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More surprises as WiiWare launches in Japan.

Square Enix’s experiment in downloadable gaming may also turn into an experiment for the company in microtransactions. When you attempt to download Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, which launched with the Japanese version of the WiiWare service today, you’re given a message warning that some parts of the game, including expansion packs and other services, may require extra Wii Points.

This is just a general warning that appears to be attached to any WiiWare title that may get paid content in the future. Outside of Cyrystal Chronicles, Mojipittan and LonPos also display the notice when making the download from the Wii Shopping Channel. The other six games do not.

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Five bucks scores you new maps and weapons.

New premium content is now available for Ubisoft’s Dark Messiah. For 400 Microsoft Points (US$5), you can gain access to new weapons, classes and multiplayer maps. We know you’re excited!

Dashboard description: Extend your quest on Dark Messiah of Might and Magic - Elements with new maps, classes and weapons from Xbox Live Marketplace. Use these new weapons to crush your opponents. According to your character’s type, either Undead or Human, you can use exclusive powerful weapons such as bows, swords, or staffs. Also included, two new classes for the single player mode: Paladin He will subsequently use his powerful Charm and Shrinking spells to gain the upper hand. Warlock The Warlock will seek to weaken his enemies from a distance with his spells before moving in for the kill using his sword.

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Paradox Interactive launches the demo exclusively with FilePlanet.

Paradox Interactive, in cooperation with FilePlanet, aims for the stars with the exclusive launch of its Lost Empire: Immortals demo.

Budding galactic warlords can experience a host of game features within this limited version of the full game. Play as the Humans against the Megalanians and Horde factions. Explore and colonize across the boundaries of a single galaxy, for a massive 350 turns. Players are limited to constructing destroyers only, while multiplayer, custom options and main game storyline are disabled.

Lost Empire Immortals will be available for download on GamersGate from March 11, 2008

Read more about Lost Empire: Immortals on the official website
Release: US March 11, 2008, Europe March 14, 2008
Suggested retail price: 29.99 USD/ 29.99 EUR

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COD4 king of the hill again.

Let’s just call it the same ol’ same ol’. The top five games from last week remain unchanged. Once again COD 4 tops Halo 3. Two new entries, likely to climb the charts next week are Army of Two and Frontlines: Fuel of War. Surprisingly, N+ is the best-selling XBLA game for the third week running.

The Top Live Titles, as reported by Major Nelson, list ranks unique users playing Xbox games while connected to Live. The Top Arcade Titles list is based on the number of full versions sold in a given week.

Xbox 360 Top Live Titles

1. Call of Duty 4
2. Halo 3
3. Guitar Hero III
4. Gears of War
5. Rock Band
6. Army of Two
7. FIFA 08
8. Madden NFL 08
9. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas
10. Frontlines: Fuel of Wa

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The company receives an overwhelming response to the platform announced during the 2008 Game Developers Conference.

Outspark today unveiled Pi Story as the first title to join its rapidly growing virtual playground through the Outspark Publishing Platform. An exciting free online role-playing game for the PC, Pi Story will be available to the Outspark community during the second quarter of 2008.

Developed by NCONY, Pi Story is a 2D side-scrolling game featuring beautiful anime-style imagery, story-based gameplay and a suite of community features. Players create a character, battle through treacherous dungeons and gather lost Pi on their quest to reunite a shattered universe.

“We’re excited to bring Pi Story to our growing community of social
gamers as we build a new online entertainment destination for players of
all ages and experience levels,” said Outspark CEO and founder Susan
Choe. “Developer partners joining the Publishing Platform share
Outspark’s vision of the future of online entertainment, and Pi Story is
the first of many partnerships that will bring even more great games to
our community.”

Community features in Pi Story include a party and guild system for
cooperative gameplay, personal web diaries featuring text and photos and
a unique housing system that lets players customize their own dwelling
and visit those built by other players. Outspark and NCONY will release
additional details about the game in the coming weeks and months as they
work together to make the game part of Outspark’s virtual playground.

“NCONY couldn’t have chosen a better partner than Outspark, who is the
leader in game management and operations. With their full understanding
of the game market and extensive experience in working with Korean
developers, we are confident that together we will make Pi Story a
phenomenal success,” said NCONY Founder and CEO Gregory Lee.

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Over a dozen new characters for second DS Bleach game.

SEGA announced today that the company will bring Bleach: Dark Souls for the Nintendo DS to North America this year. Dark Souls is the sequel to Bleach: The Blade of Fate, and will continue the multiplayer card-enhanced fighting game genre that The Blade of Fate started.

“With an exclusive storyline, an expanded playable character roster and spectacular new Bankai moves, Bleach: Dark Souls is set to build upon the critical success of Bleach: Blade of Fate,” said Don Mesa, director of marketing for SEGA of America, Inc.

Bleach: Dark Souls features an exclusive storyline that takes place between the first and second seasons. According to SEGA the characters will have individual storylines within the main story’s arc, and that the game will offer insight on Ichigo and his quest to save Rukia.

“The Bleach franchise continues to gain momentum with anime fans and gamers alike in North America and SEGA is there to create a robust and exciting gaming experience that stays true to its anime roots,” Mesa said.

The sequel increases the roster of playable character to 44, each with voice acting from the North American cast. Included in this roster is the first opportunity to play as Hollows, though SEGA did not mention if this means playing as generic Hollows or whether the Espada will be included in the game.

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More on the multiplayer is revealed.

Jess Sterzl, design/project manager for High Impact Games, recently posted information on the official PlayStation blog regarding Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters. The port will apparently contain not only the original multiplayer modes that the PSP version boasted but will also feature a new mode, Iron Lombax. This gameplay type will task players with completing specialized objects that vary depending on which multiplayer stage they choose to play on.

The blog post breaks down several of the available objectives. Island Escape has you collecting radioactive cores to launch a rocket, while Danger Valley tasks you with finding homing beacons to plant on your opponent’s base, which will trigger hover mines to glide towards their target.

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The US version’s coming later this year.

 Disgaea DS was recently announced for the Japanese market, and today NIS America has revealed that the company will release the game stateside later this year.

Disgaea: Hour of Darkness is an original strategy role-playing game based upon the series released on the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable.

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Frozenbyte and Meridian4 bring the top-down shooter to the UK.

Meridian4 and Frozenbyte are pleased to announced that they have signed an agreement to publish the critically acclaimed, top-down shooter; Shadowgrounds Survivor in the UK.

After much success in North America, both with fans of the game and the press, giving it an average rating of over 80%, Shadowgrounds Survivor will be available to the many UK fans in April/May.

“We are thrilled to get this great game over to the UK market. Many of the UK press have already played and reviewed Shadowgrounds Survivor and had nothing but high praise for the game.” said Andy Sher, CEO at Meridian4, “We know that Shadowgrounds Survivor will be a huge success with the UK fans.”

About Shadowgrounds Survivor

In Shadowgrounds Survivor, gamers are dropped on Jupiter’s Ganymede moon as one of three surviving humans in the midst of an all-out alien onslaught. It’s up to them to take up arms and blast through legions of alien scum to save their own lives and humanity itself, increasing their skills and weapons through the game’s RPG-like character-upgrade system. The mighty Mech and devastating Sentry Gun will help players mow through hundreds of bloodthirsty extraterrestrials in the campaign or the all-new Survivor mode.

Gear Up and Get Ready!

About Meridian4

Meridian4 is an interactive software publisher located in Montreal, Canada. A new publishing company, with new ideas and a different approach to forming partnerships with developers, Meridian 4 aims to actually form a partnership – a true relationship characterized by mutual cooperation and responsibility to achieve the best possible performance for developers’ products. For more information, visit http://www.meridian4.com.

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Kirby bounding onto Virtual Console this week.

It’s Friday and, of course, that can only mean one thing - drowning our brain cells in cheap ale after work as we try and forget all the bad things we’ve done this week. Oh, that and the obligatory Virtual Console update.

It’s Kirby that’s perking up the Virtual Console this week, with the N64 game Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards being the solitary offering from Nintendo. There’s something about Kirby we’ve always found deeply disturbing – maybe it’s his supernaturally large gob or his eerily silent yet cheery demeanour - and it wouldn’t be a surprise if he was found hoarding a fine collection of corpses under his patio.

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Blizzard announces correction.

Activision’s CEO, Bobby Kotick, made headlines recently when he alluded to in-game advertising in StarCraft II. Upon hearing about this, Blizzard declared on Blizzplanet that fans needn’t worry, “We have no plans to have in-game advertising in StarCraft II. We believe Bobby was actually referring to Battle.net, which has always included ads,” said the company.

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Weekend warriors rejoice.

In its March playlist update for Halo 3, Bungie has tweaked some matchmaking eccentricities, fixed some multiplayer map glitches and introduced two new double-experience weekend playlists.

The first weekend Double XP playlist went live at noon today and runs through noon PDT on March 10. The second runs March 20 - March 23. Here’s a full breakdown by Bungie community guru Luke Smith:

- Grifball, the game created by Burnie Burns of Red vs. Blue will be an unranked, weekend-long social playlist awarding DoubleXP to winning teams. We’ve slightly adjusted some of the rules for Grifball (unlimited round times make for unlimited griefing potential), but kept the game’s core intact. You’ll be able to go in with party configurations ranging from one to eight people. This playlist will be available from Thursday, March 6 at NOON until March 10 at NOON(all times Pacific Standard). I apparently forgot to mention that the Grifball hopper is being treated like a Tournament hopper — a hopper where there will be prizes. Tournament prizes.

- Beginning March 20 at NOON will be the return of Team SWAT in the Social, DoubleXP variety. Team SWAT is an old Halo 2 gametype where players have no shields, increased body health and do not have the luxury of radar. This eight-player maximum hopper will be completely Team Slayer focused with the SWAT ruleset. This weekend playlist will be available from March 20 at NOON until March 23 at NOON (all times Pacific).

In addition to sucking the next two weekends away from Halo 3 players’ friends and loved ones, Bungie made some changes to the Heroic DLC multiplayer variant, splitting it into DLC Slayer (4v4) and DLC Objective (6v6) with a mix of various gametypes on the DLC maps. Slayer options include Team Snipers, Team Rockets, Team BRs, Team Duel and Team Duals. Objective variants include Multi Flag CTF, Multi Flag BR, One Flag, Assault, Neutral Bomb Assault and Team King.

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Players convene in NYC for a record-breaking jam session to mark the launch of Guinness World Records: Gamer’s Edition 2008.

Come one, come all to a Guitar Hero III jam session for the record books. In celebration of the release of the inaugural Guinness World Records: Gamer’s Edition 2008 on March 11th, Guinness World Records will sponsor a record-setting Guitar Hero event in New York City that will witness the world’s #1 Guitar Hero player establish the record for Single Player High Score. Chris Chike, aka “iamchris4life,” will mesmerize crowds with his flying fingers as he attempts to establish a mind-blowing new high score. Other Guinness World Records that will be attempted include: Six Person Team High Score and Longest Multi-Player Marathon. Also on hand for the record-breaking display and interviews will be Guitar Hero creator, Kai Huang and members of the popular gaming clan, the Frag Dolls. This event is open to the public and if anyone would like the opportunity to challenge Chris Chike for the single player high score, please RSVP by 1:00pm on March 11th. Space is limited and entries will be accepted on a first come, first served basis.

When:
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. (Record Attempts start at 7:00p.m.)

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Upcoming action game to hit PS3, 360 and PCs next year.

Earlier today, SouthPeak Games announced that Edge of Twilight, Fuzzyeyes’ upcoming action title that uses Unreal Engine 3, will be released in 2009 for the PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. Set in a steampunk inspired world where day and night no longer exist, players take on the role of Lex, a bounty hunter trapped between the conflict of two different civilizations.

“We are very excited to help bring Fuzzyeyes’ creative vision to life. The team spent a lot of time developing a comprehensive story to give the universe a history and purpose, which can change based on the players’ interaction within the world,” said Melanie Mroz, CEO of SouthPeak. Wei-Yao Lu, CEO of Fuzzyeyes, agreed, stating

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Activision is green with envy for metal.

Activision today announced two new track packs for Guitar Hero III, one of which is available as of today. The Modern Metal pack contains the tracks “Hole in the Earth” by the Deftones, Avenged Sevenfold’s “Almost Easy” and Thrice’s “The Arsonist”, all of which are the studio master recordings. The pack is now available on Xbox Live Marketplace and is slated to hit the PlayStation Network as part of Sony’s weekly update later today.

Activision will also be celebrating St. Patrick’s Day with the release of a free track pack from the Celtic punk band Dropkick Murphys. Three master songs from the band’s sixth album, “The Meanest of Times” will hit with this pack, including “Famous for Nothing”, “(F)lannigan’s Ball” and “Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ya”.

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First of five different covers.

Electronic Arts Inc. today announced that former University of Arkansas running back and two time All-American recipient, Darren McFadden, will appear on the front cover of NCAA® Football 09 for the Xbox 360™ video game entertainment system, scheduled for release on July 15, 2008. This year, the packaging for each of the NCAA Football 09 console platforms will feature an exclusive cover athlete. Following McFadden on the Xbox 360 package front will be three other cover athletes from different regions throughout the county to appear on the box art for NCAA Football 09 on the PlayStation® 2 and PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment systems, and the PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) system.

During McFadden’s three year career at the University of Arkansas, the two-time Heisman Trophy runner-up earned three First Team All-SEC selections, was named the SEC coaches and Associated Press “Offensive Player of the Year”, received the 2007 Walter Camp Award, and was the first Sophomore to receive the Doak Walker Award for the best college Running Back two years in row. McFadden holds multiple University of Arkansas records, the most notable being the Razorback’s all-time leading rusher with 4,485 yards in only 37 career games.

NCAA Football 09 will unveil the all-new Break Away Animation Engine which allows gamers to break in and out of moves giving the user more direct control as well as instant influence and responsiveness on the field. At its core, NCAA Football 09 will focus on wide-open collegiate style gameplay featuring unique animations that you will only find on college football Saturdays. This style of gameplay will allow agile backs like McFadden to show off their break out speed and maneuverability in-game.

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A quick update with a few fixes adds to the previous 1.02 major update.

Matrix Games and Strategic Studies Group are happy to announce that a new minor update is now available for Carriers at War. This quick but helpful 1.02.2 update address two issues which arose after the major 1.02 update. The 1.02 update brought a new scenario, an editor tutorial, and tons of new editor/gameplay changes too.

David Heath, Director of Operations at Matrix Games, said “The latest 1.02.2 update is riding on the tails of the fantastic 1.02 update which was recently released. With a few quick fixes to improve upon an already solid game, Carriers at War is more addicting and fun than it’s ever been!”

Carriers at War is a WWII naval combat and strategy game set in the Pacific Theatre. Putting you at the heart of WWII carrier combat, you are in charge of commanding carriers with powerful airgroups tasked with delivering a knockout blow to the enemy, while avoiding retribution at the hands of a canny foe. Although it includes land-based airpower, surface combat and invasions, Carriers at War focuses heavily on carrier fleet command strategy, which requires the player to use all of their naval prowess to best the enemy. Throughout the wide range of scenarios found in Carriers at War, history buffs and strategy fans alike will recognize and enjoy playing through famous engagements including Pearl Harbor, Midway, Coral Sea, Eastern Solomons, and more! This 2007 release is a fully modern, brand new Carriers at War, though it remains true to the incredible gameplay of the original wargame classic.

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Square announces European release date for incoming DS title.

Something strange is afoot: Square Enix has announced it will be bringing DS title The World Ends With You to Europe on April 18 – a full four days before the game’s US release.

It’s certainly a far cry from Square’s usual multi-month plod to Europe following release in the US and it’s all the more pleasing given The World Ends With You looks like a fairly exciting prospect on DS. Taking the developer’s RPG know-how and transposing it onto a modern-day setting, The World Ends With You has a distinct visual style, as well as one hell of a title.

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Codemasters’s new shooter gunning for late 2008.

Codemasters has lifted the veil on its latest title, Damnation - a shooter from new studio Blue Omega Entertainment - pencilled in for release on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC at the end of the year.

Details of the project are relatively scarce, but early screens depict some eclectic art direction, pilfering western, industrial and neo-punk elements and putting them all into the digital blender. Powered by the Unreal 3 engine, Codemasters promises a ’shooter gone vertical’, taking place in vast levels that could take up to three hours to defeat. And, of course, there’ll be multiplayer elements smuggled into the mix as well.

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Nintendo releases evidence of imminent launch.

Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, the follow-up to Capcom’s highly-acclaimed court-bound Pheonix Wright series, is coming to Europe on May 9.

It’s the slightest of departures for the series, with Phoenix Wright stepping away from the limelight this time, making way for the new titular hero. That means the introduction of a new feature enabling players to perceive habits.

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