Zynga's newest Facebook game, Cafe World, launched less than a week ago and it's already gaining a huge following on the popular social network. The game sets you up with your own cafe, letting you hire friends as waiters to help serve hungry customers. But how does it stack up to Restaurant City, the 6 month-old food shop game from competing social games developer Playfish? We pit the games head-to-head so you can decide which restaurant you'll want to be the top chef of.

What's for Dinner? (and Lunch, and Breakfast)

Cafe World's food selection ranges from Bacon Cheeseburgers to Shrimp Cocktails, from Pot Roast to Stir Fry. In order to cook each item, you'll need to pay for the ingredients (from 15 coins for the Baconburger to 5000 coins for the Impossible Quiche), prepare the ingredients by clicking on the stove a few times, then waiting a set amount of time for it to cook (cheaper foods take less than an hour, and at level 9, the most expensive food takes 2 days). When it's ready, there will be a certain number of servings available for your customers (again, depending on the complexity and price of the dish) -- if you don't serve it in time, though, the food will spoil and you'll have to start from scratch.

Free gifts in Cafe World serve as 'boosters' for customers. You might receive a Shirley Temple, which yields 5 extra coins per customer currently seated at your cafe.


Restaurant City's approach to food is much different -- in order to cook a dish, you'll need to collect the ingredients required (by trading with friends, buying them in the market, or answering daily quizzes) for it. Each dish can be leveled up to 10, with each level requiring more ingredients to complete -- higher level dishes will earn you a higher praise from your customers. Once you've 'learned' a dish, it'll become a permanent part of your menu and your cooks will automatically serve it.

The dishes in Restaurant City are also divided up into four categories - Starters, Main Course, Desserts and Drinks. The choices range from Garden Salads to Lamb Samosas, Lasagna to Mapo Tofu, Creme Brulee to Parfaits, Lemonades to Bubble Tea.

Click to see the rest of our comparison between Cafe World and Restaurant City >

"A Halloween parade with actual Plants vs. Zombies? But what will I wear?"

We thought the same thing when we saw yesterday's news that PopCap would bring costumed plants and zombies to NYC's annual Halloween parade. Now with this handy guide, you won't be left out in the cold without a proper Zombie costume.

Basic Zombie Costume

- Brown Blazer, $88 (Gap)
- Light Grey Dress Shirt, $25 (Old Navy)
- Red Striped Tie, $15 (Gap)
- Blue Jeans, $15 (Old Navy)
- Brown Loafers, $50 (Zappos)
- Zombie shuffle at your own discretion

Hit the jump to see all the zombie variations you can dress up as for Halloween!

Wondering how to catch rare fish in Pet Society, or curious what the arcades in Restaurant City are for? We grilled Playfish COO Sebastien de Halleux for secrets on their company's popular Facebook games during last week's podcast. He even dropped a few hints about project they're working on now, including more efforts to bring Playfish games to mobile devices.

Pet Society Tips

- Try different kinds of bait when fishing. You never know what crazy kind of fish you'll end up with.

- An unannounced feature that only a few users have figured out: you can purchase a light switch in the DIY shop, then turn off the lights and play in the dark. Certain items are 'luminous' and will glow in the dark, as well.

- Poo has become a status symbol in Pet Society, since it's not an item you can buy in stores. As Sebastien told us, "People collect poo, they have shelf cabinets with all the poos arranged, and it's really a status about how dedicated you are." Gold and Rainbow Poo is extremely rare (almost one in a million chance of getting the latter), and they've become extremely valuable to have.

Read on for Restaurant City tips and more on Playfish's next moves >

The most handsome man in gaming, Playfish's Sebastien de Halleux, joins the cast to talk about games and love, Facebook and... rainbow poo.

This week we were extremely lucky to snag co-founder and chief operating officer of Playfish (makers of hit social games Pet Society and Restaurant City, among others), Sebastien de Halleux. If you've listened to any of our recent podcasts, you'd know how much of a crush we've had on him -- this is the guy who, with a charming Belgium accent mind you, said that "Games are Love," back at this year's Casual Connect conference.

We (barely) managed to keep our composure long enough to ask him about life at Playfish, how they come up with stuff like Rainbow Poo and developing on the Facebook platform. We also get him to clarify what he meant by "Games are Love," and even get him to spill some exclusive tips and hints for Pet Society and Restaurant City.

Watch Episode 5 Now!

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We thought we'd take this special moment to point out that our very own AOL GameShow Video Podcast is being featured in the iTunes Store in the 'New & Noteworthy' Podcasts section! Sure, it's the last slot on the last page, but who are we to complain?

If you haven't checked out our podcast before, now's your chance! All episodes are listed in the AOL GameShow category of our site, and include links to both the video and audio versions.

We'll be recording a brand-new episode tomorrow with special guest Sebastien de Halleux, the co-founder and COO of Playfish (and between you and us, a pretty handsome dude), maker of popular Facebook games such as Pet Society, Restaurant City and Who Has the Biggest Brain. Let us know if you have any questions or comments for him! The episode will go live on the site later in the afternoon.

[AOL GameShow iTunes Link]

New Yorkers, beware: the undead and their leafy friends are coming to town. PopCap Games has just announced that their signature Plants and Zombies (from the hit game, Plants vs. Zombies) will be invading NYC's Annual Village Halloween Parade. Fans of the game, zombies and gardening are encouraged to join the parade -- PopCap will even be holding a costume contest immediately following the 1.5 mile march up 6th Avenue. Prizes will go to the best plant and zombie Halloween costumes based on the game.

If you're a PvZ fan (and let's face it, who isn't?) and spending All Hallow's Eve in the city, here are the details:

36^th Annual Village Halloween Parade
Saturday, October 31, 2009

To watch:
On 6th Avenue from Spring Street to 21st Street
7pm to 10pm

To participate:
Meet at 6th Avenue South of Spring Street and North of Canal
6:30 to 8:30 pm

And who knows, you might just run into one or two of the Games.com editors there, too!

Check out PopCap Games right on Games.com!
- Plants vs. Zombies
- Bejeweled 2
- Zuma's Revenge
- Bookworm Adventures

Diligent farmers on Zynga's Farmville can now earn bonuses for harvesting each crop a certain number of times. Starting today, each plot you harvest will give you 1 point of mastery towards that crop. Mastering all three levels of the crop will earn you a 'special bonus'; since there are currently no Ribbons related to crop mastery, we're guessing these bonuses are items.

You can check progress on any of the crops by loading up the Market screen - under each crop is a set of three stars, one for each mastery level, and a progress bar to indicate mastery on the current level (Simple Think has a handy listing of how many points you'll need to reach mastery for each crop).

We noted that only seed crops have mastery levels -- harvesting fruit from trees or resources from animals will not earn you any points. Also, the points you earn towards crop mastery are distinct from the experience points you'll still earn from plowing/planting/harvesting (these help you level up in general).

Social game agnostics may recognize the mastery level system from Zynga's other popular game, Mafia Wars. Players earn a certain percentage of mastery each time they pull off a job - mastering all three levels of a job earns you otherwise unobtainable items as well as the ability to amend your Mafia title with. We think the addition of this feature to Farmville is a welcome one, since it'll encourage and reward us for planting a diverse set of crops (instead of sticking to the ones that'll generate the most profit).

What do you think of the new crop mastery system on Farmville? Will you be planting different crops as a result, or do you think this feature is unnecessary?

Zynga's bringing the circus to town, or rather, to Farmville. Starting last night, a new Baby Elephant gift (sells for 125 coins) was made available for players of the popular Facebook game for a limited time only (the gift will expire around 2AM EST on Thursday morning).

We've already received a couple of baby elephants from our friends and made them a nice home next to some trees (poor things look a little out of place among our menagerie of farm animals). Its harvest time is 4 days, which means at this point, it's anyone's guess as to what we'll be 'harvesting' from it (cows produce milk, chickens produce eggs, etc).

Unfortunately, the only harvest-ready resource that comes to mind for baby elephants is, well, ivory from its tusks. We're hoping this isn't the case, considering there's really no humane way to harvest ivory, and we doubt Zynga would risk stirring up controversy with the likes of PETA over such an adorable farm pet.

Our fingers are crossed - what do you think we'll be able to reap from the baby elephant?

Looks like Playfish is getting its popular social game, Pet Society, into the Facebook gifting scene. Players logging into the game starting yesterday received the following message from the Mayor:

Hello there villagers!
We're playing an exciting new game here in Pet Society: collecting stickers!
Send stickers to your friends to help them complete their collection and maybe they'll send some to you in return!
Some stickers are common, some uncommon and some are rare... how lucky will you be?

The Stickers feature can be accessed through the new navigation icon (next to the Camera button); a sticker book will open up, allowing you to send stickers to friends and view any stickers you've received.

Currently there are slots for 18 stickers in each of five categories (Food, Clothes, Furniture, Toys and Plants) -- 90 different stickers in total. The rarity of each sticker is indicated by the color of the sticker's border (Bronze, Silver or Gold).

Collecting items has always been a popular meta-game within Pet Society -- we've seen people showing off their completed theme sets (the Princess bathroom, the Faerie living room, etc) and even their rare Golden or Rainbow Poo items (yes, really). The stickers are a great new addition to the game, but we have a few issues with the implementation.

First, each 'sticker pack' only contains one sticker. You can only send packs to eight different friends per day, and the stickers are randomized, so even though you can view a friend's sticker collection, you can't directly help them complete it. This is different than other gifting systems we've seen on Facebook games -- Mafia Wars and Yakuza Lords, for example, both allow you to pick specific items to send (granted, Pet Society is very different from those games in other ways as well).

However, like most other Facebook gifting systems, Pet Society stickers can only be accepted through the main Facebook requests screen, not through Pet Society itself. After clicking on the pack to open it, you'll choose to either paste the sticker in your collection book or 'recycle' it for Sticker Points that you can redeem for more rare sticker packs.

We like collecting items, we like stickers, and in the end, we do like the new Sticker Collection on Pet Society, but it feels like it'll take too much effort to complete. Hopefully Playfish will make the process less complex in a future update.

Have you tried out the new Pet Society Stickers? Are you finding it complicated, or are we just slow?

Want to pay less for the games you play? Publishers may just start dropping game prices to compete for your attention.

Pricing for casual games over the years has largely stayed between $5.99 and $19.99, depending on the novelty of the game and the availability of the game on subscription/token-based sites such as GameHouse and Big Fish.

The latter of those sites, however, has been testing out a new Daily Deal promotion where a selected game is available at $2.99 for 24 hours. The deals are visible only to users who have installed the Big Fish Games Toolbar (which displays a search bar and navigation to their new releases, top games, etc), although that hasn't stopped blog A Game For Everyone from posting each day's coupon for non-toolbar users.

New Daily Deals have been posted every day since late July of this year, including on Saturday and Sunday. Originally the promotion was scheduled to run through the end of August, but as that date has come and gone, it's possible we'll see these offers discontinued any day now.

Solitaire players on our site know that there are dozens of variations on the classic one-player card game. You may have played Klondike, Pyramid or Tripeaks, but we're pretty sure you've never played anything like Up Down Solitaire, a new game for the iPhone and iPod Touch ($0.99).

Up Down is part Free Cell, part Crescent (we've got our lingo down!) -- two decks of cards are shuffled together, then dealt into thirteen piles (each representing one of the thirteen ranks) and a draw pile. The object of the game is to complete each of the eight foundations (from Ace up to King for each suit on the right side, from King down to Ace on the left). If no cards can be played, you can draw a card, which will also let you play cards from the associated rank pile.

It's a little confusing at first, but once you get the hang of it Up Down is as addicting as any of the Solitaire variations you might have played before. The game also lets you upload your score to the game's official website, where you can compare your stats with your friends.

We spent a good chunk of last night hunched over our iPod Touch with this game instead of attacking Mafias or crop farming -- suffice to say that at 99 cents, it's a deal.

Up Down Solitaire [link opens in iTunes]

Check out Solitaire games you can play right on Games.com!
- Solitaire: Classic (Klondike)
- Solitaire: Pyramid
- Solitaire: Tripeaks
- All Solitaire Games

When Zynga told us that we'd need to rely on our friends more than ever to progress through the Mafia Wars: Moscow, we thought they just wanted us to spam add more friends and help the game stay at the top of Facebook gaming charts. Turns out we'll actually need all the help we can get.

Take a look (if you're level 70 and above, that is) at Chapter 1's missions. The first two (Smuggle Consumer Electronics for the Vory, Arrange A Drug Shipment for the Mafiya) take anywhere from 30-50 energy points per job, depending on the composition of your Mafia. That's no surprise -- missions from Cuba and later missions from New York also take 30-50 points.



Unfortunately, the last mission, Fight Off An Ultra-National Gang, takes a whopping 100+ energy points per job (and we got only 3% job mastery each time). That means it'll cost roughly 3000 energy points in total to master the job. On top of that, if you've been distributing your skill points pretty evenly between your health, attack, defense, energy and stamina, that means you'll likely only be able to do this job twice each time you have full energy.

This is where Zynga's plan falls in place -- when you hit the 'Get Help' button below the job, you'll send out a notification to your friends asking for help (it'll also post on your profile page). If they respond, they'll help you gain some serious mastery on the job -- one of our friends came to our rescue and our Job Mastery shot up at least 20%. The more friends respond, the quicker you'll be able to master the job and open up Chapter 2.

Given that this is only the first episode of Moscow, we wouldn't be surprised if both energy requirements and our dependency on friends' goodwill got higher as the story progresses.

Have you played the Moscow expansion of Mafia Wars yet? What do you think of these changes to Mafia Wars? Do you prefer to have help from your friends or to go it alone?

Related Stories:
- Mafia Wars: Moscow - It's Live! Check Out Details from Episode 1: Baklany and Episode 2: Boets
- Mafia Wars Weekend Mob Gets Tigers Unleashed
- Mafia Wars Moscow: Exclusive First Look!

The newest expansion to the popular Facebook social game, Mafia Wars, went live at just after midnight PST this morning. Moscow introduces a whole new set of missions, items and businesses to take over. We covered the main changes in our exclusive Mafia Wars preview earlier this week, but here's a rundown of the things you'll run into during your first few days with the expansion. Reminder: you'll need to be at level 70 or higher in order to travel to Moscow and access these missions.


Episode 1: Baklany
- The first chapter of Moscow kicks off with three different missions: Smuggle Consumer Electronics for the Vory, Arrange A Drug Shipment for the Mafiya, Fight Off An Ultra-National Gang.
- Each mission will run you at least 30-40 energy points each (depending on your Top Mafia and other upgrades you may have), so be prepared to either spend some money buying energy refills or wait a long time to regenerate in order to master the stages.

Business Time
- Moscow starts you with one business, an Unlicensed Taxi Stand. Don't be fooled by its high selling numbers -- that money is all in Russian Ruble (and according to current conversion rates, one Ruble is equal to roughly 0.03 Dollars). Life's tough.
- Two other businesses are visible but not available: Cigarette Smuggling Ring and Black-Market Car Lot, which you can purchase after Episode 1, Chapter 3 and Episode 2, Chapter 3, respectively.

Weapons and Defense
- Many missions will utilize guns and vehicles you've previously owned in Cuba and New York.
- Three weapons are available immediately: Dubina, Pistolet Besshumnyj, Boevoy Nozh.
- Two types of armor : Tracksuit, Balaclava (tracksuit... really?)
- And three vehicles: Mototsykl, Taksi, Dvina


The Loot
- The collection tied to the Baklany episode is called Prison Tattoos.
- The following 'items' are in the collection: Rose Tattoo, Church Tattoo, Star Tattoo, Spider Tattoo, Tiger Tattoo, Skull Tattoo, Crucifix Tattoo.
- A second collection is visible, and contains items that can be earned in the second episode.
- The Matryoshka Doll Collection includes: Natalya's Doll, Olga's Doll, Oksana's Doll, Svetlana's Doll, Tatyana's Doll, Anastasiya's Doll, Ekaterina's Doll.

Other Changes:
- You'll note that each episode now has unique header art. We've seen this in other Facebook games, notably Yakuza Lords, but never before in Mafia Wars (save for the boss battles back in New York).
- The second episode is called Boets (as revealed on the Collections page). The header art is below.



Related Stories:
- Mafia Wars Weekend Mob Gets Tigers Unleashed
- Mafia Wars Moscow: Exclusive First Look!
- Mafia Wars Set to Conquer the Globe With Asia and Western U.S. Expansions

Part match-three, part hidden object, part spot the difference, 4 Elements is the puzzle game for puzzle game addicts. You can demo the game right on Games.com, but you can win a copy of the FULL game right now!

The magic of the four elements that kept an ancient kingdom running for centuries has been corrupted by evil powers and the altars no longer yield the energy of life. It is up to you to unlock the 4 ancient books of magic and collect 16 mysterious cards that will help you restore the kingdom to life.

We have five codes to for you to win!

Here's how to win:

Step 1. Join our Facebook fan page! If you haven't joined our Facebook fan page yet, now's your chance! Go to facebook.com/gamescom, and hit the "Become a Fan" button at the top.

Step 2. Leave a comment saying "I Love 4 Elements!" using the Wall Post and include your email address so we know where to reach you!

We'll pick five qualifying entries at the beginning of next week and email winners the codes.

Any questions or comments? Post them in the comments area here and we'll do our best to answer them! Good luck!

Looks like video game publishers are getting wind of social games' popularity on Facebook. Marketing group 6 String Media has launched The Warriors: Street Brawl App, based on the popular 1970s cult-action movie. The game lets you and your social networked friends can take sides in a street gang war, vote for the outcome of individual battles and move up the leaderboard.

The app lets you challenge your friends, pick one of three customized videos (with the power of magic they're able to pull both of your names into the short clip) to send over and convince other friends to vote. Each brawl lasts 24 hours, and the results of each battle are tracked in the stats area.

Unfortunately, Street Brawl lacks the compelling features that would make it much more than a promotional tool for the new Xbox Live Arcade game of the same name (it comes out today). It's an interesting tie-in, but it's difficult to use, has only two activities (challenge or vote) and features advertising for the paid game so prominently and often that we felt cheap inviting our friends to use the app.

That said, we're eager to see video game publishers integrating their products more with social networks -- innovation doesn't happen overnight. This isn't the first time we've seen video game publishers reach out with short, free applications eitther - last month Rockstar created the Chinatown Wars Fortune Cookie app for the launch of their new GTA game as well.

Related:
- FarmVille Cheats & Tips: Top 10 Cash Crops
- Mafia Wars Moscow: Exclusive First Look!

Did you try the Warriors Street Brawl App? What did you think?