If you are not familiar with Civilization, you might just be an alien or golem of some sort, but take heart all the same: you’ll soon be educated by your friends’ wall posts about their adventures in world domination. Sid Meier’s Civilization is a legendary series of highly addictive turn-based strategy games that are equally incredible in their multiplayer and single player forms. Civilization has turned up on computers and consoles of all sorts over the years, so the franchise’s move to Facebook is not altogether surprising… only sad, because come 2010, I don’t know if I’ll be able to peel myself away from Facebook long enough for important things like eating and leaving the house.

The game was just announced, so there isn’t much in the way of news beyond the fact that the Facebook version will launch next year, and there will soon be a beta in which a few lucky players can get an early start on playing their lives away.

[via Games.com]

While Fat Princess has two single-player modes, this game really shines in multiplayer, in a 32-player 2D fracas centered on capturing, instead of flags, fat princesses. Unfortunately for  you (or perhaps your opponents), cake grows on trees around these parts, and fat, cake-munching princesses are a lot harder to maneuver than flags.

Start stuffing princesses this Thursday on PlayStation 3.

[via Joystiq]

In the browser game Fragger, you aim grenades in order to solve problems. Er, puzzles. Puzzles. Though, in a pinch, I’d bet a grenade could solve an awful lot of problems.

Underneath, this simple game is about strategy (and blowing dudes up), and it’s important to consider each move carefully, because until you can prove yourself, you’ve got a limited amount of grenades.

[Fragger via IndieGames]

Available for pre-order over on the Star Wars Shop for an introductory price of $539 (USD), this Gentle Giant’s detailed chess set pits Dark vs. Light. The set includes 32 collectible pewter figurines, with the Jedi wearing gold and the Empire donning a silver finish. Darth Vader, Boba Fett, C3-PO, R2-D2, and all your favorites are ready to do battle on the chess board.

The board has a glass etched surface with imagery of the Death Star in the background. Under the board, there are padded storage drawers for protecting your pieces, but why would you want to hide the best part?

If you don’t want to wait until September 2009 to get your hands on one of these, I guess you’ll just have to settle for this LEGO minifig Star Wars chess set instead.

[via The Awesomer]

Casual kings PopCap are bringing that very scenario to the table with Plants vs. Zombies, a tower defense-inspired game that was almost hilariously titled Lawn of the Dead. And not only do the two sides fight in Plants vs. Zombies (as you might have guessed), but there are plants that can shoot things. Undead things. I’m sold.

Only this single screenshot is available for now, though a commenter on Offworld noticed a new flower creature on the PopCap home page that may be associated with the title.

[PopCap via Offworld]

The study, published in Psychology & Aging, reports that the test group who played the real-time-strategy title Rise of Nations, showed some cognitive improvement after time with the title. While the subjects — all of whom were 60 or older — did not improve in all categories, the gaming group showed increased reasoning ability and were better able to swap between tasks. Clearly, they are spreading the ADD to our parents and grandparents now, but if it gets them into multiplayer Civilization on Wednesday nights, is it worth a complaint?

Arthur Kramer, the man behind the study, cautioned that spending hours building a nation is certainly not the only thing older adults should do to help stave off loss of cognitive function, but he pointed out the connection between managing resources in a strategy game and managing one’s real-life finances. Anything that can help with that, and which also happens to be fun, can’t be a bad idea.

[PhysOrg via Wonderland]