Plants vs. Zombies, released for PC and Mac a couple of months ago, is a quirky little tower defense game from PopCap Games that has players using plants to defend their house against a zombie invasion. If that sounds right up your alley, then here's some good news.

We've got a big week to close out February. All the trailer-ogling and screen-scrutinizing is finally gonna pay off. For starters, the wait is soon to be over for the highly-anticipated Killzone 2. As if that's not big enough, Star Ocean: The Last Hope will also be hitting stores. Need I say more? Err...yes I do! Catch all the details on this week's edition of On Shelves This Week.

Now you're gonna have to fight your Wii-loving family members for the PlayStation 3. PopCap Games is releasing its heavy hitters on the PlayStation Network, starting off with the most addictive one of them all, Bejeweled 2, available today.

An apple a day keeps the doctor away? Forget it. Play a round of Bejeweled instead. According to a new study, casual games are proven to be beneficial for your health. Details in the full article.

 The video game industry is undoubtedly dominated by males, but we do know that gaming is not just a big frat house. Female gamers do exist, and like the opposite gender, they come in different shapes, sizes and forms. If you do your homework, you'll also notice that girl gamers have distinct traits which allow us to divide them into several types (just like guys). In this QuickList, we'll give you a rundown on what these types are. Hit that jump!

The Casual Games Association has announced that it will be hosting Casual Connect Europe. This event will run from February 6 to 8 in Amsterdam and is being held to gather industry leaders in the hope of promoting casual games as well as securing its future development.

Want to know more? Check out the full article via the "read more" link below.

A study, commissioned by PopCap Games, showed that women love a good game of Cake Mania, and they aren't shy about it. After media content providers were determined to deliver advertisements catering to the young male bracket on consoles, the study by Information Solutions Group (ISG) reveals that casual gamers are "predominantly female."

Looking for numbers? Try 76% casual gamers that are female against 24% male casual gamers. And even over at Yahoo! Games and Electronic Arts casual gaming bet Pogo, more casual gamers are female.

The non-gamer bracket that included your girlfriend and your grandmother is now blessed with a gamers' edge on Zuma, thanks to the simplistic, yet entertaining casual game. With Miyamoto's previous speech on catering the Nintendo Wii to women, it's now clear that introducing games to the female bracket shows just how big of a market the game industry can tap into.

The games women play may not be "hardcore," but it's a start for toning hand-eye coordination technique and basic game mechanics. Females are entering the mainstream gaming scene, and not as promo girls on the side (mind you).

Even if the hardcore gamers are predominantly male, it's no indication that it should stay that way. There are already girl gamers around in the professional gaming scene, and it won't be a surprise if that increased this year, too.

One such study back in 2006 highlighted that 42% of adult console gamers were female, and the rest were male. In a broader scale, PC and console games were played by more males than females: 62% against 38%. So in essence, the gaming demographics is becoming more evenly distributed as time rolls on.

And with the success of the Nintendo Wii and MMO games, this year could spell the game industry's renewed focus on delivering games to gamers, and not games to males only.

Casual games maker PopCap Games has just announced that a brand new position has been created in the company: VP of Video Game Platforms. Filling in this position would be Greg Canessa, former GM for Microsoft's XBLA service. With this appointment, the company is hoping to be able to further expand its reach to video game consoles, handhelds, as well as related online gaming services.

According to the newly-appointed Canessa,

From the Xbox 360 video game console to handheld videogame devices and more, PopCap's lineup of casual games are really well suited for a wide range of platforms, and I'm excited to have this opportunity to help guide PopCap's future growth.

For those who are not familiar with this man, he is one of those who helped define and manage Microsoft's online games strategy, and has been an early advocate of bringing casual games to the Xbox 360. To date, six titles from PopCap Games have already been released on the XBox and Xbox 360, both of which have proven to be successful.

So, does this mean more Zuma and Chuzzle goodness on all major platforms. We'll find out soon enough in the months ahead.

If you look at the lineup of games for the said consoles, most of them are geared for your typical hard-core gamer - tough, challenging games that require you to rack up hours of play before you can duke it out online without looking like a klutzy noob.

Then there's casual games: simple and addictive packages you'll usually be playing in your mobiles, iPods or PDAs. These are the kind of games that PopCap Games is known for.

Known for developing the highly popular Bejeweled 2 and Zuma games, PopCap has already had considerable success in light of the mainstream gaming industry - the release of their games on XBLA, and their recent network collaborations with Valve Software among their recent successes.

These days, they're aiming for wider horizons as CEO David Roberts discusses, in a recent interview by Next Generation's Kris Graft, PopCap's plans in light of the soon-to-be-released PS3 and Wii.

With regards to the upcoming XBLA-ish features he had seen on their future consoles, Roberts commented that while a lot of work had already been done on these two consoles, they were bit behind in comparison to the XBLA. Noting that Microsoft had the time advantage with regards to networking and how it would take a bit more effort for Sony and Nintendo to hold their ground with regards to this.

“The first time I saw XBLA was before they shipped it, and I was truly astounded at how much work they had done to make the kind of ecosystem around it. It seems like it’s simple, but like a lot of things that seem simple, there’s a lot of work that went on to make it that way, " Roberts said.

In connection with this, Roberts also had much to say about their recent collaboration with Valve, specifically how he feels that even hardcore gamers could enjoy the occasional casual game.

“The games are still fun, and just because women over 40 like playing Bejeweled and Zuma doesn’t mean that they are the only people that play Bejeweled and Zuma. You know, we don’t make ‘games for girls.’ A lot of people think that’s what casual games are; that they’re games designed specifically for women over thirty-five." as he said with regards to this.

Roberts plans to venture into PS3 and Wii's gaming selections in the near future with this mindset, believing that their line-up of games would be welcome for both the casual mainstream players, and the more hardcore community.

While some of the more hardcore dudes out there might cry foul over this seeming waste of the said console's other features, we think they just might be on to a niche market that the Sony and Nintendo bigwigs haven't really looked into. Feel free to read the source link to read the full interview.

There are people who like spending hours playing PopCap games. We call them the casual gamers. There are also those who would devote a large chunk of their time playing MMORPGs. We can categorize them as the "hardcore gamers.". And of course, let's not miss out people who take gaming more seriously, such that they would study its idiosyncrasies.

Those people really take serious gaming up a notch, and they will be holding the Serious Games Summit, a conference for people who, well, take serious games seriously (this includes serious games creators and commissioners). The said summit will feature talks and forums regarding serious game development and how it could be used to help in healthcare, education, science and social change.

As such, Henry Jenkins was tasked to give the keynote speech entitled, "Serious Games in the Age of Media Convergence and Collective Intelligence." Jenkins is a DeFlorz Professor of Humanities and Director of Comparative Media Studies at MIT, principal investigator for the MacArthur Foundation-funded New Media Literacies as well as co-founder and director of The Education Arcade, which currently looks into the educational aspect of computer and video games.

The said conference will be held at the Crystal Gateway Marriott in Arlington, VA from October 30-31.