Hungry Hungry Hippos is a game I cherish from my childhood. Nothing was more fun than slapping a plastic hippo to gobble up marbles. Oh, the childish fights that broke out over whom had more marbles.

Fast-forward a few years and Hungry Hungry Hippos still holds a soft spot in my heart. The biggest problem with the game now is all that damn racket the game makes. Seriously, did someone upset with parents design that game?

5 Minute Games has done parents everywhere a big favor. Yes, they took that childhood game and put it into a digital form. Parents, your ears are about to thank you many times over.

Famished Farm Animal Frenzy is Hungry Hungry Hippos, just, you know, without all the ear shattering noise. The game also does away with hippos in favor of farm animals. Player can choose from Henry the horse, Claire the cow, Shelton the sheep, and Peter the pig. To stop the fighting of who gets to play the sheep, all four players can play the same character.

Once that nasty character selection process is over, it is off to the tapping frenzy. Just tap on your farm animal of choice to gobble up the watermelons that the gophers are throwing on to the field. The player with the best tapping skills wins the round. Grownups, can you see just how easy this game can turn into an adult beverage consumption game?

The game is simple on the eyes. Each animal loosely resembles its real live counterpart. The best part is Mr. Ed…sorry, Henry the horse will show a bit of his pearly whites as he gobbles up the marble melons. The game sticks to a basic box of Crayola colors; lines are simple and rough. This is pure kids game artwork.

The sounds in the game are pleasing to the ear, especially because sensitive parents can mute this one. Hearing no more loud banging of plastic parts should itself make this one worth your consideration.

Famished Farm Animal Frenzy is a must have for parents with young gamers. How can you pass up a game with four player action, a mute button, and no late night marble to foot injuries? A single dollar is all it takes for hours of childhood fun, without all the retro hazards.

Game: Pocket Creatures
Developer: Tactile Entertainment
Platform: iPad
Price: $2.99 iPhone and iPad
Pros: Surprisingly deep virtual pet game, great graphics
Cons: Better for younger gamers
Verdict: Buy it for your kids!
Acquired via Developer

I’ve just watched my seven year old son play Pocket Creatures for the past two days. Incessantly. This is a kid who loves Lego Star Wars, Little Big Planet and Mario Brothers in any form, so he has some gamer cred. He also is quick to STOP playing games that don’t hold his interest. Pocket Creatures has captured his undying love and adoration.

When I spent some time with the game, I found it to be…well…boring. I’m not a huge fan of virtual pet games, and I’ve tried a few, from Tamagotchi to Nintendogs. However, I have to admit that this one is very good. The tutorials come at a nice pace, and the game teaches players how to play with it very well. Both my kids love the game. The Creature is cute, makes some adorable (if slightly too cute) noises, and can be named and colored by players. The little nature setting it lives in is well rendered and has lots of little fun things to do in it. Feed your pet, put him or her to sleep, and find stuff buried around the wilderness area. It just never appealed to me to continue much past the first couple of hours of play with it. Of course, I’m forty, not seven.

My son has truly plumbed the depths of play with this game. While my older daughter spends hours in her Animal Crossing town, my son has bonded with the little Creature and its world. He pets the Creature (he named it “Bat”), making it happy; feeds the creature, keeping it healthy; finds buried treasure like costumes and magic seeds; and he runs around slapping, eating or playing with other creatures like bees, woodpeckers, and the platypuses (platypi?) that abound. Every few minutes, he hollers, “Dad! I can make him turn pink!” or some such new discovery. Dig up treasure with the platypus, break open pots with the woodpecker, and feed the anteater bugs, or ater to water seeds you’ve planted. Some plants come up with magic fruit, letting the Creature do all sorts of fun stuff, like have ghost powers, or a freeze ray, or shrink ray.

Every update, the devs drop in a new mini-game: Peek A Boo, Ninja Star, and Bug Control have kept my kiddo busy and happy across many sessions of play with this game. I have to say that this is becoming a rich and varied play environment – much more interesting and full than it was when first released. Tactile Entertainment updates the game fairly regularly, and fairly often. In Ninja Star, players juggle stars with the slap touch gesture; Peek a Boo sees players revealing floaty ghosts with a rub of the screen, and in Bug Control (get it? Flight Control?), you guide a swarm of bugs around the screen while keeping them from crashing. I had to show my son how to get to each game, but once I did, he was hooked.

Bottom line, this fun game continues to get better. With the episodic update releases, the Tamagotchi meets Colorforms basic gameplay, and a serious case of the cutes, this is a must have for any parent with an iPad. You might even find yourself pulling this one up in those wee hours after the kids fall asleep, as well.

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Title: Pogg
Developer: Ricky Vuckovic
Price: $0.99
Acquired: Promo Code Supplied by Developer
Written and Recorded by: Rob & Hunter

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

• #tpgnews: Pangea celebrates Apple’s 1Billionth download with price drops to $.99! Good through 5/1/09
• #tpgnews Assassin’s Creed – Altaïr’s Chronicles’ is now live http://tinyurl.com/dcnwro (via our friends @gameloft)
• #tpgnews: IUGO mobile entertainment drops ALL their games to $.99! Get em while they’re hot!
• #tpgnews: new PSP update: the Sony info bar, some subdirectory love, and Kid Safety trial. also, internet search for games right from XMB
• #tpgnews: UpsiRunner is now FREE! http://tinyurl.com/cr93ks leave the app a nice review, k?
• #tpgnews: Publisher X releases Magnificent Gizmos and Gadgets: www.magnificentgizmosandgadgets.com Full review on TPG soon!
• #tpgnews: OMG. Lego Rock Band is real.
• For the record: iDonkeyKong has bad controls and no sound. #tpgnews
• #tpgnews Rolando 2 Characters revealed: http://tinyurl.com/cox9tj
• #tpgnews Props to @ngmoco for updating their LITE version of Rolando, throwing in a secret level :-) http://appstore.ngmoco.com/rolandolite

Thanks to all our winners. All 3 copies have been given away. Check your inbox if you entered. The winners include:
@scrooks
@flooberz

Yeah, you know you want this one. We just reviewed it right here.You want to win it, right? A copy of your very own? We know you do. And we’re here to help, courtesy of Gavin over at Antair Games.

Send an email to tpg@gamesareevil.com with a subject of, “SNEEZIES PROMO CODE — GIMME!”

Feel free to wax poetic about how cool we are, and how great our site is, and how much you wish you could be as cool as we are, and the rest. It will get you nowhere, but it’s pretty and fun and MAYBE Lloyd will let us read some of the best ones on his podcast. You did notice the podcast, right?

Anyway, the first THREE (3) winners to send us an email with the correct (copy and paste is EASY, folks) subject line to the correct email address will win a promo code, good for their very own copy of Sneezies.

SNEEZIES CODES, GET YOUR SNEEZIES CODES! If you don’t win, you still can go buy the game in the app store:

The folks over at Tapulous (makers of the fine and fun Tap Tap Revenge) have released perhaps the coolest thing ever for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Dude, it’s Christmas with Weezer, Tap Tap Revenge style! Tap your way through no less than SIX carols, performed by the Weezer, and TWO tracks from Weezer’s latest album, The Red Album. By Weezer*.

But wait, there’s more! For my daughter’s delight, a special KIDS mode, so she can have her cake and Weezer, too! For the record, my kiddo knows the lyrics to Say It Ain’t So and can belt it out on RockBand in Hard Difficulty. She’s 8. Note THAT, Weezer!

Get to the app store and download this $4.99 glory RIGHT now.

*This post brought to you by the word, “Weezer,” and a giant light-up metal “W.”