During this most romantic/depressing week of the year, let us not forget the gaming apps, who's portability and charm keep us playing whether we be curled up on the corner sobbing or curled up naked on a bed of roses, waiting for your significant other to get home.

Now that I have children in the mix, Valentine's Day has been moved to the weekend, a place where babysitters flow like things you shouldn't imagine flowing at all. I curbed my anticipation for this weekend's festivities (new tattoo, how romantic!) by playing through a bevy of the finest games iOS and Android had to offer.

Mainly iOS, mind you. I've been having trouble finding new games in Google Play for the past couple of months. Something about it being impossible. Hey Android developers, drop me a line when your games go live. Together we can spread the Droid gaming love.

Let's see what we played this week!

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Android

Fruit Pop! — Free (also on iOS)

This one's been around for a while, but you can never have too many line-based match games. The Android version has some really obnoxious ads, but once those are done, yay.

Vector — Free (also on iOS)

I mentioned this one earlier in the week, but only because it's so good. A stylish level-based parkour action movie. Can't get enough.

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iOS

Burt Destruction — $.99 (also on Android)

A 3D platforming game with okay gameplay and spectacular animated cutscenes. Seriously, I'd buy it for the animation over the gameplay.

Early Bird and Friends — Free

The popular physics puzzle game expands into Angry Birds territory, now with a collection of feathered friends, each with a different type of power. An impressive effort with a lot of character.

Fionna Fights: Adventure Time — $.99

The female version of Adventure Time's Finn takes to the skies in this... well, I guess it's an endless stabbing game. Addictive as all get out.

Redneck Revenge: A Zombie Roadtrip — $.99

I've only played a little bit of this strange little shooter, and already I have a beer keg laser. You cannot go wrong if your game has a beer keg laser.

Epic Mech Wars — Free

Build your mech, fight your mech, buy new parts to fight tougher mechs. Not really an action game, more a tap-adventure with a strong graphical element. Interesting.

Rotolla — $1.99

People love hexagons. They think they are super. People also love drop puzzles. What if we combined the two?

Sela the Space Pirate — $1.99 (also on Android)

I love this game. It's a level-based shooter starring a manic space pirate and her embarrassed robot first mate. They start an interstellar war. Then the space bunny police show up. So much love.

Word of the Rings Free — Free, duh

A fresh spin on the word game? A word game with a twist? I could go on, but I'll spare you. Special note: the app icon looks vaguely familiar.

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App Reviews for the Week of February 9 - 15

In Hungry Oni, Your Meals Are Color-Coded

As far as sharp looking iOS games go, Hungry Oni must be one of the most dazzling I've seen all year. And yes, I know it's only February. (It is only February.)
The game is the work of Andrzej Zamoyski, a former Lionhead Studios developer who moved to Japan to make video games. More »

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The Mother-and-Alien-Child Reunion is a Couple of Motions Away in Stick To It

Whenever I feel like the physics puzzle format is completely played out, Fahey slides me another download code, and the thing turns out to be pretty good. More »

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This Robot Racer Will Make You Love To Race (And Hate) Your Friends

These days, it feels like the phrase "iPhone racing games are a dime a dozen" is an understatement-heck, more than a dozen of these games are free. More »

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I Knew From the Start That I Would Love Rock Runners

Have you ever played a game that just feels right-a game where the controls and challenge immediately click, making playing it an almost instinctual thing? More »

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I Have No Idea What's Happening In This iOS Game, But I Like It

A lot of mobile games don't make sense. Why are pigs and birds enemies? How many times do you need to keep running through that temple? What's a science lab doing with so many electrical zappers?
Jool, a new iOS game by a German developer named ROSTLAUB, makes the least sense of any mobile game... More »

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You Have to Kick These Cats. It Keeps Them From Exploding.

If you're going to make a game about juggling cats in the air using your head and feet, you better have a damn good reason for the simulated animal cruelty. More »

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Magikarp may be useless, but that doesn't mean the poor Pokémon-fish can't be funny. Look no further than the great Magikarp web comics below, which chronicle Magikarp's misadventures—this one in particular riffs off of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

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Click for full size.

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Pretty great, right? The creator—mysterious "Chris S."—has a whole Tumblr full of gems like these. All starring Magikarp. See, for instance:

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You can follow his Tumblr here.

There was a time when mines and minecarts dominated video games. If a platformer or RPG didn't have a mine stage or a mine-themed dungeon, it wasn't a game. We felt like mines—where actual mining was eschewed in favor of racing around on minecarts—were the most natural things in the world, just as common as forests.

Oh. You want to go from Town A to Town B? No problem at all, but the only way to do that is by crossing that giant abandoned mine complex in four minutes.

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Various Mine Cart Stages In Donkey Kong Country And Donkey Kong Country Returns

source: Donkey Kong Wiki

The Rollercoaster Version Called Rickety Race In Donkey Kong Country 2

source: Donkey Kong Wiki

The Lost Labyrinth In Sonic The Hedgehog 4: Episode I

source: AzureBlade49's LP

LEGO Indiana Jones

source: LucasArts

Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure

source: Bablo's TAS Walkthrough

Glitter Gulch Mine In Banjo-Tooie

source: mcshabaramma's LP

Gaptooth Breach In Red Dead Redemption

source: Rockstar

The Coal Mines In Super Mario RPG

source: MrGamingZone

The Lake Cave In Dragon Quest V

source: William Schram's LP

Croc 2

source: Forrest Canton's LP

Riding The Mine Cart In Resident Evil 4

source: Dario8676's LP

Temple Run 2 Proves That Minecart Sections And Stages Are Still Among Us

source: Google Play

You should submit the most frustrating ones or those that are actually fun—Donkey Kong Country is the best example that they exist—in the comments below with visuals.

Microsoft exec Larry "Major Nelson" tweeted out this melding of Kinect and commerce earlier today. Nelson is likely proud of the execution here, since it shows the flexibility of the company's motion-sensing camera in a non-gaming setting.

But me? All I can think of is how utterly disturbing it would be if a mannequin in the men's sportswear section started mimicking me while I was trying on a jacket. And if it were a plastic simulacrum of a man that could do the moonwalk? Brrr.

Pretty much everyone wants to play as a super powerful badass, roaming the city, saving lives and causing mayhem. But not everyone wants to do it the same way. Do you want to be a Nightcrawler-like teleporter? Or a Magneto-like manipulator? Or maybe you just want to suit up like The Punisher and blow people away?

Phosphor Games' ambitious Project Awakened's answer to those desires is, basically, "Sure." In the video above, you can see a demonstration of how their character-creation will work. If they can pull this off, it'll be pretty cool.

Project Awakened has a story behind it—we reported the game's existence way back in 2011, as a group of ex-Midway developers (i.e. Phosphor Games) took the lessons they'd learned on the cancelled but conceptually similar game Hero and made it into a new property. Phosphor is also the studio behind the very good iOS game Horn.

Phosphor are running a Kickstarter to help get the game made, and they've also got it on Steam Greenlight as well.

Here, you can see the game's Kickstarter pitch-video, in which a lot of faceless dudes meet their maker.

Project Awakened will have a closed beta that's estimated for August of 2014, where backers will have a chance to mess around with the power-creators and try to break the game. In a Reddit AMA today, a Phosphor representative said breaking the game's the whole idea, while citing City of Heroes as an inspiration for the character-creation system:

City of Heroes was a huge original inspiration to our Create-A-Player system- we too looked at it and said "that would be awesome for an action game!" the problem with some of their skills in action game is that they don't play well in classic video game character intricate situations- like they have a lot of skills that involve moving over large distances, when most action videogame are about closer situations. Like even the super speed we have, doesn't feel as a good as blink or teleport in closer environments. Super jump in small hallways is not fun either. We found that you either make a game optimized for characters that move very far or you optimize for more intricate detailed scenarios.

That said, we create lots of skills, and on beta release we can just put many of these skills in the game even if they break some stuff, so people that want to have fun with it can try it out . You can check out our youtube ability video where we show stuff like jetpacks and hover that we plan to support no matter what.

For more info, check out the Project Awakened Kickstarter and Greenlight pages, or their Reddit AMA.

Forget about compulsively collecting every useless bauble, or heck, even normal adventuring in Skyrim. That's not worth going back for. This is.

Check out this strange but hilarious mod by rsv_rsv. It gives you the ability to kiss everyone in Skyrim. Well, almost everyone. You can't kiss creatures, mannequins or corpses—which is bullshit, because I wanted to kiss all the mudcrabs. I guess kissing all the Jarls and being rewarded for it will have to do.

(I'm only half-joking. I think I would seriously embark on a quest to kiss everything in Skyrim. Better than, like, collecting all the cabbages if you ask me!)

If you're going to make a game about juggling cats in the air using your head and feet, you better have a damn good reason for the simulated animal cruelty. I'd say the threat of feline impact craters fits the bill.

This is Hackycat, a game by artist-illustrator Ken Wong, also known as the art director of Alice: Madness Returns. See, it all begins to make sense.

For his first solo project, Wong decided to create a game in which the player must tap collectible cartoon cats in order to keep them from hitting the ground. See, some cruel god created a special species of kitty that detonates on contact with terra firma — frankly I'm astounded they survived long enough to be gamified.

As with traditional juggling objects, keeping a single cat in the air is no problem. Keeping two is harder. Three is a real challenge. Four is crazy buckets. Five... well, you get the idea.

Thankfully Wong also included a means to dispose of the flying kitty—bombs. Collect enough cheeseburgers (yes, he went there) gives the player a superkick, which I'm assuming sends the cats involved into orbit, where they never need fear touching the ground again — or breathing, but that's beside the point.

It sounds awfully horrible, but it's a great deal of joy. Check out those Wes Anderson-inspired visuals.

Packed with collectible kittens, power-ups, cruel birds and the odd unlockable character (no seriously, he's really odd), Hackeycat contains hours upon hours of good time, just waiting for you to kick it. Meow.

Let's make something clear. Japanese RPGs are not dead. They have never been dead. They will not be dead any time soon.

I've written about this subject before, but every day it seems like there's a new screed, a new attention-grabbing editorial or essay. "Are JRPGs Obsolete?" "Do JRPGs No Longer Matter?" "Has The Age Of JRPGs Passed?" No. Shut up. "Will Xenoblade Revitalize The Japanese RPG?" "Will Ni no Kuni Revitalize The Japanese RPG?" "Will Persona Revitalize The Japanese RPG?" No. Nothing needs revitalizing. Shut up.

Allow me to prove my point. I've put together a list of ten JRPGs—all modern, all different, all excellent, all worth playing today. They represent every major console, Wii U aside, and they were all released within the past five years. All ten are worth your time.

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Lost Odyssey (Xbox 360)

Worth playing if only for the dreams—fantastic short stories that you'll see intermittently as you play—Lost Odyssey is a long, sprawling fantasy game designed by Hironobu Sakaguchi, the father of Final Fantasy. Released back before Japan abandoned all hope on the Xbox 360, this is the best JRPG you can get on Microsoft's console.

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Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky (PSP)

Otherwise known as The RPG Jason Won't Shut Up About, Trails in the Sky is a long and sprawling PSP adventure that captures everything there is to love about JRPGs: it's charming, funny, and chock full of great music, even if it can sometimes feel a little slow.

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Ni no Kuni (PS3)

Allow me to quote my recent review: "Whimsical, charming, beautiful, fascinating, smart, pleasant, challenging, slow-paced, grand, surreal, and aggressively colorful... it's a fantastic Japanese role-playing game, one that will stun your senses and break your heart in the best possible way."

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Radiant Historia (DS)

Almost a spiritual successor to Chrono Trigger, Radiant Historia captures the glory of a classic Super Nintendo RPG and throws in some modern conveniences: you can fast forward through dialogue, for example, and see random enemies before they get all up in your battle screen. Kidnapped princesses, time travel, giant suits of armor: this one's got all the fixings of an old-school RPG.

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Fire Emblem: Awakening (3DS)

As Stephen Totilo has pointed out, this game is reason alone to get your hands on a 3DS. Sort of like a chess game on crack, Fire Emblem tasks you with strategizing and scheming across big battlefields, leveling up your characters, and trying to figure out which people will make the best babies.

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Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story (DS)

Few games are as smart and quirky as Nintendo's Mario-helmed RPGs, and Bowser's Inside Story, released for the DS back in 2009, is proof of that. You spend most of the game inside Bowser's body. If that's not enough to convince you to play it, I don't know what is.

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Valkyria Chronicles (PS3)

Proof that JRPG designers aren't afraid to experiment, Valkyria Chronicles is a tactical role-playing game set in a 1930s version of Europe, in which you move soldiers around a battlefield in what can be best described as a cross between real-time and turn-based battling, XCOM-style. This one is lovely, and not to be missed—even if Sega never will bring over the third one.

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The World Ends With You (DS)

For a while I didn't think I would enjoy The World Ends With You, a Square Enix-helmed RPG that takes place in a twisted version of Tokyo, Japan. But there's something really appealing about the evolution of grumpy protagonist Neku from misanthrope to hero, and the battle system feels very good, especially on iOS.

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The Last Story (Wii)

One of the best JRPGs this generation, The Last Story is only held back by its inferior hardware. This is a game meant to be seen in high-definition, but it's chained to the Wii, a console that can't output HD. Still, The Last Story is a lovely little love story with a really cool battling system that almost feels like a fantasy version of Gears of War.

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Persona 4 Golden (Vita)

Every day's great at your Junes. It's hard to find someone who doesn't love Persona 4, the RPG-slash-high school simulator that has you taking tests in the morning and fighting demons in the afternoon. Playing it on the Vita means playing it wherever you want, so for anyone without the bandwidth to sit in front of a TV for 60+ hours, Golden is the version to go with.

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Ten wildly different JRPGs, all great in wildly different ways. If you've played them all and you still think the JRPG is dead, or dying, or obsolete, or antiquated, or irrelevant, or afraid of change... well then you're just fooling yourself.

Random Encounters is a weekly column dedicated to all things JRPG. It runs every Friday at 3pm ET.

EA and Zynga have been tied up in mutual lawsuits over their Facebook games The Sims Social and The Ville since last year, but All Things Digital is reporting that today both cases were dismissed in California court. The companies issued the statement that "EA and Zynga have resolved their respective claims and have reached a settlement of their litigation in the Northern District of California." I would hazard a guess that some simoleons changed hands.

Back in August we reported that EA was suing the casual-game giant for copyright infringement over The Ville, which EA said was "directly lifted from The Sims Social." Not content to sit back passively, Zynga went at EA with claims that they had "an anti-competitive and unlawful scheme to stop Zynga from hiring" and were violating antitrust laws. That stuff don't fly in The Ville. While details of what happened behind the scenes are absent, both of those suits have been "dismissed with prejudice," so they'll be no appeals or second tries for either party. And all is well again in Facebook simulation land.

EA and Zynga Quietly Resolve Copyright Dispute Out of Court [All Things Digital]

Wait! Before you go reaching for your wallets, you should know that the 8-bit styled dinnerware pictured above doesn't actually exist. The images come from superstar graphic designer Olly Moss' Tumblr and are the result of some noodling around while he had time on his hands. Moss says that the dishes riff on the famous Willow china pattern and the designs on them reference classic Pokémon and Legend of Zelda games. If a China set with these patterns existed, they'd be in the wedding registry of every game-loving couple in the world. But, alas, they do not.