Rexona's Nature Nurture brings real virtual gardening to Facebook

Tired of controlling virtual characters in your Facebook games? Why not try controlling a real gardener?

Rexona's Nature Nurture is pretty unique, as far as Facebook promotions go. The "game," such as it is, is simply a live video feed (containing four selectable angles) of a gardener among dozens of plants. You "play" using on-screen buttons to command the gardener to perform basic plant maintenance tasks like fertilizing, watering, trimming, misting and even adding earthworms. Then you simply watch as the gardener works through the queue of commands. It's a lot like Farmville, except instead of gaining levels and coins, you gain the satisfaction of helping maintain real plants.

You also get the satisfaction of watching this lone gardener as he goes slowly crazy working among the plants. As I played, I managed to get my gardener, Carlos, to do a set of manic jumping jacks (pictured), play some smooth jazz music and sing along to a medley of Beatles songs. It's like improv theater mixed with gardening mixed with gaming mixed with understated advertising, and the combination is totally great. Try it out.

FarmVille Valentine's Day Theme Showcase 3 [Video]

Today, Zynga silently confirmed that more new Valentine's Day themed items would be released in FarmVille to coincide with the upcoming holiday by releasing a third video in their now trio of Valentine's Day Theme Showcase videos. This video also looks to show off a few more items that may be releasing in honor of the Chinese New Year.

This video shows off a ton of unreleased items, many of which we're just seeing for the first time. There's a lovely pink fountain, two gnomes (one appears as though she may be wearing a wedding dress), what looks like a Pink Stallion, a Bamboo Forest, a chair and building absolutely covered in sweet treats (a new theme perhaps), an adorable, animated drive-in movie theater and more.

As usual, the details concerning these items are slim at best, as we don't know when they will release in full, how they'll be released (Mystery Game, store, free gifts, etc.) or how much they'll cost (where applicable). Stay tuned though - we'll be sure to give you all the details about these new items as soon as they launch in the game.