Gaming has really taken a left turn. Today’s Blips mostly deal with mobile games and browser games that used to be mobile games. Maybe it actually is time for the next round of consoles.

News Blips:

By combining popcorn and dragons, PopCap has developed its new iOS game, Popcorn Dragon. Dragons and popcorn are two of my favorite things. One is a tasty treat to eat at the movies, and the other one is popcorn. PopCap shares my love, and this winter they’ll share it with the rest of you in the form of an iPhone/iPad game where players control a mystical flying reptile that devours pieces of popped corn. Sounds kinda stupid, right? Well, so did Peggle and Plants Vs. Zombies before you played each game so long that your legs fell asleep on the crapper. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m about to watch Hope Floats on DVD, and I need to put some butter and salt on my dragon. [ShackNews]

Register now for access to a public preview of the new Xbox 360 dashboard. Microsoft is pulling a Barack Obama by promising that change will come to the Xbox 360 dashboard. Also like Barack Obama, I probably have unrealistic expectations for these improvements. The update is scheduled to roll out around the holidays, but if you can’t wait, then click here to sign up for a chance at early access. At least with this, when I end up disappointed, I can throw in a copy of Dark Souls or Batman: Arkham City. I bet people would be a lot happier with Obama if they could play video games on him.

EA will safely park Burnout Crash on Apple’s suite of mobile devices, and then...kaboom! OK, so maybe it won’t explode, but it will allow iPhone and iPad owners to cause huge pileups and massive destruction. Developer Criterion’s car-wrecking game was originally released as an Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network title, but with its simplistic graphics and touch-ready gameplay, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the publisher is going after some of that App Store money. EA Games would only say that this would likely be a “holiday release.” Nothing says Hanukkah like multi-million-dollar car crash. [Destructoid]

Star Legends: The Blackstar Chronicles, a mobile-phone MMO, will be the first browser game with full 3D visuals. “This game industry milestone was accomplished through the use of the [Native Client open-source technology] which allows Spacetime Studios to run native C++ code inside a sandboxed environment within the Chrome browser,” said the developer’s press release in a language that apparently is English but had very few words that I could understand. The freemium title will also allow for cross-platform play between users on their smartphones and those playing on the PC.

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