games

Five senior members of the Zynga Boston office, which the gaming company closed in October, have picked up the pieces and started anew.

Senior members of the Zynga Boston team announced today that their new mobile-gaming studio, Proletariat, is open for business. To commemorate the launch, the company announced its first title, Letter Rush.

According to Proletariat, Letter Rush will launch next week for the iPhone and iPad. The title will provide arcade-like gameplay on "the classic word-find mechanic." The title will support both single- and multiplayer gaming.

Zynga, which has been going through its fair share of … Read more

A new Harris Poll survey has found that 58 percent of adult Americans believe video games are a contributing factor to violent behavior in teenagers.

In addition, 38 percent of survey respondents said they were unaware of the ratings service provided by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB). On top of this, 33 percent of adults queried said they allow their children to play whatever they want.

Harris culled the data from interviews of 2,278 U.S. adults. Venturebeat obtained the results of the independent survey, which Harris ran without funding from outside corporations or interests. … Read more

One thing that Conan O'Brien does very well is express his utter bemusement with video games.

He reviews them with a sense of incomprehension that is to be both respected and admired. (Unlike my colleague Jeff Bakalar, who comprehends everything.)

So faced with the new "Tomb Raider" game, he found the existential questions came at him a little too quickly.

For example, why is she called Lara Croft and not Laura Croft? Somehow, "Laura" flows from the tongue more readily.

And does she clutch her stomach because she's trying to look thinner or because … Read more

Ready to visit a pinball arcade far, far away?

Tomorrow, Zen Studios will release Star Wars Pinball for Android and iOS, giving you the chance to see how your pinball wizardry matches up with your Jedi wizardry. (The game is getting a simultaneous release for Mac, PlayStation, and Xbox.)

Zen will offer three Star Wars-themed tables as part of its existing Zen Pinball app, which is free and already offers such tables as X-Men, Captain America, and Thor. Each one will cost $1.99 via in-app purchase.

Depending on your level of fandom, "Star Wars" and "pinball" may be all you needed to hear. If that case, check out the just-released trailers for all three, then meet me below for some thoughts.… Read more

Razer's PR sends word that its versatile Windows 8 gaming tablet is due for a first-quarter launch as promised. Preorders being March 1, and the company says the units will ship out to customers "later that month."

As announced at this year's Consumer Electronics Show, the Razer Edge is due to ship with two configurations, the vanilla Edge, with an Intel Core i5 CPU and a 64GB solid-state drive (SSD) for $999, and a higher-end Razer Edge Pro with a Core i7 chip and a 128GB ($1,299) or 256GB SSD ($1,449).… Read more

Nintendo's Wii Mini is on its way to the U.K.

The company announced today that it'll start selling the smaller Wii on March 22. It did not divulge any price details. Nintendo unveiled the Wii Mini last year, and at the time said that the $100 device would be available only in Canada.

The Wii Mini, which is a smaller, redesigned version of Nintendo's original Wii, allows gamers to play over 1,200 Wii titles. However, the console does not support backward compatibility with GameCube games. The original Wii, on the other hand, supports GameCube titles. … Read more

The iPad has already made millions of things easy to do from the comfort of your home, or anywhere on the go: chatting with friends, playing board games, and now, the classic game of bingo. While Bingo by GameDesire is far from the only Bingo game in the App Store for the iPad, it is one of the most extensive, offering a number of options and styles of play for veteran and new players alike. Like most iOS apps, we found installation simple and setup intuitive. The interface, however, once the game started, is far from simple. Whether because bingo … Read more

Gamers have a lot to be excited about this year. The Sony PlayStation 4 just became official, and the announcement for the next-generation Microsoft Xbox can't be far behind.

But consoles alone aren't that interesting. What 2013 really needs are some great games.

A few weeks back, CNET's Senior Associate Games Editor Jeff Bakalar presented 25 of the most anticipated games of the year. To up the ante, I asked him to pick his favorite five from the list and rank them by degrees of anticipation.

So here you go. In this week's Top 5 I'… Read more

Jimmy Fallon was the first person since Sony's PlayStation event earlier this week to publicly take one of the console's games for a spin.

Sony last night brought the PlayStation 4 to "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon," allowing the host to briefly play Killzone: Shadow Fall. His time on the new PlayStation 4 controller -- which was detailed ad nauseam -- was short-lived. One of Fallon's guests also had the chance to play Killzone, but that, too, was a quick experience.

Interestingly, the person from the Killzone team who was playing the title had no … Read more