FIFA Superstars now available on iPhone: Manage your dream team on the go

Electronic Arts has had a heck of a summer in the mobile gaming space, especially where its Facebook games are concerned. Via Playfish, both Pet Society and Restaurant City have taken the leap of faith to the mobile platform, and now FIFA Superstars has joined suit. For the low, low price of "free," you can now download FIFA Superstars from the iTunes App Store for either iPhone or iPad (note: the game can be played on iPad, but is optimized for iPhone-only).

Once you download the game, you'll be greeted with the mandatory EA Origin sign-up process. Origin is EA's attempt at a social network and digital download service, of course focusing solely on EA's titles, and if you already have an EA account, they're one in the same, allowing you to login and start playing. From there, the gameplay seems to have been ripped straight from the Facebook game, allowing you to collect cards containing players and various stats, and then build a team using the best-of-the-best. You'll then collect different equipment, implement new tactics to give your team the advantage, and can then take to the field to test your prowess.

As of right now, all of that sounds just fine, but the game itself seems to be running into some loading issues. We've tried on three devices to get the game to load, but it locks up after logging into Origin. We'd assume that these are just early-launch bugs, and that they will be cleared up shortly, but don't panic if the game doesn't work for you upon downloading it: You're (unfortunately) not alone.

Ready to take your chance with FIFA Superstars on iPhone? Download it here for free.

Will you try FIFA Superstars on your iPhone/iPad? Have you already tried to download the game, but are running into the issues we mentioned?

Top 25 Facebook Games - December 2011: FarmVille Strikes Back

I guess in Facebook game years, FarmVille is kind of like Obi Wan Kenobi. And boy, did Zynga's farming game come back stronger than we could possibly imagine, or what? As The Sims Social falls from its cushy number two spot after losing 7.9 million monthly players, FarmVille swoops in with a 2.8 million gain this month. CityVille lost a few million, but still clings to the top.

EA and Playfish's slugger dipped even further on December's daily players chart to fifth place with a loss of 1.1 million players. (This is what we chalk all that up to.) Of course, CastleVille--Zynga's fastest-growing game ever--makes a grand entrance into both top 25 charts. The kingdom-builder shot up to fifth place in monthly players with 20.8 million, and an impressive second place in daily players with 7.3 million. That should be the shot in the arm the company needs for its imminent public offering, no?

Not so fast, considering Mafia Wars 2 didn't even make the charts in daily players, the best measure of a game's dedicated (and paying) audience. Zynga launched Mafia Wars 2 in October. The game does, however, have 11.3 million monthly players, which ties it with Wooga's Diamond Dash. That puzzle game is nine months old.
Top 25 Facebook Games by MAU
An interesting newcomer to this lineup is Nordeus's Top Eleven, which creeps up in 25th place on the daily players charts with 950,000. Unfortunately, the rest of these charts look like business as usual, aside from Zynga's major losses including Adventure World, which hemorrhaged 4.3 million monthly players. Though, it's refreshing to see some more developers continue to thrive in the top 25 charts, like King.com with Bubble Witch Saga and 6waves Lolapps with Ravenskye City.

[Source and Image Credit: Inside Social Games]

How can The Sims Social reclaim its second place spot? What other games do you think deserve to be on this list?