When Orcs Must Die released last year for PC and Xbox Live Arcade, it introduced players to a solid mix of hack-and-slash action and strategy, as you had to prepare defenses for an invading swarm of goblins while also using any weapons you had on hand to cut them down to size.  The game turned out to be a big hit, but Robot was disappointed that, according to their press release, “only 3.4 billion orcs have been slaughtered to date”.  (Well, we’re SO sorry!)  With that, the company is moving forward with a sequel, which will be hitting PC this summer, and hopefully consoles soon after.

New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski is one of the players vying to be on the cover of EA Sports Madden NFL 13. He even created a video for Electronic Arts to explain why he should be on the cover. Gronkowski spent some time with Activision to play the new Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Collection 1 DLC in Los Angeles. He talks about how much he loves the new game in the exclusive video interview below. But he also calls Madden boring and prefers to play COD and NHL 12 when he’s gaming. Check out everything he has to say in the video below.

Funtactix, a worldwide developer and publisher of social games based on movies, has been working closely with Lionsgate to deliver The Hunger Games Adventures to fans of the blockbuster film franchise. The game developer worked closely with author Suzanne Collins on the new casual game, which features the same game engine technology as Mission: Impossible The Game and Rango: The WORLD. With the first movie continuing to break box office records with $61.1 million in its second weekend and $364.9 million overall, this new game will serve to bridge the gap between movies. Three more films are planned.

The creative mind behind Counter-Strike, Minh Le,was in San Francisco for GDC 2012 to unveil his latest creation, Tactical Intervention. The new first-person shooter is being designed as a free-to-play game with input from fans of Counter-Strike. Le talks about this latest interactive experience in this exclusive video interview below.

PopCap Games is on a roll, aren’t they?  It seems no matter what they release as of late, it’s destined to suck up hours of your time without any hesitation.  That’s the way it was with Peggle, Bejeweled, Plants vs. Zombies, etc. etc.  But one of the earlier games they got started with, Zuma, remains just as fresh as the day it came out, thanks to sharp ball-shooting physics and diverse levels.  So when we caught wind that the company was releasing a sequel, Zuma’s Revenge HD, for iOS devices, we – ahem – jumped at the chance to check it out.

Sony Online Entertainment is readying its latest massively multiplayer online (MMO) game with PlanetSide 2. Creative director Matthew Higby was on hand at GDC 2012 to outline the impressive on-the-fly switch between flight, tanks and infantry in the new action shooter. Hiby discusses the multitude of combat options in this cool new MMO experience in the exclusive video interview below.

For all those times we praise certain series for making changes, there are also those instances where we’re wondering why a developer made such changes in the first place.  As great as some of the previous Final Fantasy games have been, many have been hunkering for the classic days of SNES releases like Final Fantasy III and so forth, rather than the big-budgeted Final Fantasy XIII.  Namco, thankfully, hasn’t changed too much when it comes to its Tales franchise, and the latest entry in the series, Tales of Graces F, clearly shows that.  It’s old-school love like we seldom get anymore.