so it is prudent to be accurate. It is possible, though, to get some free shots by inviting friends.

To a degree, this is quite useful in racking up higher scores, as some of the unlockable ammunition – better shoes, of course – have higher point costs to use, but extra benefits. As a general example, the Cowboy Boots are larger, so they cover more area, while the Khussa Shoes are small, but ricochet. Each piece of footwear acts as a makeshift achievement as well, since they are not all unlocked the same way. Some are unlocked by reaching a new level during a game, which is basically symbiotic with your score, while others require you to win gold medals in the app’s eight mini-games.

In fact, these games do make for an added bonus as they are all more curious adaptations to the main shooting concept. Some are merely survival games, only giving the player two cats on each side before losing, others have tiny balloons, while still other involve a deluge of radioactive, nuclear elephants.

This actually leads to a major complaint with Feline Frenzy though. The controls feel extremely sluggish, for it seemingly takes forever to rotate the cannon from one end to the other. It isn’t too much of an issue for the storks and cats, but these blasted elephants come out of nowhere from the top of the screen and fall faster than the cannon can turn. As an example, if your cannon is aiming far left, and one falls from the right, they will hit you, and when they do, it’s game over. Period. Obviously, it is frustrating to be able to see, it coming, but it is not possible to hit.

Overall Feline Frenzy is a moderately amusing game, but once the novelty of the cybernetic cat invasion has worn off, we wonder how many players will keep coming back. The name suggests that we will be seeing more Feline Frenzy titles in the future. The title has been growing steadily over the past week and a half since launching, with about 2,700 monthly active users to date.

Well, it looks like yet another big name developer is getting in on Facebook. This time around it is Sony Online Entertainment, as the game developer brings its popular turn-based strategy game, PoxNora, with a stated 2.5 million registered accounts, to the social network.

Despite a few hang-ups trying to use the game in Internet Explorer (text wouldn’t display properly), we were thankfully able to take a look using Firefox.The game actually proved to be extremely fun.

Okay, it’s fun once you get through the tutorial — which is terribly boring, by the way. Essentially, there are two players on a map, each with their own shrine. The objective of the game is to destroy that target. Of course, it’s hardly that simple. Each turn, the user is granted a resource called “Nora” – a sort of magic – which determines what they can deploy.

The deployed items cost X amount Nora, based on their power; as the game goes on, more powerful units become available, and are dubbed “runes.” These runes range from basic champions, to spells, to relics, and so on. Each has its own special abilities, and there are a lot of different runes, so the game gets strategic, fast. Some champions can only attack – some melee, some ranged – others can block incoming attacks, others heal, and so on.

The spells and relics also cost Nora but obviously do not always remain on the battle field. Relics, as an example, might give your champions extra health or damage so long as it survives, while a spell might heal, do area of effect damage, or hinder enemy movement.

This is where the next level of strategy appears. Each rune can only be deployed near your shrine – sans spells which can also be deployed near any friendly unit – or near a Nora Font. Each unit gains a set number of action points each turn and can move a certain distance on a grid based on those points. One grid space is one action point. However, these points are also needed to perform most attacks and special abilities a champion has, so budgeting them becomes very wise.

The Nora Fonts, or fountains, around the map are controlled by having only your faction adjacent to them. If there are no enemies near it, it will provided the controlling player extra Nora per turn. So, these are highly strategic locations to control.

Of course, PoxNora wouldn’t be much of a Facebook game without social capabilities. The game does allow for automatic feed postings, but it is actually turned off by default — an unusual move for an app. Furthermore, it doesn’t spam the player with “post this,” “share this,” etc. Actually, most of the social elements are within the game world itself.

Players are actually able to play synchronous multiplayer with one another. Even better than this, they can play in ranked ladder matches, unranked casual matches, unranked casual matches for those ranked under level 25, or just chat in “The Bazaar.” Moreover, if they just want to hone their skills, they can just play single player campaigns as well.

One issue, however, is that most of the biggest social games rely on asynchronous features. The point isn’t to have an immersive experience, but to do something simple — like watering a strawberry patch in FarmVille — a couple times a day, and communicate about it with friends. Many social game players don’t even think of themselves as playing a “game,” per se.

Regardless, virtual goods do a good job of complementing other features. In addition to just social play, users can also log on to the “Rune Trader,” and make requests to trade for runes they want or need. Consider it virtual card trading.

As a matter of fact, the game is even more like trading cards in that you can actually purchase packs of runes for Sony’s Station Cash (SC) virtual currency. The currency can be used to buy entire boxes of runes (around 3000 SC), new avatars, single player campaigns, and so on.

Artistically, PoxNora is a pretty nice treat as well. The artwork on the runes is fantastic and everything looks crisp and clean. That said, however, the movement and attacks of the champions in the actually battlefield look a bit uninspired by comparison. Nonetheless, this is just picking nits at this point.

PoxNora is certainly an in depth game, and one of the most strategic strategy game on Facebook that we have seen. It looks good, it plays good, and if you like strategy – and especially competition – then this is a game you will most certainly love. Additionally, Sony say that this title is only the first of many it has planned for the social network.

Startup game developer Gravity Bear has roots in traditional gaming and big ambitions on Facebook. Headed up by Phil Shenk, one of the former lead artists for Blizzard’s hit game Diablo II as well cofounder art director for Flagship Studios, it has fully released its first game, Battle Punks. The preview last fall showed promise and from our experience it did not disappoint.

The game is an automated avatar fighting app, and is similar to past reviewed titles such as King of KungFu and Killer Toon. However, whereas those were done in 2D, Battle Punks is completely three dimensional, and does it look good. Okay, granted, it’s not PlayStation 3 graphics, but would you really want to download that on Facebook anyway?

The name of the game is character progression. Players create a very basic avatar, and start in an area of the world called the “Training Grounds.” This is the area for all new players, and users cannot proceed to another area of the map (which is concealed anyway), until they have leveled up enough to enter it. Using a combination of mafia-style role-playing and automated fighting game rules, users battle one another in order to gain experience, earn money, and claim victory.

Players start with 10 of the familiar stat, energy. Each fight will take three, with one energy replenishing every five minutes or so. However, players are free to send each other food, as gifts that can get an exhausted punk back on his or her feet. Within the fight itself, the player has no control, and simply watches as the players trade blows back and forth in a turn-based style.

Though it is automated, the fights are actually very interesting. There is a good deal of animation and randomness to each fight that makes it entertaining. Each avatar will generally do an attack one by one, either a single big swing, a miss, or maybe a combo. Beyond this, the avatars can also dodge, parry, initiate quick surprise attacks, counterattack, and even disarm each other.

The last of these is extremely important. Pre-planning comes in a great deal before a fight. When visiting the store, players can purchase different types of gear and weapons (as well as cosmetic items, of course). These can add blocking capabilities (shields), do more damage, attack faster, or even have a better grip.

Yes, grip. The better the grip on an item, the less likely you will be disarmed. So, as an example, a two-handed mace (which is owning everyone right now, by the way) has a very strong grip, so it will not be disarmed easily. However, despite its high damage, it is very slow, and doesn’t seem to counter often. Nonetheless, should you lose your weapon, then your battle punk will pull out another from their inventory (or just fight bare handed).

This is actually where Diablo’s influence comes into play. The inventory interface is actually the same as the game. Basically, players have a grid, and items come in different shapes and sizes. If you can fit something within the grid, then you can carry it into battle. It’s that simple.

Eventually, this will lead to strategic choices, as after each fight you are rewarded with gold, experience, and random items (more if you win). Obviously, this will stock up your inventory with many different things, leading the user to decided on speed vs. strength, grip vs. defense, and so on.

Also, with each level, comes a small bit of virtual currency, called Newtons. Unfortunately, we haven’t found anything yet that requires them, but you can at least convert them to in-game currency (gold). That said, however, once you can travel to new areas, new items can be bought there – adding a sort of adventure element to the app – so likely there will be Newton-only goods at higher levels.

The one thing that does come off as obnoxious though, with Battle Punks, is that one can only use so many items in a battle, and as players level up, the weaker ones become useless. This leads to an excess of unwanted goods, but it doesn’t seem possible to sell them. Also, many items in the store are a bit pricy, and the amount of gold earned per fight is a bit low (at least early on).

Beyond these minor annoyances, the only other complaint is that some of the animations and battle sequences for a few weapons is very, very dull. The one that stands out the most is easily the hand-to-hand combat. Okay, okay, so later one, you’ll probably have so many weapons it doesn’t matter, but until then all you see is the avatar jump toward the target, throw one punch, then jump away. It really feels lacking compared to everything else.

Regardless, this is certainly one of the most enjoyable fighting applications for Facebook. It is small, and not well known yet – only about 1,100 monthly active users thus far – but it will almost certainly catch on as people discover it. Battle Punks looks great, it’s actually a lot of fun for an automating fighting game, and it has very little to complain about. This is an app that comes highly recommended.

Of all the popular genres seen in free-to-play games – be they social, casual, or otherwise – ninjas seem to be a highly reoccurring theme. Be they in Naruto RPGs, epic sagas, or battling armies, these Japanese assassins have been anything but stealthy. So why not make a free-to-play massively multiplayer online Facebook-connected social game about them? And thus we get the open beta rendition of Nindou International from 1001F Interactive.

Incorporating players from not only the United States, but other regions such as Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, the Facebook Connect-using site provides a competitive battling ninja war, of sorts, set within a Japanese, cel-shaded world. As a matter of fact, the art style is one of the most noticeable element to the game, as it is likely inspired by the PlayStation 2 title, Okami. For those unfamiliar with the game, the entire world looks similar to a Japanese semi-e ink painting (just with more color). This style, coupled with over the top and quirky animations make Nindou most interesting right off the bat.

Despite a warming aesthetic style, the core of the game is anything but. Using a click and hold technique, along with a mouse drag, players charge up “NP” and dash about a screen in order to reach and attack various objects and, ahem, inflict “great suffering” upon any enemy players who get in the way. Attacking with these objects is basically point and click (though eventually you do get ninjutsu), with the point being to complete the objective of various game modes.

Each mode is a hosted battle within the game’s world, with each having a unique objective. “Save the Princess” grants victory to the team the breaks the wall containing the princess first; “Spooky Hunters” marks one person on each team as a ghost while the other team hunts them; “Death Instructions” is a team deathmatch; “Thousand Kill” is a timed deathmatch where the team with the most kills wins; and “Last Man Standing” is a free-for-all with a self-explanatory goal.

For each match played, players earn experience and gold. The former obviously goes toward new levels which is primarily used as a gating mechanism when it comes to buying new weapons and equipment. Gold, on the other hand, actually buys it. Nonetheless, like most free-to-play MMOs, players have the choice of buying most items with either the in-game currency of Gold or the buyable virtual currency, Nin Coins. Essentially, using the latter is not required, but it allows for faster progression through the game.

As for the world itself, it is broken up into various villages, which serve as community chat rooms where people can walk around, view profiles, and join games. Beyond these, there are also a surprising amount of shops that you can visit. These include weapons, armor, ninjutsu (spells), dougu, seki, plastic surgery (changing your avatar), and more.

If you’re a bit confused by the terms of dougu and seki, that’s to be expected, as the game doesn’t do a very good job of really explaining what all of this is or how to use it, at least not yet. Essentially, these are temporary enhancements to your character and weapon enhancements. And though it sounds a bit clearer when put in layman’s terms, the only tutorial to find this information is a link to a help page that contains a tremendous amount of information that most people are going to forget in a minute or two.

The majority of players are going to learn through doing, which is the other key issue with Nindou. Any sort of matchmaking system feels, currently, non-existent, making a new player’s life a nightmare. At best, there are areas labeled level 10 and under, but are often barren, and thus when a player goes to a more populated area there isn’t any real limitation on who joins a battle. A level one can be put up against a level 21, and there is no way to tell what the levels the players in a battle will be until you join the waiting room.

This is a hindrance on two levels as not only does the match itself become unfair, but for anyone that has played an MMO of any type, they can tell you that internet anonymity leads to a lot of elitist players that often shun the “noob” that doesn’t know what they are doing. Such attitudes are no fault of the developer, but are still something that they need to be aware of and attempt to mitigate. New users need a place to learn and grow at their own pace to see if they like a game. Baptisms of fire aren’t what many players are looking for.

Nevertheless, the game is still in beta so such issues are subject to change. Hopefully there’ll be improvements, as the game actually does have a lot of depth when players become more advanced in using the buyable abilities. Also, the game can be connected to through Facebook itself, so getting started is extremely quick and easy, and it doesn’t hurt that you can post your in-game accomplishments to your feed as well.

Currently, through Facebook, the game is earning around 350,000 monthly active users. However, as a stand-alone site with portals from Yahoo and Yam as well, it is likely getting much more.

The Christmas traffic decline has melted away, and a number of games saw significant growth in February — more so than January, anyway. However, for each significant gain, there were some loses as well, as roughly one-third of the list dropped in monthly active users, and a few of those drops are highly popular titles such as FishVille and Happy Aquarium.

On the lighter side of things, Zynga’s FarmVille continues to hold on to top honors with new records in monthly users once again, while competitor CrowdStar attempts to increase its popularity even further. Also, RockYou makes its move back to its former glory from the early days of Facebook with heavily increased MAUs for both Birthday Cards and Zoo World. Another game, Hero World, also made its debut this month.

February was a potentially big month for games, because Facebook introduced a home page redesign at the beginning of the month that moved applications from a bottom toolbar into the left-hand navigation column, and moved notifications from the toolbar to the top navigation bar. Facebook also added what it calls a Games Dashboard — basically, a home page filter that lets users see a page of the Facebook games they and their friends have been playing. So far, the impact does not look to be negative for social games overall. The full impact of the redesign will only be felt this month, though, as Facebook is removing application notifications from the new notifications bar.

Here are the highlights for the top 25 Facebook Games for February, 2010:

• Zynga’s FarmVille shatters its old records once again, gaining over 7.5 million new monthly active users, bringing the game’s total monthly players up to a whopping 83,004,461.
• At a distant second comes RockYou’s Birthday Cards with just over 47 million MAUs, having gained over 7 million new users as well — this gift-giving app isn’t really a game, although it contains a virtual currency. Rather, it has included a window for RockYou’s game Zoo World (more on that in a moment).
• Surprisingly, the virtual aquarium games did not do too well through February as Happy Aquarium from CrowdStar lost over 1.5 million users, with Texas Hold’Em Poker moving past it to #4. Zynga’s FishVille also dropped from #5 to #7 with roughly a 850,000 MAU loss. Furthermore, Fish World, from Tall Tree Games, has completely fallen off the charts.
• Though aquariums aren’t doing too well, zoo keeping seems to be growing as RockYou’s Zoo World gains an impressive 4.1 million monthly active users, showing that simple mechanics and cute animals — and however else the app is growing — can go quite far. It comes in at #8, up from #10.
• After a long game of cat and mouse, Playfish’s Pet Society finally loses out to PetVille by a difference of less than 300,000 users. They come in at #10 and #9 respectively.
• While CrowdStar’s long popular fish game dropped, the cold winter nights have proven lucrative for its tropical Happy Island app, as this warming title moves up from  #17 to #14 with almost a 2 million MAU gain. Unfortunately, Happy Pets still staggered slightly, losing 566,909 users, and dropping one ranking, to #17.
• In regards to tropical games, Island Paradise, from Meteor Games also sees minor growth, moving up one rank to #19, with just over 7.6 million monthly active users, and just behind it comes RockYou’s Hero World. The super hero RPG earns 7,033,749 MAUs for the month of February.
• Little farming app (Lil) Farm Life reappears on the list, coming in with about 5.9 million MAUs and landing at #22.
• Lastly, the boom that was Shikha’s Pillow Fight seems to have died out, as the app has lost more than 8.4 million users, dropping from #14 to #25.

While drastic fluctuations in users have never been the mark of MySpace applications, the coming core changes to the social network – including analytics – might provide some better insight into the site. MySpace applications may not be as big as Facebook’s, but developers have often reported higher revenue from them.

Nevertheless, the current method of tracking still showed some minor changes over January’s charts, with almost no games earning a negative monthly change. Of course, that doesn’t mean that a handful of titles didn’t shift about in February. In fact, even a newcomer appeared at the tail end of this month’s list.

On another note, many games on the MySpace list can often be classified as merely fun applications as opposed to “games” by traditional definitions. We track some of these applications because they have significant social game-like features.

Here are the highlights for the Top 25 MySpace Games for February, 2010:

• Unsurprisingly, the two mafia role playing games of Playdom’s Mobsters and Zynga’s Mafia Wars appear at #1 and #2 respectively. The two titles earn over 14.4 and 13.1 million installations.
• The simple concepts of Bumper Stickers and Own Your Friends from Playdom, continue to show that simplicity is the predominant preference for users on MySpace as each earn over 12.5 and 10.2 million installs.
• Another simple app, Tag Me from BitRhymes moves up from #9 to #8 to pass RockYou’s Super Pets (now dubbed RockYou Pets in the app gallery), with almost a 500,00 installation gain.
• BitRhymes app, Cheers!! also moves up one ranking to #10 to beat out the Zynga RPG, Vampires. It earns just shy of 5 million installs, but again, does not appear in the app gallery. More likely than not, this issue, that we have noted numerous times, is almost certainly hindering its growth.
• Same as January, Playdom controls ranks #13-#16 with Kiss Me (4,059,001), Sorority Life (3,566,896), Poker Palace (3,386,269), and Overdrive (2,626,783).
• Another simple app from Oxylabs Networks, PhotoBuzz sees an impressive jump, moving up from #23 to #21 with a gain of 152,316 new users. It now totals over 1.9 million installations.
• In fact, newly added to the list is another app from Oxylabs, What is your Street Reputation, which garners over 1.7 million installs. The game appears at #24 ousting Green Spot form the Top 25 and was added due to its similarity to What’s my Impression on friends from BitRhymes.

Though everyone is not cut out for the martial arts, there is hope for those with less than the required balance and focus. It lies in games, of course, and the latest in avatar combat comes in the form of a Facebook application from Koram Game, called King of KungFu. Comparable to games such as My Brute, or our more recently reviewed Killer Toon, this is a game that applies an over the top style to an ancient art.

The app looks promising enough, using a sort of anime-like style coupled with over the top action. Of course, like the other games, the action is completely automated. Based on level, stats, and a few other elements (to be mentioned later), your avatar will duke it out with another player’s in a surprisingly entertaining bought.

Beyond level and stats, players also increase their chances to win by purchasing items, skills, weapons, and pets. Doing so will give their avatar the ability to perform some unique attack or defense in the middle of the battle as they need to. Though it is difficult to tell just how sophisticated the AI is, often times, if your avatar is having trouble hitting an opponent in melee combat, for example, he or she may choose to actually throw their current weapon at the enemy (which always seems to hit) and proceed either in hand-to-hand combat, or pull out a new weapon if you own one.

In addition to weapons, the avatars can also engage the use of summons (pets) that range from a kung fu panda, of sorts, to the grim reaper, or even spells such as a magnet field that disarms an enemy or the “curse of evil” that slowly drains their health.

Fights are limited to six per day, and require users to either purchase a “stamina potion” or rest in a friend’s dojo to recuperate, making it rather prudent to have friends playing with you. In fact, to that social end, you can even capture your friends and use them as an assistant who will bring you gifts each day.

Another plus, is that King of KungFu isn’t limited to just random skirmishes like other fighters. Users can also compete in tournaments, based on their level, or even create their own contests, called Ring Matches, once per day. However, this is where a bit of confusion starts to set in.

To be honest, it’s hard to tell just what the point of these special matches, and many other things do in this game. For the most part, the player just isn’t told. Granted, there are quests that act as a makeshift tutorial, but still are never told basic information like, what stats do what. Heck, they aren’t even told how to earn money.

This is probably the biggest complaint, too. Currency is broken up into Gold (virtual currency) and Honor (in-game currency), however, it doesn’t seem like you earn Honor from your six daily fights, leaving the user to wonder, how the heck it’s earned beyond just buying it. In fact, the only time we earned any Honor, was by doing a quest that we eventually got that had it as a reward, begging the question as to why the primary mechanic of the game didn’t grant a primary currency too.

Another issue came in the form of the player’s actual avatar. Not only do you start with a completely random avatar, but it only lets you change it three times before you have to start paying for changes in the shop. It isn’t a big deal, except that one gets used up automatically (if you don’t like your original one – that you had no choice over), which is sort of a slap in the face, and all you can change is your color scheme and overall look (your entire outfit and hair); both of which, are completely random, thus you just keep clicking until you get a combination you like.

In regards to purchasing customization, you can only purchase hairstyles and entire outfits. Thankfully, most look good, but there still is minimal control for the player. Also, a number of the outfits are complete rip offs of Warcraft character design such as “Illidane” (Illidan), Arthars (Arthas), and even the blatantly named “Bloodelf.” Granted, they look nice, but it goes a little bit beyond a simple homage.

Overall, King of KungFu is a better than average avatar fighter-type of game. It does have some fairly strong social elements, and it does look pretty good. That said, however, there are some serious issues in game-to-player communications and a few originality complaints. Nonetheless, the game has been holding steady around 300,000 monthly active users, so it’s not doing too shabby.