New Apps of the Week

The 2014-15 NFL football season has officially kicked off and that means it is time to prepare for your fantasy football draft. Here's a quick look at all the fantasy football related apps, cheats sheets and draft kits recently updated for 2014.

NFL Fantasy Football Cheat Sheet & Draft Kit 2014 ($4.99) ***App of the Week*** This is a one stop shop for everything you'll need for your fantasy football draft. It includes updated player rankings and the ability to keep track of multiple leagues.

ESPN Fantasy Football (Free) ESPN's official FF app is a great way to stay updated on trades, injuries, and scoring updates throughout the season. It also offers draft kits for auction and snake leagues, plus access to ESPN's Mock and Live Draft Lobbies.

It was a slow week for App Store releases but a few big announcements were made in the wake of Comic Con. As promised, Flappy Bird made its return, but on Amazon Fire TV not for iOS or Android devices. The new game is called Flappy Birds Family and it features a new ghost obstacle plus a head-to-head mode where players can race on a split-screen.

Rubicon Development announced development has begun on Ultimate War Game. You can see the first teaser image in the "Trailers / Preview" section below. Forsaken released the first trailer for Phantom Rift, and Luderia Games ' Spooklands is slated to hit the App Store on August 21st.

Mythic Entertainment's Ultima Forever is being shut down on August 21st. The struggling game studio was closed by EA in May after the failure of Dungeon Keeper.

There is a large mobile gaming presence at San Diego Comic Con this year and plenty of developers are showing off their upcoming mobile gaming lineups. Rovio Entertainment previewed Angry Birds Transformers, and AMC launched the first teaser trailer for The Walking Dead: No Man’s Land. Bandai Namco announced three titles at the event: Outcast Odyssey, Pac-Man Friends and Pac-Man Championship Edition DX. All three games will be available for mobile devices later this year. It was also announced that the original cast of Firefly would reunite to voice the upcoming online game based on the television show. You can check out the Firefly Online and the other SDCC trailers at the end of this post.

Marvel is offering 1-month of Marvel Unlimited for only $0.99 for a limited time, and the mobile game Uncanny X-Men: Days of Future Past is now only $1. Storm and Polaris were also added as playable characters along with the price decrease.

There were also a lot of iPad-only games released this week and the first Hearthstone expansion "Curse of Naxxramas" is now available. You can see a list of all the newly released iPad games here. The only one we missed was the strategy game Commander the Great War which launched later in the week. It is available now for $14.99 on the App Store.

Released two weeks ago, 2K Games' Civilization Revolution 2 only has a two star rating on the App Store. This is sad because Civ Rev is one of the few games with a $14.99 premium price tag. 2K had the chance to strike a blow to the popular freemium model plaguing the App Store by releasing a great game for the iPad, but instead they delivered a buggy, lackluster effort not worth the high price, according to fans.

Fans of the Civilization franchise claim Revolution is more of a remake than a sequel. Players have complained that the game seems "lazy" and that there are only a handful of new units. Some also say that the new 3D graphics add nothing of value and even slow the game down in some cases. Fans are also unhappy about the games new "buggy" interface, lack of a multiplayer option and other basic control issues like not being able to zoom out of maps. Hopefully the game is not so bad that 2K can't fix it with a future update.

This was a big week for iOS app updates, MInecraft received its largest upgrade since it was released to iOS devices. Version 0.9.0 of the Minecraft Pocket Edition adds a host of new features including infinite worlds, new blocks like Monster Eggs, new biomes from the PC version and a new interaction button to solve an issue that caused players to accidentally dig or punch. Google Play Music was updated with gapless playback and the ability to download subscribed playlist, and the Broadway theater tickets app,TodayTix added personalized codes so users can earn $10 credit towards future purchases by referring their family friends

In iOS gaming news, Gameloft finally announced a release date for Modern Combat 5: Blackout. The first person shooter will be available for both iOS and Android devices on July 24, 2014. Q*bert made a comeback this week. Q*bert Rebooted is now available on Mac, Windows and Linux and it is headed to mobile devices later this year.