SEGA parent company SEGA SAMMY HOLDINGS has announced that it has arrived at a deal with Angry Birds developer Rovio to acquire the company for € 700 million ($770 million). The move comes as SEGA aims to “further strengthen its position in this fast-growing mobile and global gaming market.”
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Rovio has updated Angry Birds 2 and Angry Birds Evolution for the NFL season with football content.
Bird Island has been tuned into the NFL season thanks to some tinkering from Dr. Strangebird. Now the whole island is hyped up for Super Bowl LII! Join the celebration to collect a brand new bird – The Quarterback, and hit the gridiron for a game of Pigball in the NFLed-out Mighty Metrodome …
Rovio has finally released the long-awaited sequel to the original Angry Birds hit mobile game. Since the first title saw phenomenal success on the iOS App Store, the game has gone on to amazing heights with tons of spinoffs. With several official movie tie-ins, including the popular Star Wars titles, Angry Birds is the ultimate success story of the mobile app world. And now, Angry Birds 2 is available to download.
The game retains the key features, in that you fling birds with a catapult in an attempt to destroy blocks and kill green pigs. However, it does have some new features. Some levels now have multiple stages to complete, and you have to choose which bird to launch next. You can challenge other players and there are even more magic spells too, to help you complete difficult levels. As always, there are plenty of pig bosses to wipe out.
It’s free to download and has the expected in-app purchases. Download the app from the App Store.
You can watch the official gameplay trailer below
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It seems an age since Angry Birds first rose to prominence as the best-selling mobile game going. After countless spin-offs and movie tie-ins, it’s about to get its first proper sequel. Rovio announced in a blog post this morning that Angry Birds 2 will officially launch on July 30th.
With 3 billion game downloads, millions of fans across the globe, multiple mashups and spin-offs, collaborations with A-list celebrities and much more, we’re really proud that Angry Birds is the mother of all mobile game apps. And now we’re proud to announce the mother of all sequels – Angry Birds 2!
Rovio hasn’t announced exactly what to expect or which platforms it’ll be available on, but it does say that it will make its way to “app stores worldwide” in two weeks, suggesting that it will almost certainly be available on the most popular platforms: Android and iOS.
Hit the Angry Birds 2 website to sign up and be notified as soon as it’s available. In the mean time, you can grab a bunch of the more popular Angry Birds titles for free, or just $1 in Rovio’s iOS sale.
After months of teasing, Angry Birds Transformers is now available in select parts of the world. Gamers in New Zealand and Finland can now sample Rovio’s mashup of fowl and robots, with Canada and Australia set to follow soon afterwards. In addition to a soft launch for its new title, Rovio released a new gameplay trailer, revealing that this won’t be your typical Angry Birds title.
Rovio has a lot in the works. The Finnish-game maker last week released Angry Birds Epic, an RPG-style game and a first for the series, and later this year Rovio will release Angry Birds Stella led by the lady bird in the saga.
On top of all that, Rovio is announcing something they’ve been working on with Hasbro: Angry Birds Transformers. The latest title in the series will be like Angry Birds Star Wars, another Hasbro partnership for Rovio, combining the iconic gameplay with characters that resemble those from the movies.
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[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ta0SJa6Sglo]
Angry Birds maker Rovio is today launching its latest title in the App Store with the release of ‘Retry,’ a game that appears to be inspired by the gameplay and retro 8-bit graphics of recent hit iOS game Flappy Birds. Although that might be selling it short, as it’s clear from the mechanics shown off in the trailer above that this is much more than just a Flappy Birds clone.
From the guys sitting in the room next to the guys who made Angry Birds, comes RETRY – a game so hard, so addictive, so old school that you’ll think you’ve stepped into an 8-bit time machine and gone back to 1986. Totally rad!
The game is the first release from Rovio’s latest publishing arm “Rovio LVL 11,” which, according to Gamasutra, will exist for Rovio’s new titles that don’t quite fit in with the Angry Birds world. That means you shouldn’t expect to see a ton of cross-promotions with Retry and Angry Birds or any of the other Rovio’s titles.
Retry is already available in the App Store for both iPhone and iPad, but it’s currently only available in Canada, Finland, and Poland. We’d expect to see the title arrive in the US and globally in the near future.
Rovio has announced details of its latest game in the Angry Birds series(Via Kotaku). The game is a turn-based role player, a significant departure from the mobile mini-game physics puzzler Angry Birds is known for. The game will feature turn-based combat and a crafting system — players can craft armor, potions and weapons. This item system will apparently be funded through a game currency, or via in-app purchases.
The game is launching in Australia and Canada this week (likely tomorrow), with more countries to follow. Rovio is touting it as the most ‘epic’ soft launch ever.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6Nh92eGP8I]
After a couple of teases that a new Angry Birds title was incoming, Rovio today announced that a new game called “Angry Birds Stella” is coming soon. The game features a female lead character unlike the majority of Rovio’s other games, but there aren’t many details about how else it might differ from other Angry Birds titles.
Angry Birds Stella will open a door to a part of the Angry Birds universe you’ve never seen before! There will be plenty of fun and adventure, but the bunch of passionate pals will also have to deal with some serious issues in order to protect their friendship and the environment they live in. Luckily, Stella and her friends are good at finding creative solutions!
No word on an official release date, but Rovio says the game will ship sometime in the fall.
Yesterday we reported on new leaked docs from Edward Snowden reported by The New York Times and others that detailed secret NSA and GCHQ programs used to siphon data from popular smartphone apps on both iOS and Android. While Apple and Google have yet to respond to the reports, today one of the main developers singled out in the claims has. Rovio, maker of the popular Angry Birds game that was mentioned several times in the reports, today posted a response on its website.
The developer confirms that it in no way works with NSA, GCHQ or any other government organization to provide data about users, but it does point to third-party advertising networks as a possibility of the leaks:
The alleged surveillance may be conducted through third party advertising networks used by millions of commercial web sites and mobile applications across all industries. If advertising networks are indeed targeted, it would appear that no internet-enabled device that visits ad-enabled web sites or uses ad-enabled applications is immune to such surveillance. Rovio does not allow any third party network to use or hand over personal end-user data from Rovio’s apps.
Referring to the third-party advertising networks, Rovio CEO Mikael Hed said the company would have to “re-evaluate working with these networks if they are being used for spying purposes.”
Angry Birds wasn’t the only app specifically mentioned in the leaked docs, however. The reports claim the NSA program is capable of intercepting information ranging from location, age, and sex of users to address books, buddy lists, phone logs, geographic data and more from various mobile apps and third-party ad networks. Twitter, Google Maps, Facebook and others were also specifically mentioned in yesterday’s reports.
On the second day of Apple’s “12 Days of Gifts” promotion, the app is now offering a free download of Rovio’s ‘Tiny Thief’ app. This morning the 12 Days of Gifts app was offering a free pilot episode of TV show Once Upon a Time, but Apple appears to have now switched the gift to the ‘Tiny Thief’ app. It’s unclear if Apple mistakenly offered the TV show download for a short period of time or if it plans to offer various gifts throughout the day as part of the promotion.Yesterday the 12 Days of Gifts app was offering a free download of Justin Timberlake performances from the recent iTunes Music Festival.
Rovio actually dropped the price of Tiny Thief from $2.99 to free a few days back, and the app remains available for free directly through the App Store as well. You can grab Apple’s 12 Days of Gifts app on the App Store in select countries.
In a refreshing departure from its iconic flick-and-throw style animated gameplay, Rovio is out with a brand new Mario Kart-like game depicting the ongoing battle between the winged warriors and pesky pigs with Angry Birds GO!
Angry Birds GO! delivers ‘breakneck speed’ downhill racing on Piggy Island in the first three-dimensional version of the series for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.
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I’ll admit I’ve wasted a few hours building vehicles to nowhere with my kids on Bad Piggies. Now Free HD for iPad or iPhone (via MacRumors) as Apple’s App of the Week.
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If you’ve ever been frustrated by having to recomplete levels in Angry Birds or The Croods when you download the game to a new device, Rovio has you covered.
After a limited trial back in May, Rovio has now announced that its account-synchronisation feature is being rolled-out globally across both iOS and Android devices. When you download a game to a new device, you just login with your Rovio account to continue right where you left off.
The feature is currently limited to the original Angry Birds and The Croods, but Rovio will be adding all its games over time.
Via Engadget
Rovio hinted at Angry Birds Star Wars 2 late last week, but today we get an official announcement as well as our first look at gameplay footage and the new Hasbro “Telepods” toys, which appear to let users transfer new characters into the game. The Telepod controller will be available where toys are sold, according to the video, and a broken link to Hasbro is provided.
The game goes live September 19th according to the Angry Birds site.
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Last November, Rovio introduced a new Angry Birds Star Wars game that brought iconic Star Wars locations and characters from the movies into the Angry Birds gameplay universe. Today the developer is teasing what looks to be an entirely new Star Wars themed Angry Birds game. While Rovio’s initial tweet only mentioned a “Big new game announcement” coming this Monday, it later confirmed on its blog that the announcement will be for “a brand new game” with “the biggest character line-up ever, awesome new powers, and maybe even a few surprises!”
On top of the teaser, Rovio is also making Angry Birds Star Wars available for free today for a limited time.
We don’t get any other details, but Rovio did include the image above hinting the game might be inspired by Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace:
Today in iOS gaming news, Rovio’s publishing label, Rovio Stars, released their latest title on the App Store dubbed Tiny Thief. Following in the success of the publisher’s first title, Icebreaker: A Viking Voyage, which debuted on the App Store only a few weeks ago, Tiny Thief puts players in control of a cartoon-styled thief with the ability to sneak and steal in order to solve a variety of puzzles and defeat enemies. Based on the promotional video, it appears players can interact with the game’s background in order to solve unique, location-based missions throughout the side-scrolling adventure. We haven’t gotten our hands on it just yet, but you can download the universal title from the App Store for $2.99.
In other news, we reported earlier that Deus Ex: The Fall, a new story set in the world of Square Enix’s popular PC game Deus Ex: Human Revolution, would hit the iOS App Store today for $6.99.
It appears that after the game was released to the public this afternoon, many players are having trouble running the game on a jailbroken device. Kotaku reports that playing the game on either a jailbroken iPhone or iPad will block the ability for players to use the game’s trigger functionality, one of the most crucial controls of the game.
“Encountered by Redditor KipEnyan and verified by several user reviews in the app store, jailbroken players starting up the first mobile installment of the Deus Ex series are treated to a few cutscenes and a movement tutorial before running into the message above. It comes up during the game’s shooting tutorial, and while one would assume players could still stealth through the game, I’m not sure they can progress beyond that point without tranquilizing those guards.”
While the move may have been the developer’s only option to combat piracy on iOS devices, it probably would’ve been best to give mention of the restriction in the app’s description on the App Store so that players would be informed of the measure before purchase.
There is a way to get around the jailbreak detection, though. A free tweak available in Cydia called xCon is designed to cut off apps’ ability to determine if a phone has been jailbroken. Installing xCon will let you use the app that you paid for with no ridiculous restrictions while maintaining all of the customization options of a jailbroken device.
Rovio has released a big update today to its original Angry Birds app, which happens to remain as the #1 app of all time. Today’s update brings a brand new gameplay mode known as “Egg Defender,” which according to iTunes gives “Red special powers to attack the advancing pigs.”
Also included in today’s update is 15 new levels with all-new challenges, as well as “73 crazy pig contraptions” straight from Rovio’s hit spin off title ‘Bad Piggies’.
What’s New in Version 3.2.0
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!
Fun new gameplay – the Egg Defender mode gives Red special powers to attack the advancing pigs!
15 new levels – the latest Red’s Mighty Feathers episode brings fresh new challenges!
73 crazy pig contraptions – wave after wave of Bad Piggies edging closer in their wacky machines!
Rovio has updated its popular Bad Piggies title for iPhone today with a ton of new content including 15 new levels, a new feature that lets users record and share tricks, an all-new sandbox, and a selection of new in-game gadgets.
The app, however, is yet to receive Rovio’s just announced ‘Account’ feature that lets users save game progress in the cloud and resume playing on any device.
The HD iPad version of the app receives the same update.
Rise and swine! It’s a beautiful morning, but the Bad Piggies have just one thing on their mind: FOOD! Use two ALL NEW gadgets in these 15 NEW LEVELS to track down some elusive chocolate cake!
15 new sun-drenched levels!
Record your best tricks in-game and share through your favorite social networks!
Climb walls with the new suction cup gadget!
Punch your way to victory with the new spring-loaded Boxing Glove!
Fill your need for speed in a new Road Hog challenge!
Go crazy in an all-new sandbox!
The Croods: Previously announced, Rovio has today released the first official gameplay video for its upcoming iOS movie tie-in for DreamWorks’ upcoming ‘The Croods’ animated feature film hitting theatres March 22. Check out the full gameplay video above.
Path version 3.0.1: Path is introducing some new features with an update to its iOS app today that brings a new Messaging features, handcrafted stickers, and a marketplace called “The Shop” where users can purchase “premium photo filters and handcrafted stickers.”
★ Messaging – The fast, fun, and private way to message your family and friends one-to-one or in small groups. Use your words, your voice, your location, media, stickers, and more!
★ Stickers – Say more in a single tap with handcrafted stickers from some of our favorite artists.
★ The Shop – The hand curated place to find premium photo filters and handcrafted stickers to make your Path experience more you.
✓ Performance improvements.
☂ Bug fixes.
Fantastical version 1.1: Fantastical, the calendar app we recently reviewed and loved, is updated today with a number of new features including multiple alerts, time zone support, and much, much more. The app is also on sale for a limited time for $3.99 USD.
– Multiple alerts when creating events
– Time zone support
– Duplicate or move events (tap and hold an event in the event list)
– Go to a specific date (tap and hold the red title bar)
– Event list is now scrollable when using the calendar
– Today’s timed events dim after the event has ended
– Copied text containing event info can automatically be made into an event
– Added setting to highlight weekends
– Added setting to show empty days on the DayTicker
– Added setting to display the number of today’s remaining events or date on the app icon badge
– State restoration (iOS 6 only)
– A staggering number of other improvements, parser enhancements, and bug fixes
Conan O’Brien Presents: Team Coco version 3.1: Conan’s iPhone app bringing content from his Team Coco site has been completely redesigned and now includes full episodes of Conan on demand as well as the two-screen syncing experience previously only available to iPad users.
Angry Birds version 3.1.0: On top of making the previously 99 cent original Angry Birds title Free today, the app (both iPad and iPhone versions) have been updated with brand new content. The updated app includes “15 fantastic new levels for the Bad Piggies episode!”
Asphalt 7: Heat version 1.0.8: New super cars and events get added to Gameloft’s popular Asphalt 7: Heat title:
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In addition to a new Cloud Player app for iPad from Amazon and the roll out of iTunes in the Cloud features to new countries, below we have put together our usual list of notable apps and updates hitting the store today:
Spotify version 0.6.0: Perhaps the biggest update today goes to the Spotify iOS app which, on top of receiving a “shiny new interface” equipped with a sidebar, includes a “Now Playing” bar, a new Track menu, and a number of other new features and fixes:
• New: Shiny new interface. You can navigate around the app with a new sidebar. Check it out by swiping left-to-right, or by pressing the ≣ button in the top left of the app.
• New: Now Playing bar. You’ll always see what you’re listening to along the bottom of Spotify. To switch tracks, just swipe along it. Tap or drag to see more information about the current track. Tap the cover art in the extended view to use AirPlay, and disable/enable shuffle and repeat.
• New: Track menu. Tap the … button on any track to see a redesigned context menu.
• Fixed: “Track only available online” issues. This would sometimes appear after start-up, or when you’d been offline for a little while. Not any more.
• Fixed: Lock screen will now always display the correct track.
• Fixed: Shuffle now switches off after you’ve used “Shuffle Play” on an album or playlist.
Waze version 3.6: Waze, one of Apple’s Maps partners and an app CEO Tim Cook recommended as an alternative during the iOS 6 Maps controversy, gets some nice new features today. Among the new features is real-time road closure reporting and routing, a refined map with only relevant road names, and much more:
✓ Report road closures in real time. Waze will close off the road and route others around it
✓ Report pins tilted on map to better indicate direction of event
✓ Reduced map clutter by showing only relevant road names
✓ New moods!
✓ New inbox with multiple message selection
✓ Update gas prices popup: When in gas station users prompted to update price (Europe only)
✓ Optimized performance and multiple bug fixes
PanoPerfect for iPad: We’ve told you about the PanoPerfect app before– an Instagram type experience designed specifically for sharing panorama shots. Today the developers have released its first iPad version of the app and also revamped the iPhone app.
PanoPerfect is a free, fun, and simple way to share beautiful panoramic photos on your iPhone. Find, follow, and share gorgeous panoramic photos with friends. Panorama’s go into a stream where you can comment and like your favorite ones.
Bad Piggies version 1.2.0: Rovio’s popular Bad Piggies franchise gets updated today with 30 new “Flight in the Night levels,” 6 Road Hogs levels, new achievements and much more. The free apps and HD iPad versions receive the same update today.
Tweetbot version 2.7.3: The iOS versions of the Tweetbot apps get a few tweaks. The iPad version gets the same update:
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The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kinds Enhanced Edition (for Mac): Developers of critically acclaimed RPG The Witcher 2, originally released on PC and consoles, announced that an OS X port of the game is now available on the Mac App Store for $20.
The Witcher 2 is one of the most sophisticated games ever presented on Mac computers. Prepare to test out the gaming potential of the new iMacs in one of the best looking games for Apple’s computers. We have prepared a special app to test the game’s performance before players can buy it. To check it out just click here
Chrome version 23.0.1271.96: Google has updated its Chrome iOS app today with one highly requested feature- the ability to play sound when the app is running in the background. That means content with sound that you are playing in the browser, such as a YouTube video or mp3, would continue play when multitasking. The update also includes a fix for a character encoding bug.
-Allow sound to play when app is backgrounded.
-Fix character encoding bug.
GoPro App version 1.1.13: GoPro has updated its iOS app to include support for features exclusive to the HERO3 camera lineup.
-Supports features in HERO3 cameras
NEW ARRIVALS IN GAME CENTRAL STATION!
• Turbo Time is here! Enter the race for gold, and drive at turbo speed in this all-new arcade racer!
• New achievements are in! Earn new achievements for Fix-It Felix Jr., Hero’s Duty, Sweet Climber, and Turbo Time.
• Added language support for Dutch and Russian
Splashtop for business version 2.2.0.1:
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WordPress version 3.3: The WordPress iOS app gets an update today that brings audio feedback with new sound effect options for “refreshing, swiping, and more” accessible from Settings. The app has also been updated with optimizations for iPad mini, support for self-signed certificates, and fixes for over 20 bugs:
★ Sound effects: get audio feedback when refreshing, swiping, and more. You can turn off Sounds easily in Settings.
• Works great on the iPad Mini.
• Added support for self-signed certificates.
• Over 20 bugs and crashes fixed.
Angry Birds Seasons version 3.1.0: Over the weekend Rovio updated its Angry Birds Seasons apps with new content for Winter. Included is 25 winter levels (one each day) and “three secret levels for some special wintry treats.” HD iPad version available here.
It’s a snowy winter night, the northern lights are ablaze, and it seems like peace on earth… until the bad piggies show up! The Angry Birds didn’t realize that they’re walking in a winter wonderham!
Tumblr version 3.2.2: The Tumblr iPhone app gets a few features today include a new blog lookup feature to find blogs by username, and a panorama view when tapping photos:
• New blog lookup feature! Go to your Account screen and tap “Find blogs” to search by username.
• New panorama view! Just tap the photo to get a closeup.
• Bug fixes, including one that made it difficult for some users to launch the app.
* iPhone 5 Support
* Multiple Bug fixes
* Added back sound when stars drop in cup – now an option to turn on or off
Notability version 4.42: A big update goes to the popular note taking, handwriting, and PDF annotation app that brings iOS 6 support, the ability to import .doc, .ppt, and .xls files as PDFs with Google Drive, localizations, and much more:
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The highly-anticipated (and much-teased) Angry Birds Star Wars is now available in both the App Store and Mac App Store.
Developer Rovio has long been working with the recently Disney-acquired LucasArts to bulk its popular app lineup with a Star Wars-themed iteration of Angry Birds that brings new creative and play experiences to the franchise.
The latest Rovio title ditches the traditional exploding/flinging Angry Birds for a slew of new bird characters each wielding a unique weapon. The Han Solo bird, for instance, halts enemies with a three-shot space gun. The game also features iconic Star Wars locations, 80 immersive levels, “hours and hours” of gameplay, fresh mechanics, and new level-up capabilities for birds.
“Use the Force, wield your lightsaber, and blast away Pigtroopers on an intergalactic journey from the deserts of Tatooine to the depths of the Pig Star — where you’ll face off against the terrifying Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Pigs,” wrote Rovio in the app’s App Store description. “Time to grab your lightsaber and join the adventure! May the birds be with you!”
Check it out:
Angry Birds Star Wars also landed on the Android, Amazon Kindle Fire, and Windows 8 platforms today.
The full press release is below.
