...play Battle Nations with me! My username is abdullabobuae. http://t.co/mYd7F5wu... Read More

When it comes to forecasting the next big thing, we turn to our secret weapon: the TUAW braintrust. We put the question to you and let you have your go at it. Today's topic is in-app purchasing, or IAP for short. We've been having a house debate recently about the proper role of IAP in game marketing and development. Some companies have been treating their customers as cash cows using IAPs. We find that attitude unacceptable. That said, many games (including Tiny Tower, Battle Nations and others) use IAPs responsibly and well. We feel IAP by itself isn't bad, but some companies (and let us be clear, those are actually the minority of companies) put in-app purchases over game play instead of the other way around. Our group take is that IAP, economically speaking, rewards bad game design. Developers can make more money from games with a high initial fun factor Read More

The very first time most people play a freemium sim, they reach a point where they think "that's it?" After all, you've put time and possibly money into growing your crops, building your tower or expanding your kingdom, and then you want to, you know, do something with them. It's a feeling that passes, but it's always a bit of a letdown. Battle Nations [Free] blasts that letdown into bits, because while you build up your military base you're also building up an army, and that army gets to fight. It's part freemium builder, part turn-based strategy game. You use the money you earn from the crops you grow to build your army and keep it in tip-top shape. Then you bring the hammer down on friends and foes alike. That's "friends," not "allies" -- there is a multiplayer component to Battle Nations, and there are people actively playing it. You Read More

Battle Nations is a universal app for both iPhone and iPad users from Z2Live available for free in the App Store. At the start of Battle Nations, you’re introduced with the background history of Ateria, the land in war between the leader of Ateria and rebels. You’re promoted to a Captain and it’s your job to fight off the rebels. Both you and your enemy share a chunk of land to battle, taking turns firing at each other. Battle Nations features a strategic turn-based combat system. When it’s your turn, you select one of your units out on the field to attack. When you’re done attacking, it’s your opponent’s turn. Simple enough. Players have a large variation of units to use in battle, ranging from artillery to sharpshooter units. My two favorites are the Tank and Heavy Gunner units, both delivering a large amount of damage to the opponent. After I Read More

...most talked about #iPhone app in the last 24hrs was: Battle Nations http://t.co/vSAizK9P... Read More

You may have played Z2Live's first big freemium iOS game, Trade Nations, and the recently released Battle Nations is a sort of spiritual sequel to that one. It features the same kind of Farmville-style gameplay, so if that turns you off, you should probably just go ahead and move on (Happy Thanksgiving!). But I do have a place in my life for about one of these games at a time, and Battle Nations is a really well-done version of this kind of game, complete with a pretty interesting turn-based combat twist. The idea is that you're running a growing encampment of soldiers in an empire, so you need to first lay out housing and workplaces for the soldiers, and then work to make your technology better and your army bigger. The core loop of the game is earning gold and XP with farms and businesses, and then you use those resources Read More

Another day of the holiday season brings a whole lot of great downloads from the App Store. What we saw yesterday was mostly new releases, but here's a list of free games (and free updates) you might want to check out. Once again, there's more there to play than you'll need all weekend. Things are picking up as this holiday season gets into swing. Stay tuned, because I'm sure we'll see lots more of this over the next few weeks. Read More

By Rob LeFebvre on November 18th, 2011 Free games a'plenty round here, yeah. Friday seems like a good time to share 'em with ya. There are a metric ton load of new free game apps out this week, and we’re here to share them with you. What could be better than a cold fall day spent inside with this many quality games to play without spending a penny on them? We’re not sure we want to know. Brawl A real-time fighting card game that’s both easy to learn and quick to play. Perfect for quick pick up and play sessions. includes play against real folks online and AI options. FREE! + Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad Released: 2011-11-15 :: Category: Games Bullet Time HD Play as John Irish in this epic action adventure game – fight mutated beasts to find and save his family. Includes multiple campaigns and Read More

Seeing how popular FarmVille has been, as well as freemium titles that have been influenced heavily on the game, the genre has been heavily adopted by female gamers as most men are off shooting things in Modern Warfare 3 or Battlefield 3 to care about their crops. But what if there was a game that brought together the addictiveness of micro-managing with the ability to shoot stuff up? Then you might want to check out Battle Nations. Battle Nations is a new freemium game from developer Z2Live which I am calling “FarmVille for dudes.” One of the first things I was surprised is the game doesn’t just give you a village and throws challenges at you to complete. Instead, Battle Nations offers the player a story driven campaign that has you joining the Imperial Army as you fight your way through over 130 missions. Players will have to fight in strategic turn-based Read More