Hasta La Gadget!

Man, this is some bad news for EA and Maxis. Yesterday afternoon, Amazon temporarily stopped selling download copies of SimCity. Yes, the version that was just released this week. The game has already received over 1800 reviews on Amazon. The problem is that it has an average rating of just one star.

That’s because the majority of of those are one star reviews. Looks like only a handful of people gave the game more stars. I’d say thats a big fail. A note from Amazon states that many customers are having connection issues and they have no idea when it will be fixed, but to check with EA for more info. EA is bringing new servers online over the next few days to solve the problem, and Maxis is fixing bugs as quickly as they can, but the damage has been done.

After the temporary suspension, it looks like Amazon is yet again allowing downloads, but who is going to want to buy a copy after seeing these reviews?

[via Geek]

Angry Birds Space has been out for awhile now, and while it’s been replaced by the more-recent Angry Birds Star Wars, Angry Birds Space still holds a special place in gamers’ hearts, especially since it was the first game in the franchise to incorporate more physics than just flinging birds from a sling shot. Now the game is available on Steam and it’s on sale for a limited time.

The game will be on sale for $3.99 (normally $4.99) until March 14 at 10 am PT. Of course, that’s not a huge discount, but it is 20% off, which isn’t too bad. The game has been previously available on PC via the Google Chrome web store, but this marks the first time that an Angry Birds game has made its way to Steam.

The Steam version also includes the same great features that you normally get with other Steam games, including Steam achievements, leaderboards and, Steam Cloud support, meaning that Steam will save your progress to the cloud, that way you can continue playing on a different computer if need be, a feature that should make any gamer happy.

Angry Birds Space reached 10 million downloads after just three days, and 50 million downloads within just over a month, which made it the hottest mobile game in history at the time. Eventually, the game hit 100 million downloads within 76 days of the game’s release. Of course, this isn’t too surprising, especially considering that the game was a collaboration with NASA.

Angry Birds Space now available on Steam is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Hey! Listen! Shields are supposed to tough and durable so that they can protect you from swords and arrows and stuff. Not this shield. A knife attack will cut it to shreds. And then you get to devour it and eat it all up.

This super nicely detailed Hylian shield cake was made by Redditor Riorus’s mom. One kid’s love of Zelda, a few layers of cake and fondant, and a mom’s love and knowledge of geeky baking are all it took to make this baked masterpiece.

Look at how shiny this beautiful cake looks. You have an awesome mom, Riorus. I’ll bet he returns the favor and does something like this for his own kids one day.

[via Geeks Are Sexy]

The official launch date of the OUYA gaming console is quickly approaching, and we can taste the portable Android-powered gaming goodness already. The console will be shipping out to Kickstarter backers starting on March 28, with general availability starting in June. Furthermore, OUYA’s store is ready to go and they’re now accepting game submissions before the console’s launch.

OUYA has opened up their Developer Portal where OUYA game developers can download the ODK (OUYA Development Kit) and begin uploading their games to the OUYA store ahead of time. Games that are uploaded ahead of the March 28 launch date will see their games available right away on that day. However, the games go through a submission process, so it’s ideal to upload games a few days before the launch date if you want your titles ready to play right away.

Also, OUYA is essentially starting from scratch and implementing the new system all over again, which means that developers who uploaded their games previously will have to upload them again. However, once your game is uploaded, OUYA is allowing full control of your games after that time, meaning that you can update your games whenever you’d like.

Furthermore, as an incentive to get developers to upload their games, OUYA will be selecting the top three games (by popularity), and will be filming documentaries on each of the games, going behind-the-scenes with the development team of each game. However, there was no word on when we can expect these documentaries to be available for viewing.

OUYA now accepting game submissions ahead of official launch is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

We’ve featured our fair share of portable Atari 2600 mods, but I don’t think any of those can hold a candle to this one. Speaking of candles, the future owner of this one of a kind handheld should keep it away from even the tiniest of flames, because its case is made entirely out of wood.

The mod was made by eBay seller retro_mood. Inside the varnished wooden case is a 3.5″ TFT screen, a 700mAh battery that should last up to 3 hours per charge, two player controls – one of which was made out of a PlayStation analog stick – and the guts of an NTSC Atari 2600 console. Retro_mood also added digital volume and brightness controls as well as composite video and mono audio outputs. Perhaps most importantly for a handheld, this Atari 2600 has a pause button! Its weight – 600g (approx. 1.3lbs) – borders on iPad territory though, so minus points for portability there.

Ultimately though, retro_mood intends this handheld to reside not in the deep pockets of a collector. He’s selling it for a cool $1,240 (USD) on eBay. Money doesn’t grow on trees, but neither do wooden cases.

[via GameSniped]