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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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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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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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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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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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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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Saga, a new massive-multiplayer online real-time strategy game from Silverlode Interactive, launches worldwide.

The Saga begins… From now on it’s a persistent world. With over 1000 online quests at launch, Saga boasts many of the features that made MMOs successful: auction house, guilds, raiding, looted treasure, gear upgrades, collaborative party questing… Combined with the RTS features of city-building, resource management and grand-scale massive warfare, Saga has changed the landscape of RTS gaming.

Originally built by industry veteran Dallan Christensen (Lead Programmer of Starcraft: Brood War), the Saga world is a traditional fantasy setting: Elves, Orcs, Dragons, Dwarves, and Giants are the characters in a story that develops through the quest threads and will lead to new expansions and new features as Saga grows.

“Players are ready for massive online warfare where every battle really counts, because your empire is fully persistent; it doesn’t vanish after every battle.” says SAGA creator Jason Faller

Since Silverlode opened Beta to the public in July of 2007, Saga has been balanced and rebalanced to suit both casual and hardcore gamers, who can fairly compete head-to-head in this highly tactical strategy game.

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The critically acclaimed television series debuts for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.

Today Ubisoft, one of the world’s largest video game publishers, in collaboration with ABC Entertainment and ABC Studios, announced that LOST: Via Domus is available on store shelves for Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, the PlayStation 3 computer entertainment system and Windows-based PC. Based on the award-winning television series, LOST: Via Domus allows players to experience an untold adventure of Lost in an immersive, interactive world. The game is rated T for Teen and has an MSRP of $59.99 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 system, and $29.99 for Windows.

Lost is a remarkably captivating television program that has built a
loyal set of avid viewers, said Tony Key, senior vice president of
sales and marketing at Ubisoft. It was a natural progression to bring
the Lost universe to a video game and we are thrilled to allow fans a
new way to immerse themselves in the story of the island and the
survivors of Oceanic flight 815.

After many months of collaboration with Ubisoft and the series
producers, we are excited to bring such a truly unique gaming experience
to the marketplace, said Bruce Gersh, senior vice president, business
development, ABC Entertainment and ABC Studios. Through the gameplay,
fans of the series will have an abundance of opportunities to dive
deeper into the mysteries and intrigues of the series.

Lost series executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse said,
Playing the game, you really feel like youre on the island. The
graphics are fantastic, and the game gives players a chance to explore
on their own the places and mysteries of the island that theyve seen
for the last three years on the show.

About the Game

As a passenger of Oceanic flight 815, you survived the crash and find
yourself on an uncharted island somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. As you
begin to unravel mysteries of the island, you begin to discover secrets
of your own. You will have to understand your past mistakes in order to
survive and find your way home…

Play as a survivor of Oceanic Flight 815: Confront your dark
past, seek your redemption, and ultimately find a way home.

Authentic Lost experience: Explore familiar locations, unravel
mysteries and interact with the main characters from the show.

Survive the challenges that the island throws at you: Solve
puzzles, outsmart enemies, battle the smoke monster and overcome many
other challenges to survive the island and come out alive.

About Lost

Season 4 of Lost stars Naveen Andrews as Sayid, Henry Ian Cusick as
Desmond, Emilie de Ravin as Claire, Michael Emerson as Ben, Matthew Fox
as Jack, Jorge Garcia as Hurley, Josh Holloway as Sawyer, Daniel Dae Kim
as Jin, Yunjin Kim as Sun, Evangeline Lilly as Kate, Elizabeth Mitchell
as Juliet, Terry OQuinn as Locke and Harold Perrineau as Michael.

Lost was created by Jeffrey Lieber and J.J. Abrams & Damon Lindelof.
Abrams, Lindelof, Bryan Burk, Jack Bender and Carlton Cuse serve as
executive producers. Lost, which is filmed entirely on location in
Hawaii and premiered on September 22, 2004, is from ABC Studios.

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Thanks to cdv USA.

cdv Software Entertainment USA, a wholly-owned subsidiary of publicly-traded cdv Software Entertainment AG, today announced an agreement to publish ASCARON Entertainment’s highly anticipated Sacred 2: Fallen Angel in the United States, Canada and Mexico. The title is slated to launch on PC and Microsoft Xbox 360™ in the second half of 2008, timed to meet consumer demand during the 2008 holiday season.

Based on the remarkable success of the predecessor, Sacred, of which more than 1.8 million units were sold world-wide, it is expected that the sequel will achieve 2008 sales revenues in excess of 10 million €.

“With the exceptional Sacred 2: Fallen Angel, our North American subsidiary has secured one of the top titles for 2008. We are delighted to take a major step forward with a game that has such AAA market potential,” said cdv Software Entertainment AG’s CEO, Christian Gloe. “It illustrates that cdv can successfully deliver among the best titles in the industry, significantly growing the organization’s global revenue potential.”

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Your sims can now explore all-new activities, hobbies and cool careers to enrich their lives.

Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) today announced the newest expansion pack from The Sims Label, The Sims 2 FreeTime. This expansion pack offers your Sims a full suite of all-new activities and hobbies to enrich their lives. Your Sims can build their skills and enhance friendships by exploring new pursuits based on their personal interests, helping them live life to the fullest.

“Players of The Sims love to bring stories to life by exploring new and wonderful areas of their Sims’ existence,” said Rod Humble, Head of The Sims Studio. “Now with The Sims 2 FreeTime, your Sims can explore a range of interests to discover new fun and appealing life options and diversions. Realizing these all-new talents adds depth, humor and appreciation for the moments that make life entertaining.”

It’s all about fun, personal development for your Sims in The Sims 2 FreeTime. Sims can follow their individual interests, whether it’s immersing themselves in books, becoming an award-winning foodie, flying a remote-controlled helicopter or playing the violin. Gifted mechanics can repair and then drive their newly-renovated sports cars. Sims can rake in oodles of Simoelons with skillfully crafted pottery or by writing a mesmerizing novel.

Cool careers bring happiness and fulfillment to your Sims and your storytelling opportunities expand. New cool career options await, including oceanography, architecture, and entertainment. Now by honing their talents, your Sims can unlock a secondary aspiration making them even more unique.

KEY FEATURES

• New Gameplay Elements Tied to Hobbies. Your Sims can discover the activities that they’re most passionate about! Sims can now participate in contests to win prizes and Simoleons, or they can master interests, practice and improve their skills, and get in “the zone!” Your Sims can enrich their lives by creating items to use or sell, like pottery or cars. These new hobbies can strengthen friendships and uncover secret lots.
• New Lifetime Aspiration Meter. Your Sims can measure the progress of their aspirations over a lifetime and unlock special rewards and interactions!
• Five New Career Tracks and their Reward Objects. Oceanographers can earn a koi pond, entertainers can get their own star of fame, architects can use their own drafting table, dancers can receive a ballet barre and intelligence agents can use an audio augmenter earpiece.
• All New Objects and Outfits. The Sims 2 FreeTime introduces brand new items, including a basketball hoop, pottery wheel, toddler activity table, modular synthesizer, hobby train table and much more. Your Sims can also have new outfits to match their hobbies and activities, including a special outfit that was designed and created by a player of The Sims 2 that will be produced by H&M.

Product Specifications
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: Electronic Arts Redwood Shores
Ship Date: US: February 26, 2008
Europe: February 22, 2008
• PC expansion pack*
Category: Simulation/Strategy
ESRB Rating: T for Teen with descriptors of Crude Humor, Sexual Themes, Violence
PEGI Rating: 12+

* Requires The Sims 2, The Sims 2 Special DVD Edition , The Sims 2 Holiday Edition or The Sims 2 Deluxe for PC to play.

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The ultimate train simulation experience gets on track and reaches store shelves today.

All aboard! Electronic Arts Inc. today announced that Rail Simulator has shipped to North American retailers for the PC. Train enthusiasts will find even more control, track options and unprecedented graphics in Rail Simulator as they take the helm of historic and contemporary trains on more than 1,000 miles of real-life routes from around the world. Developed by Kuju Entertainment, the North American version of the game features new content including U.S. trains and the famous Barstow to San Bernadino route modeled in extraordinary detail. Rail Simulator shipped in Europe in October 2007.

“Our team is excited to be able to bring Rail Simulator to North America and really pleased to be able to provide rail fans with content specifically created for their market,” said Tim Gatland, managing director of Rail Simulator Developments Limited. “It’s been great working with the team at EA Partners once again following our European launch a few months ago.”

“At EA Partners, we are always looking to work with independent developers who are leaders in their categories, and Kuju Entertainment is unquestionably at the head of this genre,” said David DeMartini, vice president and general manager of EA Partners. “We have had a great experience working with Kuju and are looking forward to getting Rail Simulator out to train enthusiasts across North America.”

From the team behind the popular Microsoft Train Simulator, Kuju Entertainment is continuing to push the genre to new heights. Rail Simulator puts players in full control of every aspect of the train’s operation and even gives players a powerful track editor to create and share their own routes. Varying difficultly levels tailor the game to players of all skill levels, from Easy to Full Simulation.

Rail Simulator is rated E for Everyone by the ESRB. More information about Rail Simulator is available at www.railsimulator.com.

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This one’s for the mouse generation!

Do you like to play your games exclusively with the mouse? Then you can rightfully claim to be a part of the Mouse Generation. And guess what, Generation Mouser? Someone’s made a Street Fighter game just for you!

Japanese publisher Daletto, a new company formed last year by Capcom and Games Arena, announced today Street Fighter Online: Mouse Generation. This Windows fighter is a real Street Fighter game in that it has Ryu, Chun Li, and a fighting system based on Street Fighter Alpha. But Street Fighter IV this is not.

Street Fighter Online: Mouse Generation is built around mouse controls. You control all the action with the mouse. To move your character left and right, you slide the mouse in the corresponding direction. Sliding up makes your character jump. The left and right buttons perform, respectively, punch and kick attacks. Special moves are performed by combinations of the buttons and mouse gestures.

In addition to the new control scheme, Street Fighter Online is, as the name would suggest, meant to take the Street Fighter franchise online. Daletto will be using an item-based business model, where the game is free to download and play online, but you’ll have to hand over cash to purchase items.

Those items appear to come in the form of character body parts. The game will initially start off with just four characters: Chun Li, Ryo, Hiko and Tiran. The last two are characters from the novels of Chinese author Jin Yong. Additional characters will be added gradually, but players are encouraged to create brand new characters by mixing and matching parts. It’s possible to get Chin Li’s head and torso attached to Zangief’s arms and Ryu’s legs. At least that’s what we think we saw in the screenshots Daletto handed out today.

There’s a deeper story to the character mixing and matching. Daletto has partnered with Kaiyodo, the toy maker response for the Revoltech brand of toys that feature swappable body parts. The characters in Street Fighter Online are meant to be Revoltech models fighting in a digital world. In the real world, Kaiyodo plans on releasing a Revoltech toy line based on the Street Fighter Online characters.

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Valve offers first slice for free.

Valve Software has teamed up with Nvidia to offer a free taster of its superlative puzzler Portal to users of the PC giant’s hardware.

Portal formed part of Valve’s The Orange Box package and was widely heralded as one the most innovative games of 2007. Portal: First Slice is an extended demo of the game and is available to NVIDIA users who visit Valve’s Steam website. Other games available free to NVIDIA users are Peggle Extreme, Half-Life 2: Lost Coast and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch. All of which are rather lovely.

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Give monster hunting a try. You might like it.

CD Projekt has released a demo version of its PC role-playing game The Witcher for download.

The 2 GB demo includes the game’s prologue and entire first act, which should give on-the-fence gamers a feel for The Witcher’s storyline and combat system.

Set in a world created by best-selling Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski, The Witcher tells the story of Geralt, a monster hunter born into an ancient brotherhood founded to protect humanity from werewolves, the undead and other undesirable types.

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The newly-merged company still plans to branch out with its next online game.

Blizzard has confirmed that it is working on a new massively multiplayer online game not connected to the World of Warcraft universe, according to a post on the official WoW message boards earlier this month.

Reported today by Wired’s Game|Life blog, the assurance is music to the ears of MMO junkies jonesing for a new drug from the online gaming world’s biggest brand.

In response to questions on the WoW boards about a recent job posting, Blizzard community rep Drysc confirmed that the company “an unannounced next-gen MMO.” Anticipating the inevitable turn the thread would take, Drysc adds, “and that doesn’t mean it’s an expansion for World of Warcraft either.”

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Issue 11: A Stitch in Time brings time travel to the table.

NCSoft has released an expansion for the massively-multiplayer online roleplaying game City of Heroes.

Issue 11: A Stitch in Time is a free update available to current City of Heroes subscribers that introduces time travel, a weapon customization tool, and two new power sets.

The “flashback” time-travel feature will allow players to participate in events from the history of Paragon City and the Rogue Isles territories. Heroes and villains can also use this feature to play or replay missions from earlier in the game. Players will be able to set mission parameters to earn special badges and participants’ levels will be set appropriately to ensure that the challenge of each story-arc remains constant.

Issue 11 also adds two new power sets, Dual Blades and Willpower. Both are available to the melee Archetypes: Tankers, Scrappers, Brutes and Stalkers. Willpower, a new defensive set, offers a strong mix of resistance, defense and regeneration powers. The Dual Blades set players to hold blunt or bladed weapons in each hand using the new ‘combo’ combat system.

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Hark! An expansion pack doth come to thine PC and Xbox 360.

An add-on pack is in the works for the RPG Two Worlds that will expand several aspects of both the PC and console versions of the game.

Two Worlds - The Temptation promises to build on the game’s story, introduce new territories and add active blocking to the combat system.

“Many other additional developments have been added - developments which have enabled a completely new means of transport and a much enhanced reaction from NPCs

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Terrorists retake Sin City in Ubisoft sequel, set to deploy on next-gen consoles and PCs in 2008.

At the finale of Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas, the titular antiterrorist team foiled the launch of a missile toward the titular desert metropolis before uncovering a traitor in their midst. As a reward, players were greeted with a black screen bearing the words “To Be Continued,” which all but confirmed a sequel.

Today, Ubisoft made it official: Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2 is indeed in development at Ubisoft Montreal for release sometime next year. For now, the Francophonic publisher says the game is being readied for “next-gen consoles and PCs.” No specific platforms other than the PC were mentioned, but the original Rainbow Six Vegas was released for the PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation Portable. (Proposed PlayStation 2 and Xbox versions of the game were canceled.)

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Just when we thought we were out…

The anticipated v2.3 update for World of Warcraft is now live. Most significantly, it adds a new 10-person raid called Zul’Aman and provides for faster leveling from 1 to 60.

Guild Banks, a shared repository that allows guilds to collectively store items and money, have been introduced with v2.3. Guilds must set up permissions that will allow members to access the Banks. The storehouse is divided into tabs so the guild leader may restrict access to certain members or group items into specific categories.

The Dustwallow March area has been improved with over 50 new quests and a new neutral goblin town called Mudsprocket.

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The standalone RTS expansion is in stores now.

Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance, a standalone expansion of the futuristic real-time strategy PC game, is now available, developer Gas Powered Games announced today.

Forged Alliance is the latest chapter in the Supreme Commander franchise and continues the series’ story in an all-new single-player campaign following the Infinite War. The expansion also includes the new Seraphim faction and updated multiplayer features. More than 100 new units will give players access to new strategic options, including fully realized navies, orbital weaponry and advanced counter-intelligence technologies.

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