With all the big news about Halo: Spartan Assault and Jetpack Joyride popping up this week, we’ve gotten slightly behind on our coverage of Xbox Windows Phone game updates. Now that things have slowed down a smidge, it’s time to discuss those patches.
Both of Zeptolab’s Windows Phone games Cut the Rope and Cut the Rope: Experiments received minor updates only a few days ago. It might be tough to tell what changed on your own, but we’ve got the details! And Gameloft’s Ice Age Village got its second and most welcome update. Head past the break for the full story on all three games!
Cut the Rope (Windows Phone 7 or 8)
Price: $.99 Download size: 37 MB Store Link - Review
A few weeks ago, Cut the Rope received a sizable update that added three new level packs to the game. It also overhauled the menus, adding a new section with links to YouTube cartoons starring lovable series protagonist Om Nom. Quite an update.
Well, the version 1.3 update doesn’t bring any new levels to the mix – we’re already caught up with the iOS version there. It does however bring new content to the Cartoons menu. See, version 1.2 only listed the first 13 cartoons in the Om Nom Stories series. This new update adds the latest two cartoons to the list, including the one shown above.
As for the save data loss bug that has plagued some users of the game since the very beginning, readers have reported that it remains alive and frustrating in version 1.3. You might want to avoid this update in hopes that Zeptolab finally squashes the bug in a future patch.
Cut the Rope: Experiments (Windows Phone 7 or 8)
Price: $.99 Download size: 29 MB Store Link - Review
Disappointingly, the Experiments update does not add the missing Ant Hill level pack to the game. As such, our version still lags behind the iOS game.
However, the update at least fixes a little bug that had been snaking around, nibbling on the food the game left out at night. Whereas the first game lacked narration, Experiments introduced a scientist who makes little comments during gameplay. He adds a little pizazz to the game, but sometimes you need to quiet things down without adjusting your phone’s main volume. Prior to the update, toggling the voice in the options did not actually turn it off. Version 1.1 corrects that.
Ice Age Village (Windows Phone 8)
Price: Free! Download size: 73 MB Store Link - Review
Ice Age Village launched in a fairly buggy state. Not enough to ruin the game, but the social features didn’t work properly.
After a couple of weeks’ time, gamers also realized that one of the game’s Achievements was broken. If a player attained a 5-star village rating, a different Achievement popped instead of the intended one. Not only that, but the game bugged out after that, forcing players to remove objects from their village in order to lower its rating.
Well, I’m pleased to announce that the version 1.2 patch actually fixes the ‘Most Famous’ Achievement, making it attainable to all. Well, not attainable to people like me whose Friend ratings have bugged out, but I could reinstall to fix that. Despite the generally high quality of Gameloft titles, their games are often plagued by broken Achievements. This marks the first time that the publisher has actually fixed a game so that its full 200 Gamerscore can be unlocked.
The gift icon at right did not appear before the first update.
As for the social features, Facebook integration has mostly worked since the version 1.1 update. Connecting your Facebook account provides the benefits of being able to send gifts to friends and the ability to spam your Facebook wall with messages.
Fine things, but you can’t actually add friends FROM your Facebook list. The only way to add people you know (as opposed to random players) is by connecting your Gameloft Live account to the game. And ridiculously, that feature remains broken. You’d think that interfacing with their own online system would be easy for the game’s devs, but apparently not.
Still, outside of the broken Gameloft Live integration and the general friends list randomly disappearing, Ice Age Village remains a fairly high quality city building game. I still play it daily.
Thanks to Guilherme and TNT Judbud for the tips!
