RealNetworks announced the release of Playman Extreme Running. Playman Extreme Running being launched as RealArcade Extreme Running is the eighth game in the series.

In RealArcade Extreme Running, you experience a whole new sport, parkour. Parkour is a sport similar to gymnastics, but has the precise movements of martial arts. Players are able to run, jump or somersault off of walls, railings and other items in the game. RealArcade Extreme Running has twelve levels, four different game modes and forty five missions.

“Parkour is a unique urban sport that’s capturing the imagination of people all
over the world with its ability to turn every town center and urban area into a
playground. Our designers tapped into this spirit and have translated the speed, grace and movement of parkour into an incredibly well-received mobile game in the European market,” said Matt Turetzky, vice president, off-the pc games at Real. “To date, the Playman series has seen more than 2.5 million games sold in Europe alone. We’re bringing this title to the U.S. market and expecting it to become an instant favorite for many more mobile gamers.”

The game was designed for mobile phones so players will find no trouble navigating around the world on the mobile handset. RealArcade Extreme Running is set to be released at the end of September on most major carriers.

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Casual games have been plagued by the 99% problem. The 99% problem is the problem of getting more than 1 out of 100 people to purchase the casual game. Only one person out of a hundred that download the trial versions of games will go on to purchase the game. The rest of the people just take advantage of the free trail and move on.

Kathy Vrabeck, president of EA’s Casual Entertainment Group, is tasked with “fixing” the 99% problem for EA. EA has thrown more man power at casual games with their creation of the Casual Entertainment Group. There are multiple solutions to this problem, but you have to figure out which one works the best for you. EA tends to try the paid subscription model, which the currently do with pogo.com, micro transactions and ad-supported games.

“The good news is that, in casual gaming, there’s no costly physical distribution,” Vrabeck says. “Because it’s all virtual inventory, there’s a good profitability story here as long as you adjust your entire organizational model around that. That’s actually one of the reasons we created a different division for casual games — because it needs to be organized separately outside of the rest of the company and resourced differently.”

Thanks DePauw University

You are asked to help save the forest from an evil wizard that has enslaved all of the animals of the forest and captured the good fairy in Phantasia II. There are multiple games inside Phantasia II, three to be exact. Each game is represented by a mode, but there are three games because each time you pick a new mode the story line is repeated. The three different modes are classic, bubble and arcamania.

The classic mode is a match three type game. The object is to get three color bubbles in a row and they will disappear. To match the bubbles, you have a paddle that you use to shoot the bubbles from. The paddle can move side to side to allow you to shoot at different areas. Stick the color bubble you shoot, to the same colors and the other bubbles explode. You do this while the bubbles are moving down the screen closer to you. If you miss the color you were aiming for, the bubble is stuck to the wrong color and you need to complete a match three on that bubble. You are able to hit rows of the same color to have the bubbles disappear. When the rows disappear, they cause the all of the bubbles below them to fall and disappear.

The reason you are matching bubbles is to free dwarves that are stuck in the bubbles. You need to free all of the dwarves before the bubbles drop all the way down and cause you to lose the level. If you do lose a level, you are able to retry the level.

The bubble mode is similar to classic mode, in the fact that you need to match three colors to get the bubbles to disappear. Again, you are saving dwarves trapped in bubbles. This time though, you are shooting bubbles from a stationary position. An arrow shows you where the bubble will be shot. You also have the ability to bounce a bubble off the wall to hit the same color bubbles in a different row.

The arcamania mode is just like break out. You have a paddle that moves side to side and you need to catch the ball as it bounces off the bubbles on the board. Match the color of the ball to the bubbles and you pop more bubbles from that row.

The graphics in the game are not that great. The story line is presented in still frames that contain pictures that are not drawn that well. You can tell what they are trying to represent, but it almost looks childish.

The sound in the game is really annoying. The sound basically consists of dwaves saying help me over and over. Unless you are in arcamania mode, then you hear the dwarves and the ball bouncing off the paddle.

All three modes in Phantasia II are enjoying to play, but don’t offer anything that drew me back in to want to play more. I kept playing for awhile and to be honest I am not quite sure why. I was being entertained, but there isn’t much of a challenge.

Casual games come in many different forms, but two of the most popular are the online flash games and the downloadable games for the PC or Mac. Flash games and the downloadable games each have their positive and negative points.

The flash games are usually very easy to play and don’t require much time to complete a “level”. Many of the flash games are free. You get to play them as long as you like, but they are not as in depth as downloadable games. They may not be as in depth, but many of the flash games will contain a lot of levels before you complete the game. Normally, those levels are not accompanied by a story line.

Another positive about flash games, is they run on any type of system because you use a web browser to play them. It doesn’t matter if you own a Mac or a PC you can still play the flash games. All you need is a browser

Normally, puzzle games are done in flash and make really great flash games. There are other types of games that are done in flash, though. I played Papa’s Pizzeria, which is a flash time management game. This was the first flash based time management game I had seen. I found it difficult to manage your tasks because each task you performed you had to switch screens to do that task. It was hard to see the line when you were on the pizza building screen. I guess you just get use to being able to see the entire screen when playing certain types of games and when you can’t you need to adjust.

On the other hand, downloadable games normally contain a lot of substance. They are bigger games that take longer to play through and longer to download. Downloadable games have many different types of genres as well. Flash games seem to stick to the same genre, for the most part.

Downloadable games are not always cross platform. Some developers will release their games for both the PC and the Mac, but by nature they are not cross platform like flash games are. Mac games are starting to be released more and more, but most of the games exist for the PC.

The last negative about the downloadable games is they are not free. The games take longer to program and design than flash games. Some one needs to be compensated for their time and effort. Most downloadable games have a demo version though. You can play the game for an hour to determine if you like the game. If you decide you like the game, you can purchase it and continue to play.

All and all I think that both types of games are great. The flash games are great for instances when you have ten minutes to spare like at the end of a lunch break. The downloadable games are great for more in depth longer games that still don’t require much time to beat a level, but usually require a bit more time than five minutes.

What is it that draws us to games like Brain Age and Big Brain Academy? Much the same can be said for “thinking puzzles” like Sudoku games. They are designed to make us think, which for many of us is actually a challenge in itself.

We’re not stupid, mind you, but we’re “out of practice.” These games are a thrill for some adults to play because it challenges them in ways they’ve not been challenged in years. Most of us have managed to graduate from the third grade and excel up to the twelfth grade years and beyond. Yet, how often do we do basic multiplication or sort through coins to see how fast we can make fifty cents with small change?

Day to day, we develop habits and focus on a specific area of mental challenges. Some of us may use small pieces of our algebra past or geometry for software development, graphic arts or construction. Others may use advanced trig to build 18th century furniture or mechanical tool design. And, there are those select few that found a niche in their basic English classes to setup a blog and go to town.

Few of us, however, have found a complete use for the broad learning we did in our younger years.

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