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Aion Turns Free-to-play: What this Means for Players?

2011-12-19T01:11:00.000-08:00

As we know two days ago, Gameforge Europe's provider of online games, and NCsoft announced that Aion will switch into free-to-play model in February 2012 in Europe. What this means for the existing and future players? Today, Gameforge revealed details about the account model for fantasy MMO Aion.

Aion for everyone: each user, regardless of whether they are Starters or Veterans, will also receive full access to the item shop. Players are given the opportunity to pay real money to create their own individual character by purchasing, for example, unique pieces of clothing, rare pets or a new hairstyle. In addition, there is the Gold Pack option, which removes all the account's functional restrictions and grants additional bonuses to the player for a limited time, which can increase the amount of experience points gained or reduce the cooldown time after instance completion.

Beginners: new players, called Starters, can simply start playing and will get free access to Aion's entire game content right away. This includes, for example, races, classes, instances, equipment items, player versus player content and handcrafting jobs. The only limitations starters will have is reduced access to functions such as the chat and the auction house. These measures have been introduced to prevent the use of automated programmes (BOTs) and trading with real money.

Data reveals massive rise in free-to-play gaming

2011-12-19T01:03:00.000-08:00

Free-to-play online games have witnessed some serious growth over the last couple of years, according to data from Pando Network's client base. Seventy million have used the service since 2009, and more than 38 million will use it in 2011 alone.

The number of people downloading free-to-play online games grew by 450% in the last three years.

Across the globe huge regional increases have been found with Europe leading with a growth of 1,025% since 2009. In the same time period Latin America grew by 595%, Japan by 392% and South Korea by 259%.

"While the media is saturated with stories about the rapid growth of social and casual games from the likes of Zynga and Rovio, the free-to-play MMO genre also continues to grow swiftly. It may get overshadowed by trendier genres, but our data shows that free-to-play MMOs are an increasingly significant presence in the game industry," said Pando Networks' CEO Robert Levitan.

"We expect continued robust growth as traditional game publishers move to full digital distribution and embrace the free-to-play model," he added.

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Free online games becoming more popular

2011-12-19T00:58:00.000-08:00

Whether you're at work or studying at college, you will get bored of your work occasionally. In case you're victim to downtime, you can go ahead and spend some time playing free online games to revive yourself and freshen up a bit. Offerings like Stick Games online are great solutions for everyone looking for some activity in their down times. Ranging from cricket to baseball and racing, portals like stick games have it all covered when it comes to genres. All you need to do is look for the right one, and get going without ever installing a single program on your computer so your boss won't find out! But you have to be careful, there is a lot going on in the online world, and once you get immersed in one of those portals, you will need all your self-control to continue office work from where you left off, so make sure you begin playing when you know you are ahead of your work schedule.

With so many free games available, it is highly likely that you will find something that you will grow to like. Some games require skills, others require elaborate movements and yet others simply require a few clicks. This creates a basic but very enjoyable gaming experience, at no charge. Once you get used to the controls, your mouse or keyboard should do absolutely fine in handling online games. Compare your scores with other online gamers, and try hard to get better scores next time. Just don't forget you need to finish your work or the next assignment on time, don't let gaming rule your life.

In the event you find a popular game tough at first, if you continue to play it, you'll eventually get better at it. The game is probably popular for the same reason, it is hard. Therefore, stick with it, try harder to accurately follow the instructions given. Precision will automatically be gained over time. You can look for forums or comments sections to find tips about any game you choose to play, to make it easier for yourself. Keep in mind though, that even if a game is popular, it may not be the one for you. You can look for other games in your preferred genre, as you are not likely to be devoid of choices any time soon. There are hours of entertainment available on the internet, just be sure to use them so that you can gain maximum enjoyment out of your leisure time.

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Why Free online games are better than computer games

2011-11-29T03:37:00.000-08:00

It is likely that all boys and girls now know that computer games are not known and popular as they were. Computer games are no longer popular and famous games among boys and girls, and I personally can understand why boys and girls do not like to play computer games. Computer games are very expensive games that cost a lot of money and have a playing time of 8 hours which is not enough for most of the children. But there is something else that made the computer games not popular, it is of course free online games. Free online games are more effective, more useful and fun than computer games and that's actually why computer games not popular and familiar among boys and girls as they were, This is because free online games are the most useful games for children today.

Firstly, Free online games are free games for the children. Free online games are 100% free games for everyone, without any kind of limiting. This means you guys can play as much as you want, and you will not pay money. This is a really big advantage for boys and girls who can't afford money to go to classes or movies in their leisure, instead of it, they can use and play free online games and pass their leisure time for free!

Secondly, Free online games are not only free games, but also including some outstanding games for boys and girls. Free online games include high quality games for the children for the boys and girls, for example naruto games for boys, winx games for girls, and there are many other genres of games for boys and girls. You will find at least 5 genres of games you know and like.

Third, Free online games include a big selection of games. Free online games selection is huge, including more than 5,000 games. This means you can play as much as you want, that's because there are always new free online games, because the admins always care to add new games every day, so the selection of free online games get bigger every day!

In Conclusion, Today, Free online games are the most effective, useful and popular games for children. Free online games include a lot of advantages, and they are free. If you want to try free online games, you can do that by searching them on google, or any other search engine.

Planetside 2 will be Free-to-Play

2011-09-11T02:03:00.000-07:00

Sony has confirmed that its upcoming MMOFPS Planetside 2 will be adopting a free-to-play model of revenue. But how free will this particular form of F2P be? Well, that's a very good question...

Speaking to Planetside Universe, Sony Online Entertainment's president John Smedley said the company was still "working out" the specifics, but that it liked the League of Legends free-to-play model "a lot". He also confirmed the game would not feature a Blizzard-style auction house.

According to Sony, Planetside 2 will be an MMOFPS "that delivers truly epic, massive combat on a scale never before seen", including battles that will feature thousands of players.

AGE OF EMPIRES ONLINE REVIEW

2011-09-11T02:02:00.001-07:00

For many, Age of Empires has long stood as one of the hallmarks of not only the real-time strategy genre but as one of the greatest PC game franchises of all time. In Age of Empires: Online, the series makes the jump from AAA retail title to downloadable, free-to-play RTSMMO (what a mouthful). At the time, I was wary at the time of its announcement last year and worried that we would get nothing more than a glorified Facebook game riddled with over-priced micro-transactions. Thankfully, I couldn’t have been more incorrect.

It should be said right from the get-go that this is an RTS you have played before. It is very similar to previous titles in the franchise and is, in many cases, simpler overall. It is a macro-focused game with each scenario having a good ten minute spin-up time where you are focused entirely on resource production. While other RTSs like Starcraft have a large micro-focus, you won’t find much use for that here. Age of Empire: Online is a resource game from beginning to end. Veterans of the genre will be up to pick it up and play right away, and newcomers won’t have a hard time learning with the ample amount of tutorial missions.

While it doesn’t really break any new ground in terms of its actual gameplay mechanics, it does employ a number of MMO mechanics that act to make a number of small (and normally disconnected) battles feel somehow similar to an overall character progression seen in most MMORPGs. This is done mostly through your capital city, a gameplay mechanic introduced in Age of Empires III and utilized in a similar way here.

Although every mission will see you restarting and rebuilding your settlement to include all of the resource gatherers, buildings, and units you need to complete the objectives, your capital city grows persistently with your account in level and size. As you progress and your civilization levels up, unlocking new units, upgrades, and building types, so too does the number of buildings and abilities of your capital city. A number of things can be built in your city including everything from storage buildings that give you additional inventory slots much like bags in a standard MMO to production facilities that create a number of crafting items over a certain amount of real world time.

Star Trek Online free to play details released

2011-09-11T02:01:00.001-07:00

As most of you Trekkie gamers would know – the Star Trek Online MMO is going to be a free to play game before the end of the year, following the footsteps of numerous titles that have adopted a similar model recently. Cryptic, the developer, has just released more information about the game when it becomes free to play. According to the recently put up page with the details, all missions, levels and zones will be available to free players, including the daily quests and missions created by paying members.

Sounds great, but what’s left for the people who pay for the game then? Premium players will gain access to The Foundry, access to more bridge officer slots, the ability to join a guild, unlimited use of in-game chat and email features, priority login, veteran rewards, and a monthly wage of 400 Promotional Points for making in-game purchases.

It sounds like the free to play subscription will be great for players who just want to enjoy the game without getting too competitive, while paying players will probably have the upper hand when it comes to PVP (player vs player) battles. Check out the complete features list here. Will any of you be playing Star Trek Online when it goes free to play?

FarmVille English Countryside

2011-03-13T00:27:00.000-08:00

In one of its most important moves as a young company, Zynga is announcing today that it will launch a follow-up expansion to its wildly successful FarmVille game, which has had huge audiences for the past 20 months but now needs a makeover.

The social gaming company is launching FarmVille English Countryside as an expansion to the original game in the coming weeks. It is the biggest single change that Zynga has made to FarmVille. If Zynga gets this right, it could return FarmVille to its glory as the game with the biggest and most profitable audience in the world.

The Facebook game is not exactly a sequel, as it uses the same Facebook application as the original FarmVille. It will allow fans to create a parallel farm alongside their existing one. But the new farm is entirely immersed in pretty English country landscapes and themes.

If there’s a big deal in this game expansion, it’s the sheep. Yes, while the original FarmVille lets you breed horses, in this game, you can breed sheep. You can combine sheep of different colors and you’ll never guess what the resulting color will be for the baby lamb. Todd Arnold, general manager of FarmVille, said in an interview that this is an “innovative feature” of the game. I call it a mini-game.

For most hardcore gamers, such puffery in the form of breeding sheep is what they hate about FarmVille, which drew considerable criticism as a farming simulation because it didn’t have much game play. But casual players loved it, and the game hit a peak of 83 million players in March, 2010, after launching in June 2009. FarmVille is one of the most successful games in history, surpassed only by CityVille, which got as large as 100 million players. Mark Pincus, chief executive of Zynga, owes his billionaire status to the success of FarmVille.

FarmVille became the talk of the industry because it proved that traditional game companies that focused on hardcore gamers weren’t thinking big enough; it took Zynga, a scrappy startup, to have the imagination to create FarmVille and market the hell out of it to a receptive audience of older women. (And of course, the imagination started with an earlier rival game, Farm Town, and with Chinese farm games that came before that and the original farm game, Harvest Moon on the Nintendo DS).

FarmVille has been in a steady decline as Zynga focused on launching other games such as FrontierVille and CityVille. The game now has 44 million monthly active users and 14 million daily active users. The decline was so steep that writer Peter Yared insisted that Zynga had better launch FarmVille 2.

Sony launches first free-to-play online game on PlayStation Network

2011-03-13T00:14:00.000-08:00

Free-to-play online gaming is coming to the PlayStation 3. Free Realms, a massively multiplayer virtual world game that launched on the PC two years ago, is making its debut on Sony’s PlayStation Network on March 29.

The launch shows that the free-to-play business model — where users play a game for free and pay real money for virtual goods — is catching on with in the console world.

Sony Online Entertainment, the division of Sony that makes MMOs, previously published DC Universe Online on the PlayStation Network. But Free Realms, which has 17 million registered players on the PC and Mac, is the first free-to-play MMO to be slated for the PS 3’s online network. With two major MMOs coming to the PS 3, Sony is trying to differentiate its platform from Microsoft’s Xbox 360, which has no such MMOs on tap.

John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment, said that Free Realms continues to break new ground in the game industry. Sony is pushing retail sales of DC Universe Online at the same time it is embracing the free-to-play business model with Free Realms. Free Realms is a fantasy-role-playing world that competes with the likes of World of Warcraft or Lord of the Rings Online, but its content is lighter and it is geared toward a younger audience.

The world is pretty diverse. You can train as a ninja, play soccer, battle pirate ships, cook a meal, enter a demolition derby, mine for gold, pursue a quest, and train exotic pets. You can socialize with friends, play mini-games, go on adventures and share your achievements.

Sony promises you can get into Free Realms quickly and easily from the PlayStation Store. You can create a character and jump into the world within minutes. There are 15 types of careers to choose and more than 30,000 combinations of clothing. The free-to-play business model got another boost with game maker Gazillion announcing today it would shift to that model.

Sony also has the Sodium free-to-play game in its Home virtual world on the PlayStation Network, but Sodium isn’t an MMO and is more like an arcade game.

Call of Duty: Black Ops launches November 9th - play Call of Duty slot for free

2010-11-04T04:12:00.000-07:00

Call of Duty: Black Ops is released on November 9th, with huge pre-order demand reported from retailers ahead of the launch on PS3, XBox 360 and other formats.

Online shopping community website SocialShopping.com have seen increased levels of activity from their users who are searching for the best Black Ops deals on November 9th, while retailer GAME have confirmed to Oddspreview that they will be opening across the United Kingdom at midnight to deal with demand.

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China cracking down on online gaming, blames games for murder

2009-12-28T20:24:00.000-08:00

China Central Television (CCTV) released a program this week called "Confession of a Murderer -- Focus on Pornography and Violence in Online Games," which for the most part blames murder, drug addiction and even teen pregnancy on violent online video games. The report goes as far as to say that up to 80 percent of the violent criminals in a particular prison were there because of crimes committed in part because of their addictions to online games. Other recent reports from the CCTV have blamed social-networking sites and video games for lower test grades. Chinese authorities have been cracking down on online gaming for months now, as well as pornography. The fight hit a boiling point when World of Warcraft was taken down for three months when the developer and the government could not come to an agreement. As for the drug addiction aspect, the CCTV showed a program in which many teenagers became addicted to cough medicine and other harder drugs such as meth, as a way to keep up their energy to play online games all night, sometimes for 48 hours at a time. Chinese authorities say about 210 million citizens play online video games regularly.

Video Games Holiday Shopping Guides

2009-12-13T02:10:00.000-08:00

Christmas is near and there's a batch of new video games for the gamers on your shopping list.

Games have become a staple by becoming an even richer experience than many movies. Huge sums of money and lots of time are spent developing stories, soundtracks, hiring actors and producing online content that can keep the experience going for days. And the price of games remains affordable for most, even in this economy.

But people need to choose wisely to get the best experience for their buck. This list will help you pick out a few titles for any age group.

Games for kids

These titles are fun for younger kids and parents alike.

"A Boy and His Blob" (for the Nintendo Wii, $40)

This remake of a Nintendo classic is a heartwarming story of friendship that challenges players to work together with their new blob friend to solve puzzles, defeat monsters and escape danger. It's fun, cute and charming. (Rated E for everyone)

"Scribblenauts" (for the Nintendo DS, $30)

Players use the Nintendo DS touch screen to help their character acquire treasures by solving a series of puzzles with their styluses, notepads and imaginations. With more than 200 puzzles and action-themed challenges, this adventure is an imaginative creation. (Rated E)

"My Hero: Doctor" and "My Hero: Firefighter" (DS, $20)

In "Doctor," players take on the role of a doctor's apprentice as they manage medical emergencies and treat patients to advance to higher levels. In "Firefighter," players must drive fire engines swiftly and safely through crowded city streets and react quickly to house fires, chemical explosions and forest fires. Players also learn real fire-safety tips and how to react appropriately in dangerous situations. (Rated E)

"The Princess and the Frog" (Wii, $50; DS, $30)

This game includes more than 25 mini-games designed for one to four players, who can interact with all the main characters of the Disney movie. Players also can dance to music, cook New Orleans-style dishes and dress up Tiana in multiple outfits. (Rated E)

"Storybook Workshop" (Wii, $40)

This title immerses kids and their parents in 16 classic fairy tales and fables. Using an included microphone, they can read along, record and play back readings of stories from around the world. Children will learn rhythm, language, numbers and shapes in the "Play & Learn" mode. They can also monitor their progress by using a virtual sticker pad to motivate them to continue to read and complete stories. (Rated E)

Games for teens

These are for the kids outgrowing toys and more interested in new technology.

"Little Big Planet" (Sony PSP, PSPgo, $40)

This critically acclaimed "play, create, share" experience was recently released on the PSP system with a new Sackboy adventure. Players can explore 35 levels and collect prizes and costumes. However, the real hook of this game is that it allows players to create their own new levels and challenges, and then share those online. (Rated E)

"DJ Hero" (for Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, $90)

The makers of "Guitar Hero" introduce a fresh and innovative way to experience your favorite music. This game will make players the life of the party as they spin and scratch more than 100 songs into unique mixes on the "DJ Hero" turntable controller. (Rated T, for teen)

"MotorStorm: Arctic Edge" (PSP, PSPgo, $40)

One of the best-looking games on the PSP, this title lets players race in the MotorStorm festival. The location is in the unpredictable Alaskan terrain. Players race through multi- route tracks, harsh terrain and subzero conditions to try to become festival champ. (Rated T)

"The Bigs 2" (Xbox360, PS3, Wii, DS, PSP, $30; DS, $20)

This game focuses on fast-paced moments in Major League Baseball and lets players go up against MLB legends. Great power-ups, stunning special effects, and a unique, engaging career mode set this title apart from other baseball games. (Rated E)

Ratchet & Clank (PS3, $60)

Players can control both Ratchet and Clank as they attempt to reunite and save the universe. Each has special abilities at his disposal to try to thwart Dr. Nefarious, who is attempting to control time. This is a solid action title that will please almost any gamer. (Rated E)

Family

Sometimes you want a game everyone can play. This year, there are some real standouts in this category.

"Rock Band: Beatles" (Xbox 360, Wii, PS3, $60)

Players don't just watch and listen as the Beatles make rock history — they're part of the band. They join the Fab Four onstage at legendary shows, behind closed doors in the recording studio and in psychedelic dreamscapes. The audio, which comes straight from the masters, and the graphics will take players on a magical tour through the key moments in Beatle history. (Rated T)

"Wii Sports Resort" (Wii, $50)

A dozen fun resort-themed activities featured in this game offer a wide-ranging appeal. It's easy to pick up and play, but it has deeper levels that are sure to challenge even the most experienced gamers. (Rated E)

"Lego Rock Band" (Xbox 360, Wii, PS3, $50)

Lego takes "Rock Band" to a new place with fun for the whole family. A solid soundtrack and creative approach make it fun to jam on plastic instruments. (Rated E)

"Buzz!: Quiz World" (PS3, $40)

The latest edition of this game tests players' trivia talent with more than 5,000 new questions, online multiplayer action and exciting new rounds and characters, all in a glitzy TV-studio setting. The fun and easy-to-use wireless Buzzers help players to immerse themselves in the quiz-show experience. (Rated E)

"Punch-Out!" (Wii, $50)

A boxing game based on the original 1984 title, this version is faithful to the source material and adds the motion controls of the Wii. "Punch-Out!" is definitely worth every cent you spend on it. Regardless of your boxing skill level, this will be a winner in your ring. (Rated E)

For grown-ups

A great deal of money is devoted to developing games for this audience. It shows. This category contains some of the best titles of this year.

"The Saboteur" (Xbox 360, PS3, $60)

Inspired by a true story, "The Saboteur" stars Sean Devlin, a street-tough Irish race car driver trapped behind enemy lines in 1940s Nazi-occupied France. Motivated by revenge, Sean fights, climbs and races through Paris, sneaking into the heart of the Nazis' operations and sabotaging their every move. (Rated M, for Mature)

"Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" (Xbox 360, PS3, $60)

This is a first-person tactical shooter and the sixth entry in the popular "Call of Duty" series. True to its name and following the lead of its predecessor, "Modern Warfare" places players in contemporary combat settings. Offering a variety of gameplay modes, including single player, multiplayer and the co-op "Special Ops Mode," it is destined to be one of the most popular games of 2009. (Rated M)

"Uncharted 2: Among Thieves" (PS3, $60)

Drake is back and on a new adventure — following Marco Polo's 700-year-old trail through exotic environments to find the lost city of Shambhala, rumored to hold an ancient and powerful artifact. The quest pits him against a new, more formidable adversary: a ruthless paramilitary leader with a private army and a relentless ambition to find the city and claim the artifact for himself. It is graphically the best-looking game on the PS3, and a worthy sequel. (Rated T)

"Dead Space Extraction" (Wii, $50)

Who says the Wii doesn't make games for adults? This prequel reveals the events leading up to Isaac Clarke's mission on the USG Ishimura in the original game released in 2008. "Dead Space Extraction" combines the motion controls of the Wii Remote with a frenetic first-person perspective to create a new action-packed horror experience. (Rated M)

"Batman: Arkham Asylum" (Xbox 360, PS3, $60)

This game exposes players to a unique, dark and atmospheric adventure that takes them to the depths of Arkham Asylum — Gotham's psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane. Gamers move in the shadows, instigate fear among their enemies, and confront the Joker and Gotham City's most notorious villains, who have taken over the asylum. It is the first Batman game to give an authentic Batman experience. (Rated T)

Plants vs Zombies arrives in free online version

2009-09-25T06:40:00.000-07:00

The smash hit casual game Plants Vs Zombies, which showed up earlier in the year, has been turned into a free Flash game by developers PopCap. It's available to play now on the company's website.

If you've not given it a go, you have to place plants in your garden to defend against hordes of zombies lurching slowly towards you. It's an interesting alternative take on so-called Tower Defence games which have proved popular.

For the web, PopCap is letting you have a crack at 14 levels of the full game, complete with 12 different plants, 5 zombie types from the original game and one special new type exclusive to the flash version. You get access to Adventure, Endless Survival and Vasebreaker modes.

PopCap VP of Marketing, Ben Rotholtz, sees the freebie as a way to net buyers sitting on the fence about Plants vs. Zombies. While the Flash-based PvZ isn't the full game -- only six of the 24 zombie types and 12 of the 40 plant types are included -- it does contain three game modes, 14 stages, one exclusive zombie type and streaming music from the PC version.

Cash boost for Korean game makers

2009-09-25T06:35:00.000-07:00

Games firms in South Korea are getting a funding boost from Microsoft.

The software giant has agreed to invest more than $19m (£11.7m) to help develop online gaming in the nation.

The money will be divided among more than 25 local developers who specialise in creating and running games on the internet.

South Koreans are acknowledged to be among the most net savvy in the world and online games are hugely popular among its users.

The cash will be spent over the next four years and is part of a larger $60m (£36.9m) investment in local software development announced in late 2009.

The deal involves Microsoft providing technological aid, marketing support and training for the games makers.

Some of the online games with the largest numbers of players were created in South Korea such as side-scrolling role-playing game Maple Story and massively multi-player title Lineage.

The top players of popular games such as Starcraft and Warcraft III are professionals and compete in televised tournaments. Along with the US and China, South Korea has the biggest online games market.

Research by Euromonitor suggests that the computer games market in South Korea grew by 12.8% in 2008, and looks set to continue that growth in the future.

South Koreans are also known to be a nation of very heavy Microsoft users and Internet Explorer is used by more than 95% of web users. By contrast in many other nations IE's market share has dropped below 70%.

Microsoft Has 'No Plans' To Acquire EA

2009-09-25T06:30:00.000-07:00

As many analysts predicted earlier, software giant Microsoft has no intention of purchasing Electronic Arts, one of the industry's top game publishers.

"We have no plans to acquire EA," a Microsoft spokesperson told MarketWatch.

Reports yesterday fueled speculation when "unsubstantiated talk" of a sale between the two companies caused shares for Electronic Arts to jump more than 8%. "There's talk that Microsoft might be interested in acquiring Electronic Arts. It's unsubstantiated chatter, but it's out there," said options strategist Frederic Ruffy to Reuters.

Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter told IGN that EA would never agree to sell to a company like Microsoft.

"Their value as a one platform exclusive publisher is lower than their value on multi-platform. A media company would pay a lot more," he said. "Also, most licenses would terminate."

This news won't end chatter about Electronic Arts' eventual sale, however, as it's believed the company is getting looks from several media giants, including Time Warner and Disney.

Wii Gets UK Price Cut

2009-09-25T06:29:00.001-07:00

Nintendo's Wii console became the latest piece of gaming hardware to receive a price cut in the US, and the cut is to be reflected in the UK – although the Wii will only fall back to the point it enjoyed before this year's controversial price hike.

While it's been cut to 199.99 USD in the States, it's going to retain its 179.99 GBP price tag in the UK. However, the reduction in the trade price means it's now going to come in an attractive bundle, with the Motion Plus peripheral and Wii Sports Resort added to the existing package.

The changes come in to effect on October 2.

Left 4 Dead 2: The Dark Carnival at PAX

2009-08-27T19:46:00.001-07:00

The Penny-Arcade Expo kicks off a week on Friday in Seattle, Washington and will now be place where gamers can get their first glimpse of Left 4 Dead 2's third of five campaigns.

The Dark Carnival campaign will be made playable at the Microsoft booth at the show, and to celebrate this fact, we're posting the very first in-game show from the new area.

PAX runs from September 4-6 and Valve notes that it will be revealing more about the game's 20-plus new items this November, nearer the game's Xbox 360 and PC launch.

Command & Conquer 4 Fans Rename the Game

2009-08-27T19:43:00.000-07:00

Proving that EALA is in touch with its gaming community, the studio has announced that some 15,000 Command & Conquer 4 fans submitted suggestions for a new name for the game, and the winning title is now officially Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight.

"Our sophisticated fans are a tremendous community with a great love for the series. We really wanted to involve them in Command &Conquer 4 – what better way than to have them create the title?" said Mike Glosecki, Lead Producer on Command & Conquer 4 at EA Los Angeles.

"We were blown away by all the creative names they came up with but the most popular selection, Tiberian Twilight, seemed the best fit, embodying that the saga is coming to a powerful and epic conclusion."

The game is set to release on the PC in 2010 and features new gameplay mechanics such as class-based C&C, mobile bases, persistent player progression and 5v5 multiplayer.

Dates Announced for Aion's Open Beta, Pre-Select and Headstart Program

2009-08-27T19:38:00.001-07:00

Within the next four weeks, NCsoft will treat North American and European gamers to two opportunities to jump into the world of Aion and explore Atreia as Asmodian or Elyos characters ahead of its release in North America on September 22 and Europe September 25. Aion's Open Beta Test featuring version 1.5 will take place September 6 – 13 and will include numerous Western enhancements, including improvements to Aion's innovative character customization with a host of Western styles, as well as new zones, instances, skills, quests and continued game balancing and improvements. Open Beta will retain a level cap for both Elyos and Asmodians characters at 30 allowing players to focus on getting to the same level so they can explore the lands of Atreia together, as well as the Abyss.

Players who have preordered Aion will be treated to a Pre-Select and a two-day Headstart period giving them the opportunity to explore, organize and progress through the game prior to the official launch. Pre-Select will take place on September 18, while Aion's Headstart will begin September 20. Players can still participate in the Aion's Pre-Select and Headstart programs by preordering the game through several participating online and brick-and-mortar retailers, including Aiononline.com, Amazon, Best Buy, EB Games Canada, Fry's Electronics, GameStop, Steam and Target.

Unlike any MMO before it, Aion is a uniquely crafted online experience where flight offers much more than just a way to explore the landscape – it is a strategic and integral part of combat, quests, and exploration. Players will dive into battle and plunge through thousands of unique, story-driven quests, all while trying to save a world literally shattered in half from centuries of brutal conflict. Using one of the most flexible and in-depth character customization systems ever featured in an MMO, players will be able to create genuinely distinct characters and explore a visually stunning world of ethereal beauty brimming with otherworldly inhabitants, mysterious enemies, and ancient secrets.

Santa Don't Miss Or Else

2009-08-18T01:44:00.000-07:00

In this game also Santa Claus has found a more modern and faster way of delivering his gifts. Use the keyboard arrows to direct his spaceship and the Spacebar to throw the presents by aiming at the chimneys. Be careful not to empty the "Christmas Cheer" bar, otherwise you lose !

You want to play to Santa Don't Miss Or Else, one of the free games. Santa Don't Miss Or Else is an Internet flash game for PC and notebook is a game of action. The following comments concern this game (Santa Don't Miss Or Else), they can contain cheats

Swine flu inspires new video game

2009-08-18T01:42:00.001-07:00

LONDON (AP) -- Since swine flu first emerged in April, it has sparked panic, vaccine production and now, a video game.

In an effort to raise awareness, Dutch researchers have created a game that challenges players to control a new pandemic.

"It is actually what is happening now, what is happening in the real world," said Albert Osterhaus, head of virology at the Erasmus Medical Center, who designed "The Great Flu" game with colleagues.

The game can only be played online at http://www.thegreatflu.com and it is free. A World Health Organization spokesman said Monday the agency was not familiar with the game and had not had time to play it.

WHO has reported nearly 178,000 cases of swine flu including 1,462 deaths worldwide, though those numbers are believed to be a gross underestimate of the actual caseload, since hard-hit countries no longer test all cases with flu-like symptoms.

The pandemic continues.
As the virus has spread worldwide, countries have tried different methods to slow it down and pharmaceutical companies are now racing to produce a swine flu vaccine.

The game begins with images of bedridden patients and graveyards from the 1918 Spanish flu. As the head of the fictitious "World Pandemic Control," players pick a flu strain, and then monitor that strain's spread around the world.

To fight the emerging outbreak, players use measures including setting up surveillance systems, stockpiling antivirals and vaccines, and closing schools and airports. Players also have a limited budget and are warned that "your actions to control the virus cost money, so keep an eye on it."

A running tally of the numbers of people infected and those who have died sit above the budget. Newspaper stories about the deadly virus and the global response to it - like riots breaking out worldwide - pop up to help players monitor the outbreak.

Messages from governments mirror the difficulties faced by international agencies like WHO. For instance, when players set up costly surveillance systems, the game often relays a message from governments that "we will comply with your directions...but we must inform you that the political support for this action is low in this region. Therefore, the effectiveness of the system may differ from your expectations."

Osterhaus said the video game's approximation of combating a pandemic, choosing between various interventions yet still watching the outbreak spread, gives people a sense of how difficult it is to make decisions in the public health world.

Spore Hero and Spore Hero Arena Get Release Dates

2009-08-18T01:39:00.000-07:00

We’ve seen some things here and there regarding Spore’s upcoming Nintendo endeavors, Spore Hero and Spore Hero Arena before, though we never got a firm release date for either. But today, Electronic Arts announced that we’ll be seeing both games being released on October 6 in North America, and October 9 internationally.

Oh, and in case you don’t already know, Spore Hero is coming to the Nintendo Wii, while Spore Hero Arena is coming to the DS.

Lucy Bradshaw, VP and General Manager at Maxis said a quick few words regarding the games in the PR release as well. “Spore Hero and Spore Hero Arena give Spore and Nintendo fans a new, dynamic and engaging way to interact with their customized creature heroes,” she said. “Players’ heroes take center stage as both games, distinctly tailor-made for its Nintendo platform, infuse creativity, combat and adventure to create a unique gameplay experience on the Wii and Nintendo DS.”

Use PlayCrafter to Create Your Own Free Flash Games

2009-08-18T01:37:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wanted to create your own flash game but you don’t know how to go about it? PlayCrafter has taken care of this by creating a free flash game creation program. Get an account to create and save your own games for free. You choose the pieces, the interaction, the goal, the environment, well, pretty much everything.

Things like balloons, creatures, flags, cookies, flowers, bricks, Sad Bird Guy, Citizen Moon Child and the ever-popular Ball of Doom are at your disposal. Change the music, choose the environment and decide on the player-controlled elements. In this teaser how-to video, someone even used PlayCrafter to make a greeting card.

With PlayCrafter, you can play games that others have created or make your own. You can embed PlayCrafter games into web pages or run them on anything that is Flash 9+ friendly.

For those of you who prefer to get into the meat of the thing, you can now access the game piece XML definition and create your own with PlayCrafter Piece Creator. This is also free. If you want extra features or to be able to create games with more than ten levels, there is a paid premium account option for only $4.95 per month.

PlayCrafter also has a user forum and chat room. Their store even has some nifty looking T-shirts.

The only limit is your imagination. Others have created a total of over 25,000 games. What will you create?

Free Games Get Physical

2009-08-10T00:45:00.000-07:00

What used to be a trip to the playground to go up and down on the see-saw can now be accomplished in this Website of the Day.

The website “Physics Games” has dozens of physics-based games. There’s no advanced computer graphics or cool sound effects. The games are simple and pure, and they can teach kids a thing or two about the basics of physics.

There’s “99 Bricks,” where you rotate and stack Tetris shapes to build the talltest free-standing tower possible. You have 99 pieces to achieve your goal. If it falls down, you have to start over.

Then there’s “Bridge Craft” - a game that asks you to construct bridges with wood, steel, and rope so that creatures can reach the flag in each level.

As you’ll find, even though the games are just on a computer, you still have to have a good sense of balance and physics. They are great for a rainy day or a burning hot day when you can go outside.

All of the games are free, and no registration or downloading is required.

All 51 Games Free iPhone iPod Touch review

2009-08-10T00:43:00.000-07:00

The number two currently downloaded free app for the iPhone and iPod Touch is the All 51 Games FREE app and besides Mirror Free, it may be the worst app ever made. The game does deliver on 51 free games but all 51 of them are terrible.

All 51 Games FREE combines 51 terrible games in to one super awful app. Everything on everyone of these apps is bad. Controls, graphics, gameplay, replayability, and even sound. Oh wait, there is no sound. That’s right. An app with 51 arcade type games that has no arcade sounds!!! You can’t play an app without sound unless you’re in an office or somewhere else public where it’s unacceptable.

Free Online Games Trigger Thirst, According To Study

2009-08-10T00:38:00.000-07:00

Have you ever been playing free online games and had the experience of being thirsty more than usual? If so, it could be because you suffer from something called cyber-thirst.

B. S. & Associates have revealed the results of their latest study and it may leave you thirsty just reading this article. According to the study, people who play free online games are more thirsty than people who play online casino games for real money.

The study took place in Utah, where there is no legal form of casino gambling, so all of the residents have to gamble online. Dr. Robert Frost separated the subjects into two groups, ones that played casino games online for real money, and those who play free online games.

Out of the fifty people that played for real money, only three of them interrupted a session by going to get a drink. On the contrary, the group that played the free online games had forty-two people who went and got a drink at least twice during the hour-long session.

"When people play online casino games for real money, they tend to focus on the task at hand, which of course, is giving all their money to the casino," said Dr. Frost, "but when they were playing for free, they were able to focus on things like hydration and hunger."

Free online games have become somewhat of a phenomenon in the Internet age. Cyber-thirst, according to Frost, has only been around for the past two years. That is mainly, he said, because that is when his associates made the term up.

Dr. Frost recommends that anyone who has this problem of becoming thirty during their free online games session should immediately switch to real money games. "This way, the nerves kick in, and these people forget about the thirst."

Abandon Unveils Free-to-Play Experience for Freaky Creatures Game

2009-07-22T23:27:00.000-07:00

MALIBU, Calif. - Abandon Interactive Entertainment has launched a free-to-play option for the massively multiplayer online game (MMOG), Freaky Creatures. The new free-to-play model lets players enter the Freaky Creatures Universe, create creatures and take them into battle against other players online. Free-to-play gamers get access to numerous key features in Freaky Creatures, including the ability to reach level 60 in game and customize lairs for their creatures. Premium memberships start at $6.99 per month and include a variety of additional perks including the ability to reach level 80, take pets into battle, trade and compete on leaderboards.

"Our goal is to make the Freaky Creatures universe accessible to gamers of all ages and backgrounds, and our new free-to-play model is an example of this philosophy," said Jamie Ottilie, President and COO of Abandon Interactive Entertainment. "This new venture will grow our expanding community even further by offering new players the chance to sample the contagious, interactive experience of Freaky Creatures."

Freaky Creatures starter packs are now available for purchase at comic, hobby and local toy retailers and FYE stores nationwide for $19.99. The game is also available at FAO Schwarz in New York City.

Consumers want free entertainment

2009-07-14T22:12:00.000-07:00

According to the report 87 million consumers logged to play games in May 2009, a 22% increase year over year. Why are consumers logging on to play games? The most obvious factor pushing game play is the tough economic times.

As consumers lose jobs or pinch pennies to make ends meet, they are looking for cheaper forms of entertainment than the traditional summer concerts, a trip to the mall or even a night at the movies.

The hottest gaming hub is Yahoo Games with 19.4 million visitors for the month of May, a 6% increase YoY. EA Online continues to be a hot property as well with 18 million visitors (34% increase).

Nickelodeon Casual Games (14.8 million users), WildTangent Network (13.8 million visitors) and Disney games (12.1 million visitors) round out the top five. The biggest jump came from GSN Games Networks, which saw a 563% increase in traffic for the year.

"Online gaming. . .[is] growing at ten times the rate of the total U.S. Internet population and reaching nearly one out of every two Internet users," said Edward Hunter, comScore director of gaming solutions.

"And the growth in the category is occurring not only at the top gaming destination sites, but also through viral distribution platforms, including widgets and applications. In fact, some online gaming companies that distributed their games across sites are reaching as many people as the top online gaming sites."

MechWarrior 4 To Be Re-Released For Free

2009-07-09T23:44:00.000-07:00

In celebration of the new MechWarrior, BattleTech, Catalyst Games, MekTek, and Smith & Tinker have teamed up to re-release MechWarrior 4 and its expansion packs, for free!
We are very pleased to announce that Smith & Tinker has authorized us (MekTek.net) and our professional studio (MekTek Studios) to distribute and package a worldwide free release of MechWarrior4 and all of its expansions.

This free release of MechWarrior4 that commemorates BattleTech’s 25th anniversary as well as MekTek’s 10th anniversary, and will allow BattleTech fans an chance to re-discover MechWarrior, as well as help us bring in a new army of players who are discovering MechWarrior and the BattleTech universe for the first time,completely for free.

MekTek views this partnership as a hallmark moment for the global MechWarrior community. We welcome the opportunity for the MekTek team to officially take a leadership role in the cultivation and development of the on-line MechWarrior communities in support and anticipation of the recently announced MechWarrior game by Smith & Tinker and Piranha games.

We are honored by the opportunity bestowed apon us by Smith and Tinker and its partners, and we hope the online community will enjoy this free release all the while recognizing the support and commitment that Smith & Tinker, Catalyst Games, and MekTek.net has made to the BattleTech fans around the world.

Tween gamers get in on the MMO action with 'Free Realms' PC game

2009-07-01T00:06:00.000-07:00

Poorly designed — but free - online PC games are a dime a dozen.

Which means gamers who download Sony Online Entertainment's "Free Realms" are in for an exciting treat.

"Free Realms" (rated Everyone 10+ for the PC with a PlayStation 3 version in the works for later this year) plops you right into a fantasy 3D world where you control a pixie or cartoony human in a magical fantasy world alongside various meanies and friendly creatures.

What strikes me most is how many features are in "Free Realms" - it's packed with simple fun quests, optional fighting battles, a large starting world, personal skills to develop - this is not a stripped-down free version of a game.

Gamers invest most of their time competing in mini-games and completing quests which frequently involve searching for someone or recovering a lost item.

There's also in-game Station Cash which can be purchased with real money to buy various cosmetic goods.

Gamers - or their parents - who invest in the paid version (US$4.99 per month) get access to extras such as multiple characters on one account, access to leaderboards along with special in-game jobs and items. Neither of these, however, are necessary to have an authentic "Free Realms" experience.

My nine-year-old son had no problem getting into it. "It's a lot like 'Runescape' but looks better," he says, referring to another online game popular with tweens. He jumped right in and quickly had an extensive list of achievements.

This game doesn't have nearly the depth or scope of powerhouse MMO releases such as Blizzard's "World of Warcraft" or NCsoft's "Guild Wars" but it's an outstanding choice for younger gamers.

A typical example of one of the mini-puzzles is a cooking quest. I quickly busied myself chopping up some food, slicing meat and tenderizing it. It really feels like you're earning your keep.
But, hands down, my favourite mini-game was Wildwood Demo Derby.

You compete in a quick demolition derby that's fast, competitive and addictive - in short everything you want out of a mini-game. The racing games alone are reason alone to check out "Free Realms."

Along with the entertainment value, every parent also is concerned about online security and SOE takes this fear seriously.

Parental control security features include limiting in-game chat for children under 13 to a menu of set phrases. Plans also are underway for a "family" account that would allow for multiple character log-ins.

Setting up the browser-based "Free Realms" is a snap, you download small chunks of the game in the background as you play. I had the game up and running in about 15 minutes on my main gaming PC and the same on my laptop.

"Free Realms" is a 'must check it out' PC game for tween gamers - SOE already points to more than two million registered players, promises new areas to explore and is advertising special in-game events such as concerts.

Exercise the mind - solitaire card games

2009-06-24T00:25:00.000-07:00

Just as we don't exercise our legs and arms in the same exact way, we shouldn't exercise our minds in the same way every day. You work your leg muscles when you stand up from the sofa - is it exercise though? Walking is exercise; so is running.

Let's stretch our ways of thinking. Try new things. Open the mind. Stretch the imagination. Experience new exercises. If your children roll their eyes at you because here comes another thing you want them to do rather than watch TV or play video games, explain to them how exercising the brain is like the rest of your body. You have do move in many different directions with various activities.

Handheld game systems used to be a deck of cards. Travels easy with many levels of games!
Most kids don't know how to play solitaire. Especially not without a computer program. A deck of cards is about $2-$3 at the store if you don't already have a full set at home.

There is the standard solitaire game where there are seven piles of cards laid out in front of you. The first card goes down to the left and is placed face up. Then you lay down six more cards face down in a row next to that first one. Next you lay a card face up on the top of your second pile. Continue with the other 5 piles with one card face down. Continue in this pattern until you have seven cards on the last pile (one face up and 6 face down). The rest of your cards are yours to flip through to get the cards you will need. The goal is to put all of the cards starting with the Ace, as a One, through to the King in suit order above these piles as you find them while you move cards around. You might want to refresh your memory of how to play by playing a little on the computer first. Microsoft usually includes Solitaire under their Games folder. There are also games online for free as well.

Other variations are fun including the solitaire games that you lay 21 cards out in a triangular pyramid shape.

To play the pyramid solitaire game "13", you can lay them down face up. Your goal is to take away two cards at a time that add up to 13. The King is the only card that can go away on its own because it has a value of 13. Thus a Queen is 12 and a Jack is 11. If on the first row an 8 and a 5 are showing, you scoop them up together and sit them to the side. As you take cards away, the next row is exposed and you can take cards from there to equal 13 if needed. If there are no further cards free that match to equal 13, you flip one card at a time to see if that card will match to another to get to 13. Continue until you have cleared the entire pyramid or you have flipped through all the cards and you have no further possibilities.

Free Fourth of July Fun and Games: Online and offline Independence Day fun

2009-06-24T00:21:00.000-07:00

Celebrate Independence Day this year with the following online and offline Fourth of July games.

Independence Day Online Fun and Games:

4th of July Gam - Guide the rocket and find the hidden egg in this online game from EZone.
Fireworks - Create your own fireworks display online.
Jigsaw Puzzle - Play this fun July 4th jigsaw puzzle online.
Capital Field Trip - How well do you know the state capitals and where they belong on the map?
Word Search – Find the States in this online word search game.
13 Colonies Word Search - Find the 13 colonies in this word search game.
U.S. President Word Search – Find the Presidents of America in this online word search game July 4th Barbeque - Don't let the food burn on the grill!
United States Puzzle - This online game is from FunSchool.
July 4th Maze - This online maze is for young children.
Tic Tac Toe July Stars in a Row
Fourth of July Coloring Pages – There are eight online coloring pages for younger children.
American Historical Figures Coloring Pages

Free 'Madden NFL 10' demo with pre-order

2009-06-17T01:45:00.000-07:00

Customers who pre-order Madden NFL 10 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 at GameStop will receive the exclusive demo.GameStop will be the place you can you get your hands on a Madden NFL 10 playable demo featuring a four, 5-minute quarter rematch between the Arizona Cardinals and Pittsburgh Steelers. Customers who pre-order Madden NFL 10 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 at GameStop will receive the exclusive demo.

Codes will be in-stores by July 15 and the demo is slated to go live by the end of July on Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network. Customers can reserve their copy in-stores or online.

Madden NFL 10 will be available at GameStop stores nationwide August 14, 2009 on the Xbox 360, PlayStation3, PlayStation2, PSP and Nintendo Wii.

Going Free-to-Play: The D&D Online Unlimited Q&A

2009-06-17T01:38:00.000-07:00

Last week Turbine Entertainment announced an industry first: it revealed that it was retro-fitting a commercially launched, subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game and relaunching it as a free to play game with micro-transactions via an in-game store. The game in question is Dungeons & Dragons Online, which, along with The Lord of the Rings Online, is Turbine Entertainment’s bread and butter.

But the privately held MMO company isn’t just grasping at straws here or committing an act of desperation with this move, because many in the industry believe free to play is the future. With games like Free Realms and Runes of Magic garnering millions of subscribers in a short amount of time after launch, there is no denying the viability of the free to play model. But how will a commercial game like D&D Online hold up in this brave new environment? We wanted some answers from Turbine, and answers we received.

For those answers, we turned to Dungeons & Dragons Online Executive Producer, Fernando Paiz and Turbine Entertainment Public Relations Manager Adam Mersky. They filled us in on the future of the Dungeons & Dragons Online MMO, henceforth known as Dungeons & Dragons Online Unlimited .

Crispy Gamer: The last time I talked to you, you had mentioned that you were working on a console game. You haven’t announced it yet - are you still working on it?
Adam Mersky: We haven’t made any announcements yet. We haven’t talked about it but it is definitely happening.

Crispy Gamer: You should talk to us about it.

Adam Mersky: My theory on that is that there are a lot of companies out there that just talk about what they are going to do. What I would rather do is show you what we’re doing. And that’s why I’m holding on it. Hopefully this fall we won’t just say what we’re doing, we will actually show you some of the work we’ve done.

Crispy Gamer: Fair enough. Let’s move on to DDO Unlimited. How long did Turbine think about doing free to play before it actually decided to do it? In other words, how much research went into this decision?

Adam Mersky: A lot. By no means was this a flip decision. DDO launched over three years ago and LOTRO launched over two years ago now, and since we rolled it out in North America and Europe, we’ve also been localizing and bringing them to other territories and especially in Asia where, as we go to market there we’re competing against these giant free to play games. So we knew several years ago that free to play was something that was going to grow and definitely come to the west and North America — and Europe in particular — and that we had to be in it.. and how were we going to go about that? Were we going to import games, were we going to create a new title after the Asian model? And after we researched it and learned more about how things worked, how they should work and what didn’t work that we’d like to improve, we looked at DDO at said “this is a pretty good fit for this model.”

It’s a game focused on small group experiences, instanced experiences that sort of lend themselves well from a technical standpoint of being able to gain content for this type of business model. And frankly, when you go back to the TSR days, this is how Dungeons and Dragons was marketed initially; where you picked up a book and you had a series of adventures you ran through with your buddies. And when the time was right, you went back to the hobby store and found ways to enhance your experience by buying more adventure books, dice, minis things like that.

It was very in tune with the IP, and so, with a bit more research, we said we don’t have to import a game or make a new one; we have a great game here that - if we take a thoughtful approach to it and reengineer it correctly, will make a great fit.

So we’ve been working on implementing it for well over a year.

Crispy Gamer: You kind of answered my next question but I’ll ask it anyway: why is the time right now to do free to play game for Turbine, and why did you choose DDO?

Fernando Paiz: I think we need to talk a little more about why DDO is the right fit, but as far as “why is the timing right now for free to play?,” I think that the industry is revolving. We are always watching what is going on in the industry - either with our competitors in Western markets or some of the Asian markets as well. We’ve had some experience with some of our games - including DDO - and what we saw there is that consumers were so much more attuned to this type of free to play model. And there was a feeling that “the Western market won’t accept it” and “we’re not sure how to bring it to the Western market, but something like this is the future.” Giving players a choice of how to pay for the games and not feel locked into $15 a month or “I have to play 10 hours a week or I’m not getting value’s worth” .. or whatever somebody’s internal equation is there. That is a barrier. That is the number one reason people will not an

MMO: because of the subscription. So there is a need to be answered of how do you get a different kind of player who may be more casual in to these games and have them not be scared away by the subscription and we felt that time was right now. with DDO Unlimited we’re really presenting an innovative, first-of-its-kind hybrid model here for the Western market, where it’s not just “you’re here for free and your forced into a subscription” or “you play for free and you have to actually have to transact with the store in order to get the good gear or the potions to survive in the dungeons.” That’s not what we’re doing; we’re offering this great hybrid model that lets you choose how to pay for the game at your own pace or - or if you’re a hardcore player and you really get into the game and you are spending a ton of time in there and creating five or six characters (which our players certainly do - and more) - then the VIP program, which is our new subscription program, will continue to be the best value for you.

Red Orchestra free mod released, game discounted

2009-06-10T01:27:00.000-07:00

Tripwire are happy to announce the release of Darkest Hour, the latest full mod for Red Orchestra, over Steam. To celebrate this release, Red Orchestra is 66% off until Monday, June 15th. Darkest Hour is free to all those who own Red Orchestra and can be simply downloaded and installed through Steam. Darkest Hour finally brings the Americans to Red Orchestra, focusing on the beaches of Normandy, Operation Market-Garden, the Battle of the Bulge and on into the Reich. A trailer is available on the Steam web page, along with screen shots and more information. Now you can play as American, British or Canadian troops, with a huge range of additional features: More than 20 new infantry weapons, such as the ever-distinctive Garand, M1 Carbine, .30-cal, Bren, FG42, Thomson and the Enfield rifles American Bazooka, British PIAT and German Panzerschreck to go tank-hunting with New infantry features, including Airborne drops onto the battlefield, bullet suppression and supersonic cracks, plus a new radioman class for calling in artillery strikes .

Over a dozen new crewable vehicles including the King Tiger and JagdPanther for the Germans, countered with multiple types of Sherman in 75mm, 76mm and 17-pounder versions, plus the Cromwell, M10 Wolverine and Achilles

11 new maps, including:
Juno Beach — Canadians storming the beaches in classic D-Day action
Carentan — the US 101st Airborne assaults the town shortly after D-Day
Brecourt — 101st Airborne attempt to put a key German artillery battery out of commission behind the beaches
Ginkel Heath — British paras drop into a hotly-contested LZ at the start of Operation Market-Garden
Wacht-am-Rhein — sweeping tank combat during the Battle of the Bulge, including the fearsome King Tiger
Stoumont — American infantry and armor try and hold back the SS PanzerGrenadiers in the streets of the Ardennes town

So whether it is the Normandy campaign, jumping onto the dropzones around Arnhem or the bitter fighting in the Battle of the Bulge, new and old players alike will get a chance to see why RO remains a classic. Now with the opportunity to re-play those battles RO-style, courtesy of Darkest Hour:

Turbine makes Dungeons & Dragons Online game free to play

2009-06-10T01:25:00.001-07:00

Online game developer and publisher Turbine Inc. reports it is adding a free-to-play model to its subscription-based Dungeons & Dragons Online massively multiplayer online game.According to Westwood-based Turbine, Dungeons & Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimited will officially launch sometime this summer, and is signing up people for a private beta test period right now.

The new DDO Unlimited, as the company calls the free-to-play game, will include a “major” content upgrade to the current subscription-based Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach.The game will use the “freemium” business model, in which players can download and play DDO Unlimited for free, and can purchase additional content and items in the new DDO Store. The subscription model is not going away entirely, as players can join the new DDO VIP program and get unlimited access to all the premium content for a monthly fee. According to Adam Mersky, director of communications at Turbine, the free version of DDO Unlimited will use the same graphics and game-play technology as the current subscription-based Stormreach version.Turbine decided to add the free-to-play aspect to its D&D online game in part because it fit best with that model, Mersky said.“This is very much in line with the way D&D sold itself back in the day. You are paying for content when you want it, as opposed to this all-you can eat buffet,” he said.

According to Mersky, Turbine began preparing for the new model for DDO more than a year ago. Since announcing the beta sign-up earlier today, it has been flooded with requests. “We’ve already had tens of thousands of sign-ups in the past few hours,” Mersky said.DDO Unlimited is based on the famous Dungeons & Dragons fantasy gaming franchise of Wizards of the Coast Inc., a subsidiary of Providence, R.I.-based Hasbro Inc. (NYSE: HAS).Last week, Turbine named M. Beau Paradowski as chief financial officer.

Paradowski will replace Peter Faubert, who will remain with Westwood-based Turbine.In April of last year, Turbine landed $40 million in a third round of venture capital funding. Granite Global Ventures led the Series C financing, which included previous investors Highland Capital Partners, Polaris Venture Partners, Tudor Ventures and Columbia Capital. Granite Global managing partner Hani Nada took a seat on the Turbine board.

Turbine, which also makes the games Lord of the Rings Online and Asheron’s Call, has raised a total of $88 million in venture financing.

E3 2009: Huxley Nixes Cross-Platform Play, Will Be Free-To-Play

2009-06-04T20:21:00.000-07:00

Many wondered how PC/Xbox 360 MMOFPS Huxley would maintain gameplay balance if half the players were using a mouse and keyboard while the other half were using an Xbox 360 controller.

The answer, of course is, "Oh wait, never mind, we're not doing cross-platform play." A rep for Ijji.com, the online game hosting the PC version, told Joystiq that "at this point", cross-platform play between the 360 and PC versions is off the table.

"At this point" seems to imply that the feature could be implemented later on but who knows. MMO's tend to get scaled back a bit as their development continues on.

To balance out that bad news, the company revealed that the game won't require a monthly subscription. Instead, it will be supported by microtransactions, small payments for additional items or services. Not a huge surprise, as the game's being developed in Korea and a microtransaction model is more common in the East. Huxley's closed beta for the North American PC version began yesterday. It runs until June 14th.

Online Games Addictive especially when its FREE

2009-06-04T20:18:00.000-07:00

Researches found out in a survey that Online Games are pretty addictive for people of all age groups. The survey was conducted in Singapore among people of different age groups.

Free games online were showed to them and 76% of the people found it difficult to leave it and the rest 24% found it lesser addictive. The main reason found by the researchers for this was because the fun of playing actually is rooted in fulfilling their basic psychological needs. The people enjoy online games like juegos because they find them intrinsically satisfying.

“We think there’s a deeper theory than the fun of playing,” says Richard M. Ryan, a motivational psychologist at the University and lead investigator in the four new studies about gaming. Players reported feeling best when the games produced positive experiences and challenges that connected to what they know in the real world.

The research found that games can provide opportunities for achievement, freedom, and even a connection to other players. Those benefits trumped a shallow sense of fun, which doesn’t keep players as interested.

Though different types of games and game environments were studied, Ryan points out that “not all video games are created equal” in their ability to satisfy basic psychological needs. “But those that do may be the best at keeping players coming back.”

Free Online Games Tackle Adult Matters

2009-06-04T20:14:00.000-07:00

"This year we're seeing real changes. We're seeing new evidence, research from some of the top scholars, finally people are getting it," says President Suzanne Seggerman of Games for Change. "They're seeing that games can do a lot more, they can inspire, engage, educate and inform."
One of the big issues in the sixth conference is the same one from the first - how to strike that magical balance between fun and educational.

Alan Gershenfeld, a former executive at video game developing giant Activision, says some of the best lessons may come from mainstream titles that have hit that sweet spot unintentionally.
"It's more like chocolate and peanut butter versus chocolate and broccoli," says Gershenfeld. "So the kids just feel like they're playing a great game, whether it's a social networking game, a mobile game, an Xbox game, a downloaded game.

It just feels like a great game but there's really embedded learning or empowerment or civic engagement or awareness built into the game."

"There's a lot of anecdotal evidence and hopefully there will be more empirical evidence that kids who play Guitar Hero actually go out and buy guitars and play guitars in the real world," continues Gershenfeld. "Well, that's a game affecting what I believe is a positive behavior change - kids getting immersed in music."

While there is an effort to get big-time developers to include better morals into their blockbusters, some say that does not need to be the ultimate goal.

"Games are like film or music or other forms of popular media. There's room for a lot," says independent game designer Eric Zimmerman. "There's room for high-budget action films filled with special effects, but there's also room for the game equivalent of 'An Inconvenient Truth' or a historical drama."

Sony's Patapon 2 unleashes its rhythm magic download-only: Will game boxes disappear?

2009-05-07T02:45:00.000-07:00

Today, Sony releases a brand-new game for the PSP, and there will be no UMD in sight. Patapon 2, the sequel to last year's well-reviewed rhythm-warfare-strategy game, is the first major-release game to go download-only for Sony's veteran portable. It was a deliberate decision, too: in Asia and Europe, Patapon 2 was released on disc. To get the game in the U.S., you can either download through a PS3 or PC and sync with the PSP or use the PSP's built-in PSN store on May 7, or go to a local store like GameStop today, where you'll get an empty box with a download code inside.

This isn't the PSP's first download-only game--Echochrome and Flow, just to name a few, also went this path. But whereas those games were priced like DLC titles at $9.99, Patapon 2's price point ($19.95) and file size (362MB) are UMD-equivalent. So, consider this Sony's first shot across the bow signaling the beginning of the end of the UMD format. But apart from the UMD-free hype, how does the game play?

Actually, everything about the UMD-free Patapon sequel is as good as, or better than, the UMD original. For the uninitiated, Patapon's a deep-thinking warfare simulator, trapped in a casual game's body. Expect a weird combination of beautiful art from French artist Rolito, trance-like rhythm-based attack minigames, and obsessive character leveling. More character classes, a well-explained evolution tree for the Patapon warriors you bring to life, and a new warning system for when your rhythm attacks begin to fall out of sync are just some of the nice tweaks. However, the load times were surprisingly long--for a disc-free game, that is. A quick-fix start-up mode would be appreciated next time.

15 Percent of Mobile Gamers Pay for Games

2009-05-07T02:42:00.000-07:00

Casual games publisher PopCap has released details of a recent survey aimed at mobile phone gamers, revealing that only 15 percent of those questioned have ever paid for a mobile game.
PopCap's survey, conducted by Information Solutions Group, found that 76 percent of mobile gamers exclusively play titles that are pre-installed on their mobile devices. 33 percent of responders claim to have downloaded free games to their phone.

Mobile game purchasers have bought an average of 7.2 titles in their lifetime. Results found that 61 percent of mobile gamers cited genre as their top purchase factor.

"Adoption of mobile games continues to grow, but conversion rate (free to paid players) remains low," said Michael Cai, vice president of games research at analysis firm Interpret LLC.

"Business model diversification is one way to address this conundrum. In addition, more innovative games... and fewer clones and knock-offs are among the keys to unlocking the potential of the mobile gaming market."

PopCap's online survey polled 1,163 randomly selected AT&T wireless customers between February and March of this year. Responses were culled from 337 men and 332 women.

Top 40 best free Windows Mobile games

2009-04-27T02:07:00.000-07:00

Are you up for some retro gaming on your Windows Mobile phone? We’ve compiled what we think are best top forty free Windows Mobile Games, and included the download link for each. Games are in alphabetical orde.

Asteroids –This is a great Windows Mobile version of an equally great classic. If you don’t mind using 200KB of your mobile phone’s memory, this is a must-have.
BeMario - A simple clone of the 8-bit Super Mario game, BeMario offers even the iconic jump and coin-snatching sounds.
BombSquad – This is a cool game which clones an equally cool Windows game, Minesweeper.
Break My Bricks - This game was developed specifically for the HTC Touch Pro, but it works on other Pocket PCs. The game feature various options for sound, vibration and ball speeds and has increasing levels of difficulty.
Buggles - This is the classic plastic bubble game ported to the Windows Mobile phones. It features an authentic ‘pop’ and realistic graphics.
Butterfly – Match sets of three or more bubbles to rescue butterflies in this fun puzzle game.
Crazy Matrix – Try to get as many lights glowing as you can in this addictive puzzle game.
Dope Wars – Buy and sell dope in this strategy classic.
EdgeWay Turbo 21 - If you’re fond of playing cards, you’ll like this game. Exercise your mind to make as many blackjacks as possible. Just a little warning: this game can be pretty addictive.
Egoman- It’s everybody’s favorite retro game star wielding a gun? Replete with ghosts and power pellets, this is one entertaining PacMan-inspired shooter.
GravityBalls - This is a GSensor game about gravity and balls. Users adjust the gravitational force and smack the balls with a paddle. This game works on HTC Touch Diamond and HTC Touch Pro.
Halma Sharp – This is a Windows Mobile phone version of the 19th century board game Halma. To win, move your pieces into the opponent’s corner.
Igrecway Hangman – Here’s hangman designed specifically for Windows Mobile phones. It features large dictionaries, hints and an iPhone-style interface.
Kevtris - Possibly the best Tetris clones ever released – this game features outstanding graphics, three difficulty levels, and high score sharing with other players.
Mu Torere - This is the Windows Mobile version of the all-time favorite Windows game, Reversi.
NetHack – This classic dungeon game has seen versions on DOS, Linux, Mac and Windows. There’s no reason it shouldn’t be on your Windows Mobile phone as well.
Next Element Delux - Here’s another cool logical game featuring 80 mind-twisting levels with interesting graphics and music.
NS Pairs – This is the Windows Mobile take on that the classic matching memory game.
PacMan - If you prefer the real thing, this is it. All the goodness of the classic PacMan game is here. It features full customization to add lives, change difficulty levels, and assigned buttons for control.
Pipes - Here’s a classic puzzle game featuring six difficulty levels. The object is to move around pipes and get water flowing to the flowers.
Pocket Lemmings – This is very similar to the original DOS and Amiga versions of the game.
Pocket Uno – This is a remake of the classic card game. It features multi-language support (English, Russian, Esperanto), three levels of computer play, auto-save, adjustable graphics, and stylus-free gameplay.
Pocketman – If you like PacMan, you’ll love this game. This remake features plenty of exciting levels, adjustable game speed and difficulty, fine sound and music, stylus and keyboard control, and the option to pause the game should you receive a call.
PocketMoku - Complete a continuous line of five stones in this remake of the classic puzzle game.
Project GD – This is a fun top-down shooter in the vein of Space Invaders.
Rawalls v1.4 - This simple, yet quite entertaining, puzzle game looks like a cross between minesweeper and Sudoko.
S3t! - This game was inspired by the classic SET card game. The game mechanics can be complicated unless if you’ve played SET.
Scrobble- This is very similar to Scrabble, outside of some minor differences. There are no challenges and players can only exchange all of their letters at once.
Smartfall – This is another Tetris clone running on Windows Mobile phones.
Snake – Here’s another popular game ported to Windows Mobile Phones. Who hasn’t played this game?
Snake.bizPla.net v1.0 – This is the Windows Mobile version of the classic game Snake. It features keyboard and stylus control as well as adjustable game speed.
Space Invaders - This is a remake of the 1978 classic. The developer made the game as close as possible to the original.
Spin The Bottle - If you have an HTC Diamond or HTC Touch Pro, you’ll enjoy spinning the bottle using your phone’s accelerometer.
Squares – This game offers simple gameplay with simple layout but definitely entertaining. All you have to do is avoid the squares for as long as you can.
Tic Tac Toe game - It’s tic-tac-toe ported for your WinMo-powered phone.
Touchtris - Enjoy the classic game of Tetris just by touching the screen.
VirusChaser- Prevent the virus from escaping by planting a wall. Every time you capture the virus, you have one less wall to prevent the virus from escaping.
Xonix – Move the spider as fast as you can to cut up a field and trap the monsters. This latest take on an arcade classic offers simple and addicting gameplay..
Xtrakt - This is a cool game built to run specifically on Sony Ericsson’s Xperia phone. But it on other Windows Mobile. In the game This game slay monsters while racing around on a motorcycle.
XWords for Pocket PC – Similar to Scrabble, this game features up to four players, move history, save game/open saved game, hints, tile protection and more.

Do you know of a great, free Windows Mobile game? Feel free to add it in the comments.

Pushbutton Develops New Interactive TV Gambling Game for Sky Vegas

2009-04-27T02:01:00.000-07:00

UK-based interactive TV design company, Pushbutton, announced last month that it has teamed with gambling channel, Sky Vegas, to launch an interactive TV version of the arcade-style, "tumbling faces" gambling game, "Chain Reactors," on the latter's service on the UK's Sky satellite-TV platform. In order for a player to win money, a series of what Pushbutton describes as "amusing and quirkily animated tumbling faces" must match up in clusters of at least five in a grid.

Lining up the faces causes a "chain reaction," wherein the matched faces disappear in a puff animation. New faces then tumble down the screen to replace them. Pushbutton says that "the fun part of the game is when your luck is in, and you start to get multiple chain reactions."

The game features three levels of progressive jackpot, including a "Maxi Jackpot" of £100,000. It also offers a "Free Play" option that lets viewers play for fun without the opportunity to win prizes. Pushbutton says that it worked closely with Sky Vegas to deliver the game on time and on budget, to an exacting schedule, and that it is "particularly proud" of the game's animations and sound effects. It claims that it was able to reproduce on the set-top box many of the "subtle UI effects," that it says made the Web-based version of the game so successful: for example, the company says, the characters in the grid are animated even when idle, and exhibit "surprise" and other behaviors as the grid empties and fills. The explosions of the game's "chain reactions" are also color-coded to each character. Pushbutton says that "clever development" means that the game's animation is "super-fast," even on the slowest legacy set-tops.

"'Chain Reactors' is the latest in a series of successful projects for Sky Vegas and its quality proves Pushbutton's credentials in developing TV-based gambling and arcade-style games," Pushbutton managing director, Paula Byrne, said in a prepared statement.

Free Ferrari video game provides cheap thrills

2009-04-22T01:49:00.000-07:00

I finally found something useful on Twitter. Ferrari is offering a free downloadable video game for PCs on their Web site (thanks @GTChannel).

In Ferrari Virtual Race, players can choose a car from a lineup of Ferraris, consisting of the 599 GTB Fiorano, 612 Scaglietti, and 430 Scuderia. Gamers can customize their selected car in the Atelier to get it race ready, and test their driving skills on the Mugello circuit.

For the moment, players race against the computer. However, Ferrari plans to release an online version that enables people to compete against friends over the Internet.

To download the game, visit the Ferrari Web site. Stay tuned for a review.

25 Awesome Free Games That You Can Download Legally

2009-04-22T01:42:00.000-07:00

I’m sure many of you pirate-bay fans aren’t too thrilled with the “legal” aspect of the headline, but for everyone else out there who wants some free games without getting involved with any legal issues, then you’ve come to the right place.

James Matson of GamePlayer.com.au writes out a detailed list of 25 games that are truly deemed awesome. Some of them are classics while others are more recent and definitely worth checking out. There are games ranging from a broad spectrum of genres, including shooters, MMORPGs, point-and-clck adventure titles, strategy games and even various simulators.

Each game has a full-on description on the site that breaks down the merits of the game, as well as providing download or resource links for acquiring the game; no hassles no legal worries, just plain ‘ole gaming fun. You can check out the extensive list of games by visiting GamePlayer.com.au. For more gaming news, insight, updates and information, be sure to stay tuned in with Blend Games.

Also catch more free games at http://www.freeplayfreegame.com/, and http://www.superstormgame.com/

Video Game Bytes: Flower, Magic Ball and Cuboid

2009-02-22T03:18:00.000-08:00

Here's an abbreviated look at a multimedia title for the entire family that can be downloaded on the PlayStation 3 from the PlayStation Network.
Flower (from Sony Computer Entertainment, $9.99) — Gamers commune with nature's colorful elements as they enter a peaceful world and control the wind to blow around flower petals and help a landscape bloom.
A player uses the SIXAXIS wireless controller to manipulate a line of petals among breezy fields to meet objectives. Tilt the controller to move and hit any button for a boost of wind. Touch a petal to a bud and watch it explode in color or dive over a barren field and feel it come to life as color-saturated as a scene from "The Wizard of Oz."
Musical arrangements and the hint of outdoor sounds paint an aural canvas complementing a vibrant dream, plush in wild grass, ocean waves and summer sun.
For each level, a player is first shown a noisy urban scene before he picks a flower petal that takes him away to his next airy adventure.
Young children just understanding the magic of interacting with an on-screen visual will love the moments while the gamer in need of respite from the harsh world of solving, shooting or beating things will feel a great sense of relief.
Magic Ball (from Tik Games/Creat Studios, $9.99) — "And now," as a certain British comedy troupe says, "for something completely different."
A Breakout-style challenge finds players controlling a soccer ball that ricochets around colorful, high-definition, three-dimensional environments. The goal is to use the orb and an ample supply of powerups to destroy everything on the playing field.
The ball is fired from the bow of a ship and the ship acts as a bumper to help control the ball and keep it out of bounds, adding a bit of a lesson in geometric angles.
Almost 50 swashbuckling and medieval landscapes must be reckoned with. The player might need to wipe out a forested terrain filled with dragons, a castle of knights or pirates battling skeletons.
Cascading upgrades, grabbed with the bow/bumper, come in three varieties. They can affect the ball (such as turning it into a spiked iron sphere or speeding it up), the environment (causing earthquakes and lightning strikes, for example), or provide the temporary use of weapons attached to the bow, including lasers, cannons and machines guns.
This casual gaming delight offers online and off-line competitive and cooperative action and is a bonding blast for parent and child.
Cuboid (from Tik Games/Creat Studios, $9.99) — Now let's finish with a spatially oriented puzzler of mind-exercising proportions. Through each of the 66 levels, which are presented within gorgeous, three-dimensional ancient ruins and classic architecture, the player must flip a rectangular block toward a glowing square exit. The block is positioned precariously on top of a tiled grid that often is floating in midair.
The nightmarish realignment maze is further complicated with time-based and fewest-move variations. Toss in hazards such as weakened wooden tiles that allow the block to fall through and helpers such as trap-door triggers and teleportation switches.
The design and soothing musical score beautifully complement the action. As the ornately etched block falls on stone tile, dust creeps out or a haze of colors is emitted to highlight areas of interest.
For 10 bucks, Cuboid is a must download for the family that plays together. They quickly will gather around the screen, offering plenty of advice on the player's exit strategy.

Look for a Breakout-style challenge in Magic Ball for the PlayStation 3.

Cuboid is a a spatially oriented puzzler of mind-exercising proportions for the PlayStation 3.

Gamers commune with nature's colorful elements in Flower for the PlayStation 3.

TNT Offers Digital Assist For NBA All-Star Weekend Coverage

2009-02-15T02:26:00.000-08:00

Mike Reynolds -- Multichannel News, 2/14/2009 1:11:14 PM MT

Turner Sports is complementing TNT's linear coverage of NBA All-Star Weekend with a host of digital applications.Fans can log on to NBA.com to view TNT OverTime Extra, an online mosaic player that will feature four live streaming camera angles from both NBA All-Star Saturday Night events on Valentine's Day and the All-Star game itself the next night. Launched during TNT's 2008 NBA All-Star coverage, TNT OverTime Extra had more than 1.7 million streams throughout its inaugural weekend of coverage,according to Turner officials.
By logging in through Facebook Connect on the mosaic, Facebook users can update their status directly as they watch live camera angles. Additionally, a wireless NBA.com All-Star Live application, is available for $0.99 cents from Apple's App Store.
The camera angles on both the mosaic and wireless application for the Saturday night extravaganza include: arena cam supplying wide shots from cameras positioned above the court and outside the arena; host cam affording coverage featuring the online host as well as the on-air announcers and reporters; action cam proffering a range of footage capturing the on-court action; and player cam, furnishing shots of players on the bench, as well as the court. There will also be four online available during the All-Star Game: east player cam will be trained on the conference player receiving the most votes throughout the game: ditto, for west coast player; robo cam, presenting wide shots of the court from cameras positioned above it; and host cam, covering the online host, plus the on-air announcers and reporters. The Facebook integration will give users worldwide the ability to interact in real-time by sharing their opinions and comments during the Saturday and Sunday night events. They can also view the status updates from their friends and Facebook users who are also watching the online coverage. Facebook pioneered this integration with CNN.com during the 2009 presidential inauguration. "This year's unprecedented coverage of the Saturday and Sunday night NBA All-Star events on air and online brings together the extensive digital and linear expertise of Turner to offer fans the most interactive coverage of one of the year's most exciting events," said Turner Sports president David Levy in a statement. "From screen to screen, fans watching on TNT, NBA.com and on their wireless device will experience the high-flying, action packed drama of the weekend like never before."TNT's coverage on Feb. 14 tips off at 5 p.m. (ET) with a two-hour studio show featuring the debut of a live H-O-R-S-E game, followed by exclusive coverage of NBA All-Star Saturday Night presented on TNT by State Farm at 8 p.m. The drama network's All-Star Game coverage starts at 8 p.m. on Feb.15.

VideoGamer.com Plays

2009-01-24T07:00:00.000-08:00

By Tom Orry - 24/01/2009 - 1:37pm GMT

Tom Orry, Editor - Skate 2, Xbox 360As I mentioned in my review, Skate 2 is one of those games that looks really easy, meaning cocky people will slam you for being rubbish and insist they could do better. This sort of happened in the office this week, with our resident Skateboarding expert Seb (a title given to him simply because he looks like he could skate) trying to complete a challenge I'd been failing miserably at for about an hour. Plenty of bails and broken bones later he'd managed to scrape through, although with scores lower than I had achieved and failed with. Play Skate 2 in front of a group of friends and they'll almost always insist on having a go, claiming "it can't be as hard as you're making it out to be". They will almost always be proven wrong.

(UPDATE) YouTube for Television Now on PS3

2009-01-17T22:58:00.001-08:00

Toronto (ECN) - After announcing the YouTube for Television project last summer, video sharing website YouTube has introduced a special TV website for browser-enabled devices such as the Sony PS3. The website is available at www.youtube.com/tv. With Youtube for Television, the viewer can watch YouTube videos while sitting on the couch in the living room, using a regular television remote control, rather than sitting in an uncomfortable chair in the home office clicking a mouse. The viewers can see videos from their large TV screen rather than their small computer screen. The system is now in beta testing for the PS3 and Nintendo Wii, and other devices will be added soon.The website's interface features text that is larger than usual. Navigation tools have been refined. Google, which purchased YouTube in October 2006, has also included an auto-play feature, which will allow users to watch related videos one right after the other without having to navigate complicated menus again and again. YouTube on Television will seek to eliminate the annoying aspects of streaming video, such as poor sound, distorted video, and difficult navigation.Google wants to make the website available to anyone across the globe who owns a PS3. The channel is available right now in 12 regions and 22 languages. Those statistics are certain to grow as time goes on. Google hopes to push industry momentum toward having across the board television access for web content, and the company hopes to extend YouTube for Television access to owners of other devices that provide access to the Internet.Sony PS3 is widely used for web browsing. The PS3's share of the Internet market is higher than that of the Nintendo Wii. This may be because PS3 owners are more involved in the tech and game culture than are Wii owners. Sony's goal is to make the PS3 a complete media center, and they definitely moving a step closer with YouTube television.The way people watch TV is changing. Many viewers choose to record the programs they wish to watch, or they may watch them online, or they may download the programs for a fee. Now viewers can browse the Internet, watch television, and play games, all on one device.With YouTube/tv, users can search and browse clips. They will have the choice of playing videos automatically from a playlist or from search results.YouTube began its journey toward moving the computer to the living room in 2007, when it rolled out Apple TV. Youtube's aim is 'YouTube on any screen, any time'. Gamers and Web surfers have always looked forward to the great day when clips viewed on computer screens would become adaptable to any size television, up to 52 inches. YouTube is bringing the world closer to that reality. YouTube is coming to the living room.

The Zombies Look Better Every Year

2008-12-21T00:49:00.000-08:00

By SETH SCHIESEL
Published: December 19, 2008

THE video game industry has never been more reliable in producing high-quality mass entertainment for a variety of audiences with a variety of tastes. Three years into the current generation of game systems, developers are ceding nothing to other entertainment media in terms of high-end production values and overall attention to detail.

Gaming’s exploding worldwide popularity has forced developers to become at once more humble and more ambitious. More humble in recognizing that gamers demand quality and will not be bamboozled into throwing away their money on an undercooked product. More ambitious in recognizing that the technical resources are now available to create true high-definition interactive entertainment and in recognizing that the mainstream game audience is now sophisticated enough to appreciate nuanced, involved storytelling.
That doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with just wanting to shoot stuff sometimes. The great strength of the video game business these days is that it is catering to everyone, something I’ve seen both in the games and in the people who play them. Here then are some of the most interesting and revealing games, gaming moments and gaming trends of 2008.
BEST ZOMBIES: LEFT 4 DEAD It was a big year for the undead. I enjoyed strategically dismembering the spooky space zombies in Dead Space, but Valve, with Left 4 Dead, demonstrated why it is the premier developer of first-person shooters (sorry Id, sorry Bungie). The pacing is taut, and the game is built around the ludicrous fun of its multiplayer modes. There few extraneous design features, allowing the game to bask in the purity of the adrenaline rush it provides. (For Xbox 360 and PC.)
BEST EXPLANATION OF WHY NINTENDO HARDLY NEEDS BIG GAMES ANYMORE: THE WII The only constituency of gamer with a legitimate gripe for feeling a bit neglected this holiday season is the hard-core Nintendo fan: you know, the Zelda expert, the Mario savant. Those players are finally coming to realize that Nintendo does not need to fawn over them anymore because the rest of the planet, which has never even heard of Zelda, is still clamoring for the Wii. I’ve seen it all year. My middle-age downstairs neighbor asked me to help her find two copies of Wii Fit so she could send them to relatives in Puerto Rico. Over a rainy summer weekend on Long Island, an entire house full of highly paid finance professionals spent almost every waking moment in a rotating Wii bowling and tennis tournament. (I could make any number of jokes about the September crash but will refrain.) These kinds of people don’t even consider themselves gamers, but they are why Nintendo can get away with neglecting its core fans. For now.
BEST EMBRACE OF DEMOCRACY, FLAWED AS IT IS: EVE ONLINE This year CCP of Iceland (another potential finance joke sidestepped) invited the more than 200,000 players of Eve Online to vote for nine representatives from around the world to convey their concerns and suggestions about the game to the company. That alone was innovative. Then the company flew them to Iceland to sit down for a few days with the game’s developers. The company has committed to repeating the process about every six months, which makes this an idea that ought to spread beyond the game world. Maybe Microsoft should allow Windows users to vote for an officially recognized gripe committee. Maybe the airlines could have their chief executives sit down with an elected panel of frequent flyers twice a year. Hey, who says games can’t make the world a better place?
BEST DISAPPOINTMENT: SPORE If Electronic Arts has learned anything from its experience with Spore, it ought to be that a software company should just let its games do the talking, rather than relentlessly hyping a game for years before its release only to deliver a one-note electronic toy in the end. Spore would not have fizzled so quickly if expectations had not been so ludicrously inflated to begin with. Perhaps more important, it showed that maybe even a game god like Will Wright, the game’s creator, can stand to be reminded of the basics once in a while. Spore was great at letting the player create something from nothing. But in the end it just wasn’t that interesting to play with. Making cool stuff is a great part of video games, but the play, more than in any other media, really is the thing. (For Mac and PC.)
BEST VINDICATION: FABLE II Like Mr. Wright, the game designer Peter Molyneux also likes to talk. And he is also quite good at it. His games, however, have never quite been as golden as his tongue. Until now. With Fable II, his enchanting Enlightenment-era fantasy role-playing adventure, Mr. Molyneux finally achieved his goal of allowing players to feel as if they were inhabiting a living world. (For Xbox 360.)
GAME OF THE YEAR: GRAND THEFT AUTO IV G.T.A. IV came out in April, and for the rest of the year I kept waiting for some other new game to captivate and refuse to release me the way this masterpiece from Rockstar did. I’m still waiting. Beyond its formidable craft, apart from its well-balanced combat and driving mechanics, what impresses most about G.T.A. IV is its writing. It is one of the few games that even try to take on the real world in any adult way. (Of course, the game’s Liberty City setting is a parody of modern New York.) Penetrating through all the game’s gangster trappings is a hunger to engage with the idiocies, the contradictions and even some of the good things in modern America. After all, someone has to. (For Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC.)

PlayStation Home launches in the UK

2008-12-14T00:44:00.000-08:00

Sony has launched its hotly anticipated 3D gaming community for users of its PS3 games console.
PS3 gamers can download a beta (trial) version of the service dubbed PlayStation Home, which will enable them to interact with other PS3 gamers in a virtual world.
Players will be able to create a unique avatar, a kind of online alter ego, to represent themselves within PlayStation Home. From here gamers will be able to chat with other PS3 gamers via voice of video chat as well as challenging them to miniature games.
They'll also be able to create their own communities of like-minded people using a feature called Club 2.

Freeverse Ships Mac Version of Jack Keane Adventure Game

2008-12-08T03:25:00.000-08:00

Freeverse today started shipping the Mac version of the adventure game title, Jack Keane (ESRB: Teen), to retail stores in North America. The game has been available in a digital download format from Deliver2Mac web site since August. Jack Keane takes players on a wild, uproarious adventure to stop a mad scientist’s army of trained apes out to rule the world.
Players can interact with dozens of zany characters and use more than 250 found objects to solve puzzles, as Jack moves closer to solving the mystery of Tooth Island and his own past.
The game features hilarious interactive dialogue sequences and cinematic interludes, along with a cast of more than 40 fully developed and memorable characters. Players assume the role of our hapless, swashbuckling adventurer and accompany him in his travels across 15 locations throughout London, Capetown, and Tooth Island. Good graphics, including dynamic lighting, realistic water, and particle effects, highlight players’ adventures.
You can read our full review of this game here. Jack Keane is priced at $39.95 and can be ordered from Freeverse’s online store.
System Requirements:Mac OS X version 10.3.9;1.4GHz PowerPC G4 or Intel processor;512MB of RAM;64MB video RAM (Intel GMA 950 chipset supported);1GB hard disk space.

Second Book in the Groundbreaking Multi-Media Series On-Sale Today; Also Today, Scholastic Launches Enhanced 39 Clues Online Game, All-New Card Game,

2008-12-02T06:54:00.001-08:00

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - December 2, 2008) - The global hunt for The 39 Clues™, the groundbreaking multi-media adventure series from Scholastic, continues with "Book 2: One False Note" by Gordon Korman, on-sale today in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. In advance of today's release of "One False Note," kids around the world participated in a live global webcast on December 1, 2008, with Academy Award-winning actor Whoopi Goldberg interviewing author Gordon Korman. The webcast can be viewed online at www.scholastic.com/39clues.
In addition to the publication of "Book 2: One False Note," Scholastic also today launches several exciting new components to enrich The 39 Clues multi-media experience:
-- Arena 39, a new training area on The 39 Clues online game where participating Cahills can test their clue-hunting skills, launches with five different mini-games. Each week, there will be a new challenge available and players will be able to continually view their overall scores.
-- "The 39 Clues: Double-Cross™" is a free card game in which kids can use their 39 Clues collectible cards and play against their friends without having to go on the internet. A free instructional video, downloadable game mat, and rules are now available on http://www.the39clues.com/. The "offline" adventure begins with players sending their "agent cards" out into locations to collect Cahill secret information and earn points. "The 39 Clues: Double-Cross" is designed for 2-4 players, and the first to collect 39 points wins.
-- From now through December 24th, 39 Clues television ads will air in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta, and Washington, DC.
-- Scholastic has created a special Classroom Guide for educators that can be downloaded from www.scholastic.com/39clues. The 39 Clues is a reading adventure allowing students to visit every continent and travel through 500 years of world history.
-- More than $100,000 in prizes are available through sweepstakes and contests, and three of the prizing opportunities are now open; winners will be announced in mid-January.*
The 39 Clues launched on September 9, 2008, with "Book 1: The Maze of Bones" by Rick Riordan, which debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list, and has remained on the list for 10 consecutive weeks to date. This groundbreaking multi-media adventure series for ages 8-12 spans 10 adrenaline-charged books, multiple collectible game cards, and an online game that allows readers to play a part in the story and compete for prizes. The 39 Clues online game also launched in September with children from all 50 states and in countries around the world logging on to join the hunt. Also available now is The 39 Clues Card Pack 1, a collection of 16 game cards that can be used for Books 1, 2, and 3. Movie rights for The 39 Clues have been acquired by DreamWorks Studios with Steven Spielberg eyeing to direct.
"We are thrilled that readers around the world are actively engaged in the multi-media hunt for The 39 Clues," said Ellie Berger, President, Scholastic Trade Publishing division. "So far, the online game has attracted participants from all 50 states and from more than 100 countries -- extending the reading experience to all those who accept the challenge."
The 39 Clues centers around the Cahills -- the most powerful family the world has ever known. But the source of the family's power has been lost. Grace Cahill, the last matriarch of the Cahills, changed her will minutes before she died, leaving her descendants an impossible decision: receive a million dollars or a clue. The first Cahill to assemble all 39 clues hidden around the world will discover what makes the family so powerful -- a reward beyond measure. It's Cahill versus Cahill in a race to the finish, with readers hot on the heels of the main characters, fourteen-year-old Amy Cahill and her eleven-year-old brother, Dan. The series kicks off in the first book with Benjamin Franklin taking center stage in "The Maze of Bones"; and in "One False Note," the focus shifts to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Gordon Korman is the author of more than sixty books for kids and young adults, most recently "Swindle" and "The Juvie Three." His writing career began at the age of 12 when his seventh grade English assignment became his first novel, which was then published when he was a freshman in high school. Now, thirty-two years later, he is a full-time writer, with more than 14 million copies of his novels in print. His books have been translated into 14 languages. Each year he travels extensively, visiting schools and libraries, bringing his trademark humor and adventure style to readers everywhere. A native of Ontario, Canada, Korman now lives with his family in Long Island, New York.
For more information about The 39 Clues and to download digital images, visit http://mediaroom.scholastic.com/The39Clues.
*NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Void where prohibited. For complete details and Official Rules, go to http://www.the39clues.com/.
About Scholastic
Scholastic Corporation (NASDAQ: SCHL) is the world's largest publisher and distributor of children's books and a leader in educational technology and children's media. Scholastic creates quality educational and entertaining materials and products for use in school and at home, including children's books, magazines, technology-based products, teacher materials, television programming, film, videos and toys. The Company distributes its products and services through a variety of channels, including proprietary school-based book clubs and school-based book fairs, retail stores, schools, libraries, television networks and the Company's Internet Site, http://www.scholastic.com/.

Armageddon Squadron mobile game for iPhone releases via Polarbit

2008-11-29T03:08:00.000-08:00

Polarbit, renowned mobile game developer best known for the Raging Thunder racing game for iPhone. Polarbit unveiled the release of its latest title, Armageddon Squadron for iPhone and iPod Touch. The player can take part in the mission with the best aircrafts of the World War II, through groundbreaking 3D shoot’em-up/flight simulator Armageddon Squadron.
The objective of the mission is bombing and attacking via raids and protecting the ground troops against the enemy aircraft. Another objective to be encountered in the mission is the dogfights against the enemy. The game is integrated with a smooth accelerometer control that makes flying joy.
“Armageddon Squadron represents a slight departure for us in terms of gameplay style, compared to Raging Thunder, WaveBlazer and Crash Nitro Kart,” added Anders Nilsson, co-founder and CTO at Polarbit. “It proves beyond any doubt that Polarbit is capable of delivering top-notch games, regardless of genre or game type.”
Polarbit does not offer multiplayer mode for the current Armageddon Squadron but it does offer online and Wi-Fi functionality. This game is available at the AppStore. The pricing detail is not yet revealed.

Fable 2 Xbox Game Review

2008-11-15T19:40:00.000-08:00

You start Fable 2, as a young kid, whom sister is murdered, thus making the storyline centered upon revenge. Where your motive is to kill the one who killed your sister and save the world all in one.
I don’t want to spoil anything, but there is a time where you go years without visiting your homeland, but the problem is that you don’t receive payment from all those years you’ve been away, from the stores and houses you currently have rented to villagers.
If you don’t pay enough attention to your wife, she’ll end up divorcing you. Even if you have offspring’s or not, going back in forth to see your family in between jobs and quests makes it difficult to manage your family.

The loading between towns can be a little off putting, especially if your one of those gamers that is trying to walk from town to town searching for hidden treasures, thus having to endure multiple loading screens on your adventure.
The co-op mode and online, was a little disappointing, as it didn’t feel quit finish, as you have to choose from a hand select default characters to play as.
The best part of the game, is your faithful Dog, he’s the only one you can trust and depend on. He’s always on the lookout for buried treasures and hidden treasure chests. He’ll always bark to alert you of enemies near by, as well as fight off enemies that fall to the ground. Truly the best feature in the game, as he steals the show.

Fable II is a great sequel to the first Fable, which was great. Fable II will entertain you for many hours in between the main quest, with many jobs to compete for money, doing either good deeds or evil ones, it’s your choice, that’s what makes this game so good.

Apple: Soon to Be a Mobile Gaming Force

2008-11-04T00:11:00.000-08:00

Watch out, Sony and Nintendo; overnight, the maker of the iPhone is making a mark on the handheld gaming industry
By Arik Hesseldahl

I didn't expect much from games on the iPhone. I had visions of casual games, perhaps a fancy take on solitaire or a version of poker that takes advantage of the handset's touchscreen. Surely not a true mobile gaming experience.
Boy, was I wrong. For the last few days I've been sampling some of the games available from the iTunes Store on the iPod Touch, and I've been stunned at how elaborate and involved they are. On the iPod Touch I've played a version of Gameloft's Real Soccer 2009 that rivals the version of the game on the Nintendo DS, and I didn't even miss the buttons. I've seen demonstrations of Sim City, forthcoming for the iPhone and the Touch from Electronic Arts (ERTS), that look more elaborate and sophisticated than any versions I've played before on a desktop PC or console.
They're immersive, addictive fun. And it's now readily apparent to me that the iPhone and iPod Touch are well on their way to becoming an important force in handheld gaming. When you consider the ease and reach of Apple's (AAPL) online method for distributing games, Apple could do in this category what it did in online music, causing big headaches for the genre's established players, Sony (SNE) and Nintendo.
Apple's come a long way in short order. In the three months and change since the iTunes App Store opened for business, it's already home to some 1,500 games, compared with fewer than 300 titles for Sony's PlayStation Portable and about 600 for Nintendo's handheld console, the DS.
Apple's Gaming Advantages
The iPhone maker is also holding its own when it comes to units sold. Based on sales data and analysts' projections, Apple is on track to sell an easy 40 million devices or more a year that are capable of playing games.
Nintendo sold 42 million DS consoles during the 18 months from January 2007 to June 2008, according to market research firm iSuppli. So Apple is on pace to sell about as many game-capable handhelds in a single year as Nintendo, the market's current leader, has sold in the most recently reported 18 months. This suggests that Apple could be on the cusp of claiming the crown as the world's market leader in handheld gaming.
Now look at Apple's advantages over competitors. Apple already has more titles for its games than both of the other two combined. And aside from the free ones, games on the App Store sell at prices ranging up to $9.99 and sometimes a little more. Compare that with the $20 to $40 for Nintendo DS games and the $10 to $40 for games on the PSP.
And with Apple selling via iTunes, there are no costs associated with the distribution of physical media. All games are downloaded directly to the device. And in the event the game is buggy, the developer can easily issue an easy-to-download fix. The developer gets 70% of the sale and Apple keeps 30%, with no one else to get in the middle. Nintendo and Sony partners have to worry about shelf space at stores, shipping, returns, defective merchandise, and even the occasional shoplifter.
On a revenue comparison, Apple's gaming sales will be much smaller than at Sony or Nintendo because the price of individual games is so much lower. What's more, not everyone who buys an iPhone or a Touch will also buy games. But the potential game sales per iPhone user will be higher because of the price differential. In its most recent quarter, Sony sold 3.18 million PSPs and about 12 million games for an average of fewer than four games per device.
Apple's Impact on the Gaming Industry
While there's no data yet on specific iPhone game sales, users of the iPhone are heavier gamers than those of other phones. A survey by iSuppli's ConsumerTrak found that U.S. cell-phone users report spending less than 3% of phone-use time on games. But that average shoots up considerably to more than 9% on the first iPhone and 6% on the iPhone 3G. (That's still less time than iPhone owners spend on e-mail, texting, or talking.)
How big an impact can Apple have? "They're not going to put Sony or Nintendo out of business," says Van Baker, a gaming analyst at Gartner Group (IT). Both companies have strong and thriving home-console businesses.
And the iPhone and Touch aren't ideal gaming devices. They're also made for calling, Web access, and e-mail. And both lack buttons, which arguably would give players more control over complex in-game moves and maneuvers. (But the iPhone and the Touch have the multitouch screen and the accelerometer, which allow for some pretty fancy moves of their own).
Nor are Apple's newly spawned gaming devices cheap. The iPod Touch starts at $229 and the iPhone 3G starts at $199 and requires a two-year service contract. The Nintendo DS goes for $129 while the PSP goes for $170 to $200. But once you add the cost of games, and in the case of the PSP, a $30-to-$40 Memory Stick, the iPhone's price begins to look competitive. Then the iPhone also has iTunes, which includes easy access to music, movies, TV shows, and more games all the time.
It's enough to make me wonder whether Apple is on its way to conquering yet another sector of the consumer-technology business from out of nowhere. We'll certainly know more after the holiday season, but if I worked for the Sony or Nintendo handheld gaming divisions, I'd be watching the holiday sales figures closely.
Hesseldahl is a reporter for BusinessWeek.com.

MSN unveils home for ‘buddy’

2008-10-22T21:06:00.000-07:00

by Benjamin Li 23-Oct-08,

HONG KONG - MSN Hong Kong has built a ‘virtual home’ for its MSN buddy icon to engage kids and young adults and encourage them to download new tools. The site, http://buddy.hk.msn.com, features virtual live chat with the buddy, an Xbox game, new pop-up ‘emoticons’ and Chong Hing Bank’s MSN credit card poster as a product placement.“Initially the client’s brief for us was just a naming competition for the MSN buddy, which most MSN users know but have taken for granted as it doesn’t have a name or identity. Instead we have extended the whole brand engagement project into an MSN buddy home, so we could extend the promotion campaign in future,” said Rudi Leung, director of communication planning at digital agency Agenda Hong Kong, which handles MSN.“The ‘home’ has now humanised the buddy. Our users can add the buddy to their list for live chat, and we have added many localised elements, including celebrities going to the buddy’s home to promote their new movies. Other advertisers can explore product placement opportunities on this new platform in future,” said Polly Lau, marketing director of online service, MSN“We don’t want to make it too commercial, as MSN Messenger is already a market leader with sufficient awareness, we want to keep it fun and young to engage with our users,” Leung added.Rich media and video ads in MSN network, PR support and viral videos are being used to drum up interest.Currently there are two million MSN users in Hong Kong, compared to more than 200,000 Yahoo Messenger users and 100,000 ICQ users.

Organize All The World’s Information, Then Put Google Ads On It

2008-10-10T00:52:00.000-07:00

by Michael Arrington on October 8, 2008

It’s unlikely Google will ever find another money machine as efficient as search advertising, which accounts for about 40% of the $40 billion advertising dollars spent online each year. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t going to try. Today they unleashed two new forms of advertisements: click to buy links on YouTube and adsense for Flash games.
The New York Times says Google plans to release several other ad products in the coming weeks as well, so don’t think we’re done yet.
Most people still think of Google as a search business. But what the analysts understood long ago, and the rest of us are realizing now, is that what they really want to do is organize all the world’s information, and then put ads on it.
Which is fine with me, as long as the ads are like this one. But taking a break from my favorite Flash game to watch a video ad for insurance?

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/08/a-google-ad-on-all-the-worlds-information/

Review: Facebreaker

2008-09-21T03:44:00.000-07:00

There is something refreshing about a game that keeps things as simple as FaceBreaker.
It's like a fighter who knows how to take a punch, knows how to hit hard, and cares about little else. EA Sports' latest offering ,FaceBreaker, keeps it that simple.
It drops you straight into the middle of a boxing ring. It gives you two buttons to jab with, a button to block with, a button for your finishing move and that's about it. It asks little more from a player then to square up and start pounding.
It is an unabashed, unashamed button masher that leaves concepts like subtlety, technique and realism at ringside holding the spit bucket, a jar of Vaseline and a sweaty, blood soaked towel. From the moment you switch the game on it seems like all the frills have been discarded in favour of getting you into the ring as quickly as possible. There is barely a cut scene to be seen before you are presented with the game's simple and straightforward menu.
There are four fight modes, a couple of online options, a trophy room, some tutorial videos and the boxer factory where you can edit your fighter. While at the top of the menu, begging to be clicked, is the self-explanatory Fight option. Click on Fight and you can instantly choose from half of the game's dozen main fighters. They are all stylishly exaggerated cartoon characters, every one of them over proportioned and familiar. From the leather clad, blonde Sparrow to the dreadlocked surfer Kekoa, the game doesn't bother with back-stories or motivations, you just need to choose one and start fighting.The fight mechanics are as simple as the opening menu. The face buttons control a low jab, a high jab, a strong attack and a throw. The right trigger allows you to block and the left trigger lets you taunt your opponent.
There are no combination strings to memorise. The only variation being tapping a button to punch as opposed to holding it slightly longer to dodge, or holding both block and jab buttons to parry and counter your enemy's strike.Initiating finishing moves is also a fairly simple mechanic. Each fighter has a four part Breaker Meter. Land jabs and your meter fills. Get hit, or even just step back, and the meter empties. So you have the choice. Unleash a power strike with the meter half fill and you will do some decent damage.
But, fill the meter to the top and you can hit your opponent with a FaceBreaker. Each character has a unique FaceBreaker that will instantly end a match.This however, leads into a problem with the game's simplicity. While each character's FaceBreaker looks different, essentially they are all initiated the exact same way. So every fight can be boiled down to jab-jab-dodge, repeat a few times, FaceBreaker.If it all sounds simple - it is. Find a friend or go online and within seconds you can be pounding seven kinds of crap out of them. The graphics are big, colourful and fun.
Land a few HayBreakers, SkyBreakers or GroundBreakers (the lesser Breakers) and your opponent will stagger into their corner between rounds. After taking a few big hits their eyes will be blood shot and bulging and their nose will be smeared across their face. It's over the top, but still pretty funny.Alternatively, you can take the time to make your own fighter. By using a USB camera or uploading pictures to the net you can map your own face, or anyone else's, onto a fighter. The game even has a few examples, with the likenesses of Kim Kardashian or Spencer from The Hills available to have their faces bashed in. All in the name of good, clean fun, of course.Yes the game is fun. It is an old-school party game, that like most of the offerings from EA Sports is at its best when playing against real opponents. However, playing against the cpu can be an exercise in frustration. Health regenerates quickly, so wearing your opposition down doesn't really work.
And while some opponent's defenses are virtually impregnable, others can be beaten within seconds. Usually, both difficult and easy fights end with the FaceBreaker.Unfortunately, everything in FaceBreaker has a relatively limited feel compared to the detailed and complex fight-sims of recent times. There are twelve main fighters with only a few special moves each. Unlockable costumes are simple colour variations. Locations are pretty but just backdrops to the same squared circle and while the sound and sound-track are fine, that's pretty much it.However, if there was ever a game that could be summed up in a title - then FaceBreaker is it. Your thumbs will ache in the morning and you may need to fork out a hundred dollars on a new controller but sometimes we all need a bit of cartoonish mayhem in our lives.
If you get the feeling that finesse and realism are over-rated and you and your mates need a break from Guitar Hero-ing then you could do worse than breaking a few faces.

WipEout HD release confirmed for Sep 25

2008-09-15T04:26:00.000-07:00

Sony Computer Entertainment America has announced that WipEout HD is to be available on the PlayStation Store from September 25, priced $19.99. Sony Computer Entertainment Europe has already confirmed a £11.99 price for us Brits, but is yet to say anything official regarding a release date. Hopefully we'll hear something soon.
In case you've missed all the hype, WipEout HD will feature 60 frames per second racing action, all presented in stunning 1080p with 5.1 sound - it really does look amazing for a downloadable title. There are five game modes on offer, including Single Race, Tournament, Time Trial, Speed Lap and Zone Mode.
There's also multiplayer support for eight players online or two locally using split screen. You've got eight reversible tracks to master and 12 teams. Motion-loving gamers can even choose to control their craft using the Sixaxis motion controls, just like in MotorStorm.
To top this off there's even full support for PS3 Trophies, details on which are promised soon.

Warhammer: Battle March Ships

2008-09-02T16:21:00.000-07:00

NAMCO BANDAI Games, today announced that Warhammer: Battle March for the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and Warhammer: Mark of Chaos - Battle March for the PC have shipped to retailers throughout North America. Delivering deep, tactics-based real-time strategy action to the Xbox 360 and introducing new content to the critically acclaimed Warhammer: Mark of Chaos for the PC, Battle March brings Games Workshop’s legendary fantasy world to life with brutal combat on a massive scale, a wide range of customizable units and support for online skirmishes.
Warhammer: Battle March on the Xbox 360 includes the original content from Warhammer: Mark of Chaos as well as more units and armies, new console-specific control schemes and support for online play via the Xbox LIVE online entertainment network. Eliminating the tedious resource management and base building that make the real-time strategy genre so daunting, the game puts the spotlight squarely on the thrill of each battle, delivering an experience that is uniquely well-suited to console play. Built around the framework of Games Workshop’s renowned fantasy world, players will be able to control six unique armies – the Empire, Chaos, Skaven, High Elves, Dark Elves and Orcs & Goblins – as they experience the different perspectives of each faction’s quest for survival and triumph in a world torn apart by constant war. On Xbox LIVE, up to four players can engage in massive multi-army clashes in head-to-head and team-based modes of play.

Warhammer: Mark of Chaos - Battle March for the PC builds upon the original game’s tactical foundation with an all-new single player campaign focusing on the Orcs & Goblins, new units for each faction and a massive, persistent new online World Domination mode. As players succeed in World Domination mode, their chosen faction will gain more influence over the world of Warhammer, encouraging gamers to work in unison with other online players to gain more territory and achieve total supremacy.

WPP invests in Chinese in-game ad firm

2008-08-25T04:22:00.000-07:00

SHANGHAI - WPP has taken a minority stake in a Chinese in-game advertising firm to boost its exposure to one of the region’s fastest-growing online sectors. The holding group’s WPP Digital arm has acquired 12.82 per cent of the issued share capital of IGA, parent company of Shanghai-based InGame Ad Technology Interactive. InGame Ad (a separate company to global in-game advertising giant IGA) focuses on ads within PC-based online gaming. China differs from Western markets in that the PC is the most popular gaming platform, as opposed to consoles such as PlayStation 3. Scott Spirit, strategy director at WPP, described the deal as an “early-stage investment” similar to a tie-up with HDT Holdings, a Chinese rich media ad-serving company. The investments are part of a strategy to take stakes in emerging Chinese companies within the digital sphere. “All companies in this space are a tiny at the moment,” said Spirit. “Nobody has yet made it work in China.” Other investors in IGA include California-based venture capital firm Revolution Ventures.

US gaming biz skeptical of RIAA-style antipiracy tactics

2008-08-22T05:03:00.001-07:00

Piracy is a complex problem with easy solutions. In the UK, a group of game publishers have banded together to intimidate pirates into coughing up cash or heading to court. This RIAA-style tactic, targeting the end user, has proven unpopular and unprofitable for the music industry in the United States and has paid mixed dividends at best. Peter Moore, the head of EA Sports, is openly critical of this approach, while id Software's Todd Hollenshead actually thinks piracy is a "benefit" to PC hardware manufacturers. Hal Halpin, the head of the Entertainment Consumer Association, has yet to take a stand one way or the other. Welcome to the quagmire of gaming piracy.
Peter Moore is blunt. "If we learned anything from the music business, they just don't win any friends by suing their consumers," he told Eurogamer. "Speaking personally, I think our industry does not want to fall foul of what happened with music."
Moore takes piracy seriously, but doesn't have many ideas for an effective weapon against it. He does, however, know what he doesn't like. "I'm not a huge fan of trying to punish your consumer. Albeit these people have clearly stolen intellectual property, I think there are better ways of resolving this within our power as developers and publishers," Moore said. "I think there are better solutions than chasing people for money. I'm not sure what they are, other than to build game experiences that make it more difficult for there to be any value in pirating games."
EA actually has some plans in that direction, including free, microtransaction-based games like Battlefield Heroes and of course MMOs like Warhammer Online, games that are functionally impervious to piracy.
The question is: do PC users see the ability to pirate games as a reason to choose that platform for gaming? That's a very debatable position, but id Software's Todd Hollenshead seems to think that hardware companies don't mind piracy all that much. "I think that there's been this dirty little secret among hardware manufacturers, which is that the perception of free content—even if you're supposed to pay for it on PCs—is some sort hidden benefit that you get when you buy a PC, like a right to download music for free or a right to download pirated movies and games," he told GamesIndustry.
There is perhaps some truth to this assertion: gamers may not mind spending top-dollar on the best components if they think they can get all the content they want for free.
One important contact we wanted to speak to for this story was Hal Halpin, the founder of the ECA—an advocacy group that stands up for the rights of gamers. With publishers in the UK beginning to threaten users, and the ESA hiring executives from the RIAA, surely he would have some thoughts on what this could mean for American gamers in the future. Unfortunately, his reply to Ars was brief, and somewhat curt. "Unfortunately, ECA has yet to take a public position on piracy, which is itself a very complex and encompassing issue. As for the ESA, we cannot comment on their hiring practices or policies." This is a disappointing answer from an important figure in gaming.
These attitudes and insights show just how divisive, but important, the issue of piracy has become for gaming. It often seems like it comes down to three approaches when dealing with pirates: either ignore them, listen to them, or sue them.

EA Mythic reveals open beta details for Warhammer Online

2008-08-19T06:11:00.001-07:00

MMO gamers itching to try out EA Mythic's Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning will finally be able to do so this September 7, when the game's open beta phase finally goes live.Players in North America can access the open beta buy pre-ordering the game or by visiting FilePlanet.com and signing up for a limited number of available slots. Those who previously had access to the closed beta will automatically be able to play during the open beta as well.EA Mythic will also be hosting a special North American Beta Preview Weekend from August 22 to August 25, with over 100,000 players invited to end the closed beta with a bang. The game itself is set to be released this September 18 and will simultaneously launch in North America, Europe and Oceania.Only 75,000 open beta keys will be available upon downloading the open beta client from FilePlanet.com. What are you waiting for then? Hop onto the FilePlanet.com servers and gun for that slot for a chance to play in the open beta of one of the most anticipated MMO titles of the year.

Inspired by China

2008-08-11T16:35:00.001-07:00

All eyes may be fixed on China over the next two weeks, but there are plenty of fashionistas right here who have been flirting with the country long before the Olympics hit the triple-eight jackpot.
The symbols, the colours, the handmade touches - the ancient fashion culture fires up creativity this side of the Pacific. Obviously there are the Hudson Bay Company's Chinese-inspired uniforms for our Beijing Olympiads, plus a raft of Games-focused fashion such as Old Navy's Beijing Olympic team track jacket and Olympic torch graphic t-shirt. But beyond the fanfare and athletic prowess of the world event, it is the Asian country's link to the past that is the main appeal.
"It's very old and it's very rich [in history] and I think we are attracted to each other for all of our differences," says Vancouverite Lorraine Kitsos, the designer behind the online clothing company Redfish Kids, whom we caught up with en route to New York City's ENK Children's Club clothing exhibition. "Vancouver is open and exciting, and we embrace, and look for, something that is different." For her own Vancouver-produced designs, she wanted to emulate the "sophistication" she spied at the renowned luxury, made-to-order store, Shanghai Tang, in Hong Kong (she lived in the territory for three years). "I would spend my days in the Shanghai Tang tea room [part of the tailormade experience] dreaming up new ideas," Kitsos says. "I was totally excited by the clean and classic lines." Adding that the store evokes the spirit of the turn of the last century when there was "real craftsmanship and more of a connection to how things were made." Kitsos continues, "It's really beautiful - like travelling back in time. I'm sentimental about a time when you could pick out your very own dress and you play a part in designing it. So in my Redfish dresses I aim for limited prints or short runs of ones that may be going out of print [making them more unique]."
Her Redfish dresses are, also, all about the "twirl" factor. "There's plenty of room to twirl in these clothes - it's designed so that kids can really move around," she elaborates. "I wanted to make a bold statement with bold colours, but one that is fun and playful."
The bold colours are what make a look typically Chinese, says Wendy Yang, owner of Ochi, a Chinatown store on East Pender. With a mix of customers in her shop (some hunting for that special outfit to wear to the proliferation of "lucky" Aug. 8 weddings), she adds that darker colours, especially black, red, brown, and green, are the most popular for her selection of cheong sams (elegant, silhouette-hugging dresses) and embroidered tops. "Westerners like our clothes because I think most of our products are very flashy and colourful," she says, "they are very good for parties and evenings. [Many are made of] silk which is a very comfortable fabric and it gives a smooth look, and feel."
Westerners also appreciate the fact that the clothes come in larger sizes than traditional Chinese products. "In Chinatown, I often can't even squeeze into what's called extra-large, says Sun Travel Editor Linda Bates, who wears size 12/14, "but Ochi carries sizes for me and larger."
Symbols are also key, Yang adds: "In Chinese culture, some animals represent different meanings - a dragon stands for power, phoenix stands for lady and peacock stands for beauty." Classic Chinese fashions - she imports hers from Beijing - are timeless, Yang believes, or as she puts it: "Most styles are always in style."
It's a point not lost on Cory Judge, the designer behind the jewelry studio Shi (from the word "poem" in Chinese). "Asian people buy my stuff, but it's predominantly people from North America because there is a timeless allure, an appeal to Asian design that can go through any trend," she says. "I think Western culture is really attracted to Asian design and vice versa."
The East Van native, who now lives in Victoria, takes silk brocade and turns it into pendants, cufflinks, earrings, chokers - among other locally-made designs. Favoured by actor Steph Song, Shi pieces also feature in her upcoming film Dim Sum Funeral.
"The iridescence of the silk gets intensified by the glass so it almost has a 3D effect which shimmers and shifts in the different light," she explains. Although planning to go, Judge has not yet been to China. "I'm fascinated about knowing more about the patterns - many of which are the traditional dynastic ones," she says, although adding a lack of knowledge is no deterrent to her vibrant designs. "My designs take Asian inspiration and mesh that with a West Coast design influence; there is definitely a freedom to that," she says. "I always try to come from a place of respect . . . I like to recognize a larger whole within Chinese design."
On the clothes front, Judge says the traditionally higher neckline and waist, and penchant for little collars are at the heart of what she dubs "the subtle sexiness to the Chinese style." She continues, "It is the clean simple lines, a graceful esthetic, bold motif and colour - yet it's earthy and elegant."
Indeed one of the hottest fall 2008 runway hits was Shanghai-style channelled into a dress by Diane von Furstenberg, who flew into Vancouver's Holt Renfrew for a recent show which featured the number. Chulo Pony, the fashion arm of Vancouver's Nettwerk Music Group - which represents such stars as Sarah McLachlan, Avril Lavigne and Dido - also has some Asian-influenced fashion such as the poppy May top and Madelaine dress.
While Chinese-influenced fashion is already strong, the attention on Beijing will only help to build on that. "There's going to be so much of a focus on Beijing that it can't help but be reflected throughout design," Judge opines. And we're pretty much in gold position in that crossover game.

Only at calgaryherald.com

2008-08-09T04:02:00.000-07:00

Let the Medal Count Begin Coming today:
Get the latest news and results from the Beijing Games. Plus, log on for exclusive online photos, video and event information, updated daily.
See the Games Photo Gallery:

Check out scenes from the opening ceremony of the
Beijing Games and stay tuned throughout the Olympics to see what the Games look like.
Cyclists Feel Strong Arm of Law
SOUND OFF:
The debate over whether the city should crack down on speeding cyclists is gaining momentum. Have your say!
Don't Call Me,I'll Call Youpoll:
Do you plan on signing up with the national Do-Not-Call registry when it opens on Sept. 30? Cast your vote.
Taste Is No Real Test for a Bottle of Wine Blog:
So you think you can tell a cheap wine from an expensive bottle by tasting it? Shelley Boettcher begs to differ in Uncorked.
Fly in lap of luxury Jet set:
The world's largest airliner is now off the ground. Check out our photos and take a virtual tour of the newest addition to the Emirates Airlines fleet

Star Trek MMO - Screenshots and info

2008-07-28T05:27:00.001-07:00

Star Trek Online will allow players to become either a Federation Captain or a Klingon Warrior. Customisation options come in the form of outfitting your ship with various technologies, recruiting (and training) crew members, as well as unspecified player-generated content. You’ll be able to battle other ships in space, meet alien races or go down to the surface of planets for away missions. ‘Elegant domes of Starfleet Academy’ and the ‘Fire Caves of Bajor’ are also promised. They’d better deliver.

Free Realms fact sheet released

2008-07-22T05:41:00.000-07:00

A free MMO is being readied for release by those kind and generous people at Sony Online, simply called Free Realms. Ok, it isn't completely free - there is an optional subscription and micro-transactions, but, theoretically, you can play forever without spending a penny. The main focus on the game is on freedom. Players can go 'adventuring' by unlocking 'jobs' (classes to you and me) such as Ninja, Explorer and Wizard, or they can stay at home, playing with the pet, decorating the house or just growing vegetables and flowers. A wide variety of integrated mini-games are available in order to craft useable items or get onto high score leaderboards and so on. Weekly and monthly content updates will be released, along with the hosting of regular and special events by the developers. Features
Experience a vibrant new world that's an exciting mix of real-world and fantasy.
Be a wizard one day, and a warrior the next, without having to make a new character.
Join your friends in the game and adventure with them, wherever they are, no matter how long they have been playing.
When you’re ready for some excitement, head out to the wilderness and battle challenging enemies like giant spiders and forest trolls in fast-paced, strategic battlegrounds.
Cooperate with or compete against other players in battle.
Explore, quest, and collect items that you can wear, use or display.
Play a wide variety of mini-games to craft armor, weapons, potions, clothes, furniture, and many other items.
Grab a root beer at the inn and hang out with your friends while a rock band plays on the stage.
Interact with humorous, unique characters, become their friends and receive emails from them.
Raise a dog or cat and teach it to be the kind of pet you want--shy, brave, or funny.
Decorate your own house and grow a variety of plants and flowers.
Send links, share images and videos, and chat with friends from your own, personal, customizable social networking page.

Kasino 2.0 is Fun Casino Table Simulation Game for Mac

2008-07-18T04:54:00.000-07:00

Florida-based game developer, baKno, has released a new Kasino 2.0 game for the Mac. Combined with its sleek design, user options as well as online gaming, this extremely entertaining cards simulation game for Mac OS X is sure to offer engaging game play for all ages.
Kasino currently offers the popular Texas Holdem Game and baKno plans the addition of other well known casino table games such as Black Jack and Caribbean Poker. When playing offline, Kasino seats the player against 9 out of 500 simulated players. Version 2.0 introduces online gaming, gathering players from all over the world into a single table.
In this poker game, each player has 2 cards, and all players share 5 common cards, betting in rounds until all cards are dealt and the best hand gets the accumulated bets. Online game play allows you to engage into realistic card battle against real people from around the world - it’s like playing in a real casino. A full-featured demo version is available for download from the baKno website. Single seat licenses are priced at $19.95 USD. There is also a promotional two-seat license available for $29.95 USD.

BioWare On MMOs: ‘Conan,’ Their Own And Maybe A Console One

2008-07-01T15:56:00.000-07:00

Unless you’re “World of Warcraft,” most massively multiplayer online games have proven passing fads. Eventually, most people move back to Blizzard’s addictive game.The term “WoW” killer has been banded about quite a bit. So far, no one has stepped up to the plate. Funcom’s “Age of Conan,” however, has done far better than most expected. To date, “Age of Conan” already has more than 700,000 registered players.Considering BioWare has an MMO coming, it makes sense they’ve been checking out their competition — “Age of Conan” included.Yesterday, we spoke with BioWare co-CEOs Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk about their thoughts on “Funcom”’s latest, and whether BioWare could finally be the company that figures out why we still don’t have a console MMO.

Both Muzyka and Zeschuk — who described themselves as being friends with Funcom — have played “Age of Conan.” They were playing it this past weekend, actually.“It’s very compelling, well-made experience,” said Zeschuk. “The overall release’s been successful in terms of stability. I think it’s exciting fantasy, right? The world of Conan is pretty cool; it’s really drawing people in.”The success of “Age of Conan” is encouraging to BioWare. It tells them there’s an opportunity to enter the market with something new.“I think it’s also indicative that certainly ‘World of Warcraft’ has grown the market,” he continued. “There’s a lot of folks that play MMO games and they’re always looking for something to try. I think that’s exciting for us. There’s an opportunity for others to be in there and do well. It’s great to see their success and see what we can potentially do in there when the time comes.”I admitted to both Zeschuk and Muzyka that I haven’t really played an MMO before. I’ve yet to discover an MMO that allows you ditch the multiplayer component at your leisure. Even “World of Warcraft”’s end-game requires group work to succeed. Zeschuk said he understood that apprehension.“One of the things we’ve learned studying the MMO market quite a bit over the last few years is understanding the importance of the single-player and multiplayer components of the game,” he said. “Some people, like yourself, like the fact that you’re not forced to do social grouping. I think that’s an important part of a successful MMO, that it allows for a single-player experience as well as a multiplayer experience. They’ve both gotta be awesome.”

Bush: Moment of opportunity for North Korea

2008-06-26T05:03:00.000-07:00

Cher grabbed by drunken fan

(NECN/ABC) - Cher wasn't having fun in Nashville the other night after being grabbed at the waist in a local nightclub by a drunken fan. Cher didn't want to file charges, but Calvin Houghland demanded to be arrested - so he was after failing a field sobriety test.
The squabble inside the Screen Actor's Guild is nearly as bad - apparently as its fight with the major studios. Some, like Tom Hanks and Kevin Spacey, want actors to approve the smaller AFTRA union's deal, cut last month, with the television and movie studios. Others, like Jack Nicholson and Martin Sheen, are urging their peers to reject the deal - saying it gives up more than it gets. Meanwhile, SAG is no where near reaching an agreement - and the oldcontract expires Monday.
Speaking of "A-Listers" - Director Steven Spielberg has bought the screen rights to "The 39 Clues" - an adventure series by Scholastic Media that will include ten books, collectible cards and an on-line game was well as a motion picture - to be directed by Spielberg.
When it comes to on-line downloading - Kid Rock says - go ahead. In fact - he says in a video appearing on YouTube last week - his fans can steal his music and anything else they want. Rock, who's refused to sell his music on itunes and other online stores - later said he was just "trying to have some fun."
That's what's happening in Hollywood, Alex Stone - ABC News.

Payouts on gaming, rewards sites dry up

2008-06-22T06:09:00.000-07:00

Kirsten Valle, The Charlotte ObserverComment on this story Maureen Duran spent countless evenings last year in the gray-blue glow of her computer, playing Money Wheel and other games on NetWinner.com.
For a while, payoffs from the Charlotte company were big: The Kannapolis bookkeeper won $375 in prepaid credit cards and gift cards to retailers such as Home Depot and Wal-Mart between October 2006 and October 2007, she said.
"It was kind of exciting to think, you know, maybe I'll hit something big," Duran, 47, said.
Then, the games got tougher to win, and the prize bonanza dried up, she said.
Free online gaming and rewards programs are becoming more popular in these tight economic times, offering the promise of something for nothing to cash-strapped folks.
People often use the gift cards and cash they win for presents, clothes and staples such as prescriptions and groceries, experts and Web site owners say.
But as the industry has grown, so have accusations of fraud. Companies say people have started using stolen credit cards and automated machines to maximize their winnings, prompting sites to scale back payouts. And those cutbacks have caused players like Duran to cry foul and complain to the Better Business Bureau.
Memberships in many rewards Web sites have doubled in the past year. QuickRewards.net has grown to 48,000 members and adds about 100 a day, owner Dmitry Beker of Brooklyn, N.Y., said.
"With inflation and tightening on your pocketbook, you might want to think about these programs, because they can stretch your dollars a little bit further," said Kelly Hlavinka, managing partner of Colloquy, a company that tracks the rewards-program industry. "Customers are always looking for a good value."
Online gaming and rewards programs are the latest incarnation of a concept begun at airlines and hotels, which offer points redeemable for flights or rooms based on purchases.
The idea spread to the retail and credit card businesses, and early pioneers such as FreeRide.com and MyPoints.com -- which reward users for taking surveys and shopping -- hit the Internet in the mid-1990s.
Today, the programs work in a few ways. Some reward purchases with rebates or points that people can cash in for prizes or money.
Others, such as NetWinner, which make their money from advertisers, give users redeemable points or cash when they spend time on the sites, playing a game, shopping or filling out a survey.
The number of online users has skyrocketed recently, said Becky Ford, who runs Compare Rewards.com, which tracks and reviews online rewards programs; site visits have doubled since last year, she said.
"A lot of these folks are elderly or disabled or stay-at-home moms who wanted to be able to supplement their income," Ford said. Competition among sites and the economy are causing advertisers to scale back, making it harder for companies to pay their members. Those forces are crushing some rewards sites, which have shut down when they could not pay up or have cut costs by raising the number of points it takes to win prizes, she said.
Sometimes companies have increased their payouts because people have used fraudulent methods to accumulate points and prizes.
SunshineRewards.com, an Indiana site that pays consumers for shopping and taking surveys, restructured its site shortly after its inception to curb the use of stolen credit cards and false information, owner Tricia Meyer said.
The 2 1/2-year-old site has doubled its membership to about 10,000 in the past year, she said.
NetWinner, which began two years ago, issued a statement to gamers last month saying that the company was not in a financial position to fulfill prizes for players who had redeemed points, the Better Business Bureau said.
NetWinner's president, Allen Dean, said the problem arose as the site added users; fraud became rampant, with some gamers racking up points by using multiple Internet windows and other improper methods. More than 40 percent of the people who complained were found to have violated the company's terms of service in some way, he said.
Company officials restructured the site, giving away prizes in daily drawings, rather than guaranteeing prizes to every player who won a certain number of points.
The Better Business Bureau got 180 complaints from gamers, including Duran, the Kannapolis bookkeeper. She says she played legitimately and the site owes her $150. Netwinner claims to be "the most addicting flash games site on the net" and bears the slogan, "You play, we pay!"
"NetWinner was very appealing," said the local bureau president, Tom Bartholomy. "It's not that [players] ... were living on this, but they started to have an expectation that it would be there every month."
Dean said company officials simply changed the site so it would not be so easy to win.
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Sony digs at MS over May PS3 sales success

2008-06-13T05:12:00.001-07:00

Sony has reacted to NPD sales figures from May by chest thumping over better sales of the PS3 than the Xbox 360 and a higher GTA 4 attach rate.
The figures, according to SCEA president and CEO Jack Tretton, show 'consumers have chosen the PS3 as their home entertainment console of choice'.
According to NPD May sales data, the PS3 sold 208,709 hardware units, 22,106 more than the Xbox 360. Hardware growth was at an impressive 155% over the same period last year. PlayStation total hardware revenue was $133 million in May, 98% higher than Microsoft, and representing a year-over-year growth of over 20.4%.
And more than 32% of US PS3 owners have purchased a copy of GTA 4, what Sony calls a 6% higher attach rate than Xbox 360.
Sony also pointed out that the "PlayStation brand" had generated close to $2.27 billion in revenue in 2008 alone, 46% more than Microsoft.
Sony said 1.26 million PS3 games were sold in May, an increase of 234% year on year. The Japanese game company said this was primarily made up of "enthusiasm" for GTA 4, SingStar and Haze. It earned $331.6 million from "PlayStation brand" sales alone in May.
Sony expects hardware sales momentum to continue in June, mainly because of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots and the special edition bundle with a PS3.
Jack Tretton, president and CEO, Sony Computer Entertainment America, said the GTA 4 PS3 attach rate "reaffirmed its legacy on the PlayStation platform".
"Leading into a pivotal season packed with blockbuster titles and unique online service offerings, consumers have chosen the PS3 as their home entertainment console of choice - showcased by its year-over-year sales growth of 155 percent. With its commanding line up of software titles and enhanced movie playback capabilities, the PS3 has seen phenomenal momentum with a software sales increase of more than 234 percent and additional studio support of delivering content in the Blu-ray format," said Tretton.
He continued: "The dual platform release of the much anticipated Grand Theft Auto IV title reaffirmed its legacy on the PlayStation platform with a 6 percent higher attach rate than Xbox 360, reinforcing consumer choice of PS3. Poised for continued momentum, PS3 is delivering on its breadth and depth of exclusive titles to its gaming fans with today's prized exclusive title launch of Metal Gear Solid 4. The media have hailed 2008 as the year of the PS3, and with solid sales and growth opportunities ahead, we feel consumers are saying the same."

Developer: BioWare Publisher: Electronic Arts

2008-06-03T16:05:00.000-07:00

Mass Effect makes its anticipated PC debut six months after earning accolades on Xbox 360. The first offspring from the surprise union of mega-publisher Electronic Arts and developer extraordinaire BioWare, Mass Effect doesn't fall prey to the ghastly images likely running through your head. There are no in-game advertisements for Madden NFL 2009, no micro-transactions for individual weapons or party members, and more importantly, no cut corners in terms of slapping the Xbox 360 version on a disc and calling it a day. Mass Effect is an enhanced version of the console game that takes advantage of the computer's strengths as a platform.

Since you'll play through the same storyline and content found in the Xbox 360 version, those expecting new characters, planets, items, missions, or more romantic interludes might be disappointed. Yet considering this is the first title in a planned trilogy, it doesn't make sense to add significant story threads that would leave console owners out of the loop. Mass Effect is still an unforgettable experience that will quickly captivate any sci-fi fan. It is the most action-oriented game thus far in BioWare's library, but the story is just as rich as anything the Canadian developer has done in the past. You honestly care about these characters and the decisions you make throughout the course of play. For more on what makes the game sizzle, grab a pair of sunglasses and check out X-Play's glowing review of the original from the venerable Adam Sessler himself.

Rock Band (Wii) Preview

2008-05-20T00:23:00.001-07:00

Having recently visited EA's Spring Event, the first game that I wanted to get my hands on was the Wii version of Rock Band. With only a handful of journalists inside, I decided to make my way over to the Rock Band room where two large plasma TVs were setup with Rock Band including all of the peripherals. There were two guitars, a microphone and a drum set. The two guitars, looked the same as the Xbox 360 version only these bad boys were wireless! I tried out the guitar first as we got down on some Nirvana. I did pretty good actually and ended up with a sweet 97% while one of the producer's pounded out a 98%. I then tried out the same tune with the drum set. The set, is essentially the same thing as you get with the other platforms and it is wired as well but the set is made in white to match with the Nintendo Wii. The microphone is also wired which was actually kind of a bummer as I was hoping that it would be wireless as well but at least the guitars were. You won't get any other aesthetic differences in the way they feel or play.Graphically the game looked a little more detailed than what you get with Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock for the Wii. The crowds were livelier while the character models were smoother and crisper. The game was running quite smoothly and I didn't notice any dips in framerate whatsoever while it ran in 480p and widescreen mode. Soundwise, you'll be hearing every track with Dolby Pro Logic II surround.The game while it will include the same online gameplay as the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions, won't however feature downloadable content...at least not yet. I was told that it's not being included as of now but that it's something that Harmonix and EA is looking into. The package will however come with five extra tracks on the disc: "Rockaway Beach" - The Ramones, "Dirty Little Secret" - All American Rejects, "Roxanne" - The Police, "Don't Look Back in Anger" - Oasis and "Roam" - B52's. The extra track pack that will also be on sale during the game's launch will feature 20 tracks and retail for $29.99.The Wii version of Rock Band hits stores in the U.S. and Canada on June 22nd for $169.99. We'll keep you updated on any news pertaining to the game and we'll also have a full review after its release.

Pandemic Get Around To Announcing Their Lord Of The Rings Game

2008-05-08T06:52:00.000-07:00

Worst. Secret. Ever. Ah well, it's public knowledge now, with Pandemic finally releasing the first details on their upcoming Lord of the Rings game. Called Lord of the Rings: Conquest, it's a "spiritual successor" to the studio's previous work on the Battlefront series, and as such will be a fairly similar title. Except there'll now be up to 150 combatants on-screen at any time, with players able to choose from "practically the entire universe" of LotR characters and races.
There'll be two singleplayer campaigns to play through, one presumably "good", the other based on a scenario where Sauron actually gets his hands on the One Ring. As for multiplayer, while there'll be 150 characters on-screen, it'll support only eight players online at any time, though it will also feature four-player co-op play, including - awesomely - four-player splitscreen co-op on the same console. Game's due sometime in the fall, and will be hitting the 360, PS3 and PC.
I was originally a little sceptical about this whole thing, but 150 guys duking it out on a battlefield (ie sections of Helm's Deep) might - if they can get the level design right - totally nail that LotR "big battle" feel.

Exclusive on Xbox 360: Ninja Gaiden II online mini-game

2008-05-05T03:57:00.001-07:00

The action game “Ninja Gaiden 2” will be coming to the Xbox 360 on June 3rd 2008, this game has been developed by Team NINJA and is published by Microsoft Games Studios. In the lead up to the full game, Xbox have arranged some free stuff for fans. You can download the screensaver for Ninja Gaiden II and also get your hands on some really cool wallpapers, these can be personalized by using the wallpaper tool. Before you can access the mini game, wallpapers and screensaver, you will have to enter your date of birth.
“The walk down the path of vengeance has begun. Ready your arsenal and prepare to shred flesh in the exclusive Xbox 360 Ninja Gaiden II online mini-game, Release Your Wrath.
The stakes are simple: win the duel and the blade of the enemy is yours. Lose, and your clan should be notified to scrape up what’s left of you. You can answer the challenge of an enemy or engage them with a challenge of your own but be warned, victory comes only to those with the swiftness and guile of a master ninja.”
If you want to play the mini-game, then visit Xbox.com. This is also where you can get the free screensaver and wallpaper downloads.

Finding Fortress

2008-05-03T05:49:00.000-07:00

By Bryan Hartzheim
Shinji Higuchi's remake of Akira Kurosawas Hidden Fortress (titled more suggestively in Japanese as "The Three Bad Ones of the Hidden Fortress"), which just premiered last weekend at an absolutely rabid screening at the University of Southern California, is a fascinating cinematic phenomenon on several levels.
For those not in the know, the original is set in the sengoku ("warring states") period of Japanese history and concerns three dirty dudes as they attempt to shuttle a princess and a hoard of gold across enemy lines into ally territory. Kurosawa's classic, made in 1958, stars Toshiro Mifune as General Rokurota, a loyal retainer who must try to find a way to guide Princess Yuki (played by newcomer Misa Uehara) out of enemy territory with the help of untrustworthy peasants Tahei and Matakishi (played by Kurosawa troopers Minoru Chiaki and Kamitari Fujiwara). Higuchi's newest replaces Mifune with the prolific Hiroshi Abe (nine acting roles last year in both television and film), Uehara with the hot, hot, hot Masami Nagasawa, Chiaki and Kamitari with comedian Daisuke Miyagawa and – biggest change of all – Jun Matsumoto, who is now the star of the film as Takezo, hero peasant extraordinaire. There are so many angles in which to discuss this new Hidden Fortress, and I'm not going to even try to tie them together. Instead, here are some random musings from… The cynical blogger -- And yet another remake of an older, better film. At least we're not getting another manga or TV series film adaptation from Toho, but why even bother when the original was something that couldn't be improved upon? Is there something about the Japanese entertainment industry that is completely devoid of shame? Years back, Mike Nichols and Tom Cruise were thinking about remaking William Wyler's The Heiress, only to decide against it after watching the original, finding it just about perfect, and realizing there was no point in a remake. One can only wish more filmmakers exhibited the taste and respect of these worthies (pity Cruise didn't feel the same after discovering Kurosawa and trying to “improve” upon it with The Last Samurai. What is it about Kurosawa that makes people think they can do better?) The industry shill -- It's hard not to admire the brilliance in Toho's marketing campaign here. The studio needs a pre-summer, coming-off-of-Golden-Week-blockbuster-type movie, and they also realize that the centennial of Kurosawa's birth is next year and they need to start gearing up promotion for it. They have the resources for this kind of film (previous work with Higuchi, talent agency contracts) and can kill two birds with one stone. The Kurosawa fans and general film nerds are probably going to see this film out of general curiosity anyway, so Jun Matsumoto is cast as the star to obviously draw the audience who would most likely not see this film, which is teeny boppers and early twenties office-lady types. Hiroshi Abe is added to attract housewives, Masami Nagasawa for college boys who have no concept of Kurosawa or film history (this is a surprisingly sizable group), and Daisuke Miyagawa is the hot thing on shows like Beat Takeshi's variety hour now, so he'll attract everyone. But that's not even the most brilliant part. No matter how well the new film is made, the critics are going to come out and universally praise the original Kurosawa version. This is just inevitable as critics are predictable. Kurosawa once more enters the cultural discourse and is relevant again. Young girls will be forced by their boyfriends to watch the original, college boys find interest because Kurosawa is eternally cool, and a whole new generation of viewers, along with those feeling a kick of nostalgia, will be primed to buy lavish new 100th anniversary editions of Kurosawa movie DVDs, or at the very least buy tickets for some Kurosawa screenings to be shown next year. The film is not just a potential hit and moneymaker, but a fabulous promotional device. The action movie buff -- This thing is a monster. It's an exciting, dramatic, romantic, and surprisingly well-paced traditional action-adventure epic, the kind you really don't get much anymore. What's all the more surprising is that Japan isn't typically very good at this stuff, at least not since a certain someone was making samurai films. Japan has been making unashamedly weepy melodramas the last few years, but they succeed with audiences and somewhat on a critical level because they're so damn earnest in their romances. Maybe the wearying cynicism and pervasive irony of our modern culture is finally starting to show signs of grating on people. Shinji Higuchi's Hidden Fortress is thankfully just as earnest – we're talking big-scale, big-emotion, sweeping vistas-type stuff, clocking in at nearly two hours. It's a linear journey, but it's handled with brisk direction, strong leads, and a throwback to old romance epics (the rogue, not the beefcake, woos the girl). If anything, the weakest parts of the film are scenes with the typically versatile Masami Nagasawa, who is here unfortunately given probably the most boring role as a naïve princess whose dilemma isn't nearly as fresh as the story makes it out to be, but whose inner confusion and reflection is dwindled on far too much to hold the attention for anyone but the most overly sentimental. There's a big change from the original in that now the peasant Takezo gets close and cuddly with the princess, but what's rather amazing about this relationship is how reinvigorating it is to watch. There's not much chemistry between Nagasawa and Matsujun, but the total implausibility of the romance is interesting in part because it's all in the heat of the moment, and in part because it's not about tears and kisses, but suave words and courageous actions. It's an action movie with romantic elements, not the other way around. Hiroshi Abe once again unfortunately gets the shaft so all the kids can get the good lines, but them's the breaks. Really, it's like Higuchi took the inverse of the Kurosawa-Lucas equation and made a samurai movie based on Star Wars. There's now a Vader-looking, black-clad samurai dude hunting down our protagonists, along with some seriously heavy swordfights. Perhaps one appreciates the efforts of this re-imagining all the more when we compare Hidden Fortress to something borderline mediocre like last year's Umizaru: Limit of Love and realize how much more energy, intensity, and downright enthusiasm this crew has for this project in comparison to a lot of action failures out there. Kudos to Higuchi for rebounding off of one of these so-so efforts last year with Japan Sinks, and props to the rest of the cast and crew for making an early-90s-style action epic seem fresh in 2008. The Kurosawa purist -- I have nothing against remakes. If worthies from Frank Capra to Kon Ichikawa can remake their older films, I see nothing against Higuchi helming a Kurosawa flick, least of all something Kurosawa intended to be a light entertainment. Of course, Kurosawa himself isn't remaking this, and he didn't care much anyway for those remakes of his older films, both here (see The Magnificent Seven) and in Japan (see Stray Dog). Still, it's important not to hold any individual director up to some unattainable mythical stature, even if that director is the greatest one who ever lived. Whatever you might think of the changes, this new version has unquestionably Shinji Higuchi's stamp on it, and this, I think, is a terrific thing. It's much more preferable to have some imagination regarding these stories rather than a stolid, reverential thing like the Yuji Oda-starring Sanjuro remake. While the film works well on the level of an entertainment, what has been overemphasized is how it is similar in that both films seek to be nothing more than mere entertainments. This might be true for Higuchi's flicks, but this was never true for Kurosawa's; the big-scale ones like Seven Samurai or Hidden Fortress might not have had much going on in the story department, but the number and depth of memorable characters, coupled with a definite worldview, brought much more to the table than a mere diversion. There's a reason why George Lucas didn't just ape the plot of Hidden Fortress – he was smart enough to also steal the wit of its characters, its cramped class structures, and its seemingly boundless scale of an unstable political period. Higuchi's film has little of this depth, and is concerned much more with easy dichotomies: peasant good, warlord bad. We can deal with dichotomies when they're dealt in realistic ways (The Lord of the Rings, for example), but not when they're meant to obfuscate the truths of life. The lower classes, a group that should be hardened by the brutality they face on a daily basis, are here unbelievably meek and sweet. Kurosawa never resorted to such easy portrayals, even if this would have made the conflict of dramatic situations much easier to write. Hence his peasant figures are noble victims of a rigid and merciless class structure, but they manage to survive quite well by being cunning and selfish brats. The master might have been a socialist, but he was, as an artist, first and foremost a realist. You could learn more about the nature of man after watching just one of Kurosawa's masterpieces than you would watching all the films released in the last ten years. This is what is meant when an artist is “for all time.” The anime otaku -- Why be obsessed with realism when this is so obviously a live-action anime set in a crazy video-game world of chic samurai armor, swooshing swords, and explosive mines and mountains? Higuchi's Hidden Fortress is obviously a jidaigeki version of Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro, and that is frankly awesome. You have the three thieves out to get riches, but then they end up having to save a princess from cartoonish bad guys, and then their feckless but fearless leader ends up falling in love with the princess because he gets so caught up in the whole adventure of the thing. There's a reason why these stories are written – even by “literary” guys like F. Scott Fitzgerald on – and it's because some great storytelling skills need to be involved to get you caught up in the whole chase where your emotions will be just as hot and horny as our protagonists. To rewrite Hidden Fortress in this mold requires a stroke of imagination unbelievably inspired. The idol worshipper -- The online forums went ablaze with indignation once it was announced that Johnny's Jun would be both taking the part of the peasant and the starring role in what were two comic but filthy characters in Kurosawa's original. But let's remember that the original also featured a green Misa Uehara making her film debut as the princess, and she turned out pretty well. Let's also not forget that Kurosawa was not averse to working with pop stars -- Red Beard is recognized for Toshiro Mifune, but the film focused mostly on the co-starring role of twenty-something crooner Yuzo Kayama. Kayama had been a star of the Wakadaisho films and was 27 when he appeared in Red Beard, but Matsumoto, while only 24, has acted for a longer period of time, while also likely appearing in probably more media roles and his best performance to date in last year's drama series Bambino! Jun isn't the only one here from a non-traditional acting background, as such is the state of the current Japanese system of filmmaking. There are certainly disadvantages to the modern industry ethos, but one of the major advantages is the proliferation of young actors who have an incredible sense of ease in front of the camera. Abe and Nagasawa are not exceptional in their roles, but they take to them naturally despite the new material they're working with. The casting of Jun is the more difficult one to navigate here, in large part because of his strong stage presence. As such a prominent face and name, it takes a lot for that type of actor to be convincingly subsumed beneath a destitute man's façade. It's not clear whether it totally is to be honest, and you might think that this is the most un-Jun-like role you've ever seen and be amazed at his growth as an actor, but you could also be justified in seeing the pop idol trying to burst out of his underpinnings with those endearing smiles and charismatic eyes. The contrast in beggarhood is made even sharper when we see how thoroughly comedian Daisuke Miyagawa transforms himself into a guy who looks and acts like he's been living in dirty dishwater his entire life. We're talking Tuco from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly levels of filth here; the guy is clearly talented. Still, despite the difficulties, both Miyagawa and Matsumoto get high marks of respect for attempting to do something not typically expected of them and expand their careers as artists. The detached observer in the audience -- Whew, now that that's out of the way… Whatever one comes out of Hidden Fortress with, what's undeniable is the scope of such a premier in Los Angeles. Toho's film has yet to debut nationally across Japan, so a Hollywood premier would be great for television promotion there, but the fact that there is an audience big enough to pack a student theatre with hundreds more waiting outside to get in and then follow Matsumoto while he's walking out of the theatre is a sight to behold (sort of like how Tomohisa Yamashita got mobbed at a Taiwanese airport while he was changing planes recently). Of course, the fact that Jun is contracted to Johnny's and is working with others who are contractually obligated to major talent agencies signals that the possibility for a shakeup in the Japanese film and television industry is far from close at hand. But with more and more Japanese filmmakers successfully migrating to Los Angeles and New York, and with some being outspoken about the situation of independent filmmaking in Japan, the methods of both marketing and production for international audiences might see significant changes in the not so distant future.

Is GTA IV the most expensive game ever?

2008-05-01T05:47:00.001-07:00

Leslie Benzies, producer of Grand Theft Auto IV, has estimated the cost of making Rockstar's uber-hit was around $100 million (£50 million). In an interview with the Times Online, Mr Benzies said more than 1,000 people had worked on the game during its development cycle. He put his guess at the overall cost at the £50 million mark. If this were accurate, GTA IV would become the most expensive game ever made. Previously, Dreamcast title Shenmue cost Sega more than $70 million (£35 million). Analysts believe GTA IV could make more than £200 million in its first week, so the odds are good on Rockstar easily reaching the break-even total. Benzies also discussed criticism of GTA IV levelled by the mainstream media: "You kill prostitutes. That's usually the objection. "There is a big fear factor here. It's the coming of the railways. It's Elvis shaking his hips. It's cars going over 25 miles an hour and making people explode. "We've had such a beating over the past three years. If I get into a confrontation about it, once I've had my beating, I ask if they've ever played the game," Mr Benzies continued. "Invariably they haven't." Commenting on the row over Manhunt, Mr Benzies said: "We wanted to make a horror game that would scare you in the same way a film would. "If it's a film or a book, you can do what you want. We seem to be in a different category."

'GTA IV' hype reaches fever pitch

2008-04-27T05:29:00.001-07:00

Everybody's got a list of cities they want to visit before they die, and I've been lucky enough to checkmark most of my own must-sees — Tokyo, London, Paris, Hong Kong. But there's one that remains, looming close to the top.
It's Liberty City, USA, the so-called worst place in America. And the setting for Grand Theft Auto IV.
Coming out Tuesday for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, Grand Theft Auto IV is the latest installment in the long-running and bestselling series of grimly violent, darkly satirical and insanely fun action-adventure games, by turns lauded by critics for their complex game worlds and demonized by politicians for their controversial content.
Grand Theft Auto IV — or simply GTA IV — tells the story of Niko Bellic, a recent immigrant to the U.S. from an unrevealed Eastern European country. He’s come to Liberty City, the game's through-the-looking-glass version of New York, lured by his cousin Roman’s promises of wealth and opportunity.
Niko soon realizes his cousin has twisted the truth like a stoolie's arm: Roman lives in a fleabag apartment, runs a failing taxi company and is in trouble with several shady people. He’s summoned Niko, an ex-soldier and all-around capable character, to help extract him from some sticky situations.
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So begins Niko’s pursuit of the American dream, a chase that will follow the Grand Theft Auto template of having players undertake dozens upon dozens of missions to advance the core storyline, while also pursuing any number of sideline activities, like going to the bar, playing darts and driving home drunk. Yes, seriously. Cue the Fox News hysterics.
As the single most anticipated release of 2008, GTA IV is expected to ring up sales of over $350 million in its first week alone, with some estimates pegging the figure closer to a whopping $400 million. Or to put it another way, people will spend more money buying GTA IV in its first week on store shelves than they spent on tickets to Spider-Man 3 over its entire U.S. theatrical run.
So why the all the hype and hoopla? What’s going to be so great about this game?
"It's enormous. It’s one of the hugest, most expansive games I've ever played,” said Corey Cohen, managing editor of San Francisco-based Official Xbox Magazine.
Cohen is one of a handful of video game writers granted early access to GTA IV by its notoriously protective developer, Rockstar Games. He’s played the game to completion and written a nine-page review for the June issue of his magazine, hitting newsstands in a week or two.
"It's amazing how authentic it feels... like you are in this incredibly dense, realistic place," Cohen said. “It's definitely the next level of Grand Theft Auto, with all the positive connotations that would entail."
The game's laundry list of features, characters, locations and enhancements over the previous multi-million selling games in the series is as long as Niko's criminal record. Characters will look, act and move more realistically. Liberty City will have authentic architecture, weather effects and even traffic patterns. Gun battles will boast added levels of intensity, with players taking cover behind anything that might offer protection.
Even the game's storyline takes a leap forward with this installment, its interweaving and sometimes surprisingly dark plot spread across several threads that end up connecting at the end of the game. Which will take anywhere from 35 to 100-plus hours to complete, depending on how many optional missions players tackle.
And for the first time in the series, Grand Theft Auto IV will offer a fully fleshed-out multiplayer mode, with 15 different online game types that will see teams of players compete and cooperate in bank robberies, shootouts and all-or-nothing races through the bustling streets of Liberty City's five boroughs, modeled after Manhattan, Queens, the Bronx, Brooklyn and New Jersey.
Will it live up to the hype? Can it possibly? An early and cautious "yes, actually" seems to be the answer, but we'll know for sure next week, when all digital roads finally lead to Liberty City. Can't wait to visit.
Keep your eyes on Steve Tilley's 'Load This' blog beginning early Tuesday as he spends the week driving drunk, beating up hookers, shooting rocket launchers at unsuspecting innocents - and playing 'Grand Theft Auto IV' when he's not doing those other things.

Get your new CoD4 maps and play with Infinity Ward devs tonight

2008-04-25T06:29:00.000-07:00

If you’ve been itching for some new Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare maps, you should hit up the PlayStation Network and download the new Variety Map Pack. It includes four new maps, which are detailed after the jump.
Broadcast: features tight corridors and wide open parking lots where large groups will utilize close-quarter fighting and strategic maneuvers.
Chinatown: where night battles well lit by the full moon can play havoc against a backdrop of brightly colored lamps, antique shops and neon signs of the local district.
Killhouse: a desolate warehouse under enemy attack where squads will need to move through building mock-ups and plywood walls in order to take control of the combat arena.
Creek: a wide open village in a heavily wooded area where battles are fought among high ridgelines and deep in underground caves.
In addition to getting the new maps, you’ll also have a chance to play with some of the developers from Infinity Ward tonight. They’ll be online from 2-5pm and from 8-11pm (all times are EST). You’ll want to add these IDs to your friends list:
fourzerotwoiwCOD4DrewCOD4BryanCOD4JustinCOD4NeelCOD4BrianCOD4DavidCOD4Ed

William Hill Casino gets new games

2008-04-24T05:33:00.000-07:00

LONDON, UK, April 24, 2008 - William Hill (LSE:WMH), one of the world's largest e-gaming companies, has today launched six new action-packed slot machine games at its online casino website, http://www.williamhillcasino.com.The new multi-line video slots combine exciting arcade-style video gameplay with the chance to win big cash jackpots and unique interactive bonus features.The six games - Street Fighter, Fantasy Realm, Outta Space Adventure, Sunday Afternoon Classics, Roamin' Gnome and Dad's Day In - will appeal to a broad range of slot machine fans with their wide range of themes from classic Hollywood movies to streetfighting.They all offer five-reel slot-machine gaming, with up to 30 paylines paying out as much as 6,000 times your line bet. And the company says the new games are among the most thrilling it has brought out for its customers.Lester Fernandes, William Hill product manager for e-gaming, said, "We think our customers will love these six new games. They offer something for everyone"."Video slots are massively popular with online casino players, and these are some of the most exciting around - with great, playable features."We're always trying to bring more exciting gaming content to the marketplace - and these six games fit our aim perfectly."New players at the William Hill Casino can enjoy the games with the benefit of a 50 New Player Bonus (subject to stake), which is available to all new William Hill Casino customers. Anyone interested should visit the online casino for details.William Hill PLC was founded in 1934 and has grown to become one of the best-known names in the UK betting industry. It takes bets on a wide-range of sporting and other events through its betting shops, its telephone call centres and over the internet.It is a market leader both online, where it operates casino, poker and bingo websites, and on the High Street, where it has more than 2,250 betting shops. Its telebetting operation is believed to be the largest in the world and its online Sportsbook serves customers from more than 150 countries, using 11 different currencies and eight different languages.The company employs more than 16,000 people in the UK and Ireland and was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 2002. It is currently a component of the FTSE250 index, with a market capitalisation of around 1.4 billion. In the year ending 1 January 2008 it made a profit of 209 million from revenue of 940 million.For more information about William Hill Casino and other Vegas games, contact:Ali Valanie-Gaming Marketing Executiveavalani@williamhill.co.uk

Book-based Sci-fi Becomes RPG

2008-04-23T04:59:00.000-07:00

By: John BreedenGiN Chief Editor
Those of you outside of Russia may not know that Hard to be a God is an RPG based on the 1964 novel of the same name by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. The Strugatsky brothers works may be better known in Russia, but they are no strangers to computer gaming with their 1972 book Roadside Picnic the basis for last year’s STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl shooter. (Even though the book was based in Canada and not the hot zone around Chernobyl.)
Having read some of their books including Hard to be a God, I know what many of their fans do, that this is not normal shoot-em-up sci-fi. They were some of the first writers in the sci-fi genre to use fiction to ask difficult questions about human nature, war and society. Unfortunately a lot of the analogies and phrases they use are rooted in Russian culture and don’t translate too well to other countries. As such, they are somewhat unknown outside their native lands, though hardcore sci-fi fans know them.
If you read Hard to be a God, then you know the ending places the fates of several characters in limbo. The game takes place a short time after the book, and attempts to explain things. That said, reading the book might be a prerequisite to knowing what the heck is going on here, at least at first.
Looking at some of the newsgroups out there, there are two groups of people it seems: those that know the storyline and are familiar with the book and thus know what is about to happen, and those that are in the dark and end up not liking the game. Lots of people played the short demo released for the game and were disappointed, but really things don’t pick up until after about six hours of play, long after the demo is over.
The developers don’t help matters any on this front because they don’t give you any into movie to explain what the heck is happening. I guess they expect all of us to be well versed in 1964 sci-fi novels, and that is a big mistake that will hurt their sales, though this only marginally affects their review.
The plot of the game is that you are an agent for imperial intelligence in a medieval society on a planet called Arkanar. But there are also explorers from a technologically advanced Earth visiting in disguise. You end up working for them, but don’t know it at first so the game seems completely medieval. Those who buy the game expecting guns and cool sci-fi elements are going to be disappointed as you don’t get your first glimpse of advanced technology until after about six hours, and even then it’s given out in drips and drabs. Don’t expect this to be a new version of Fallout 2.
Speaking of Fallout 2, Hard to be a God follows this type of top-down interface. In a sense the game looks a lot like Neverwinter Nights, and in fact tops it. The graphics seem to be hand drawn, and a ton of detail went into everything. Cities especially are presented realistically, with trash strewn about (sometimes hiding treasure) and lot of NPC going about their business. The NPCs will sometimes fight you and sometimes come to your aid, depending on the circumstances.
Combat, like the plot of the game, becomes more in-depth the longer you play. When you are starting out you can mostly just swing your sword, but as you advance in level you can start to specialize in different weapons from large two-handed swords to fine rapiers to ranged weapons like bows and crossbows. If you use a shield, you can block blows and counter swing at the right moment, which can bring down even the strongest of enemies, though groups of them still pose a problem.
One of the coolest aspects of the game is that you can fight from horseback. Although it’s a little odd that only your horse takes damage when riding it, the mere fact of being mounted gives you a huge advantage. Unless your enemies have bows, there is very little chance that you will be hurt with mounted combat. You simply ride by in long sweeps and hit people on the ground. They can’t seem to react fast enough to hit you back and even if they did, the damage would go to your horse which a) has a lot of hit points and b) unlike you can regenerate hit points when you are not riding it. So get a horse early in the game if you can.
As you navigate the game world, you will collect tons of colorful armor which makes your character look really cool. But it’s also functional. You are a master of disguise and by equipping at least five “role” items on your character (boots, pants, shirt, armor, cloak or hat) you can change the way people react to you. Dress like a bandit and you can stroll through brigand’s camps unmolested, while dressing like a don will force most city guards to treat you with respect. The one confusing thing is that there are several political parties fighting each other and dressing correctly is sometimes difficult because each group hates at least one other, and the lines are not always clear.
Eventually you will discover what the Earthmen are up to, and even meet the main character from the book, who while back home now can still communicate with you due to a special event which I won’t go into. Anyway, you learn that Earthmen generally want to help Arkanar advance, but their meddling causes problems which you generally need to solve along with everything else. This is a long game, and if you are looking to get your money’s worth, in terms of time spent playing you should be happy.
For sound quality, on the plus side you will see that almost every character has a voice, a very nice touch so you don’t have to read paragraphs of dialog. And the voice actors sound good and appropriate for the role they are playing. On the negative side, there are quite a few lines that will leave you scratching your head because, I assume, they are not translated correctly. But these are somewhat rare and it’s easy enough to figure out what is meant, even if they say the opposite sometimes.
The true strength of the game is the storyline, which is pretty amazing. Perhaps it’s not as hard hitting as the book itself, but you will be drawn in by the story and will want to continue playing for hours on end to see what happens next. There are even several twists and turns that I don’t think you will see coming, and lots of moments when it will be difficult to figure out who you should trust given that the Earthmen are used to lying to keep their secrets, and everyone else seems to lie simply to advance their own agendas. You will even become a true medieval lord at one point, which means more responsibilities and problems as you defend your land and your peasants.
I would highly recommend the book, which can be found extremely cheaply these days, for anyone who enjoys sci-fi. If you read the book, then this game will be much more enjoyable, though you can have a good time without it too. Just expect to be very much in the dark for several hours of gameplay. But trust me, its worth pushing through to the other side.

News on New PSN Community Functions and Download Service Coming Soon

2008-04-16T16:45:00.000-07:00

Sony senior VP Peter Dille knows we want more from PlayStation Network. It’s a great service considering its age and the fact that it’s free, but in an “Inside PlayStation Network” post on PlayStation.Blog, Dille outlined (with varying levels of detail) the plan to continue improving PSN.
In addition to the new PlayStation Store, which officially reopened yesterday, Dille explained that the key points to making PSN a success are the PlayStation community, free online gaming, digital media download services, and original content.
Interestingly, he harped on one specific point that I happened to also go on about in today’s story on the new XBLA releases. He said, “One of the most critical elements to PLAYSTATION Network that we’ve focused on since day one is delivering quality games. We’ve always stressed quality over quantity (in other words, fewer arcade remakes and more original content) as well as games that show off PS3’s tech, and games like Everyday Shooter, Super Stardust HD and PixelJunk Monsters are proving that you can get a great experience for $10, or roughly the cost of a movie ticket.”
As for the PlayStation Network’s attempt to topple the Xbox Live Video Marketplace, Dille didn’t have any specific announcement to make, but he did say “it’s already been confirmed that we’ll be offering a video service for PS3 in a way that separates the service from others you’ve seen or used. Ultimately the goal of the PLAYSTATION Network service will be to break through the overwhelming clutter of digital media to give you the TV, movies and gaming content you want. More on this very soon …”
In-game XMB is still scheduled to be released this year, along with “other community-related services.” That includes the launch of Home, and he also suggested a system like Xbox Live achievements could be in the works. We had previously heard of this being a feature in Home, but that it wouldn’t be a mandatory feature for games to include achievements. Hopefully Sony will reconsider that particular point.
Dille also confirmed that PlayStation Network cards are “rolling out” to retailers, so there will be denominations of $20 and $50 popping up in stores very soon.
All in all, it sounds like PSN will be continuing to make some solid improvements this year. It remains to be seen how Sony’s download service would separate itself from other services or how well Home will come together. If the PlayStation Store is any indication, though, PSN certainly has a bright future.

MGS4 Limited Edition Box Art and Product Details

2008-04-13T16:50:00.000-07:00

Metal Gear Solid 4 is coming in so many different forms with so many different box art designs that PlayStation.Blog has a post up to clarify the whats and wheres about it all. In the simplest terms possible, the above image is the MGS4 Limited Edition box art in the US. You can find MGS4 in four different ways: the Standard edition, Limited Edition, Standard Edition Hardware Bundle, and the Limited Edition Hardware Bundle. The Limited Edition of the game will only be available at GameStop. The Metal Gear Saga pre-order bonus and Metal Gear Online beta codes are only available in limited quantities, so don’t think that pre-ordering the game will guarantee you either of those things.
I’ll let you chew on that for however long it takes to read this sentence.
If you’ve alreayd gotten your MGO beta key, don’t bother trying to redeem it on the PlayStation Store right now. It’s not going to work until April 17, so find something better to do with your time, like watch the GTA IV trailers for the thousandth time.
Those that pre-order at GameStop can also get an exclusive art book, and seeing as it’s the only place to find the Limited Edition, it sounds like GameStop is the place to be for MGS4.
More details and pictures on all of this can be found at PlayStation.Blog.

Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3

2008-03-09T17:07:00.000-07:00

As I'm ushered into a demo room at EA's Los Angeles studio, I clutch my ultimate wish list of features tightly in my hand, and catch a tantalising glimpse of a fleet of grinning Kirov Airships on a stupidly-large hi-def screen. This is a big deal. I'm the only UK journalist allowed to see Red Alert 3 - a title that millions of gamers across the globe have been waiting to play for seven years. The previous title, Red Alert 2, is one of the most iconic real-time strategy games ever created; a beautifully-balanced, fast, colourful, silly and exuberant Cold War classic stuffed with ridiculous units (Giant Squid), OTT technology (weather machines) and campy cinematics featuring actors hamming it up as presidents, Russian commanders and sexy agents with a penchant for C4 explosive.

Over the next couple of hours, I'm talked through the features of the game, shown concept art plastering numerous walls throughout the offices and given a personal demo of a Red Alert 3 Allied mission. As it all unfolds, I start to tick off the wish list of features one-by-one - crazy time travel plot, a third faction, story-driven campaign with co-operative play, German shepherds, more naval combat, more Tanya - until I'm frantically scribbling down more features than Soviet psychic agent Yuri could psychically shake a stick at. If you're a fan of the Red Alert series, you'd better relax, sit down and take in every word that follows - I think you're going to be a tiny bit excited...RISING SUNAt the beginning of Red Alert 3, the situation is dire for the Soviets - the Allies have driven back their forces to Moscow and the leadership is cowering behind the gates of the Kremlin. In a crazed act of desperation, the Soviets head to the basement where they have been working on a time machine which they plan to use to go back in time and get rid of Einstein - the man most responsible for the technological achievements that have led to the Allies' victories. And also, let us not forget, the man who travelled back in time to kill Hitler in the first game so that this whole Red-centric timeline could happen anyway.This notwithstanding, the Soviets erase Einstein and come back to the present day where it looks like the experiment has been a great success - the Allies have retreated and the Red Menace has returned to its former glory. However, almost immediately, klaxons begin blaring and the Russians are again under attack, except this time from a superpower their time meddling has spawned upon the world stage: the technological cult of the Empire of the Rising Sun. A sickening feeling hits the Soviet commanders' stomachs as they realise that they've created a new enemy for themselves, and the new war begins...This is the first time in a Red Alert game that there's been a fully-fledged third faction (the Yuri's Revenge expansion had a sub-faction), and each of the three campaigns will have eight to 10 missions, with the Japanese Rising Sun currently aimed at being unlockable when you've completed the Allied or the Soviet campaign."It's really important to us that we don't just build one faction, then cut and paste those units into another faction," says executive producer Chris Corry. "Each will feel very different from a capability standpoint. Japan has the most dramatically different building mechanic with an emphasis on higher technology weapons, so it'll feel and play uniquely."The RA3 team aren't revealing much about the new faction just yet, but we eked out a chunk of stuff about their design and gameplay style. The Empire of the Rising Sun will be the most sci-fi faction, drawing from Japanese influences like samurai warriors, anime, ninjas and military history. We saw concept art displaying beautiful dragonfly-type ships, as well as techno-updates of military uniforms from WWII, ninja dudes with futuristic weaponry, units packed with attachments looking like Shinto gates and huge intricately-designed robots, all splashed with those distinctive red-and-white national colours."The Sea Wing is a submarine unit that can shoot out of water and be used as an aircraft - the only unit in the game that can do that," says Chris, visibly hurting as I drag the information out of him. "Japan are probably the strongest in the water. Many of their units deploy into a different unit, so there's lots of, er, transformation." Robots in disguise? Oh yes.NAVAL GAZINGAnother major addition is fully-integrated naval combat, which has been a tough challenge for the development team, aware that countless RTS games in the past have torpedoed the idea. Red Alert 3 cleverly achieves naval gameplay by what they describe as "blurring the shorelines", basically making it much easier for players to get their units in and out of the water. Many of the units are now amphibious and all you have to do to utilise this ability is click where you want to move - the unit will automatically do a contextual transformation from land-based to ocean-based and vice versa. However, amphibious units are not as powerful as a dedicated land or sea unit, so the skill in combat comes in deciding which direction you want to go - flexibility or maximum firepower.Your mobile construction yard is also amphibious, allowing you to build your base in the ocean, resulting in major ramifications for gameplay. If, for example, you only build land units and storm off to kill your opponent, you might find they've built their HQ out at sea, rendering your army a useless waste of money. EALA hopes this will encourage players to play more with the aircraft, which will be the only units able to locate and strike at targets on both land and in the ocean with equal power. Amphibious units can strike at ocean-based targets of course, but they're not as powerful as aircraft.Cleverly, there are significant resources out at sea, so even if you don't build an ocean base, it's wise to have a naval presence or you're basically handing your opponent an enormous bag of money with "Please kill me!" written on in bold crayon.What's more all this messing about on boats has led to EALA giving water a new graphics engine so it ripples, shimmers and splashes like real stuff.TWO'S COMPANYAfter the revelations of the naval combat, Chris drops another bombshell: while previous RTS games have included special co-op missions, Red Alert 3 will include a finely crafted story-driven campaign that you can play in both single-player and online co-op."Every single mission has been designed with you and a teammate in mind. But we obviously don't want to leave people out if they haven't any online friends, so you can also enlist the help of an AI co-commander."Every faction has three commanders, each with a unique play style and personality, played by an actor who will appear in video clips and voice-overs. So if you're starting a Campaign mission with a co-commander who prefers tanks and heavy armour, you'll probably approach how you go through that mission differently than if the co-commander you signed up was an expert in the air force. A monitor in the top-left of the screen allows you to see the AI's state, with four orders available: attack or defend a unit or location, stop or help me. If you don't give the co-commander guidance, the AI will do its own thing, depending on the situation and its personality.The system poses challenges when playing with a friend (of the communication variety) but this is easily solved with VoIP, and it's worth the effort. The co-commander includes other advantages such as sharing a line of sight, being able to put units in friendly transports, using an ally's airfields and repair abilities, and even building units and giving them to your ally. "However, we're not allowing you to give money directly, which causes balance problems," explains producer Amer Ajami. "If your buddy is under attack, it's more fun to send units rather than money, as there's physical gameplay tied to them - they might get ambushed by the enemy on the way to the rendezvous, for example."But if you leave the AI co-commander to his own devices, will he just complete the missions for you? "No, that wouldn't be much fun!" says Chris. "We have to make sure that the AI is competent enough, as you'll always compare it with human players, but also that the experience is always satisfying. I feel that the AI in C&C3 was the very best in the business, and the early indications for RA3 are very good."Other aspects of the gameplay are being finely tuned up until the game's late 2008 launch. EALA want fast, fluid fun, but they felt that the wide-open economy of C&C3 (allowing you to generate units very quickly) made for a game that was perhaps too fast - in fact the 1.09 patch gated the economy and slowed the action down, which is the direction they're going for in their next offering. Games will still be quick, but instead of matched multiplayer games lasting 10 minutes, RA3 will have matches of between 20-30 minutes. Apparently Corry is attempting to head off the traditional "rush-fest" of other C&C games: "We don't want to lose that feeling of being under pressure, but we're going to dial that back a notch. If you try to rush early on, you probably won't be successful. Gamers have got more sophisticated and we want to inject more depth - the combat chain isn't just rock, paper, scissors, so there's more nuance to which units are effective against other units."As a result, Red Alert 3 will have fewer units that have multiple capabilities, with most being dedicated units that do one thing very well. So, a large force of one type of unit won't be wildly successful now; a response to the Mammoth 'tank spam' from C&C3, which was popular with gamers because the super-vehicle could crush infantry, destroy vehicles and shoot down aircraft. Also, every unit now has a primary and secondary ability; a very clear cut, binary rule that's easy to grasp but adds complexity to gameplay. Plus, Red Alert 3 will be adopting the tried-and-trusted RTS staple of building on grids, to avoid any issues of choke-points or units getting stuck behind badly-placed buildings.Enough talking: onto the actual game. I got to see Red Alert 3 in action, as producer Amer took me through a cut-down version of the second-to-last mission from the Allied campaign, where you're sent to investigate suspicious Commie goings-on in Cuba. After viewing the close-to-final intro screen complete with smart Russian propaganda-style graphics, we're taken to the mission screen, where the choice of three co-commanders were visible - although earlier missions will limit you to one or two. Amer chose to play alongside Major Giles, a stiff upper lip British AI commander specialising in special weapons and aircraft, and portrayed to tongue-in-cheek perfection in the FMV by Beowulf actor Greg Ellis (see 'Casting Couch' box).CUBAN CRISISThen we're into the mission, and presented with an absolutely gorgeous scene of a Cuban shoreline; deep blue water lapped the beach while a few disparate Soviet units were just visible at the edges of the fog of war. A Mirage Tank under the command of Major Giles was chronosphered (matter-transported) to the island, while our group of four amphibious Assault Destroyers from a Caribbean base nearby rolled up on the beach, immediately sprouting tank treads. The Mirage Tank then disguised itself as a Soviet Apocalypse Tank and covered the entire force in a cloaking shield, as we moved inland to check out the area. Ensuring we carefully remained hidden under the Mirage umbrella in this stealth portion of the mission, we witnessed various Soviet activities including an Akula Sub and a hilarious Bullfrog Transport. Similar to the Flak Track, the Bullfrog is an amphibious vehicle that doubles as a troop transport, blasting infantry units (in this case armoured bears) into battle using a man cannon, before seeing them float to the ground using parachutes. The incompetent animals failed to sniff us out, and we continued our reconnaissance mission, edging past a regiment of bubble-helmet-wearing Tesla Troopers, busily powering up Tesla Coils in anticipation of an attack. Major Giles suddenly spotted a group of real Apocalypse Tanks and joined the end of the line, as they eventually led us past saluting soldiers to a secret Soviet base."Fire at will!" said Giles, as we decloaked and began blasting the base to smithereens, the buildings collapsing with spectacular pyrotechnic explosions and real-time physics. Showing off what the team are describing as RA3's visceral 'footprint of destruction', that transforms idyllic environments into war-ravaged hell-holes.Unfortunately, this was a trap, and an FMV featuring a stereotypical Soviet commanderrrrr (roll those Rs) informed us that 'Operation Grandslam' was now in operation, as a nearby sports stadium opened up to reveal a Kirov Airship carrying a 50 megaton bomb! A new objective of stopping the deadly zeppelins was given to us, and because we hadn't the time to build up a force to take it down, our co-commander was called in to help simply by us clicking on the attack button and placing a beacon on the Kirov. Apollo Fighters were launched by Major Giles and the airship was destroyed, leaving the AI commander to blast the stadium.On the ground, Amer spawned four Soviet Conscripts and two Allied Peacekeeper infantry units to demonstrate the primary and secondary weapon concept of RA3. The Conscripts' primary AK-47 weapon tore into the two Peacekeepers, who were quickly dispatched, as their shotguns were unable to match the machine gun's longer range of fire.Two new Peacekeepers were created, this time utilising their secondary weapon - a riot shield - allowing them to get up-close to the Conscripts so they could unleash lethal shotgun blasts.To counter, a new battalion of Conscripts appeared, firing their secondary weapon of Molotov cocktails, which then burned the riot shields and left the Peacekeepers open to a deadly spray of AK-47 gunfire. The Conscripts' flaming projectiles were then countered by some nearby German shepherds who unleashed an amplified bark secondary weapon, that stunned the Soviet quartet and allowed the dogs time to run up and bite them to death.In addition to this balanced RTS gameplay, I was struck by the detailed animation (the dogs stop and scratch themselves when resting, for example) and the hilarious unit voices, which were very much a feature of RA2."We've put together a personality page for every unit in the game, where we have a bit of art to depict their style, plus a description of how they sound," says Chris. "For Commander Kirov, for example, we have a picture of a big gluttonous crime boss, and this personality all flows into the dialogue."END GAMEAmer next took the battle into the ocean, first packing up his construction yard and redeploying it on the water, away from the enemy's tanks. Three Allied Hydrofoil ground-to-air boats were launched towards the enemy's new Kirov, which had just emerged from a nearby football stadium. Soviet Stingray vessels were protecting the waters, and it took a fleet of Allied Assault Destroyers to sink them, leaving the Hydrofoils clear to blast the airship out of the sky and pepper the stadium with rockets.Finally, the third launch facility was attacked by six Guardian Tanks, a vehicle with a cannon and a secondary laser rangefinder, that can be used to paint enemies, and give nearby units an extra damage boost. The base was strongly defended by two Russian Apocalypse Tanks that soon decimated our forces with their dual cannons and a mean magnetic harpoon that drags captured units into a metal grinder mounted on the front of the vehicle. So, our commander was given clearance to use a Time Bomb, which was chronosphered into the base."If you're playing against another person in multiplayer, you can chrono the bomb back to the enemy like a hot potato," adds Amer. "Whoever has it when that clock hits zero is the loser."This is demonstrated when the bomb displays a smiley face with the words 'Have A Nice Day!' before unleashing a massive explosion, that in this case flattened the Soviet stronghold and won the mission for the Allies. While I only witnessed the Cuban mission, Red Alert 3 also has missions in locations including San Diego, Cape Cod, Amsterdam, Heidelberg, Easter Island, Mount Fuji and Santa Monica, the latter so that Chris and Amer can "assault their home."There are also plans for a public beta of the game over the summer (with keys given away free in the forthcoming Kane's Wrath C&C3 expansion), so that EALA can hopefully avoid any bugs and server problems when the game launches later this year.Exhausted, I collapse back into my leather armchair after the presentation and try to absorb all the juicy Red Alert 3 information that will soon be devoured by starving fans when PC ZONE hits the shelves, including the cool Japanese third faction, a co-op campaign, naval gameplay, a new tech tree, primary and secondary weapons across all units, an AI-controlled co-commander and full physics damage. EALA have certainly delivered on the checklist of must-haves for the next Red Alert 3. Now all they have to do is deliver the game.If they don't, Comrades, a Tesla Coil to the testicles may be the only suitable Soviet-style punishment...

Sonic the Hedgehog, climate killer?

2008-03-07T15:33:00.001-08:00

HANOVER, Germany (AFP) — "I don't care, we're all going to die anyway," says 17-year-old Christian, to laughs from his friends as they play video games at the CeBIT IT fair in Germany.
What he does not care about is the environmental impact of the games console he and his mates are playing in a giant exhibition hall crammed full of other teenagers playing the latest shoot-em-ups, driving games and the like.
Whereas many of the 5,500 exhibitors at CeBIT in Hanover, Germany like IBM and Deutsche Telekom have been at pains to trumpet their green credentials, in Hall 22 there is not a tree-hugger in sight.
Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer travelled to the fair to tell people what the world's largest software company was doing its bit for the environment -- but the company's Xbox games console was not mentioned once in this context.
Indeed a Microsoft Xbox spokesman in Hanover conceded he had never been asked about the environmental impact of the 18 million Xbox 360s sold so far, preferring instead to forward AFP's questions to headquarters.
Worldwide computer use requires 14 power stations for the necessary electricity, producing more harmful carbon dioxide emissions than the entire airline industry -- not including the emissions created and manufacturing and shipping around the products in the first place.
And games consoles -- of which 62 million were sold in last year -- are the gas guzzlers of this industry, using huge amounts of energy to generate the necessary mindblowing graphics and sounds.
When played online, they are linked up to huge server farms which use even more energy.
And with each generation of console -- we are currently on the seventh -- repeatedly made obsolete by the newest technology, millions of machines, games and other accessories are thrown away, destined often for the developing world.
This has not escaped the notice of Greenpeace, which was taking part in CeBIT for the first time, vowing to sort the "greenwash" from the genuine amid all the talk of green IT.
The environmental pressure group issued results of a survey comparing the green credentials of 37 products from 14 major brands, showing modest improvements regarding hazardous substances, energy efficiency and recyclability.
But Nintendo provided no data for the investigation on its Wii console, Micosoft said they had no information, and Sony's details on the PlayStation were "very late and very insufficient," Greenpeace campaigner Zeina Al-Hajj said.
Greenpeace suspects this speaks volumes.
"The industry has not looked at all at the environmental impact of the games console. The amount of energy they consume, especially the XBox and the PlayStation, is massive. There is no evidence that they are acting," Al-Hajj said.
Greenpeace concedes that some improvements have been made, particularly by Nintendo with its Wii in terms of energy consumption and recyclability, but it says much more needs to be done.
"If you can do it in a Wii, why not with a Sony?" Al-Hajj says.
And a spokesman for IBM, which supplies powerful microchips for the Xbox, the Wii and the PlayStation, while keen to talk about the firm's efforts to be greener in its other businesses, does not want to talk about games consoles.
"You would have to ask them," meaning the games consoles makers, IBM spokesman Joerg Winkelmann says. He adds however that processess for making the chips have improved.
Microsoft headquarters did not reply. Nor did AMD, whose processors are also found in many consoles.
Gamers in CeBIT Hall 22 meanwhile carried on playing.
"This doesn't stop me gaming at all. The fun factor is very high and you think first about the fun factor of the games," says Sebastian, a 22-year-old soldier and gaming fanatic.
"Most people who play games don't really think at all of the environment, they think about the fun factor," he says.
Seventeen-year-old Geld from the Netherlands shrugs as the sound of music in the windowless hall pumps louder and louder.
"A washing machine uses more energy than a computer," he says, turning to get on with his game, fingers working madly on the buttons.
CeBIT runs to Sunday.

Review: The Sims 2: FreeTime

2008-03-05T16:16:00.000-08:00

Well, here we have it: the last full expansion pack for the Sims 2. Those last four years sure went by quickly, don’t you think? If you’ve lost count, this is pack number seven, and while I doubt Maxis is inherently superstitious by nature, you can certainly say they saved the best for last.
Like the Sims 1 Makin’ Magic, FreeTime fits right in with the other elements of the game, but at the same time it introduces some huge, brilliant changes.
Like many of the later expansions, FreeTime includes a new neighbourhood, called Desiderata Valley. I’ve deleted most of the earlier neighbourhoods (though I still have an extreme fondness for Strangetown, and the passive-aggressive Nervous Subject), and have stuck with only Riverblossom Heights (from Seasons), and this new one.
It includes all the new lots, characters, and stuff you’ll need to jump right in and start making the most of what FreeTime has to offer.
The most obvious new feature in FreeTime is the ten new hobbies that your Sim can pursue: tinkering, cuisine, gaming, film and literature, nature, science, fitness, arts and crafts, music and dance, and sports.
Each has new related objects, and the more obsessed with each hobby your Sim becomes, the more perks you’ll inherit. A cuisine Sim, for example, will learn how to make all sorts of different party platters (perfect if you’re a party sim), while a gaming Sim will eventually learn how to play games online against his or her friends.
Science Sims will be able to summon aliens at will, once they reach a certain stage in their hobby, and arts and crafts Sims can create pottery, or even new clothes.
The levels you reach in a hobby develop as you spend time performing activities that support the hobby, some of which you may naturally do every day, such as playing chess or dancing; others you will need to actively seek out, such as using the pottery wheel or ant farm.
Like the perks, as a Sim learns more about a hobby, further activities will be unlocked. These include the ability to talk to others about your hobby, blog about your hobby, and surf the web for information on your favourite hobbies.
Each hobby has its own related secret lot that will be unlocked and made available to your Sim once they’ve reached a certain level of enthusiasm. When you visit, your Sim will find a wealth of objects to help them further develop their hobby, as well as a group of like-minded people who won’t recoil in horror when your Sim tries to explain how, after work, they really enjoy tinkering with the shower. You’ll also find instructors who can tutor your Sim on the finer points of their obsession.
All Sims have a natural ability at just one type of hobby, but that doesn’t mean you can only pursue that interest. Like real life, your Sim’s interest in different hobbies is likely to ebb and flow, and it’s likely you’ll find that your Sim will reach a moderate level of interest in two or more different hobbies.
Reaching the ‘maxed out’ status for a hobby is quite difficult; you really have to put in a lot of time to get there. If you’re determined, however, once a Sim’s knowledge of a hobby is complete, whenever they engage in a hobby-related activity you’ll see them ‘zone out’, i.e. a white glow surrounds them, accompanied by an interesting buzzing noise.
Motives decay more slowly, and they’re able to spend more time on their hobby without being distracted when they are zoned out.
In addition to the main feature of the expansion, there are heaps of little other additions that Maxis has made that really flesh out this pack. The most important is the inclusion of another status bar! (OK, so things are looking really cluttered now; I keep trying to imagine what my impression of the game would be if I just came to it now. It would be bewildering.)
This new bar, similar to your aspiration point bar, is called the lifetime aspiration meter. It keeps track of how well you’re doing, you know, in life. If you keep your regular aspiration meter high, you’ll earn points in the lifetime aspiration meter, which you can then spend, Open For Business-like, on different personality benefits for each sim.
You can choose anything from a secondary aspiration, to slowing down the degradation of your motives, to super fertility (more likely to have twins), or the ability to plead for your job if you get the sack. There’s even a special set of benefits for grilled cheese sims!
There are also five new careers: Entertainer, Dancer, Architect, Intelligence and Oceanographer. Each comes with its own set of clothes, silly job titles and job-related objects. (The Intelligence perk is a hand-held dish that you can use to spy on your neighbours. It’s great!)
In addition: * There are scores of new objects, including new desk and wall phones, baby stuff, more exercise clothes (including ballet gear), and paint-spattered furniture, for that authentic artist-starving-in-his-garret vibe.
* Sims can now study parenting, which means they no longer have to be psychic to know what a screaming baby wants.
* If your Sim makes reasonable progress at a few different hobbies, they might be presented with a magic lamp, with a genie inside who grants wishes.
* FreeTime also makes it easier for you to move between lots; you can move from a Bon Voyage holiday location to a downtown night spot without having to return to the base neighbourhood first.
* Awesomely, FreeTime includes the ability to age up to three NPCs when your Sim does – meaning your child Sim can finally grow up alongside his townie neighbours.
* There’s also a computer in the game that gives you a brief sneak-preview of The Sims 3!
Some folks might be inclined to give this title a miss; after all, we’ve been buying Sims 2 expansion packs for a good long while now. While some of the other expansion pack titles, to me, could be considered optional, FreeTime is so rich with content and gameplay features that I rate it right up there with Seasons as one of my must-have expansion pack titles.

Vigilante 8 Officially Returns Via Xbox Live Arcade

2008-02-14T16:46:00.001-08:00

It's official, Activision is bringing back the Vigilante 8 franchise, with developer Isopod Labs bringing a remake of the decade-old original to Xbox Live Arcade this Spring. The vehicular combat classic will return with a heavy multiplayer aspect, supporting 8 players via Xbox Live or 4 via split-screen multiplayer. According to the official web site, which just launched, the team is also planning "voice and (hopefully) camera support" and all sorts of other bullet-pointed features. The press release is after the jump, but I highly recommend the official site for getting up to speed.

V8 Arcade Official Site
ACTIVISION ANNOUNCES VIGILANTE 8®: ARCADE FOR XBOX LIVE ARCADE
Santa Monica, CA - February, 14 2008 - Activision, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) announced today the next installment in the classic vehicular-combat franchise Vigilante 8®, Vigilante 8: Arcade for Xbox LIVE Arcade. Licensed and developed by Isopod Labs, Vigilante 8: Arcade is an all new remake of the original game, featuring online play with up to eight players and a host of new content, taking full advantage of next-generation technologies.
The title is scheduled for release via download on Xbox LIVE Arcade for Xbox 360 this spring and has not yet been rated by the ESRB.
For more information and exclusive updates on Vigilante 8: Arcade, please visit www.v8arcade.com.
About Isopod LabsFounded by Peter Morawiec and Adrian Stephens in January 2007, Isopod Labs, LLC is a new R&D studio aiming to deliver innovative games and software via online downloads and traditional distribution channels, for console, PC, and handheld platforms. Along with Cary Hara, the trio represents the core developers behind the original Vigilante 8 series of games.
About ActivisionHeadquartered in Santa Monica, California, Activision, Inc. is a leading worldwide developer, publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment and leisure products. Founded in 1979, Activision posted net revenues of $1.5 billion for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2007.
Activision maintains operations in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, Spain, the Netherlands, Australia, Japan and South Korea. More information about Activision and its products can be found on the company's World Wide Web site, which is located at www.activision.com.

Tales from an EVE Online Part-Timer: Chapter 4

2008-02-13T15:52:00.000-08:00

The workaday world isn't all that glamorous for most of us, is it? Even so, with the right frame of mind, it can be satisfying. And to the extent that a virtual universe models a world, the same thing is true. While in the stages of working toward a particular goal, depending on the distance of the goal, things can get repetitious. Boredom can set in if you let your state of mind get away from you.
Of course, I would never let that happen. Uh huh.
EVE Online immediately presents three obvious ways to make a living: Running missions, mining and killing the NPC pirates -- sometimes while mining. Some people don't bother with the mining but just go killing instead, calling it "ratting." Former employees of Terminix, perhaps, I don't know. The graphics possibilities boggle the mind, conjuring images of giant space rats that...
Oh right, back on topic...
Running missions just doesn't appeal to me. I ran a few and made some easy money. I'm sure they get much harder and more interesting, but I just don't care. For me, the big appeal of a game like EVE is the openness and missions are closed by their very nature. It comes back to a part-timer's time-spending habits. I need to stay focused on the gameplay that really interests me and not get distracted by the lure of easy money. I have to be disciplined about my time because I have less of it.
Mining at the beginner's level is easy. Just fly out to an asteroid, lock onto it and press the mining laser button. A while later, your cargo hold is full and you're done. Fly back to base and either sell it in raw form or refine it and sell the results. If NPC pirates show up, you have to deal with them or run. Just lock onto them and press the other button, the one for the gun. They're gone in a minute or two. Some will leave a wreck with some cargo that you can loot.

Now, my new ship's cargo hold is about three times the size of the rookie ship's, so it's a lot more efficient as a money-making tool because I fly back and forth a lot less. I fly out, start the mining laser, and pretty soon I'm dreaming about the navy of ships I'll have soon with all this money rolling in. Cruisers escorting dozens of mining barges. Big freight haulers that will blot out the sun, kind of like the Persians' arrows in 300 when the Spartans said they'd "fight in the shade". Yeah, great scene, that one. Good movie...
So anyway, on the third or forth trip, the pirates show up, a gang of three. I lock onto them one at a time and shoot them full of holes, the dirty scoundrels. They beat up my shields and get into my armor a bit before I can take them out. Ha! I loot an afterburner and a shield extender from the wrecks. More riches. Soon I'll own this solar system. Six months, tops. Maybe less. I'll build a station the size of Mars and be the richest guy in the...
(Amazing how if real life gets boring you can just get another life -- no, not a Second Life â€“ online, and when it gets boring your mind just takes over. There's no telling where you'll go then. The escape from the escape. What next?)
Yes, to the point...
Fortunately, there's always the next fun thing to spend money on, real or virtual. Some of those pirates cut me up pretty good there. It took longer than I like to dispatch them, and that sounds like an argument for a newer, even bigger, ship. A quick check on the market reveals that will take a while. At the rate I'm earning money, a couple weeks maybe. Time to settle into the workaday world of EVE with my sights set on the next big upgrade.
Now where was I? Ah! Owning the solar system. Now if I just...
--Will Collum

Dark Sector Hands-on

2008-02-06T03:27:00.000-08:00

Other than a brief look at the game during last year's Games Convention Leipzig, the last time we had a proper look at Digital Extremes' Dark Sector was eleven months ago. Back then it was shaping up to be a solid entry in the third-person action genre, but it was too early to tell exactly how well it would turn out. Now we've gone hands-on with four levels from the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of the game, and Digital Extremes might have its first hit game in years.
Great opening levels are underestimated in video games, but they're key to hooking you in. Dark Sector has one of the most memorable opening levels I've played in a long time. It hasn't really got anything to do with the gameplay on offer - it's essentially Gears of War in a new skin - but the way it's presented. The opening level is black and white, and it looks gorgeous. Such a simple graphical technique probably shouldn't have had such a strong impact, but the crisp visuals and strong lighting look stunning without a drop of colour in sight.

All this changes though. As I said, the opening level is very Gears of War. Lead character Hayden Tenno, a hit-man for the CIA, can hug walls, pop out from cover, switch from one area of cover to another and leap over small barriers. I was half expecting an Active Reload system to pop up when pressing the Xbox 360 controller's Right Bumper, but I'm pleased it didn't. Towards the end of this level you face off against an attack helicopter before having a rocket turned on you by a metal guy with some extraordinary powers. From here things get weird.
Cue your capture by the enemy and the infection (seen in the metal guy) being spread to you. You're now able to use a boomerang-like weapon called a glaive, a spinning blade that can slice people up and home in on ammo and other pick-ups scattered through the levels. A handy tool for a half mutated man on the run from enemies to have and the weapon that looks to set Dark Sector apart from Gears of War.

Even once the glaive becomes an option you're still able to use a plethora of weapons, dropped by enemies or left in the environment. By mapping the glaive to Right Bumper and weapon fire to Right Trigger you can use both together, although early on the glaive's power leaves a lot to be desired. The cutscene directly after you learn about your new abilities sees an unaware guard's head being sliced clean off by the spinning weapon, but in practice enemies required two strikes before falling - that is until you start accurately aiming for the head. Soon enough you'll also be able to fire off a charged glaive attack that inflicts more damage, and learn to boomerang the glaive around the screen by moving to another position while the glaive is airborne.
It's hard to say how the glaive will evolve throughout the game, but early on its abilities are enhanced fairly regularly. On top of the power throw you get the ability to manually guide its path (hold Right Bumper after you've released the glaive), useful for taking out enemies and for targeting awkwardly placed switches. At this early stage I'm not totally sold on the glaive as a weapon. Although it's undeniably powerful and cool to use, in the early levels I used a trusty gun far more often than I anticipated. The glaive's ability to take on other properties will no doubt come into play later on. We've seen the glaive become icy, electrified and catch on fire, although we haven't seen a truly ingenious use yet.
Hayden's melee attack is also a viable alternate attack and can be used in combination with the glaive to perform some deadly finishing moves. One hit with the glaive will stun an enemy, leaving them open for a body slicing glaive finisher or a silent neck break. At the moment the control system and focus on glaive combat does seem to fall down slightly when a lot of enemies are rushing at you, but hopefully this can be tuned through playtesting ahead of the April 4 release date. Human enemies also have a tendency to overuse grenades. It's a good technique to flush you out from cover, but repeatedly having grenades thrown at your feet soon becomes annoying.
In what is similar to the trader in Resident Evil 4, although not nearly as mobile (that guy popped up all over the place) you can use money gathered throughout the game to buy new weapons. Upgrades acquired through pick-ups can also be equipped at these underground stores and you can sell unwanted items or store anything you don't currently need. Buying a secondary weapon to go with your pistol is essential as any weapons dropped by enemies can only be used for so long. These weapons can recognise the infection that you have and shut down after a short period - not ideal when you're trying to take out a group of shielded grunts.

Despite being very much still a work in progress, it's easy to be impressed by the visuals on offer in Dark Sector. Created with Digital Extremes' own Evolution Engine, and not Unreal Engine 3, the game has a crispness that we don't always see and a level of detail in the character models and environments that can match the best on offer. The in-engine cutscenes also look spectacular, with the opening cinematic looking so good I didn't realise that the camera could be controlled. It's easy to take next-gen visuals for granted these days, but for a game not due out until April, Dark Sector is looking very good indeed - on both systems. Hopefully the fairly inconsistent frame rate and the odd bit of tearing will be cleaned up before it hits stores.
Of equal importance is the audio work. For a game that isn't coming from one of the big publishers you might be expecting this side of the production to slip into cheesy territory, but that's not the case so far. Lead character Hayden is voiced by Michael Rosenbaum (Lex from Smallville) and first impressions are very positive. Who knows what kind of hammy acting we'll be forced to endure later on, but Rosenbaum is certainly a good choice for the leading man. The game will also include a couple of online multiplayer game modes, but we can't talk about those just yet - expect more info in the coming weeks.
Dark Sector has been in development for a long time and this April we'll see if it's been worth the wait. Based on the levels we played it's got a good chance of appealing to the action crowd and its similarities to Gears of War (although Digital Extremes are right to point out that this was in development well before Gears) should work in its favour. How well the glaive performs later in the game and the interest generated from the plot will dictate just how good Dark Sector turns out to be. Look out for a full review near the game's early April release date.

Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom Review

2008-02-05T16:17:00.000-08:00

From the get go, you’ll notice that Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom is not your normal game, as you start off choosing from one of five characters, each with there own fighting style and each one will experience a slightly different story. Almost at every start or end of each level you will find idols, Death, and angel, a boda like figure, they are like vendors, you could sell and trade and combine weapons. They also provide you with a place to save your game, you also have the option to go to sleep. Once your asleep, you enter a dream world where you can talk with characters that provide quests that teach you new abilities, there sort of your yoda, they guide you if you’ll call it that.You’ll be fighting your way through hordes of enemies, legions of skeletons, floating ghosts and big menacing monsters, some of which are made out of wood or hot lava. Some levels feel as if more monsters are being tossed at you then others. One level has hundreds of small scorpions like creatures scattered around, you’ll feel as if you never killed enough to rid yourself of them. I have to give it to the designers when it comes to the number of different types of monsters that are packed in the game. As you progress to each level or region you’ll notice that the wilder or more original the monsters get.
Circle of Doom has a great feature were you can join up to three others in cooperatively to kick some ass, but it can only be done online via Xbox Live. Offline you’re stuck with going at it by yourself, which at times could be a bummer, with those challenging bosses that seem were made specially for co-op mode.Circle of Doom's levels are agreeably well done, the designers direction is constantly gorgeous. There’s times were you might just stop from slicing monsters, just to look around your surrounds to admire the backgrounds, caverns and deserts, some places are more colorful then others, but still it's all remarkable. The sound effects are excellent, the storylines is voiced over, but it’s also subtle to help you to better understand the dialogue.Fans of this genre are really in for a treat as this is as good as it could get, Hack and Slash and the RPG element makes this game a must have, you’re have a hell of a good time.About the Game:
Published by: Microsoft
Developed by: Blueside
Genre: Action RPG
Number of Players: 1-4
Release Date: US: January 8, 2008 Japan: December 13, 2007 Europe: February 1, 2008 Australia: December 13, 2007
MSRP: $59.99

Hands on With Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2008

2008-02-04T15:19:00.000-08:00

I am not usually a fan of sports games, but so I was surprised when I loaded up Tiger Woods 2008 and actually enjoyed it. TW 2008 is one of the most intuitive games I have ever played, if you know a little about the principals of golf it should take a few minutes before you start to see some respectable results. That is not to say that the game is without its challenges, far from it.
Playing a course without much wind is a relatively simple affair. If the wind is blowing at under 5 mph, you do not really have to adjust for it; you just point and shoot. When the wind starts howling is when it starts to get interesting. Different clubs will send the ball to different heights and the ball will react differently. A drive might not get blown around too much, but get a shot up there with the sand wedge and it will move. It is all part of the fun and of the learning experience.
Your swing is determined by the smoothness of your mousing action and any deviation that occurs. I use a Razer Lachesis which is fully programmable and I am guessing it is possible to effectively cheat by turning the sensitivity of the horizontal axis down. The timing is perhaps the toughest part to master, I am constantly fast, slightly fast or very fast on the down swing.
I was initially disappointed with the graphics. I thought I had turned them up to make use of my 8800GTX. The simple high setting still had a grainy picture, which was unimpressive to say the least. The menu layout in this regard is quite poor. In the advanced settings tab you will find all of the tweaks that you need. If you crank up the resolution you will be able to set things to very high and enjoy some fine looking graphics.
Game play is smooth, if a little slow, but then golf is a slow sport. There is enough variation in the commentary to avoid sending you mad and the commentators do offer helpful tips that might improve your on-green play. I love the fact that you can save this between holes, so it is possible to have a five or ten minute gaming session that is satisfying. It is not as much of a time waster as an FPS or RPG which you need to spend at least twenty minutes immersing yourself in just to get started.
All in all this was an impressive game and one to which I will return many times. It loads quickly and shuts down quickly which is always an enormous plus. I have yet to try it online and don’t really have much interest in doing so. I like my FPS games online, this is more of a one player affair for me. I give this one 4.5 out of 5.0, it is simply the best sports game that I have played in a long time (excluding Wii tennis of course).

Sid Meier Considering MMO

2008-02-04T15:15:00.000-08:00

The man who brought you Civilization, Pirates!, and Railroads! is looking to capture a larger audience - all at once. Speaking to GamersGlobal, the legendary Sid Meier considers the possibility of stepping into the massively multiplayer realm of online gaming.
I enjoy the idea of doing something I haven't done before, so a MMO would fit perfectly, but I really can't say if that would be the next game we do or if it's still a couple of games down the road before we come to that. Because I have new single player games I want to do, as well.
While the rest of the interview mainly deals with the upcoming Civilization Revolution, I found myself stuck musing on what Meier would bring to the MMO genre - other than a giant, persistent-world Civilization, of course. I'd suggest a Pirate MMO, but Flying Lab more or less just released Pirates! Online.

Facebook's winning game

2008-02-04T15:12:00.000-08:00

You could call it Monopoly. Except that could get you sued. Entrepreneurs are rushing to build interactive games that hook into social networks to connect players with their friends.
And like a Monopoly player hustling to string together a collection of valuable properties, entrepreneurs are hurrying to link their games together into sprawling networks that mirror the social lives of the players themselves.
The lure for gamers is simple. Social networks give game addicts a way to find their friends online and challenge them to endless rounds of blackjack, poker, or battleship — games that can be squeezed in whenever a user checks their Facebook or other social networking account. Entrepreneurs can then encourage gamers to sign up their friends or sign up for new games by offering them in-game rewards for recruiting new users. "It's a better way for people to be social with each other. It's not necessarily a better game," says Marc Pincus, founder of Zynga Game Network, which offers a number of popular games.

In Pictures: The Social Life Of Games

The first trick, of course, is to avoid getting sued. Hasbro and Mattel grabbed headlines with their push to shut down Scrabulous, a knockoff of the Scrabble board game developed by a pair of entrepreneurs in India (see: Scrabulous Facing Copyright Infringement Charges).
There are already more than 23,000 Facebook users rallying to save Scrabulous in Facebook groups. Most game developers, however, are careful to avoid duplicating games that companies such as Hasbro have locked down with trademarks and other protections.
Instead, they're putting together collections of original games or public-domain titles that feed off each other's popularity. One of the largest collections of social games is controlled by San Francisco-based startup Zynga. The games, ranging from poker to battleship, are accessible to users of social networks such as Facebook and Bebo.
The company has raised more than $10-million from investors, including Union Square Ventures, Brad Feld's Foundry, former AOL executive Bob Pittman's Pilot Group, former AOL executive Richard W. Levandov's Avalon Ventures, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman and PayPal founder Peter Thiel.
Of course, none of the games are going to be confused for the next generation of graphically intense shoot-em-ups, like Halo 3, but there's plenty of room for innovation. Zynga's take on Battleship — a classic, paper-based game that has been played by grade schoolers for decades — includes a handy "airstrike" button. Others are simply classics, well executed, such as Zynga's most popular offering: poker.
Casual online gaming isn't new. Big companies Electronic Arts and Lycos acquired startups years ago that specialized in casual games such as Pogo and Gamesville. But what startups such as Zynga add is the ability to not just hook into a player's social network to help them find players they know, but to find new ways to interact with friends and family on social networks.
A player can take a turn at an asynchronous, turn-based game such as Triumph whether or not their opponent is online. "I can have a more meaningful, fun, playful interaction with her on her own time," Pincus says of his mother, one of his Facebook friends. "I find myself with free time for three minutes, and that's when I want to flip a switch and play."
And by allowing outside developers to begin creating applications for their users last year, Facebook set the stage for a rush of upstarts determined to put together applications that will engage and entertain Facebook's users. And Facebook upped the ante last week, giving developers the ability to run their Facebook-friendly applications outside its site. MySpace plans to follow suit Feb. 5, with the launch of the MySpace Developer Platform, which will allow outside developers to create applications that hook into the MySpace social network.
Not that they'll want to go it alone. Facebook already has over 63 million members, and it's growing at a rate of more than 250,000 accounts per day. Many see social games riding that curve. "It's going to be the fastest-growing segment on the social Web for the next 12 to 24 months," says Nick O'Neill, editor in chief of Social Times, a blog covering social networks.
Facebook is also a great way to help market less casual games. Eric Gonzalez's startup, Ujogo, spices up free games of poker by sharing some of the company's sponsorship and advertising revenue with players in the form of prizes, luring players who want something a little more intense than they'd find at other sites. "You're really going to try hard to do better," Gonzalez says. Making the game accessible via Facebook, he says, is a natural way to get more exposure.
Gamers, meanwhile, can find scores of games being hawked on Facebook. It's a paradise, at least until the virtual money runs out. Lucky for them, all they have to do is sign up a few friends for a fresh hit of virtual cash. Kind of like real gambling addicts — except users will be making friends — rather than burning them — in an effort to feed their habit.