March Madness Facebook Game Showdown: Final Four

Upsets galore in the second round of our March Madness Facebook Game Showdown, just like in the real NCAA Basketball tournament.

In our quest to determine the best Facebook game, most of our match-ups have been cruising along without any major upsets. No longer! In the second round of our Showdown, things went haywire with several favorites finding themselves on the outs, including three of Zynga's most popular games.
Pet Society by Playfish continued its unlikely run as its fans backed it all the way through to the Final Four. Pet Society defeated Zynga Poker 57% to 43% in a close match-up. Pet Society has now defeated two higher seeded Zynga produced opponents in Cafe World and Zynga Poker.

In what is likely the biggest upset this side of VCU over Kansas, Treasure Isle defeated the heavily favored FarmVille. The two Zynga made games went head to head and in unbelievable turn of events, Treasure Isle squeaked by FarmVille 52% to 48%. Unreal, considering how much Games.com -- The Blog! readers favor FarmVille over all else.

The last in our upset trifecta is the defeat of staff favorite FrontierVille by Pop Cap's plucky arcade classic Bejeweled Blitz. In what has to be the triumph of the name brand, Bejeweled over the newer FrontierVille, Bejeweled Blitz won 54% to 45%.

Rounding out our final match up of the second round and last Final Four participant CityVille, the number one seed in the tournament defeated Mafia Wars. CityVille is the only top seeded game to advance to the Final Four trounced Mafia Wars handily 66% to 33%

Here the Final Four match-ups for the March Madness Facebook Game Showdown:

E3 2011: Pet Society Vacation on iPhone takes your Facebook pet on a tropical trip

Before this year's E3, we were given nothing more than a name to go on for EA Interactive and Playfish's newest iOS game, but what a name it was: Pet Society Vacation. Today, we may not have been able to go hands-on with Pet Society Vacation, or even see it in action (due to a temporary wi-fi issue), but we did learn more about what makes this expansion of the established Facebook game tick.

First and foremost, Pet Society Vacation isn't so much a new game as it is a way for you to earn exclusive items back in your Facebook game. Your pet's appearance and level from Facebook will be brought over to this tropical expansion and island, where you'll be given a house boat. The house boat has a single room, but over time can be expanded just like your normal home. These rooms, of course, will be empty, so a set of tropical item shops will be available in the game to allow you to outfit both your new rooms and your pet in tropical gear. Unfortunately, if you have any themed items currently in your Facebook inventory, you can't access these from Vacation, so you really are starting from scratch in that respect.

As for earning coins in Vacation, you'll be able to visit friends and care for your friends' pets as you'd expect, but you can also play a new Scuba-diving mini-game to dig for not only coins under the water, but also new decorative items for your house boat.

Even if you have a lot of Pet Society friends in the original game on Facebook, you won't be able to send free gifts to all of them via the app; only the ones that also play Vacation on iPhone. Additionally, due to the fact that both games on are different platforms, you'll have to accept not being able to use your saved premium currency on Facebook over in Vacation and vice versa.

Pet Society Vacation will launch on iPhone and iPod Touch later this summer and will be free to download. Get ready to connect your Facebook account once more to start new adventures with your pets on the go!