"Captain, Star Command developer Warballoon is hailing with a 13-minute playthrough of the game's first couple missions."

"On screen, ensign. ... Looking good! Any word on when we'll have it for PC, Mac, iOS and Android?"

"'When it's kickass', sir."

"RED ALERT! Ensign, better check your tone before I have you scraping space barnacles from the hull."

"I'm sorry, sir, but that's the official communication. They note it'll "hopefully be before the end of the year.'"

Zen Studios announced standalone DLC for Marvel Pinball called Civil War at a New York Comic Con panel. The theme for this pinball table was taken from a multi-part comic event from 2006 of the same name that pitted Iron Man and Captain America against each other.

No specific release date was given for the DLC, though the trailer above teases that it's "coming soon" to PSN, XBLA, Apple's App Store and the Google Play store.

Rovio has revealed and released an interactive Bad Piggies cookbook app, now available on iPad at 99 cents for a limited time. Titled Bad Piggies Best Egg Recipes, the app's regular price is $4.99. That's a significant leap from the promotional offer. However, compared to the $14.99 RRP of last year's physical version from which the app is adapted, it's a significant drop.

So, just in case you needed Angry Birds to invade some other part of your formerly Angry Birds-less culture, now there's an interactive cookbook. Although outside of sharing photos of your dishes on social media and setting an in-app egg timer, the interactivity is limited to pressing on the occasional illustration and seeing a brief animation. That's the same shtick early 90s CD-ROM games used, but at least it's better than just making a book digital.

The app contains 41 egg recipes, graded in difficulty, with simple step-by-step instructions. You may scoff, but when you consider how many people have downloaded the Angry Birds and Bad Piggies games, the potential success of this app really is no yolk. [You're in for a real beating over this line. - Ed.]

The above video, released by EA yesterday on the Need for Speed Facebook page, shows NFS: Most Wanted is still coming to iOS, and Android.

It's not news that Most Wanted is coming to mobiles; that was announced when the game was unveiled in the summer. It's also not surprising for a NFS game to come to mobiles, since EA's racers release on just about everything from mobiles to toasters.

It is, however, encouraging to see this trailer in light of mobile versions being cancelled for the last NFS entry, The Run. It's also encouraging from a critical standpoint, as it seems developer Firemonkeys is working hard to give iOS and Android owners something to look forward to.

Hey hey hey, Crazy Taxi has come on over to iPad and iPhone, and is now available on the App Store for $4.99. Sega announced the crazy early release date, although apparently it's available everywhere except Asia for now. Which is a little bit crazy, really. Sega also announced an Android port is due shortly.

As suggested by the tiny trailer earlier in the week, and confirmed by the above one, the game features the original's memorable mix of The Offspring and Bad Religion. The only right way to play Crazy Taxi is with the same four punk rock songs yah-yahing through your ears for hours on end.

Ivy the Kiwi?, the Wii and DS game by Sonic creator Yuji Naka, is now available on iOS. The iOS port of PROPE's chirpy platfomer arrived on the App Store today in paid and free versions. The paid version is on sale for a limited time, slashed from $4.99 to $2.99.

Naka's game came to Wii and DS as a perpetual motion platformer, so an iOS port makes total sense. As before, the startled newborn sprints forward of her own accord, so it's up to players to guide her safely to her destination. This is done by drawing vines across the screen, done via a simple swipe. Vines can be used as ramps and bridges, and they can also be twanged to catapult the flightless chick through the air.

There are 50 levels in the iOS version of Ivy the Kiwi?, the same as the DSiWare 'Mini' edition released two years ago. The retail Wii and DS versions have 100 levels. The free version of the iOS release comes with ads and has a limited number of levels. As the above video shows, the game is compatible with iOS 6's Game Center challenges.

An image of the Skylanders Battlegrounds mobile starter pack points to the Skylanders series – as we know it, with a portal – coming to iOS devices. The pack includes three Skylanders characters and a treasure chest, along with a connection portal. It's not clear whether the portal uses Bluetooth, which is built-in use across Apple's iOS lineup. Battlegrounds works on iPod, iPhone and iPad, according to the image.

With an iOS-connected portal it would be fitting for Battlegrounds to work with all current and coming Skylanders figurines. Giants toys are backward-compatible, after all.

Battlegrounds appears to be entirely separate from the Skylanders Cloud Patrol tie-in arcade shooter that launched on iOS in April. Joystiq has contacted Activision for more information regarding the image.

Two former RedLynx developers trade high-intensity stunt bikes for comparably placid flight in Badland, but keep the winding paths and devilish side-scrolling level designs they honed in various Trials and Heroz games.

iOS game Badland is the work of Frogmind, a new indie developer made up of Trials Evolution editor programmer Johannes Vuorinen and MotoHeroz artist/designer Juhana Myllys. It stars a flying creature exploring a "gorgeous forest" to determine the identity of some unknown threat. Judging from the gear-filled stage in the above video, something is out of place in the forest.

Apparently there's more to see about Badland than is shown in the gameplay video; Frogmind teases two "really big features announcements" coming this year.

Sega found a platform that didn't already have Crazy Taxi on it, and is rectifying that situation immediately. The platform in question is iOS, and Sega's port of the Dreamcast classic is scheduled for release this October.

Curiously, the teaser video for the iOS release features Offspring's "All I Want," or as you know it, the "YAH YAH YAH YAH YAH" that Crazy Taxi left in your brain forever. The track was missing from the recent HD re-release; its presence in this video suggests Sega has re-licensed it.

Angry Birds Star Wars is kicking into hyperdrive on November 8, Rovio today revealed. According to USA Today, the game is coming to iOS, Android, and Windows 8 PCs. Along with the above video, Lucasfilm and Rovio released the below promotional image.

According to Lucasfilm licensing and consumer products marketing VP Paul Southern, the above characters aren't just "Angry Birds dressed up as Star Wars characters," but they do have "personalities which are kind of similar" to their counterparts. We can already imagine the names: Luke Skysquawker, Chewpecker... actually, that's all we've got.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the game uses the physics of Angry Birds Space, but is set on recognizable locations from the Star Wars series. We may well learn more details after the Times Square reveal later today.

Update: Rovio lets us know the game is coming to iOS, Android, Amazon Kindle Fire, Mac, PC (including Windows 8), and Windows Phone.

Brothers Paul and David Bettner, best known for coming up with Words with Friends, have left Zynga. The duo are the latest high-profile departures from Zynga following vacancies left by CCO Mike Verdu and COO John Schappert.

"We are still very excited about the future and feel like we are at the beginning," Paul Bettner told Gamesbeat during a phone interview. Neither would comment on why they chose to leave Zynga nor would they comment on their time at the company.

The duo originally came on board with Zynga when the company purchased their Texas-based studio Newtoy, effectively rebranding it Zynga With Friends. Before the Zynga acquisition, the Bettners had previously helped ship Halo Wars at developer Ensemble Studios before its closure.

Semi Secret Software, the studio behind Canabalt (the game that defined iOS games forever) has teamed up with Greg Wohlwend (Solipskier, Puzzlejuice) and musician loscil for Hundreds, an iOS game about, well, adding up to 100.

"It's simple," the website explains. "To win: tap & grow floating bubbles until they equal 100." The catch is that bubbles turn red when you tap them, and making two red bubbles touch (by, say, growing them) ends the game. Hundreds will be on display at Indiecade this weekend. There's no official release date, but it's "nearly done." Expect development to reach 100% very soon.

The iOS version of Noby Noby Boy, which isn't so much a port of the PlayStation 3 original insomuch as a weird collection of Noby Noby Boy-based activities, is being removed from the App Store on Tuesday, October 9, according to creator Keita Takahashi's personal blog.

The $1.99 app is being removed by Namco Bandai itself (rather than, say, Apple) for unknown reasons – though the app's Facebook integration and cumulative point goals haven't been functioning properly for a few months, which may have something to do with it. No announcements were made regarding the cancellation of any other Noby-related services, such as the PS3 version's worldwide goal of having GIRL reach the edge of the solar system.

"Thank you for playing this silly app," says Takahashi. Anyone interested in grabbing Noby Noby Boy for their iDevice of choice before it disappears can do so here.

2 Player Productions is laying the foundations for a December 7 release of its Minecraft documentary. Speaking to Eurogamer, Minecraft: The Story of Mojang director Paul Owens said that while an exact date hasn't been settled on, December 7 is the aim.

After getting the documentary funded on Kickstarter back in March 2011, 2 Player also committed to a similar production for Mojang's upcoming Scrolls. The Oregon-based production company has a strong history of gaming documentaries, having made videos for Double Fine, Sony, and Penny Arcade among many others.

The iOS version of the infamously violent Carmageddon should be available for download next week, Stainless Games tells us. Founders Patrick Buckland and Neil 'Nobby' Barnden say they've submitted the racer to the App Store, and pending Apple's approval it arrives sometime next week. The Android version, however, remains in development and won't hit until around late 2012/early 2013.

While the port remains faithful, it's also tweaked for iOS beyond a slight visual uplift. The controls are very flexible, with touch pads for pedals and steering able to placed anywhere across the screen, and tilt controls are supported as well. There's also the integrated ability to share videos of your greatest maims on YouTube and Facebook. Stainless tells us it's tried to make the 1997 game more accessible for a modern audience, including making specific tweaks to the opening levels to help new players through a little easier. There is, though, a range of difficulties to keep those hailing from the old school in their driving seats. Multiplayer is sadly absent, but Stainless promises it's a big part of the upcoming Carmageddon: Reincarnation.

We asked Patrick and Neil if they were tempted to tweak the iOS version to bring it up to an 18 rating (it's been rated as a PEGI 12). The pair laughed that they weren't with "this game," implying they may well be with the upcoming Reincarnation. As Stainless promised in the Reincarnation Kickstarter, the game will be free for the first 24 hours of its release, costing $1.99 after that.

A Rovio-developed gaming reaching the number-one slot on the App Store isn't really all that surprising in this day in age, so the Finnish studio has instead started measuring how quickly its releases make it to the top of the pile.

Bad Piggies, the company's swine/inventor simulator and latest release, shattered previous records set by Angry Birds Space and Amazing Alex by reaching the pinnacle of Apple's App Store barely three hours after its launch on September 27.

Rovio has also announced that Bad Piggies' first free update -- "Flight Into The Night" -- will be released within "the next few weeks" and will contain more levels, unlockable content and "exciting plot twists," which we can only assume will be M. Night Shyamalanish in nature. "It was me," the piggie thought to himself. "I was the angry one all along."

This is Portabliss, a column about downloadable games that can be played on the go.

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I think I'm starting to understand a paradox embraced by the level designers of Rayman Jungle Run. To do good, and to earn praise from their players, they must do evil. They must string together chasms, ropes, hills and hazards in a way that rewards concentration and casts failure into a bottomless pit. It's a thankless job that thrives on devious impulses, and I am grateful for it.

Rayman Jungle Run is a mean, clever purification of Ubisoft's console game, Rayman Origins. The immediate reward of playing it can be seen in the gorgeous 2D artwork, which is vivid proof of the UbiArt engine running well on mobile platforms. There's more personality crammed into Rayman's spirited run than you'll find in the entirety of some other games – and he doesn't even have a leg to stand on.

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22 Cans, Peter Molyneux's development studio, is "only going to make one game and that's it," Molyneux tells VG24/7.

Of course, this game will come after the 22 "experiments" Molyneux's team is working on now, the first of which is Curiosity: What's inside the Cube, a million-player game that ends with one person discovering the life-changing secret inside a big cube.

"But everything that we do, every thought that we have, every moment of a day, is all working towards this full game," Molyneux says. "22 Cans is only going to make one game and that's it. You just release that single experience then you refine it and adapt it like – and don't think of this in any way other than an analogy – when a TV company makes a soap opera."

Considering Curiosity was announced in June and has since undergone a delay, name change and beta (and is expected to launch on iOS any day now), we can look forward to 22 Cans' actual, singular game in about seven years.

Product 3 LLC is in the midst of a Kickstarter campaign for its mobile gaming device, the
iControlPad 2. With just under two weeks to go, the project has met over half of its $150k funding goal.

Improving on the original iControlPad, the device includes a QWERTY keypad as well as a swivel-mount that clamps to your smartphone of choice. As demonstrated in the video above, the controller is expected to work with any app due to its open-source nature. The Kickstarter page for the iControlPad 2 lists Ouya and Raspberry Pi support in addition to a 12-14 hour battery life.

[Thanks, Ashley!]