Penumbra: Black Plague download for PC

GamersGate announced today that it has seized the exclusive download rights to first person horror adventure Penumbra: Black Plague.

Available for direct download on February 12, 2008, the title will retail for $19.99 and has been rated M by ESRB and 16+ by PEGI.

Penumbra: Black Plague is a stand-alone title but continues where Penumbra: Overture left off. Both titles have garnered much attention in media worldwide for pushing the boundaries of the Adventure Genre and Penumbra: Overture can also be obtained via GamersGate.

A demo for Penumbra: Black Plague was recently released and can be found on the official website.

Spandex Force Video Game for Mac and PC

Independent game developer KarjaSoft proudly announces the release of Spandex Force, a tongue-in-cheek puzzle game with RPG elements.

Spandex Force is a superhero-themed puzzle game that lets the player create his or her own hero to clean up the crime-infested town of Vigilance Valley. The game features many different kinds of minigames, including, but not limited to match-3 battles in which common criminals and wacky supervillains must be defeated. The battles are similar to those of last year's hit game Puzzle Quest, but feature superpowers rather than magical spells.

Other minigames let the player swoop in to rescue old ladies about to get run over, stop falling pianos from crushing innocent bystanders, or bring back runaway pets. Focus has been put on delivering a varied set of puzzles, and presenting the game in a tongue-in-cheek manner that pokes fun at superhero cliches. The player can also customize his or her hero and equip different superpowers, accessories, and weapons.

Spandex Force is available for Windows and Mac. More information, screenshots and downloads can be found at the official webpage:

http://www.spandexforce.com

Features:

- Ten exciting minigames to play
- Eight episodes of heroic action
- 24 super powers to learn
- Eight wacky super villains to defeat
- Equip your hero with capes and other accessories

System Requirements:

1 GHz CPU, 256 MB RAM, 32 MB graphics card with OpenGL support. Windows 2000 or higher, or Mac OS X 10.3.9 or higher.

Code Lyoko - Quest for Infinity Fact Sheet for Sony PS2 and PSP

QUICK FACTS

Title : Code Lyoko - Quest for Infinity

Platform : PS2,PSP

Release Date : June 2008

Developer : Neko Entertainment

Publisher : The Game Factory

Genre : Action/Adventure

Game’s Description

The Final Quest has just begun…Discover and experience a new story linked to the events from the 4th season X.A.N.A has succeeded in fully annihilating Lyoko, but with the genius creativity of Jeremy and Aelita, our heroes manage to reprogram Sector 5. The only way to track down X.A.N.A is to explore the digital sea. For this, Jeremy creates new costumes, weapons and vehicles that help them navigate into the digital sea. By destroying the Replica worlds, the young heroes will deliver Lyoko and save William from X.A.N.A.

Key Features

• Arm Ulrich, Odd, Yumi and Aelita: The Wii Remote and Nunchuk controllers are used for a variety of game activities from flying to projectile-weapon aiming. The game features incredibly precise aiming control using the Wii Remote controller. Use the controllers for sword swings, defense shield and metallic fans throwing.
  
• Exciting Adventure: Players virtualize into battle against hordes of evil creatures and wield weapons and shields with the Wii Remote and Nunchuk controllers, then take on massive bosses that must be seen to be believed.
  
• Brain & Power : Many puzzles stand between our heroes, Lyoko and the fulfillment of their quest, so players must sharpen their wits as they hunt for the annihilation of X.A.N.A.
  
• Explore the digital sea and fight your enemies aboard the Skid, the Lyoko Warrior’s new vehicle created by Jeremy
  
• PSP- includes Wireless trading system
  

LEVELS

• There are 25 levels in the different sectors ( Ice sector, Mountain sector, Volcano Sector, Forest Sector, Desert Sector and Sector 5)
  
• There are 13 Space Shooter levels
  
• There are 5 Boss levels
  
• TOTAL LEVEL Number is 43 Levels
  

CINEMATICS

25 minutes of Cinematics ( 10 minutes taken from the show and 15 minutes created for the game)

CHARACTERS ABILITIES

Ulrrich uses a sword--

1) Triplicate power creates virtual images of himself

2)Super Reflexes – He can break through certain walls

Yumi (Female character)- Uses fans as a weapon..lock and release

1)Telekinesis- She can move objects and monsters

2)Equilibrium-She can walk on ledges

Odd-Laser weapon + wall climbing

1) He can stop time. He has a time control ability, slowing down the frame rate of the Game

2) Hyper Jump.. using the wii controls he can climb walls jumping from one side to another

Aelita ( Female Character)—She uses energy plasma as a weapon

1)She can fly

2)She can petrify enemies

3) She can build bridges

Dr. Reiner Knizia's Brainbenders on Nintendo DS

"The human brain is only just beginning to realise the possibilities of what it is truly capable of" Dr Reiner Knizia

Eidos Interactive, one of the world’s leading publishers and developers of entertainment software, is pleased to announce a brand new title developed exclusively for the Nintendo DS: Dr. Reiner Knizia’s Brainbenders.

Award winning game designer Dr Reiner Knizia is an expert in algorithmically generated logic problems and has over 300 board games and books to his name. Now he has created a collection of ingenious challenges for all the family. Get ready for a mental journey that will make you laugh and cry - and leave you begging for one more go!

Travel to iconic global cities and help solve the various conundrums that you will encounter; all designed by the fiendish genius Dr. Reiner Knizia himself.

Developed by specialist DS developer Razorback Developments, you will have the chance to organise dancers at the Rio Carnival, memorise melodies at the Sydney Opera House, speed count marine life off the coast of Cape Town and assemble stone tablets to uncover the amazing secret of the Aztec ruins. Even send games to your friends using the wi-fi link to see if they can beat your top score.

City of Heroes/City of Villains new "XP Curve Smoothing" system

New experience system helps super power players' progress through City of Heroes/City of Villains
Lead Designer Matt Miller discusses City of Heroes' new "XP Curve Smoothing" system
Friday 8th February/... Matt “Positron” Miller, Lead Designer of NCsoft's heroic massively multiplayer online role-playing game, City of Heroes/City of Villains, answers questions about the forthcoming tweaks to the game's experience system and explains why players can look forward to a faster, more exciting game experience.

Q: Please tell us what exactly this XP Curve “Smoothing” means.

A: Well, the leveling speed “curve” looked like a jagged mountain slope more than a smooth line. There were some levels in City of Heroes and City of Villains that just took players longer to get through. This was due to a variety of reasons, mostly in the realm of available mission content. We have tried to add new content in those areas over the past few updates, but a stronger hand was needed in some of the real problem areas. We went in and, through data mining, determined how long characters “lived” (existed) at any given level. This pointed out exactly where our problem areas were and exactly how we could address them. In addition we did a near global increase to the XP earned for defeating enemies. This will have everyone leveling faster than previous issues.

Q: What made you decide to implement this?

A: Our players had legitimate complaints that certain levels acted like brick walls in developing their characters. We wanted to eliminate those walls wherever possible, and in the process speed up leveling for everyone.

Q: Does it fundamentally change anything about the game?

A: Definitely, players will see more progress on their XP bars in the same amount of play time they are used to. In addition, levels where they felt “stuck” should go by MUCH more quickly now.

Q: Are you concerned that this will allow players to level up too quickly now?

A: That’s always a concern, but we are always looking to add things for max-level characters to do to improve themselves. In addition, the Ouroboros (flashback) system allows players to go back and play content they may have missed, so even if they have out leveled a story arc or a badge-given mission they can go back and get it.

Q: When will this go live?

A: We expect this to be live before Valentine’s Day.

Q: Is there anything else that you want to say about this?

A: I am really excited about being able to bring this improvement to the players. This is nothing but a hugely positive step for the ‘City Of’ games.

PC Video game The Chronicles of Spellborn

Little introduction
Before I get into the details of combat testing, let me first explain the setup we have here for our QA department. Each of the QA testers has developed certain knowledge of the game over time, but no one is assigned to anything specific. This keeps our job fun because you get to handle different test cases but it also means that everybody has a thing they are more informed about. We all attend team meetings so we know what design changes have been made, if any new features have been implemented and basically keep up to speed on what is happening to the game. Based on that information we make sure we know what to look for in the game, what to test and what to ignore for the time being. (“A purple building in the game is a work in progress, not a bug” – Lead Level Design)

Combat testing
Of course this important feature of our game has to be thoroughly tested in any way we can to make sure that it not only works but it is also fun from a player perspective. This is why testing the combat system is not only performed by QA itself, but also by the combat designers and AI programmers themselves. A lot of systems have passed the review since design pitched the first idea, and the current system is still open for improvement and added functionality. However, the fact that QA has reached combat testing phase 3 by now means that a lot of basics have been established and most of what is being done is fine tuning before we get to combat balancing (although balancing is done all the time by Combat system specialist El “Selachii” Drijver).

Phase 1: Basic skill functionality
The first testing Phase involved the basic testing of skill functionality. Just to give you an idea, we have about 200 skills which all have a design description stating what the effects are, which visuals should accompany the skill and much more info. So this meant that each skill had to be compared with their description and checked for inconsistencies or, in the worst case, stuff that just did not work. We put a part of the QA team on this assignment, divided the classes and went to work. This phase took about 5 days to complete and resulted in about 100 bugs (some of which were related, don’t worry). One thing I have to mention is that this test did not include any party skills yet because our Devs were still working on the way grouping works. So this means that at a later stage, we will have to pick up the party skills some classes have and go through the motions again.

Phase 2: Bodyslots
Before we could tackle the bodyslots both coders and Combat design had to check if everything was in place for QA to be able to test the bodyslot functionality. I am not going into the details of our bodyslot system here (you can check out the journal for that here - http://www.tcos.com/sbforum/viewtopic.php?t=11230) but it is a very complex system that differs for each class and subclass. First of all we had to assemble a list of bodyslot items that we could cheat into our inventory. Once we got that together, again some of us went to work with their respective subclasses and tested bodyslots. Some nice bugs we encountered were, for example, the following: using skinshifting bodyslot could result in teleporting yourself under the world, summoning a pet, as well as the use of thrown items for the Trickster, would result in a server crash, etc.

Don’t worry though; this is exactly the kind of information Devs like us to give to them. Well, not really "like", but if this kind of testing was not done, just imagine what the game would end up like. We all try to put together a cool and fun game with Spellborn, and QA is a necessity in the process of getting there. The combat tests have not been concluded yet after these phases of course. Now that the bugs have been filed, we have to follow them up and check if the fixes the Devs apply are working and don’t break anything else. For instance, of the 100 bugs that were filed during phase 1, 52 have been fixed already and QA has checked these fixes and approved them.

I’m going to wrap things up here to make sure this journal doesn’t become too boring and long, but I’ll leave you with the information that phase 3 has been concluded as well: Combos. And I can tell you right now, they are awesome!

Turning Point: Fall of Liberty to be honoured by UK publisher Codemasters; Follow the Quest

Inspiration for alternate reality videogame 'Turning Point: Fall of Liberty' to be honoured by UK publisher Codemasters; Follow the Quest Online at www.codemasters.co.uk/quest

Codemasters, the UK’s leading independent videogame publisher, is turning detective in order to recognise a descendent of the man who inspired the events depicted in alternate World War II action game Turning Point: Fall of Liberty.

The game supposes that the incident in which a car struck Winston Churchill in New York on December 13th 1931 actually proved fatal – and that without his inspirational speeches to galvanise the Allies, the course of the Second World War took a very different route, with the Axis Powers even invading America.

Unemployed mechanic Mario Contasino was driving the car which struck then-statesman Churchill. Despite the accident being no fault of his own, Mr. Contasino contacted Winston Churchill daily during his two-week convalescence, and the pair became good friends after the event.

Some 75 years later, Codemasters wants to honour Mario Contasino’s descendents, for providing the inspirational “Turning Point” for the forthcoming videogame.

The firm has enlisted the services of Oxford historian David McCarthy, who will set out to track down descendents of Mario Contasino. His investigation can be viewed online at www.codemasters.co.uk/quest. Anyone with information as to the whereabouts of Mario Contasino’s descendents can contact David through the site.

“You try Googling it – there’s really very little to go on,” says Richard Eddy, Director, Communication, Codemasters. “It clearly wasn’t that big a deal at the time, but that one moment could have changed everything. The game imagines a world without Churchill – a chilling vision of what might have been. We want to officially recognise the Contasino family for providing us with the inspiration for Turning Point: The Fall of Liberty. The game will hopefully remind those why Winston Churchill is rightly regarded as one of the most important people of the 20th Century.”

“It’s a modern-day treasure hunt, and one I’m relishing,” says David McCarthy, who has taken up the challenge of finding the Contasinos. “Mario’s descendents may be unaware of his historical significance, but we want to officially recognise his contribution to the forthcoming videogame. Without Mario Contasino, there’d be no Turning Point.”

Turning Point: Fall of Liberty will be available the end of February for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Games for Windows.

Go, Diego, Go!: Safari Rescue, First-Ever Wii Game Specifically Designed for Preschoolers

Nintendo World Event in New York to Offer "Sneak Peek" of Groundbreaking Go, Diego, Go! Themed Game

2K Play, a publishing label of Take-Two Interactive, and Nickelodeon, the number-one entertainment brand for kids, today announced that Go, Diego, Go!: Safari Rescue™ for the Wii™ home video game system and PlayStation 2 computer entertainment system will be available at retailers in North America beginning on February 12, 2008. The title represents 2K Play’s first Wii game engineered specifically for preschoolers and is based on extensive Nickelodeon in-home research that focused on how to best match the abilities and needs of younger children with the capabilities of the platform.

To celebrate the game’s launch, 2K Play, Nickelodeon, and Nintendo World will host a special sneak preview for families in the New York area. The event will be held on Saturday, Feb. 9, 2008, at the Nintendo World Store in New York City’s Rockefeller Center from 12 to 4 pm.

“For Go, Diego, Go!: Safari Rescue, we’ve created an entirely new interactive experience for preschoolers that is only possible on the Wii,” said Steve Lux, Vice President of Business Development for 2K Play. “Nickelodeon’s intensive study of how two through six-year-olds experience the new technologies offered by the Wii helped us create an all-new play pattern that extends beyond current games. Physical activity is an integral part of the fun and the new title is perfectly suited for the younger gamer.”

“We are thrilled to combine the fun and adventure of our top-rated Diego property with true gaming innovation for the Wii,” said Steve Youngwood, Executive Vice President, Digital Media for Nickelodeon/MTVN Kids and Family. “By combining Nickelodeon’s kid expertise with 2K Play’s creativity, we have engineered a game that allows preschoolers to develop their playing skills by turning up the fun, building confidence and bringing parents and older siblings into the gameplay experience.”

Based on Nickelodeon research with preschoolers and their families to determine how the platform’s motion-play capabilities are absorbed by younger children, Go, Diego, Go!: Safari Rescue was designed with 13 intuitive Wii-centric motions that maximize the engineering of the Wii Remote™ for a preschooler. Taking on the role of Diego in a race across Africa, gamers stomp to scare away lions, jump with Baby Jaguar, paint stripes on zebras, climb up ladders and swim across the jungle river by mimicking those actions with the Wii Remote.

Research findings show that parents often chose to stay in the room and participate in gameplay; accordingly, the game has a unique feature which allows parents to collaborate with younger gamers by using the special Safari Guide Helper Feature and a second Wii Remote. Preschoolers can, by themselves, help Diego blow up a hot air balloon by pumping up and down, but their actions are enhanced with speed and vibrant animations when assisted.

Also available on February 12 is 2K Play’s Dora the Explorer: Dora Saves the Mermaids for the PlayStation 2 system. In the new title, Dora and Boots need help bringing a Magic Crown to Marianna the Mermaid. By swinging, sliding and bouncing through the game, players travel over tropical land and sea to save Mermaid Kingdom. Along the way, Dora magically becomes a mermaid herself.

The Go, Diego, Go!: Safari Rescue and Dora the Explorer: Dora Saves the Mermaids games feature the same voice actors as the popular Nick Jr. TV shows. In addition to pre-development research, the games were also tested by children and moms for age-appropriateness, fun factor and overall quality. The packaging on both titles features a “Kid-Tested” seal.

Go, Diego, Go!: Safari Rescue was developed by High Voltage and will be available for the Wii for a suggested retail price of $39.99 and the PlayStation 2 system for $29.99. Dora the Explorer: Dora Saves the Mermaids was developed by Totally Games and will be available for the PlayStation 2 system for a suggested retail price of $29.99. All games are rated E for Everyone. For more information, please visit www.2kgames.com/2kplay.

A national marketing program will support the games’ launch, which will include TV commercials on Nick Jr., Toon Disney, and Treehouse; print advertising in Nick Jr. Magazine; and web support and cross-promotions with Nickelodeon licensees.

Devil May Cry 4 launched in UK

The Devil runs riot in the UK....

80 per cent of Brits believe that Hilary Clinton is sexier than Margaret Thatcher
71 per cent of Brits upon finding an iPhone in the street would either sell it on Ebay or keep it rather than handing it in
70 per cent of Brits would fake an injury following a car accident to get money from the other driver

Inspired by the launch of Devil May Cry 4, the ‘Set Free the Devil Inside’ survey results are in, and they show just how devilish the UK’s population actually is.

Traditionally a reserved culture, the results of the survey found that the British are more than willing to set free their inner devil. Almost one in four people, upon finding that their finger had ripped through the toilet paper whilst making their daily motions, would happily wipe their finger on the face towel rather than wash it in the sink. A similar number of respondents also admitted to having a sniff!

The clichéd reserve of the British public in the bedroom was also dismissed, with 94 per cent of respondents more than happy to tie their partners to the bed for hours. The survey also found that almost four out of five people would rather spank than be spanked.

Outside the bedroom, Brits were happy to cheat on their partners, with two out of three people believing it isn’t cheating if your partner doesn’t find out. The public should also be wary of Brits with superpowers such as X-ray vision, as almost four out of five people would use it to peek into changing rooms.

Brits were also not afraid to let loose their inner devil in the workplace, with over half willing to stab a friend in the back to gain a promotion. Six out of ten were also willing to sleep with their boss and then blackmail them afterwards to gain a promotion.

The survey found that the most devilish inhabitants of the UK were based in Scotland, followed closely by people in East Anglia and the South East of England. Wales and Northern Ireland held the fourth and fifth most devilish location in the UK respectively.

“The site relies completely on user generated content and we have been extremely amused and sometimes shocked with the content that has been created. Visitors to the site created polls covering everything from office life to sex and relationships, in addition to writing confessions about devilish activities they had undertaken,” said Leo Tan, Capcom. “What this survey makes clear is that there’s a little devil inside all of us just waiting to come out.”

Additional statistics taken from www.setfreethedevilinside.com include:

Sex & Relationships

• 78 per cent of Brits would rather spank than be spanked
  
• 61 per cent of Brits would sleep with someone to gain access to a sibling
  
• 60 per cent of Brits if asked whether their friend is single would either say they are already taken or gay if they were interested in the enquirer themself
  
• 54 per cent of Brits upon getting two numbers on a night out, would call one and then the other the next day
  
• 62 per cent of Brits would sleep with Angeline Jolie’s top half grafted on to Anne Widdecombe’s bottom half
  

Daily Life

• 63 per cent of Brits would choose to lose their taste rather than the ability to see, smell or feel
  
• 63 per cent of Brits have done a runner from a taxi cab without paying
  

Law

• When asked what laws are most acceptable to break: 
  
• 36% said speeding in your car 
  
• 30% said using drugs
  
• 20% said not declaring tax
  

Imperium Romanum: PC video game New Barbarian Screenshots

Kalypso Media Group is publishing 6 new barbarian screenshots from the upcoming city building game "Imperium Romanum". These new screens give a glimpse into the way of life of the barbarians in the empire building strategy game.

See several barbarian settlements, hidden amongst the hills - some complete with standing stones and meat roasting over the fire. Also see the barbarians meeting roman soldiers in battle. The barbarians are hostile neighbours and fierce opponents. As governor of a Roman province the player must show their tactical skills to defend their settlement from the barbarian attacks.

For more screenshots, the trailer, more information and a discussion forum please go to the game's official website: http://www.imperium-game.com.

"Imperium Romanum", the sequel to the million seller "Glory of the Roman Empire", will be published on the 22nd February 2008 at a price of £29,99. The title will be released by the Kalypso Group worldwide, except Spain and Italy. Pinnacle Software will be responsible for the distribution in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

"Imperium Romanum" is already considered to be one of the top PC-strategy games of the first quarter of this year.