Sledgehammer Games is still working on improving the online experience for Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare – even with the several updates that have been released thus far – but Activision is forging ahead with the franchise. In fact, it’s expanding it into the mobile gaming space with the announcement of Call of Duty: Heroes.

Heroes isn’t a first person shooter though – it’s a 3D combat strategy game that’s free to play and includes heroes from games like Modern Warfare and Black Ops 2. And yes, that means John Price and Soap MacTavish can be recruited, each possessing their own abilities and killstreaks that can be called in when the going gets tough. From here, you’ll build up a strong fighting force and combat other players.

The good news is that it features a campaign mode for solo players along with a survival mode for endless waves of foes. Call of Duty: Heroes is currently available for iOS and Windows Phone 8 tablets. It will release soon for Android and the Amazon App Store.

Another classic PC franchise is going to be bastardized via a free to play, made for mobiles installment, as a new Zoo Tycoon game, called Zoo Tycoon Friends, has been announced by Microsoft to be hitting Windows 8 PCs and tablets, and Windows Phone 8 smartphones.

The game looks rather similar to the Zoo Tycoon game that Microsoft released last year for the Xbox 360 and Xbox One, although the introduction of free to play mechanics, along side the associated paring back of traditional gameplay mechanics, probably means the game won’t be half as fun as last year’s game (which, in turn wasn’t quite as good as the classic PC installments) was.

Zoo Tycoon Friends will be developed by Doritos Crash Course studio Behaviour Interactive (yes, apparently that is a studio name), and will encourage players to actually interact with the animals, rather than the more sim like focus of the original PC games.

Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes has receive a bunch of pre-order incentives, with Konami announcing that you’ll receive bonus staff for the Mother Base. Though the Mother Base recruitment and base building mechanic is actually contained within The Phantom Pain, the incentives received here will automatically be available in the second game.

So any staff and POWs rescued in Ground Zeroes will be available to the Base in The Phantom Pain. Other bonus items have yet to be revealed, but it’s been implied that rescuing certain staff will affect your status in The Phantom Pain. The content will automatically open for those who pick up the Digital Edition when TPP releases.

As for iDroid app, new details reveal that it will act as a second screen to showcase the world map and allow you to call in air support besides playing cassettes collected and viewing leaderboards. It will also allow for a standalone game within which you can build Mother Base. The iDroid app will be available for iOS, Android and Windows Phone 8.

Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes releases on March 18th in North America and March 20th in Europe for Xbox One, Xbox 360, PS3 and PS4.

Rumours have been running that Microsoft will be be launching a voice search assistant similar to Apple’s Siri, and that it will be based off of Halo’s AI Cortana with the same voice and mannerisms. Now, a recent report by Bloomberg citing an anonymous source says that Microsoft has invested $15 million in FourSquare to develop the app.

Though CEO Dennis Crowley confirmed an investment, it hasn’t been revealed exactly how much and for what purpose it serves. As of now, Cortana is rumoured to be a voice-assistant that will conduct searches similar to Microsoft’s “TellMe” service and will be arriving on Windows Phone 8 smartphones. Not much is known beyond that.

Given the popularity of Cortana, it remains to be seen as to how Microsoft leverages this for success. Though the company has turned to Halo for bumping up sales of smartphones and tablets with Spartan Assault, Windows Phone devices are still in a distant third compared to Android and iOS. Stay tuned for more updates.

FIFA 14 on mobiles has apparently also topped free game charts in 148 countries on iOS and is also one of the of the top ten grossing iPhone titles in 155 countries. Though it was expected that the game would be immensely popular – despite this being the first time that FIFA has ever adopted a free to play model – it’s amazing that EA has managed to score not one but two big releases with this model in the past few months alone.

A Windows Phone 8 version will be available “soon” according to EA and will require at least 512 MB of RAM. Stay tuned for more details.

Game Overview:

Halo: Spartan Assault takes place in a futuristic setting. It takes place between the events of Halo 3 in 2553 and the events of Halo 4 in 2557. The game features 25 missions and also includes achievements.

The game is published by Microsoft and developed by 343 Industries and Vanguard Games.

The game is available for the Windows 8 PC and Windows 8 mobile.

Check out the video walk-through of Halo Spartan Assault below and let us know if you have any questions in the comments section below.

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Unlike the Xbox releases of Halo, Spartan Assault is a top-down, twin-stick third person shooter developed by Vanguard Entertainment in association with 343 Industries. The game features 25 missions, along with weekly challenges and opportunities to earn Xbox Achievements and compete against friends in the leaderboards.

You’ll also be able to earn experience points from which you can upgrade and customize your Spartan. All Emblems and Achievements earned will also be integrated with one’s Halo 4 career.

Halo: Spartan Assault is currently retailing for £4.99 GBP. The Windows Phone 8 version of the game hasn’t been released yet but is expected to be available soon.

As of now, Unity on the Xbox One will support Kinect, gaming via a second screen through SmartGlass and of course, Cloud computing. On top of that, developers publishing their games through Microsoft can use Unity without paying any charge. Licensed Unity Pro 4 developers will also benefit from Unity waiving a $1500 license fee thanks to the agreement with Microsoft.

The commercial version of the Unity Add-on for Windows 8 will release this summer, and will support both Windows Store apps and Windows Phone 8 apps.

Spartan Assault will cover the very first missions of the Spartan Ops program and detail the rise of Commander Sarah Palmer across 25 missions.

Players will be able to earn XP, unlock 40 in-game Achievements and emblems that can be used for one’s Halo 4 Spartan career, take part in weekly challenges and more.

It will also support in-game purchases for quick levelling and weapon boosting, though players can earn their abilities and upgrades by grinding as well. Halo: Spartan Assault will retail for $6.99 and be available as a digital download.

Three unnamed sources, according to Bloomberg, pegged the sales of the Surface to be quite disappointing, especially considering that Microsoft ordered 3 million Surface RTs to be produced, expecting 2 million to be sold by the fourth quarter of last year itself.

Speaking to WSJ, Samsung co-CEO JK Shin also confirmed that devices based on the new Windows 8 OS aren’t doing so hot. “Smartphones and tablets based on Microsoft’s Windows operating system aren’t selling very well. There is a preference in the market for Android. In Europe, we’re also seeing lacklustre demand for Windows-based products.”

So next time you wonder why there aren’t more products from the likes of HTC or Samsung in the Windows Phone 8 market, it’s because they know what consumers really want.

Source: GIBiz