Free Things Friday: iPad Crimson Steam Pirates, Android Tetris, and Some Videos on 3DS

It’s Friday! And because it’s Friday, to help you ring in the freakin’ weekend, here’s some free stuff that you can check out on your various mobile devices.

So, you know, when you up in the club, you can take a break from booty-dancing and play some games or some shit.

First up, and probably the most exciting thing on this list, is Crimson: Steam Pirates, published by Bungie Aerospace. It’s available for free for iPad, so if you’ve got one, you should go download this right now if you’ haven’t already. The game is a top-down, RTS game, but with a steampunk vibe. I think we are still not officially sick of the steampunk thing, and when executed well, it’s actually pretty awesome. The game was developed by Harebrained Schemes, led by Jordan Weisman—who’s the smarty behind classic tabletop games like HeroClix, Battletech, Mech Warrior, Mage Knight…I could go on. Check out this video, featuring an interview with Weisman himself:

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Next up, for all you Android device-users (such as myself), the other day EA released a pretty slick version of Tetris for free. Yes, there are ads. But fortunately, they only come before or after you finish a game. It’d be pretty horrible if they popped up after every time you got a line or something. Anyway, it’s got a neat touch-control interface that works most of the time. It’s definitely a worthy download. Scoop it up right here.

Last and definitely least, we have Nintendo’s 3DS stuff. With some videos. The Nintendo Video App released two new 3D videos (obvs) this week, while the eShop has a couple videos to whet your appetite for forthcoming actually playable content. Yesterday saw the launch of a new 3DS-exclusive show, called, appropriately, Nintendo Show 3D. Hosted by comedienne Jessie Cantrell, the show is okay…but not very funny (but I don’t think that’s necessarily Cantrell’s fault). But it does offer a video preview of the introduction to Star Fox 64 3D. Hopefully this thing will start to get better when there’s more robust content to talk about.

In addition, the eShop channel for Star Fox 64 3D also shows you how to access a different storyline branch in the game—a trick that players of the original version may have known but forgotten in the 10 or so intervening years since the last time they played.

So that’s what you got for Friday.

You’re welcome.