Mobile multiplayer game Kodo from Jadestone wins IGF Mobile Cellphone award

Mobile multiplayer game Kodo from Jadestone wins IGF Mobile award

Swedish developer Jadestone last week won the Achievement in Art award at the Independent Games Festival (IGF) Mobile, held at the 2008 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

The original mobile game Kodo was released in early 2006 and was awarded as a highly original puzzle game. Up to 8 players can compete, using one button each on the same mobile phone, in a race to eat the others before becoming eaten yourself.

For the new version of the game, Jadestone decided to not only move from isometric 2D to full 3D, but to really push the limits of mobile graphics. Given truly state-of-the-art tools, the visual artists went wild and took a quantum leap with the design of the Kodos and their world.

Tommy Palm, designer of Kodo, comments: “Over the next year, a far richer graphical experience will become available in mobile phones, approaching the 3D quality of PCs. Kodo represents an early example of the kinds of experience mobile players will be able to enjoy. We’re very happy and proud that our work on Kodo has been recognized by the IGF Mobile jury”.

Jadestone designers started the development of the game on PC emulators and then moved on to prototype hardware featuring the OpenGL ES 2.0 graphics platform. As phone models with large screens gain momentum, it is expected that 3D hardware acceleration will gradually become the norm for rich media phones.

League gaming tournaments - Counter-Strike: Source, Call of Duty 4, Pro Evolution Soccer 08 and Unreal Tournament 3.

Omega Sektor Launches The OSPL GAMING LEAGUE FOR PRO, SEMI-PRO AND CASUAL GAMERS

Omega Sektor today unveils plans for its new Omega Sektor Professional League and details of the League’s official website.

The OSPL comprises league gaming tournaments around four games - Counter-Strike: Source, Call of Duty 4, Pro Evolution Soccer 08 and Unreal Tournament 3. The leagues and tournaments are open to gamers of all skill levels, and sign-up is on a first-come first- served basis. A number of individual pro gamers and team pro gamers have already signed up for the tournaments. Registration is available at www.theospl.com

The website will also list all leagues and table positions, along with regular tournaments updates, forum discussions, and official rules on playing the games.

Omega Sektor will offer league gamers ongoing spot prizes and rewards for most outstanding displays of gaming talent, including most number of kills in a season. This will allow teams and individuals of all gaming abilities to be in with a chance of winning throughout the league season.

The OSPL is being headed up by pro gamer and ex games journalist Richard Lewis, known throughout the online gaming community as Gonzo. Richard comments, "I'm confident that the new way we're approaching the league format will give something for gamers at all levels. It has been great so far to see how many people have signed up and I'm sure the league is going to grow and grow. We have a committed team at the OSPL, all of whom are passionate about gaming, so we fully expect this to be a success with the support we're receiving from players and sponsors alike.

Merscom Releases East Side Story Download Online

Merscom Releases East Side Story Online

Merscom's fourth top-10 title in less than 6 weeks

Merscom announced today it is the online publisher of East Side Story, the popular adventure game developed by MDNA Games. Released over the weekend on a major casual game portal, East Side Story has already risen to number 7; this follows on Merscom's success with Blood Ties, Ghost in the Sheet and My Farm, all of which were launched earlier this year and reached the top-10 on major casual game sites. Merscom is also publishing East Side Story at retail in selected European territories and Russia.

East Side Story is the fourth game in the popular Carol Reed adventure series, it finds Carol immersed in the mysterious death of a vagrant in a friend's apartment. Comparable to the highly popular Nancy Drew series of games, it involve simple point-and-click gameplay combined with thought-provoking puzzles.


Key Features:

• 100% mouse driven point-and-click gameplay
  
• A wide variety of luminous environments and unusual characters
  
• Games can be saved and loaded at any time
  
• Engaging ambient music and sound
  
• A bypass feature for the more complicated puzzles
  

East Side Story can currently be downloaded at http://www.bigfishgames.com/download-games/2819/east-side-story/index.html

EA ANNOUNCE NFL HEAD COACH on Microsoft XBox 360 and Sony PlayStation 3

EA ANNOUNCES THE NEXT INSTALLMENT OF NFL HEAD COACH

Indianapolis Colts Head Coach Tony Dungy Will Grace the Cover of NFL Head Coach 09

Put on your headset, grab your clipboard and see if you have what it takes to be a head coach in the National Football League. Today, Electronic Arts Inc, (NASDAQ: ERTS) announces NFL Head Coach 09, featuring Indianapolis Colts’ head coach Tony Dungy on the game’s cover. Released under the EA SPORTS™ brand, NFL Head Coach 09 is a unique NFL experience that gives gamers the power to make decisions that define their career and ultimately the fate of their franchise as a head coach in the NFL.

“In NFL Head Coach 09, the gamer has complete control of their franchise’s destiny,” says NFL Head Coach 09 Executive Producer Jeremy Strauser. “From draft day to game day, the gamers’ decisions impact their team’s success and make or break a team’s road to the Super Bowl.”

In 2007, Dungy became the first African-American coach to win a Super Bowl when the Indianapolis Colts defeated the Chicago Bears 29-17 in Super Bowl XLI. Since Dungy’s arrival to Indianapolis in 2001, the Colts have earned six playoff berths and have won more than 70 regular-season games. Dungy has an impressive .661 winning percentage as a head coach over the past 12 seasons.

NFL Head Coach 09 provides a complete NFL experience, offering a variety of different ways to control an NFL franchise, on and off the field, in-season and off-season. With strategic game planning features, NFL Head Coach 09 places gamers in the coach’s seat by allowing gamers to comprehensively scout the opponent, build playbooks, and develop a team that will adapt to the philosophy and system of an NFL franchise.

The sideline is your playing field in NFL Head Coach 09 - gamers can make adjustments to plays and game strategies in an instant. The outcome of every game depends on game-time decisions made on the sideline. Success depends on proper preparation and knowledge of the opposing teams’ strategies, as well as expert and timely play calling.

Developed in Orlando, Florida by EA Tiburon, NFL Head Coach 09 will be available for the PLAYSTATION 3 computer entertainment system and Xbox 360 video game system from Microsoft EA SPORTS is the leading interactive sports software brand in the world, with top-selling titles and franchises including Madden NFL Football, FIFA, NHL hockey, NBA LIVE basketball, NCAAFootball, Tiger Woods PGA TOUR and NASCAR racing.

Stream PC video games to your Sony PlayStation 3

StreamMyGame.com is a community website that incorporates a new online
technology called Game Streaming.

It will revolutionize the core fundamentals of
the computer games industry because its members can record, watch and share
games without the need to install them.

Basically...It allows you to stream from your PC to any Linux Box (your PS3).

Streaming plugin here

Automated Guitar Hero Hack: How Bad Do You Want to Stop Sucking?

Watch the video on Gismodo
David Randolph of SYSTM has developed a hack for Guitar Hero that will turn even the most rhythmically challenged among us into virtual virtuosos.

In fact, it will do all of the work for you by playing each note automatically.

Now, before you get all excited about the gambling potential of a hack like this, keep in mind that it will take skill, a lot of time, and around $500 in parts alone to pull off.

Then again, you could always make up the cash by betting your friends you can hit 100% of the notes on expert.

Watch the video on Gismodo

Source: Gismodo

Want to Run Linux on Your Nintendo Wii?

You can, and it's actually called "homebrew," which is one of those words that always sounds like a neologism (a newly coined word) but in fact originated in the mid-nineteenth-century, meaning "an alcoholic beverage made at home." Go beer, then, and what's more, go who'd-a-thunk-it hacks that let you for-real load Linux and "embrace your inner penguin" on an unassuming white box half the size of a toaster.

Complete instructions and files are here.

You'll need a GameCube SD card adapter, a 1GB (or higher) SD card, a copy of Zelda (for the Wii), and of course, a Nintendo Wii itself. Next, you'll need to make sure your version of Zelda is one of the anointed -- apparently not all copies of Zelda are created equal. Finally, you'll have to do a bunch of extracting, copying, renaming, deleting, saving, etc., load the game, load a hacked save file and actually talk to a guy in-game to trigger the loader, which drops you out to a black and white screen, at which point you get to have fun figuring out how to load Linux itself. I don't pretend to understand it, nor do I have any intentions of trying it, but if you just want the thrill of getting away with something Nintendo doesn't want you to, by all means go for it.

See earlier story here

Source: PCWorld

Check Video Games prices daily new and second hand Wii PlayStation XBox 360- over 10,000 listed

VideoGamePriceCharts.com brings accurate and up-to-date video game prices to your finger tips.

over 10,000 video games all with prices updated daily from across the Internet and charts showing every video game's pricing history.

VideoGamePriceCharts.com allows you to know exactly how much your video games are worth.

Games price news...

The Wavebird is a great controller and because it is wireless it was always my favorite way to play Gamecube games. Getting rid of all those wires made my gaming room much less cluttered and I didn't have to worry about someone tripping on the cord and bringing my Gamecube to an early death.

Visit: Video game price charts

Guild Wars Tops sells five million games in under three years

Guild Wars Tops Five Million Units Sold

Guild Wars franchise breaks major milestone in less than three years.

NCsoft Europe and ArenaNet have announced that the Guild Wars franchise of online roleplaying games has surpassed five million units sold in Europe, North America, and Asia.

Published by NCsoft and developed by ArenaNet, the Guild Wars franchise consists of the original Guild Wars, Guild Wars Factions, Guild Wars Nightfall, and the recently released expansion, Guild Wars: Eye of the North. The Guild Wars games have been commercial and critical successes since the release of the original campaign in April of 2005. Its award-winning content and innovative subscription-free business model have created a large and loyal following that is highly anticipating Guild Wars 2.

“Guild Wars is a proven success and has set a new standard for online RPG games with its unique business model and superior playability,” said NCsoft CEO Taek Jin Kim. “ArenaNet is dedicated to creating games that expand the market and provide great new content to our loyal player base. This success has built a great foundation from which the next generation of Guild Wars games will grow.”

With the development of Guild Wars 2 underway, ArenaNet will continue to provide dedicated support to current Guild Wars games and its millions of customers.

“Reaching the five million mark is extremely gratifying for us at ArenaNet because it shows the hard work and dedication we put into our games has resonated with the fans,” said Mike O’Brien, co-founder of ArenaNet. “We are committed to supporting all of our Guild Wars players, and at the same time, we’re extremely excited to work on the game’s evolution. Certainly the future of Guild Wars is as bright as its past and present.”

For more information on the Guild Wars franchise, visit the Guild Wars website at www.discoverguildwars.com. The award-winning Guild Wars series, including the recently released Guild Wars: Eye of the North, can be purchased from retailers or downloaded from the PlayNC store at http://eu.plaync.com/eu/store/.

Two Worlds To Get Bigger And Better Online Downloadable Content Packs To Add All-New Multiplayer Mode And Expand Online World Of Antaloor

Two Worlds To Get Bigger And Better Online

Downloadable Content Packs To Add All-New Multiplayer Mode And Expand Online World Of Antaloor

SouthPeak Games has announced two downloadable content expansions for its open-world role-playing hit, Two Worlds. Both packs will be made available through Xbox LIVE for the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, expanding and improving the game’s online multiplayer experience.

The two expansions will add a host of new content to the vibrant and populous multiplayer universe of Two Worlds, featuring first and foremost an entirely new player-versus-player mode based around controlling key areas of a multiplayer map. Along with this new strategic play mode, additional maps, co-operative missions and a suite of new weapons are also included, adding a considerable amount of play time to the already content-packed world of Antaloor.

“Two Worlds has been a huge success for SouthPeak and much of its appeal can be credited to having a huge game-world to explore,” said Melanie Mroz, CEO of SouthPeak Games. “Reality Pump has worked tirelessly to improve the multiplayer experience and this new downloadable content is geared towards expanding upon it, offering lots of new missions and areas to explore with friends.”

The first expansion pack for Two Worlds will be available for download in March, with the second becoming available in April. Both will cost 600 MS points.