Looking for the perfect gift? Miss the hussle-and-bussle of the holiday rush and give the gift of games! We've made it even easier with a collection of our most beloved PC downloads in one central source: our 2009 Holiday Gift Guide. Provide hours of fun for her, for him, or simply yourself.

Whether you're shopping for the avid gamer, the occasional puzzle solver, or someone brand new to gaming, there's definitely something for that special someone on your list. For those on a tighter budget, check out our selection of games under $10. Or sip on some eggnog while playing our holiday games. If you're a frequent buyer, join our new games.com DownloadClub for additional discounts up to 75%.

Shop the games.com Holiday Gift Guide now

On October 14, the hi5 social network (the third largest worldwide after Facebook and MySpace) will have a new look and feel, with emphasis on games, virtual currency and most notably a new 3-D avatar system called hi5 Stars.
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hi5 Stars will allow users to create a virtual representation of themselves, customizing a body type, facial features and clothing. Once the avatar is ready to go, it can be customized to reflect a user's mood -- happy, anxious, bored, et al.

Outside of depicting a mood, avatars are mostly for decoration -- for now. hi5 Executive Producer Andrew Sheppard says that they're working on something he calls "social verbs," i.e. avatar actions such as giving a hug to friends or a playful punch on the shoulder. He also says they're working on some "super secret" avatar projects that will most likely be some form of game. "We're certainly talking to third party [developers] about them," he says.

The game portion of the new hi5 isn't new, just more prominent. The social network launched its gaming portal in February which has since grown to make up 1/3 of the site's traffic. Some of the more popular games on the service include Barn Buddy, a farming game similar to FarmVille, a Mafia Wars style game called Organized Crime and a virtual pet game titled RockYou Pets.

hi5 has also been finding a degree of success with virtual currency or "coins" which can be used to buy premium items, such as a bouquet of virtual flowers to a friend on their birthday. Coins are also used to add-on elements to a game, such as additional armor etc. These revenues are split 50/50 with the game makers, and reports say these purchases make up 15% of the company's total revenue, which -- if we look at our own willingness to spend small sums on virtual goods -- sounds about right by our standards.













Marketing and Business Development VP Michael Trigg also says he thinks the site's bigger emphasis on gaming will help the social network attract a larger U.S. audience (currently most of the site's users are based in Latin America). Trigg says the hi5 is geared for the younger social network junkie, who's out to have some fun whether through games or using the site's 'Flirt' application to find friends (and more). We'll see if these new features will deliver when they launch on Wednesday.

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

As Zynga and its rival Playfish complete head-to-head with mob and farm games, Playfish's Restaurant City has raised the temperatures of over 16 million players without any competition. Now, the creators of the number one Facebook game Farmville (not to mention YoVille and Mafia Wars) are adding a new page to its gaming menu with Café World.



The differences in the two might be slight (Inside Social Games already compared the differences) so far but the audience for games where players create food and serving is huge (for instance: Diner Dash). Café World places the players as a chef, in charge of buying ingredients, preparing them and then cooking the meal. Friends play the part of waiters, waiting for your final result but working automatically and they won't need to be playing in order for them to work in your cafe.

Since different dishes takes different times to cook, items like hamburgers take five minutes and feed patrons as then visit, but more complex items like French Onion Soup can take four hours and a triple Berry Cheesecake takes 12 hours! Of course, those longer items will make you more money. With that money, you can buy more tables for patrons, add stoves (some for longer items, others for faster items). Longer items also offer more portions as well so they take longer to deplete, a good bonus.

After playing the game for five minutes, Cafe World may feel like a faster paced version of FarmVille and that's not a bad thing. As Zynga's FarmVille still ranks on top of Facebook's gaming list, any similarities that Cafe World will undoubtedly make it a worth competitor for Restaurant City.

[via Inside Social Games]

Taking down terrorists before they commit heinous acts in a game sounds like the perfect adventure for patriotic Americans, right? But that's only one side of the global war on terror. In the new social game on Facebook, Al Qaeda Wars, players get to choose the role of counter terrorist agent... or a terrorist.


Created by Rage On Gaming, Al Qaeda Wars tasks would-be terrorists with famous landmark targets such as the Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, the Taj Mahal and the Sphinx.

Players will, of course, have to build a social network of friends to complete missions to gain money, uses to buy sniper rifles, stinger missiles and dirty bombs.

Landmarks aren't the only targets here, as several high-value targets such as a fictional terrorist fund raiser and real estate tycoon named Ronal Frump, the Western World's greatest social disruption Pest Hilton and a secret terrorist named Simon Scowl. Using the satellite imagery power of Google Maps, terrorists will guide missiles and other ordinances to their destination.

Think you've got what it takes to take on the terrorist watch list? Al Qaeda might just be the Jihad you've been looking for.

Remember the days of Teddy Ruxpin? Imagine what would happen if the vocal stuffed bear with a heart got the Six Million Dollar Man treatment by adding WiFi, 3G, GPS and an accelerometer. Recently at the TechCrunch50 conference, Toybots' CEO Shervin Pishevar (also the co-founder of Social Gaming Network) unveiled a stuffed animal called a Woozee that can use all the latest technologies to deliver messages from mom, dad and the possibility of adding access to social network and social games.

Of course, Toybots isn't planning to sell the devices yet. It's looking to hookup with toymakers like Mattel and Hasbro to license the technology and create products that you could buy (assumedly, for kids).

With the advent of cute animals like Hasbro's Littlest Pet Shop or Social Gaming Network's "(fluff) friends", the potential to interact with an animal and have it talk back are endless once you hook it up to a social game.

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.