Leading free-to-play mobile, desktop and social game developer Game Insight today announced an incredible bonanza of Thanksgiving fun, stuffing several of its hit titles full of themed in-game treats, events and items. The bonuses and extras will appear over the Thanksgiving holiday across multiple platforms and app stores including the App Store, Google Play, Facebook, Windows Phone Store, Windows Store and Amazon Appstore.
Some of the smash-hit titles receiving bonuses include The Tribez, Sunshine Bay, Cloud Raiders, 2020: My Country, Airport City and Mystery Manor. Each game will feature a wide array of Thanksgiving related treats including turkey meals, Turkey statues in cities, Thanksgiving- themed quests and collections; there’s also a special appearance of the ferocious Turkinator boss in Cloud Raiders whose flock will leave your base in ruins if you don’t defeat it.
The full list of games includes:

• 2020: My Country
• Airport City
• Big Business Deluxe
• Cloud Raiders
• Flower House
• Legacy of Transylvania
• Love and Dragons
• Mirrors of Albion
• Mysterior
• Mystery Manor HD
• Paradise Island
• Sunshine Bay
• The Tribez

More information can be found at http://www.game-insight.com

Today in “Fuck it, that title sounds crazy enough to warrant a purchase” is King Oddball Ends The World on iOS. And, really, there’s not much more to say than…fuck it, that title sounds crazy enough to warrant a purchase!

King Oddball was announced today (and released at the same time, as far as I can tell) on iOS for the ‘cheap enough to check out’ price of $1.99. That price will bump up to $2.99 once this promotional sale is over, but the announcement press-release, issued by developer 10tons Ltd., doesn’t even attempt to indicate when that sale ends, so anyone looking to save a quick buck (er…literally) should probably grab this piece of weirdness whilst they can.

Something else 10tons Ltd. didn’t seem bothered about including in their P.R. was, of all things, spellcheck:

Game developer 10tons Ltd. announched today the release of the skill based physics puzzle game King Oddball Ends The World for iOS devices.

Alright, alright, I kid. They’re Finnish, after all. But seriously, literally all I know about the game is as follows:

In King Oddball Ends The World, the player controls a floating rock head of unknown origin. The King swings a large boulder back and forth by his tongue, and the player releases the boulder by tapping the screen. The goal is to crush all tanks, helicopters and soldiers on screen with a limited amount of boulders. To achieve this, the player has to figure out how the boulder will bounce and roll as impacts and explosions affect it.

So this game is The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, starring a boulder, disguised as a puzzle game? That sounds like it’s worth two dollars of experimentation.

Regular readers will remember, I have a certain penchant for ridiculous iOS titles with game titles that make absolutely no goddamn sense. Hopefully, King Oddball will turn out better than Inappropriate Llama Disaster which, although free, was an absolute waste of time. I’m sure you’ll hear from me soon what Oddball is like.

Simple question: How much do you love The Hobbit? Let’s say a little. How much do you love free shit? Oh, you dig that a lot, huh? Okay, how about not one but two, YES TWO, free-to-play games based on The Hobbit?!

I lost you all, didn’t I. Not that I can necessarily blame you all. The notion of getting onboard the free-to-play bandwagon feels outright skeezy at this point. I mean, seriously, they’re free-to-play. What goodness could ever come out of such madness? According to some of my friends, quite a lot. See a bunch of them have been playing Gotham City Imposters for free on Steam and they’re telling me, as far as free games go, that it ain’t half bad. They might be crazy but dammit, maybe they’ve just gotten over the stigma of those horrible FTP games that are more ‘free to start, pay to finish’ and found something worthwhile.

But back to the point, developer Kabam has joined forces with mega-giant Warner Bros. Interactive to produce The Kingdoms of Middle Earth for mobile devices and Armies of the Third Age for web browsers. Both games will be based on film director Peter Jackson’s upcoming trilogy of films based on the popular book The Hobbit, which all geeks should recognize as the precursor to The Lord of the Rings.

The Hobbit films are among the most anticipated entertainment launches of all time[.] Kabam’s unique ability to blend the art of game design and the science of free-to-play distribution makes us a natural fit to partner with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment to deliver thrilling games via the Web and mobile devices for The Hobbit film fans around the world.

–Kevin Chou, CEO of Kabam

Sounds interesting at least. You can sign up to be part of the beta for Armies of the Third Age here.

I know, I know, I’m a day late. Cut me some slack, I broke 3 toes today. No punchline here, only pain, kinda like this weeks releases, amiright?! Yeah? No? Psch, whatever.

Coming out this week:

Dead or Alive 5 — September 25th for PS3 & X360
If you like women in bikini’s kicking the living shit out of each other, you’ll probably like this! If you’re more into ‘the art’ of fighting games, though, you might wanna skip this and keep to Tekken Tag Tournament 2, which I hear is pretty good.

Disney Princess: My Fairytale Adventure — September 25th for PC, Wii & 3DS
What with the growing general interest in broniism and whatnot, I imagine any degrading comments I could make about these sorts of kid-friendly games will sooner or later result in management calling down to me from their cloud of dollars and telling me to cool down a little. That day hasn’t arrived yet, though, so if you’re expecting any real information about this game…what is wrong with you?! Ah, I kid, I kid. I actually watched a couple of episodes of My Little Pony with my niece a few months ago and you know what? That show is entertaining enough that I get why some people would be attracted to it. Apart from obscene animated crushes, though, I don’t know what people’s deal is with Disney Princesses…

DragonBall Z for Kinect — September 25th for X360
Namco Bandai refused to respond to my query as to whether DBZ for Kinect would cost “OVER NINE-THOUSAND (DOLLARS)”.  I probably wouldn’t have responded to such a question either, to be fair.

FIFA Soccer 13 – September 25th for PC, PS3, PSP, X360, 3DS
Over here in Britain, this game is just referred to as FIFA because ‘soccer’ is not a word. You crazy Americans.

Final Fantasy III —  September 25th for PSP
In Square Enix’s eternal quest to bring every FF game to the PSP, no matter how out-dated the hardware may seem to the rest of us, FFIII follows suit.

Grand Theft Auto III — September 25th for PSN
A part of me is still trying to comprehend how GTAIII wasn’t already on PSN. Does this mean that Vice City and San Andreas aren’t on there either? WHAT SORT OF WORLD ARE WE LIVING IN?!

LittleBigPlanet PS Vita — September 25th for PSVita
New rule: I’m not going to comment on any title that includes the name of the system it is being featured on within its title because you probably already know what to expect. Starting…Now.

One Piece: Pirate Warriors — September 25th for PS3
Apparently One Piece is a manga, rather than a swimsuit, as I first assumed. However, because that manga is not Ghost in the Shell, Akira, Battle Royale or something, you know, recognisable, I can’t say I care about this game. Probably doesn’t matter because word on the vine is that it’s not very good.

Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 — September 25th for PC, PS2, PS3, PSP, X360, Wii & 3DS
That’s right…they’re still making games for the PS2. Inorite?! I was surprised too.

Realms of Ancient War — September 25th for PS3
RAW (okay, that’s kinda cool) sounds pretty blase, so let’s take a look at one of Wizarbox’s previous titles, So Blonde.

Sunny Blonde is a 17-year-old teenager who has been spoiled by her rich parents. On a cruise with her parents who are celebrating their wedding anniversary, the ship is struck by lightning, and she is knocked overboard. She finds herself stranded on a beach of a remote “Forgotten Island” in the Caribbean Sea.

Holy crap, did they create the upcoming Tomb Raider 6 years before Crystal Dynamics?!

She is totally alone and worrying about her nails and messy make-up

…maybe not…

 The Testament of Sherlock Holmes — September 25th for PC, PSC, X360
Alright, that’s it. After seeing the Sherlock Holmes vs Jack the Ripper game cover all over the place for years, I’m officially hella curious as to what these games are. I’ll probably take a look at some point later this month/week/year/sometime in the future. I promise.

 Tokyo Jungle — September 25th for PSN
From what I understand Tokyo Jungle is set after humans have left planet Earth and follows the plight of the animals left to fend for themselves against each other in the streets of Tokyo. This sounds half bizarre, half awesome, all Japanese.

Warrior’s Lair — September 25th for PS3
If you didn’t already get your isometric RPG fix from Torchlight 2 last week, Sony got your back with…well, another isometric RPG…

World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria – September 25th for PC, Mac
I do not care for WoW but the CG trauker they released for MoP really had me curious as to how Blizzard would handle the opportunity to make their own WoW movie, because hey, I think it’d be pretty awesome.

Bad Piggies — September 27th for iOS, Mac, PC
Anybody here ever play Angry Birds? A couple of you, yeah? Here…have a sequel. Then tell me how you play this on a PC?

The DENPA Men: They Came By Wave — September 27th for 3DS
Uhhh… this is a role playing game in which you play as the DENPA men and is that supposed to mean anything to anybody? Oh, Japan…sometimes I just don’t know what to do with you!

Everyone Sing — September 27th for PS3, X360 and Wii
Until a karaoke game includes the following, I don’t care about karaoke games:

Catch you guys next week.

Fans of Telltale’s The Walking Dead will be happy to know that Episode 3 will be released tomorrow, August 29, 2012, on Xbox LIVE Arcade, PC and Mac, while PlayStation users can have it today!

The third episode, Long Road Ahead is the third in a five part series. There is no word when players can expect the next two installments but Xbox and PlayStation users do have the option to buy a Season Pass: $19.99 through the PSN, or 400 MS Points for Xbox Live. PC and Mac users have to pay $24.99 while the whole series can also be bought through Steam, Origin, Amazon, GameStop and Gamefly for $24.99.

The previous two episodes of the point-and-click adventure game: A New Day and Starved to Help were well received by fans and critics alike (both received very positive reviews, here at OWNT) . There is no doubt that the third installment will engage fans of the series as they struggle to survive in a world over-run by zombie hordes.

Editor’s Note: Don’t expect Billy to be making any predictions about game releases after this…