If all you ever wanted for Christmas is the possibility to play mobile games on your TV, Google Chromecast has you covered.
Google reveals that commended titles, such as Rovio's Angry Birds Friends, have landed on the affordable media streamer. From now on, you are able to test your dexterity at knocking down green pigs on the largest TV in your house.
The search engine giant made public that other beloved titles can be found on Chromecast, with variants for both Android and iOS. Racing enthusiasts might like to know that Ubisoft's Driver Speedboat Paradise now lets you race around global waters on a big screen TV.
Some of the titles that Google revamped to play nicely with a living room screen are Yahtzee Blitz, Scrabble Blitz 2.0 and The Game of Life.
Chromecast features two of the most popular Hasbro games, and they are here to make winter holidays an unforgettable experience for the family.
Enter Monopoly Here & Now and most exciting of all, the beloved strategy board game Risk. Finally, people who wanted to take parenting and metaphors to a new level of "geekiness" can teach their children that it does not matter how easy it is to occupy Asia, but how long you can control it.
"For example, if you are playing Monopoly Here & Now, only you can see your cards on your phone while the moves you decide to make get displayed on the big screen," explained Wendi Zhang, who is the lead for business development games at Chromecast.
Zhang also said that the multiplayer experiences end up being more fun on a big screen TV.
For mobile gaming, Chromecast enables a neat split-screen experience. Also, Google aims to bring a cohort of other games on its set-top box in the coming months.
This year's model makes it a breeze to enjoy any kind of digital entertainment. Simply connect the gizmo to your HDTV's HDMI port, log in to the Wi-Fi home network and start discovering the myriad of fun ways of using Chromecast.
It allows you to stream your favorite apps from your compatible phone, tablet or laptop. Additionally, it transforms your handset into a remote to search, play and pause content.
How much for the versatile gadget? Best Buy currently sells it for $30, offering a $5 discount.
Speaking of discounts, PC gaming fans should know that Steam lately rolled out its anticipated Winter Sale. This means that significant discounts on popular titles and special trading cards wait for you until 10 a.m. PST on Jan. 4, 2016.
If you are pondering whether or not to offer Google's Chromecast as a gift this season, there are a couple of strong reasons to do so. Let us compare Chromecast 2 with Apple TV, Roku 4 and Fire TV.
First of all, the streaming devices from Google and Apple have a 1080p cap, which means good but not stellar visual quality. Amazon and Roku offer 4K support, but without a TV to support it, the 4000p resolution remains a paper-spec.
One big plus for Roku is that it sports a headphone port, meaning that you can actually enjoy playing or watching content without disturbing anyone in the house.
The controllers of the streaming devices are different, and each has its advantages. For Chromecast, the biggest advantage is that most smartphones play seamlessly with Google's set-top box.
When it comes to the price point, Chromecast 2 wins by a large margin due to the incredibly affordable $35 price tag. Next in line, Amazon Fire TV asks $99 per unit, Roku $129 per unit and Apple $149 for the smaller, 32 GB variant.
Regardless of your choice in streaming devices, Christmas time remains a good moment to play games with your family, digitally or on an actual board. Have fun!
