Between vacations and major gaming events, we've spent far more time playing gaming apps than writing about them over the past few weeks. This week we bounce back with something old, something new, something NFL-related, and something oddly musical.

Are you ready for some football? No? Then are you ready for a music creation app from the makers of Rock Band? If neither of those do it for you, we've still got a jet-pack game you'd be silly not to buy, and a game so good we named it app of the day twice. Yep, we're off to a great re-start. Let's see if we can do five next week!

If you have a suggestion for an app for the iPhone, iPad, Android or Windows Phone 7 that you'd like to see highlighted, let us know.

Stop What You're Doing and Get Jetpack Joyride for Your iPhone Now

Surprisingly, flying with a jetpack powered by a pair of mini-guns strapped to your back is not even remotely the most enjoyable thing about Jetpack Joyride. The iOS game from Halfbrick Studios, creators of Fruit Ninja, is one of the most refreshingly simple and unexpectedly replayable downloadable games for Apple devices. More »

Siege Hero is For Those Who Prefer Vikings to Furious Birds

I've never liked Angry Birds. Not because I'm angry with any birds in particular, but because I always preferred the free game that came before it, Crush the Castle. Rather than get bitter at Rovio's billions, Crush's developers (well, hosts) Armor Games, are sticking at it, and have released on iOS a revision of the game called Siege Hero. More »

The National Football League Meets Backbreaker in NFL Rivals

Yesterday brought word that NaturalMotion, the makers of the popular Backbreaker series of games for iOS devices, had landed a license to make an NFL game. It released today. NFL Rivals, for $2.99 (iTunes), combines the offense and defense games of Backbreaker and Backbreaker: Vengeance with authentic NFL uniforms and schedules, and adds some bragging rights. More »

Make Your Own Awesomely Terrible (Or Just Plain Awesome) Music Videos With VidRhythm

VidRhythm isn't a game per se; it's an app that allows users to quickly assemble custom-made music videos. But given that it's made by Harmonix, the creators of Guitar Hero and Rock Band, we're gonna go ahead and call it a game just so we can write about it. One of my favorite things about the Rock Band games was how it allowed musicians and non-musicians alike to share music in a new way. There was nothing quite like sitting down with my non-musician friends and sharing music in a new way. VidRhythm offers an evolution of that same inclusive spirit, and opens musical performance up to an ever greater audience. More »

If you're playing Resistance 3, you've likely come in contact with the digital recreation of two Resistance super-fans, the winners of the "Get in the Game" contest. In fact, they're some of the first people you'll meet. So see where that impressive in-game beard originates.

Developer Insomniac Games scanned in the likeness of two fans, one from the US, one from the UK, and gave them cameos in Resistance 3. See what was involved in the digitalization process in the video above to gain a little more respect for the voluminous facial hair rendering power of the PlayStation 3.

Resistance 3: Get in the Game Winners Revealed [PlayStation.blog]

QUOTE | "Xbox 360's massive lead." - SCEA SVP of Publisher Relations Rob Dyer acknowledges Microsoft's big lead in hardware but asserts that software sells better on PS3 relative to the installed base.

STAT | 27% - The reduction in the number of games rated 80 or higher so far in 2011, as EEDAR notes that both game release frequency and quality have suffered this year.

QUOTE | "Concerns about content looking better on 360." - DFC Intelligence analyst David Cole believes Microsoft is sticking to a restrictive publishing policy because it doesn't want games on PS3 to outshine their Xbox 360 counterparts.

STAT | $105 million – The estimated cost for Rockstar's Max Payne 3, which Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia says is going to require 4 million units sold just to break even.

QUOTE | "Publishers getting the living crap kicked out of them." - Sony's Rob Dyer believes that Microsoft's Content Submission and Release policy is completely unfair to publishers and Sony isn't "demanding a pound of flesh" from game makers.

STAT | 23% - The decline the U.S. games industry saw at retail in a terribly slow August which suffered from a delay to Madden NFL 12.

QUOTE | "No plans to charge for Battlelog." - Despite comments from analyst Michael Pachter, who predicts that EA will "emulate" Call of Duty Elite and charge for a social service with Battlefield 3, EA says it's keeping things free.

STAT | $81 billion – The size of the worldwide games market in 2016, according to DFC Intelligence, which forecasts that online game sales will surpass retail in 2013.

QUOTE | "Only smart option is to apologize and fix it." - Veteran journalist Chris Morris likens Square Enix's handling and lack of a formal apology for the "racist" NPC in Deus Ex to Sony's initial reaction to the PSN hack.

QUOTE | "Our games are always on." - THQ CEO Brian Farrell talks about the future of the industry, where he sees cloud gaming eventually killing off physical retail so that the next consoles won't have disc drives.

QUOTE | "AAA retail model is crushing innovation." - Ninja Theory creative chief Tameem Antoniades rallies against the current business model in the traditional games business which he believes is killing creativity.

Video games cause depression. Video games cause violence. Video games are a waste of time. The next time someone pulls out one of these arguments against our favorite hobby, send them to read the stories at How Video Games Saved My Life, and hope they're not sharp enough to refute them with cold logic.

Created by Ashley Burch of Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin', How Video Games Saved My Life is a web page that collects personal stories from people that have had their lives positively impacted by video games.

Since launching the website last month, Ashley has gathered four pages' worth of testimonials. Ashley herself kicks things off with a discussion about her health-threatening anxiety and how Harvest Moon helped her overcome it, setting the stage for story-after-story about how Zelda, Tetris, Pokémon, and more helped people cope with everything from the death of a loved one to coming out as gay to one's parents.

It's a wellspring of feel-good gaming stories, though very few are actually about saving a life, and those that do feature lifesaving are rarely directly video game related. Saying Suikoden II saved your life because you were awake playing it instead of asleep in bed when a fire broke out is a bit of a stretch.

You'll read about a couple bonding over Mass Effect, someone using a PlayStation during recovery from cancer treatments, and a guy that kept himself from committing suicide after a bad breakup by creating his girlfriend in The Sims 2 and setting her on fire.

An anti-gaming pundit could easily argue that most of these stories are only gaming related at the surface level, but that's not the point. The point is these people associate video gaming with these major changes in their life. To them, gaming has that magical power.

Maybe it will to you as well.

How Games Saved My Life [Website]

There's a little surprise in this unassuming cardboard box: a physical side-scroller, a paper-based re-imagining of Nintendo classic Super Mario Bros.. It's all powered by servos, some open source code and a little device named the Teagueduino.

Oh, and some popsicle sticks, painters tape and a soda straw.

Developed by the folks at Teague Labs, the Teagueduino is an open source electronic board that "allows you to realize creative ideas without soldering or knowing how to code, while teaching you the ropes of programming and embedded development." Or so says the ongoing Kickstarter project (hint hint!) that promises to "help you discover your inner techno-geek and embrace the awesomeness of making things in realtime."

Obviously a nifty proof of concept like a conveyor belt version of a Mario platformer is going to help turn a lot of people on to this project, which you can learn more about at the Teague Labs web site.

DIY Video Game in a Box [Teague Labs via Waxy.org]

Joel J.
Got an email from West and Zampella's PR firm talking about how they're getting ready to go to court against Activision. They sent a quote they said we could use:

"I'm really looking forward to having our day in Court", said Zampella. Zampella and West formed Respawn Entertainment last April, 2010 and now have over 60 employees. According to Jason West, " We have new and exciting creativity and development going on at Respawn, to be announced in the future".

Owen G.
RESPAWN WORKING ON UNNAMED EXCITING CREATIVE DEVELOPMENT

Kirk H.
They have a new and exciting project going on? YOU DON'T SAY

Michael M.
any idea when it will be announced?

Kirk H.
I hear it will be announced in... the future.

Owen G.
The future, Mike. RTFA.

Joel J.
May 7th—IN COURT

YOUR HONOR I WOULD LIKE TO PRESENT: THIS IN-GAME TRAILER

COURTROOM ERUPTS IN GASPS AT SHOCKING GAMEPLAY

Michael M.
*BANG BANG* PRE-ORDER IN THE COURT

Joel J.
haha

Michael M.
PRE-ORDER I SAY!!

Kirk H.
Note: The plaintiff's testimony is embargoed until June 14th, 9PM Eastern Time.

Joel J.
GAVEL GAVEL GAVEL

Owen G.
They should do this People's Court style.

Starring Snake

Kirk H.
ahahahahahahaha

Owen G.
"I know you've been sworn, I've read your complaint. Sir, you say your employer didn't pay you per the terms of a contract to make what again? A board game?"

Doug Llewellyn:
"Well Mr. Kotick, you thought you were in the clear to withhold all those bonuses and fire those guys but Judge Wapner thought differently, how do you feel about his ruling."

The best part of this would be that dramatic pause when they introduce the defendant and then the screen types out "COUNTERSUIT FILED." Even when I was 11 and saw that, I knew, oh fuck, this shit just got real

Joel J.
"How guilty do you find the defendant on a 7 to 9 scale."

Kirk H.
they would have us poring over courtroom artists' renderings of the screenshots they presented

Joel J.
Ha, yes! I want to see artists representations of Call of Duty screenshots.

Kirk H.
the artists' renderings would be like, blurry stick people stabbing one another, and blood everywhere

Owen G.
the artist's rendering should be in FPS view

like the court personnel, and then a big tablet coming out of the foreground

Michael M.
KILLSTREAK: COUNTERSUIT INCOMING

Owen G.
with a hand and a pencil

Kirk H.
haaaaaa

Michael M.
Owen, everyone uses iron sights... you'd have to look straight down the pencil

Kirk H.
Without that, he'd just be drawing super inaccurate lines all over the place

Owen G.
I hear you can hold down the right stick button to control your breathing when you're erasing

Kirk H.
"I feel like every game I play these days, I'm staring down the barrel of a pencil"

Owen G.
run 'n pen

The House of the Dead Overkill - Extended Cut now in 3D and HDTV with "More Blood", "More Gore", "More Strippers." Your mother won't like it! So keep it in a brown paper bag when you pick it up for the PS3 on Oct. 25.

Me and Joe Capelli are gonna give them Chimera bastards some what for this weekend, showing 'em the business end of a fist (and a Bullseye) as I join in the resistance in... Resistance 3.

After feeling a little let down by Resistance 2, I'm doing my damnedest to play the third game with an open mind. A clean slate, if you will, for those things are required when one reviews a video game. I'm not even going to let that PS3 hard drive installation disaster from earlier this week color my impressions. That's just how impartial and objective I am, people!

When I'm not playing Resistance 3, I may pick up a little more Jetpack Joyride on my iPhone and celebrate the 10 year anniversary of the release of Advance Wars by busting out my Game Boy Advance (or GBA micro).

What about you? Got some game going on this weekend? Let us know in the comments!

Remember that bigger-than-life Angry Birds attraction in China we told you about? Here's a look at it in action. The attraction is located in an amusement park in China's Hunan Province.

It may be inconvenient to users of more popular digital distribution platforms, but its picking up steam. During a UBS conference in London earlier today, EA chief financial officer Eric Brown set Origin install numbers at "about 4 million", saying that third-party content was coming "very soon".

Millions have flocked to EA's Origin since its launch earlier this year, largely due to the downloadable exclusivity of popular titles like Battlefield 3 and Star Wars: The Old Republic. But soon PC gamers may have other, non-EA reasons to install the Origin client, according to Gamasutra. "Initially, Origin is set up to deliver EA games, but very soon, we'll be delivering third-party content to Origin," said EA CFO Eric Brown at a UBS conference in London today.EA plans on using the more than 130 registered users it's gathered over the years and its varied payment options as leverage to attract third-party game companies to the service.

It's hard to imagine EA's service surpassing Steam in terms of user numbers or game selection, but it's not outside the realm of possibility. Once the company starts adding big name third-party titles to its already impressive roster, we may be in for some interesting times in the digital delivery business.

EA's Origin Hosting Third-Party Content 'Very Soon'; 4M Client Installs [Gamasutra]