Iridium Runners on Playstation 2

Original Racing Game Features "On-Foot" Races in Futuristic Tracks with Special Powers and Weapons; Set to Release in February 2008


SouthPeak Games, emerging publisher and distributor of entertainment software, today announced it will release Iridium Runners on Playstation®2 computer entertainment system in February 2008. The new racing title is an original IP developed by Italian game studio Playstos Entertainment. Iridium Runners, rated “E” for Everyone by the ESRB, gives gamers a futuristic world of on-foot races that requires special powers and weapons to compete.

“Iridium Runners is a racing game from the future with crazy twists and turns that all gamers can get into,” Melanie Mroz, executive vice president at SouthPeak Games. “Playstos developed a captivating game that SouthPeak is really happy to bring to market because we know there are a ton of PlayStation 2 system fans looking for fun, new titles.”

Set in the year 2050, Iridium Runners puts players in pursuit of the Iridium Championship, a series of athletic on-foot races hosted on wildly inventive tracks and sponsored by futuristic mega corporations. The game combines speed with collectable power-ups and weapons which add to a frenetic pace of the game and many unexpected challenges along the way.

“We created an imaginative racing game experience with Iridium Runners,” said Luca Da Rios, CEO and executive producer, Playstos Entertainment. “It’s an ideal addition to the PlayStation 2 system’s catalog of racing games and now SouthPeak gives us the opportunity to bring it to consumers across the globe.”

Iridium Runners will feature several game modes, from full-championship to single-race, with the highlight being split-screen multiplayer. The multiplayer function is split into traditional free-for-all racing and a tactically rich team mode that allows for CPU players to fill space where human adversaries aren’t available. The team mode features teams of two players each, with each team racing for the finish line while also attempting to hamper the efforts of their opponents with the available collectables. The game is rendered in a cartoon-style format with visuals that underline the futuristic nature of the overall concept.

For more information about Iridium Runners please visit www.iridiumrunners.com or to learn more about SouthPeak Games go to www.southpeakgames.com.

‘Galaxy’ revives old-school pleasures of Super Mario

Between the releases of "Assassin's Creed" (multi-platform) and "Crysis" (PC) and the introduction of the Check Mii Out channel to Wii gamers, this has been a busy week in the gaming world. It was hard to choose the focus for this week's column, but the release of "Super Mario Galaxy" for the Wii ultimately came out on top. "Assassin's Creed" looks absolutely amazing, but "Super Mario Galaxy" is just, naturally, in a stratosphere all its own.

"Super Mario Galaxy" embodies everything a Wii gamer is looking for. It is accessible and appropriate for all ages, and contains enough challenges to hold up over time. This is not the kind of game that you pick up for a week and then never play again. It has variety and presents a beautifully charming world that looks fun to interact with. This is reminiscent of the classic Mario games that could be played over and over again without getting old. Recent Mario titles have lacked this charm, which makes "Galaxy" all the more appealing.

Part of the world's appeal is in the graphical presentation. Based on appearances alone, "Super Mario Galaxy" exceeds everything put out on the Wii thus far, including "Metroid Prime 3." Everything looks crisp, clear and colorful, and while the Wii is not known for its graphical attributes, this game seems to push the system's capabilities to their absolute limit, with beautiful results. The graphics are probably still not as good as those of the Xbox 360 or Playstation 3, but I am not sure why they would ever need to be. Part of Mario's charm is in the cartoonish presentation, and I doubt that anyone wants to see a realistic, hairy, Italian plumber as the hero.

The stunning graphics make an excellent first impression, but the game continues to impress with its solid gameplay. As I mentioned earlier, there is an inherent charm that makes the stages fun to explore even when you are not trying to accomplish any particular goal. Games like "Grand Theft Auto" (and I suspect the same will be true of "Assassin's Creed") have a similar feel, and when a game has this inherent fun factor, it typically stands the test of time.

What makes the gameplay of "Super Mario Galaxy" so appealing is the way in which it brings something new not only to the Mario universe, but to video games as a whole. "Super Mario Sunshine" for the Gamecube tried to accomplish this by adding a water-pack, but it did not feel right. "Galaxy" goes back to what Mario does best—running and jumping—but places him in a whole new environment: outer space. While the graphics push the Wii to its limit, the physics of the game are what really show the talent of the developers.

"Galaxy" is made up of many galaxies, each with a collection of planetoids that Mario can traverse. Each of these has its own gravitational attraction, meaning that each planet plays a bit differently from the others. These planets are also complete spheres; you can see that you are on a tiny spherical mass, rather than the usual flat landscape. Sometimes, when Mario jumps in the air on one planet, the gravitational pull of another planet will attract him to it. Quite simply, this is an insanely ingenious gameplay dynamic that makes for an extraordinary experience.

Perhaps, above all else, what makes "Super Mario Galaxy" so awesome is that it hearkens back to Mario's roots. The music sounds like it belongs in a Mario game, the world is filled with Mushroom Kingdom creatures, and most importantly, the famous "suits" power-ups from the classic games make their return. Remember when Mario used to turn into a raccoon or a frog? In "Galaxy," he can power-up into a bee or a ghost, and, for the first time in a 3D Mario game, he has fire power. Thus, the game perfectly combines the classic with the innovative, providing both nostalgia and awe-inspiring moments for all gamers to enjoy.

In conclusion, this is the definitive game for Wii, and perhaps the Game of the Year for any system. It is the best Mario game in over a decade; you have to go back to at least "Super Mario 64" (1996), and you may even look back further to "Super Mario World" (1991) or "SMB 3" (1990) in order to find a Mario game this good. It currently has a 97.4 percent rating on "gamerankings.com," and until "Super Smash Bros. Brawl" comes out in February, "Super Mario Galaxy" will definitely remain the best Wii title. So, with apologies to "Assassin's Creed," this week belongs to the mustachioed mushroom muncher, Mario.

‘Super Mario Galaxy’: Out of this world

As harmless small stars fell like candy from a pocket in the sky onto Mario’s idyllic town, his longtime love Princess Peach waited joyfully for him in her castle. But like so many tragedies that befell Peach before, Bowser the brute swooped in and kidnapped her.

And so, nothing short of Mario’s saving the universe will lead to her emotional rescue. That’s how Mario tales wag. The damsel in distress is most in peril whenever her mustachioed hero is away.

But in Wii’s “Super Mario Galaxy,” Nintendo’s craftiness once again makes a familiar-looking Mario game seem like one of the best kids titles of its release year.

In your hands, Mario explores fiery and watery planets in distant galaxies. There’s nothing special about that. But the way you travel the universe is cool and new.

Planets are little things, appearing in the center of your TV screen as if they’re just large globes; variously, planets are merely the sizes of an Earth house or an Earth neighborhood.

This keeps you on your toes. It’s harder to avoid death when you’re walking and jumping upside down, sideways and diagonally around a violent orb.

I have to disclose I didn’t finish “Galaxy” before writing this review. I ran out of time while playing it and two other great new releases - each of which could take 20 hours just to speed through - so I can give you impressions of all three titles, in time for holiday shopping.

The other two superb games will appeal to hard-core gamers who love to shoot things to death.

“Mass Effect” is an action-role-playing game from BioWare, the maker of fun “Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic” and “Jade Empire.”

The look of “Mass Effect” is a cinematic feat. Like movies, you watch the game’s graphic films just about as often as you play the game. Sci-fi soldiers and aliens from the 22nd century chat gravely about a complex political and military struggle. You pick your responses during these conversations, issuing snippets of curt dialogue such as “What did you find?” and “Why is Williams here?”

Yeah, that’s odd, but fans of role-playing games eat this stuff up. The fun for me comes from saving the universe by shooting evil robot-looking aliens (or something like that) across space stations, foreign planets and finely detailed capitols.

As shooting goes, though, my favorite war game in a while (especially online) is “Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare” on Xbox 360 and PS 3. Bad guys are terrorists. And the game play and illustrations are excellent, seamless and rich.

“SUPER MARIO GALAXY” Retails for $50 for Wii. Plays fun. Looks very good. Easy to moderately challenging. Rated E for mild cartoon violence. Grade: A

“CALL OF DUTY 4: MODERN WARFARE” Retails for $60 for Xbox 360 and PS 3; $30 for DS. Plays very fun, especially online. Looks great. Moderately challenging. Rated M for blood, gore, intense violence and strong language. Grade: A

“MASS EFFECT’ ’Retails for $60 for Xbox 360. Plays fun. Looks stellar. Moderately challenging. Rated M for blood, language, partial nudity, sexual themes and violence.Grade: A

Video Game Sales Jump On 'Guitar Hero III'; Wii Regains Top Slot

Video game sales jumped 39% in October but came in below several optimistic expectations as sales of the popular "Halo 3" slowed considerably following its much-hyped launch.

The slower "Halo 3" sales were also a likely factor in helping the Nintendo Wii reclaim the top spot among gaming consoles after being knocked off briefly by Microsoft's Xbox 360.

The Wii sold about 519,000 units during the month - the most of any gaming console, according to data released from the NPD group late Thursday.

That blew away the 366,000 in unit sales from the Xbox 360, which saw an upsurge in September thanks to the launch of "Halo 3," the most anticipated new game of the year that was designed exclusively for the 360 console. The 360 had sold nearly 528,000 units in September.

"Halo 3" was released during the last week of September but still managed to rack up 3.3 million in unit sales for the month. In October, the game totaled just 433,800 units.

Total video game software sales for the month came to $513.9 million, up 39% from the same period last year. Analysts were expecting sales to come in between $550 million and $600 million for the month.

New 'Guitar Hero' rocks sales

The star game title for October turned out to be another sequel, of sorts. " Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock" hit store shelves on Oct. 28 but still managed to sell more than 1.17 million units in versions designed for all three next- generation gaming consoles as well as the older PlayStation 2 from Sony Corp.

The "Guitar Hero" series is published by Activision (ATVI) . "Halo 3" was published by Microsoft (MSFT) .

Nintendo also had a strong performance on the game side. The company's "Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass" sold more than 262,000 units for its handheld DS platform, followed by its "Wii Play w/ Remote" game, which sold more than 239, 000 units.

Electronic Arts (ERTS) saw its "Half Life 2" title move 238,400 units for the month while its "FIFA Soccer 08" title sold 129,700 units.

PlayStation 3 gets slight lift

While Sony's (SNE) PlayStation 3 still ranked at the bottom for next- generation consoles, the device saw sales pick up slightly to 121,000 units for the month compared to 119,400 units the month before.

Sony has cut the price on the console significantly, but those price cuts did not take affect until this month, so the impact to sales will not be clear until December.

The PlayStation 2 sold 184,000 units for the month, likely helped by the latest "Guitar Hero" installment.

On the handheld side, Sony's PSP moved 286,000 units while the Nintendo DS sold about 458,000 units.

Chinese Piracy (The Next Generation), A Roundup

I like to keep an eye on what's going on in China with regards to piracy issues - especially now that Nintendo has been aggressively going after people who pirate and China's homegrown CDC Games is taking a stand, as well. Steven Davis, the security guru over at PlayNoEvil, spoke with Frank Yu, who formerly worked for Microsoft in China, about the current state of piracy in regard to the current generation of consoles. I'm never exactly surprised by the extent to which stuff is pirated in China (I'm still a little boggled that it's easy to purchase films that have been outright banned by the government - bootlegged, of course), but it does make me wonder exactly how much companies can do when the motto seems to be 'If you make it, they will come and pirate it (sometimes with the help of government entities!)':

I know the pirates and the modders in China. They are able to chip the Japanese Wii but the US Wii has more protection (Editor's Note and, presumably not hacked because of the availability of the Japanese Wii). For games like Paper Mario, that needed a firmware update on the Internet which even modded Wii's could get. On the new Metroid, the Internet update does not seem to work for modded Wiis this time...(no doubt) a solution is being created.
Yes, the Xbox 360 hardware is totally broken for pirated games...however, if you leave your mod chip active MS will detect it and shut you out of Xbox Live. I have heard rumours of mod chips that can be switched off so that it toggle between a modded Xbox and an unmodded one to go on Live. I have brought many MS Xbox people to the shops here in China that do the modding (its not illegal to install the chip as far as I know but it is illegal to technically sell the console) (Editor's Note: Frank used to work for Microsoft in China). Folks at MS are always impressed by the speed and workaround that hackers and modders do to the motherboard. Of course we don' t tell them we're MS...there are a lot of foreigners who go to these shops too.

Not too much demand for PS3 here...ergo no modding or pirated games that I know of. The whole DS library is available on DVDs here for perhaps USD 12 for the whole set. You still need a Supercard or R4 mod/car for the DS but there is no need to install anything, its just a cartridge like any other game with a slot for a Micro SD memory card.

NINTENDO WII SHORTAGE - PRICES SKYROCKET

Still available on Amazon.de at €248,89 (£178).

With the release of several highly anticipated games such as Super Mario and the run up to Christmas the prices of the Nintendo Wii have skyrocketed over the last few months especially in the UK and the US. Many high street shops are struggling to meet the demands and certain online shops such as Amazon have started putting limits on the amount of consoles a household can purchase in a month. Thats not to say they cant be found using other means ..
NINTENDO WII SHORTAGES!

With the release of several highly anticipated games such as Super Mario and the run up to Christmas the prices of the Nintendo Wii have skyrocketed over the last few months especially in the UK and the US. Many high street shops are struggling to meet the demands and certain online shops such as Amazon have started putting limits on the amount of consoles a household can purchase in a month.

Sony have recently taken advantage of this shortage and started cutting the price of their Playstation 3 console and have seen their sales increase dramatically.

However many people neglect other means of aquiring these items like online auctions such as Ebay who currently have around 5k units on the US site.

Another option for european buyers, especially those in the UK who are experiencing massive shortages, is online stores such as Amazon.de. The german branch of the famous store is still providing the units at around €249 which converts to around £170 far cheaper than the prices found on the high street. These units only need a cheap plug adapter and they will work fine in the UK. The delivery time is fast and should arrive in plenty of time for Christmas.

No DVD player Wii this year

Nintendo Japan has posted in their site's Q&A section that they will not be releasing a DVD-ready Wii in 2007. They claimed to need to focus on current production to meet worldwide demand (even though such a Wii model would and will have nearly identical hardware.)

But we'll shed no tears over this news. Why anyone would want to play DVDs on their Wii is beyond us. And from the way Nintendo is dragging their feet on the matter, they don't seem to understand the impulse much either.

Nintendo Wii Tops in Downloadable Games

Nintendo Wii has the greatest number of games available for download, though Microsoft's Xbox leads in original titles.

Nintendo Wii currently has the greatest number of games available for download, though all are re-released titles says, Electronic Entertainment Design and Research.

While Nintendo's Wii leads in the quantity of downloadable games, Xbox 360 offers the greatest number of original downloadable games over Xbox Live Arcade, the research found.

Additionally, 84 percent of downloadable 360 games have online functionality compared with 45 percent of PS3 titles and zero percent for Wii games.

Only 12 percent of downloadable games are original titles, says EEDAR, especially given Nintendo's lopsided contribution of older games.

In terms of median game prices, PS3 titles are the cheapest at $5.99, followed by Virtual Console games at $6, and Xbox Live Arcade games at $10, the most expensive of the three. Furthermore, 80 percent of the downloadable content on the PlayStation 3 is free compared to just 29 percent on Xbox 360.

"In an environment with crippling production costs, publishers have new ways to dramatically impact their financial gain, while making gamers happy, if they understand how to utilize the new generation of console storefronts," the report said, adding that games with downloadable content sell 114 percent more on average.

Super Mario Galaxy: Can Nintendo Keep Everyone Happy?

Friday 16th November sees the release of Super Mario Galaxy for Nintendo’s Wii console. Some say it is the product launch of the year, though I’m not sure Apple would agree. The release of a Mario game is always a high profile media event, given his status as one of the most recognisable company mascots of the past 20 years, but Nintendo have a more difficult job this time around.

For those that don’t follow the video gaming industry – which this year grossed more than the movie and music industries – Nintendo are in first and second position with their best selling DS and Wii consoles. Both machines have brought new gamers into the fold, so with Mario Galaxy they have to cater for two distinct groups: the long-standing gamers who have played every Mario game since Donkey Kong and also the more recent group of people who have never owned a home console before being captivated by the Wii and will be playing this game as their first Mario game and possibly their first game other than Wii Sports.

Nintendo, and their video design guru Shigeru Miyamoto, seem to have relished the challenge. Company head Satoru Iwata has been posting a steady stream of interviews with various team members in an attempt to show the amazing amount of thinking that has gone into the game. Technical details take a back seat and it reads more like an analysis of the psychology of a gamer.

So, have they managed to do a good job? Well, review compilation site Metacritic – a site that collates reviews from all over the internet into one easy to read page of excerpts and an average score – currently lists the game as its highest ever, with an average score of 98 out of 100. Popular opinion has never been so unanimous.

Sounds like there’ll be quite a few people reaching for the stars this weekend.

Super Mario Galaxy Launch Party Diary

Although much has been said about the fever of Wii mania, nothing drives home Nintendo's timeless popularity like a Super Mario launch party. And I'm here to tell you: the Super Mario Galaxy launch party was Mario-rific!

While many people might expect a younger demographic waiting in line for Super Mario Galaxy, I was pretty surprised about the type of people standing in line. In addition to families, a lot of men and women who were kids at heart filled the line, a few of whom were even dressed up and donned in full Italian plumber wardrobes. There were also a lot of Metroid tattoos and Zelda T-shirts, and everyone wore a wristband given to them by Nintendo employees to indicate their place in line.

And I've never seen so many Nintendo DS systems in one place before. Everyone I saw had a fully charged DS ready to kill time. Everyone.

Not that anyone could actually hear the games they were playing; the on-site music was so loud that it was easily audible two blocks away. The DJ just fed into it, too, letting everybody know how cool Mario was and how close it was to midnight, when Mario Galaxy would officially go on sale. The line was pretty long, and part of the road was closed off for Mario's (and our) safety. Safety was the last thing on people's mind, though, with the wild entertainment and Super Mario Galaxy demos available well before launch.

Among those wild activities were a Velcro Wall and a Bungee Run for kids, and Nintendo even offered copies of Super Mario Galaxy for the high scorers. The kids stuck around for a while, but the low temperature in New York City had the parents hitting the line solo waiting to buy the game for the holidays. But I bet the wait will be unbearable.

The first guy in line had been camping there since 8am that morning, and he even had a sign letting everyone know he was first in line when the Wii launched. Meanwhile, I had arrived at 9:00, and there were already 323 people in front of me. There was no way the Nintendo World store could hold all the Mario maniacs, so when the doors finally opened, Nintendo only let in about 20 people at a time.

All in all, the Super Mario Galaxy launch event was pretty cool, and I was surprised with the kids' ability to stay awake out of pure love for Mario. It seems as though the children are getting a new kind of role model. But then again, who wouldn't want to look up to a mushroom-loving plumber?