The Social Gaming weekly roundup: The lowdown in Happy Aquarium, FarmVille, and more

It looks like we've opened up a popular can of worms with this feature, as we've now received various social gaming emails, letters, and carrier pigeons letting us know what's happening in their social games.

Don't hesitate to get in touch, as we'd love to flesh out the feature with as much as we can with the view of keeping you all up to speed. It's our sacred duty.

Would something like a Social Gamer of the Week be of interest? Or perhaps some competitive challenges to see if you the reader can beat us in a challenge? Let us know.

Right then. On with the show.

CrowdStar

This week saw the release of a new social games network, CrowdStar.

Brought to you by Peter Relan, the man behind the iPhone's Aurora Feint and OpenFeint, CrowdStar is responsible for Happy Aquarium and Happy Pets, both games accumulating some serious user amounts.

From the looks of things, Happy Aquarium is very like FishVille by Zynga, only it's been going for longer and enjoys over 27 million fish-friendly users. Happy Pets is its latest game, which has you looking after a cutesy kitten.

CrowdStar told us that its games have virtual items that can be purchased with real money. But the company stays clear of advertisements and offers, which means safer gaming on Facebook - especially considering the Zynga advertisement 'fiasco' we reported in our first two social roundups.

Mafia Wars

Still the king baby, and one of the finer ways to waste away your precious free time in an effort to become a top mafia gangster.

This was 'Big Apple' week, with a unique mission known as 'Raid the Docks' available to help you level up and gain unique wares.

However, the real news is the double experience and rewards available up until the 24th of this month. As if that wasn't enough, one-off Thanksgiving presents can be sent to friends including a Parade Balloon, Pigskin helmet and more.

FarmVille

FarmVille players rejoice. It would seem Zynga has been beavering away, and the result is a vast array of new features that will make any farmer proud to be in the profession.

First up is storage. You can now use Barns and Tool Sheds to hold items, presumably meaning you can store away your collection of Elephant Topiaries you've been sent in the thousands. About time, too.

Then there are more limited edition items to buy with game and real money. That's right - you can now add that Carnival tent and Ferris Wheel you've always dreamed of. We're surprised these items have been overlooked for so long as no farm is complete without them.

Also included are some other very colourful items which will no doubt brighten your farm no end.

To help life on the farm, Zynga has released a Chicken Coop and a Dairy Farm to cram all your cows and chickens into, making harvesting a matter of a few easy clicks. However, if you ask us it seems a bit too 'battery' like for our tastes as somehow the tiny dairy building houses an astonishing 20 cows.

Last but not least, we come to the Flower Stand. You can create bouquets of flowers and sell them to friends. There's no disputing the entrepreneurialism of the FarmVille farmers, but then again it is the credit crunch so can we really blame them?

FishVille

Not a lot to report, here. We've been madly hatching Scooter Blenny fish to level up, and our tanks have been decorated to the point where seeing the fish is difficult, but when it comes to gameplay changes or additions, not a lot has happened.

We're wanting to see what backgrounds and awards Zynga incorporates, though.

Pet Society Playfish is responsible for Pet Society, a hugely popular pet game on Facebook. You may remember the name from last week's report. It was after all bought by the mighty developer Electronic Arts for $300 million.

We're not greatly familiar with Pet Society as things stand, but we can report that the luxury shop pricing has been slashed in half, so no excuse not to get that bubble chair your cat keeps asking you to purchase.

Mashable Awards This week we stumbled upon The Open Web Awards - Social Media awards. Pet Society above is one such game to make the shortlist amongst some of the other giants from the genre.

It'll be interesting to see who wins what, so we shall let you know how it goes down. Unfortunately, the nomination phase is over, but you can get yourself over here to cast your vote.

Facebook

Microsoft clearly sees just how integral Facebook and Twitter are in today's society as it has just added social networking to Xbox Live. When combined, Twitter and Facebook enjoy over 400 million users so it was only a matter of time before someone jumped on the popular bandwagon.

In other news

• Our luck is changing, and one of our esteemed staff members won a fight in MyBrute. Suffice to say we were all gobsmacked.
• For those who were interested in the Facebook group created by MP Tom Watson we mentioned last week, it's called Gamers' Voice.