Aion MMO video game beta test dates in July - with videos

It’s time to get ready to spread your wings and take flight in this year’s biggest massively multiplayer online game (MMO) release, Aion. NCsoft unveiled the official release date for Aion, the highly anticipated game where players take on a key role in a war between divine beings that will determine the fate of the world . Aion launches in Europe on September 25, 2009.

Unlike any MMO before it, Aion is a uniquely crafted online experience where flight offers much more than just a way to explore the landscape - it is a strategic and integral part of combat, quests, and exploration.



Players will dive into battle and plunge through thousands of unique, story-driven quests, all while trying to save a world literally shattered in half from centuries of brutal conflict. Using one of the most flexible and in-depth character customization systems ever featured in an MMO, players will be able to create genuinely distinct characters and explore a visually stunning world of ethereal beauty brimming with otherworldly inhabitants, mysterious enemies, and ancient secrets.



In addition to an international retail presence , Aion will be available as a digital download at the NCsoft Store . Also, players should not forget to take advantage of the special preorder promotion for Aion at participating retailers. As part of the Aion preorder promotion, players will receive access to the Aion Closed Beta events. Those dates are as follows:



Aion Closed Beta Dates

Friday, 3rd July to Monday, 6th July
Friday, 17th July to Monday, 20th July
Friday, 31st July to Monday, 3rd August
Friday, 14th August to Monday, 17th August

Draft Pick Blake Griffin is box Athlete of EA SPORTS NCAA Basketball 10

Electronic Arts announce that Blake Griffin, former Oklahoma Sooner and the projected top pick in the 2009 NBA Draft, will be the new face of EA SPORTS NCAA Basketball 10. Griffin has an explosive presence, exciting college stadiums with massive dunks, huge blocks, and aggressive rebounds, and was a natural choice to represent the college game as cover athlete for NCAA Basketball 10.

Griffin is the consensus national Player of the Year, winning the Big 12, Associated Press, Naismith, Sporting News, and John Wooden Player of the Year awards, and led his team to an Elite Eight appearance in the 2009 March Madness Tournament, where they lost to eventual champions, UNC. The 2009 NBA Draft is presented by EA SPORTS.

“Seeing myself on the cover of NCAA Basketball 10 is such a great tribute to my time at Oklahoma,” said Griffin. “I loved playing in front of passionate fans and competing against some of the best schools in the country. Now I am looking forward to competing at the next level against the best players in the world.”

NCAA Basketball 10 brings the emotion, intensity, and spirit of college basketball by capturing every detail in the stadium, from cheerleaders and mascots to wild crowds and real NCAA Basketball announcers. NCAA Basketball 10 builds on a new game engine introduced last year, refining and improving core gameplay functions, and adding more depth to the popular ‘styles of play’ and ‘set your tempo’ features, making NCAA Basketball 10 a strategic and entirely unique basketball gameplay experience.

NCAA Basketball 10, which is licensed by The Collegiate Licensing Company, is currently in development under the EA SPORTS brand by EA Canada in Vancouver, B.C., and will be available in North America this holiday season. The game will be available for the PLAYSTATION 3 computer entertainment system, and Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft. The game is not yet rated by the ESRB.

EA SPORTS is the leading interactive sports software brand in the world, with top-selling titles and franchises including Madden NFL Football, FIFA Soccer, NHL hockey, NBA LIVE basketball, NCAA Football and Tiger Woods

Handmark and Sandlot Games Release Popular Trading Adventure 'Tradewinds 2' on Apple App Store

Handmark and Sandlot Games announce the release of Tradewinds 2, part of Sandlot Games' popular trading adventure franchise, on the Apple App Store.

Based on the acclaimed PC game by Sandlot Games, Tradewinds 2 is a highly immersive adventure for iPhone and iPod touch where players navigate the pirate-infested waters of the Caribbean. Be a master commander, defeating pirates and plundering their vast hordes of booty, or, play it safe by trading exotic island goods, gradually amassing untold wealth, power and influence.

"Once again Handmark has done an excellent job bringing another Sandlot Game to millions of iPhone and iPod touch users," said Daniel Bernstein, CEO Sandlot Games. "We're very proud of Tradewinds 2 for the Apple App Store and we believe that users worldwide will once again get swept away in the unique gameplay and story that unites the Tradewinds series."

Gamers who enjoy trading and strategy games will love Tradewinds 2. Players can choose one of 5 characters to play as, or create their own using the 'Character Generator'; explore 20 different ports each with different buildings and characteristics; and enjoy over 100 hours of gameplay across Story and Free Trade modes. Players new to this genre will gain an introduction via the full tutorial in Tradewinds 2.

"Following the success of Glyph and Westward, we're excited to work with Sandlot Games to bring Tradewinds 2 to the iPhone and iPod touch," said Cassidy Lackey, vice president of Handmark Studios. "The venerated franchise has a loyal online offering, and this immersive version reinforces our intention to bring high quality, value-packed games to the Apple App Store."

Tradewinds 2 is available now for $4.99 from Apple's App Store on iPhone and iPod touch or at http://www.itunes.com/appstore/. For more information about Tradewinds 2, along with screenshots and a video demo, please visit: http://www.astraware.com/iphone/tradewinds2.

Grizzleheim Opens in Wizard101 for PC!

KingsIsle announce the launch of a major new world expansion on the test servers of online virtual world Wizard101 (www.wizard101.com). Grizzleheim is a lush new environment based on Norse mythology that will further challenge players and introduce them to three new tribal races: Viking Bears, Wolves, and Ravens. The expansion also introduces item crafting, a bazaar, and several community features significantly increasing opportunities for adventuring, socializing and creativity for players of the massively popular online game.

"Wizards will have a great time exploring the woods and mountains in Grizzleheim," said Wizard101 Lead Designer James Nance. "It'll be accessible to lower level players as well, not just those who have completed Dragonspyre, and the new races will introduce some compelling elements to the storyline."

The world of Grizzleheim features an airy, outdoors landscape of snowy mountains, glacial ridges, and towering trees. Wizards will be able to explore several new adventure areas with rich environments. Wizards will first meet and learn about the Viking Bears of Grizzleheim - great traders with the ability to travel the worlds of the Spiral in their longboats. As Wizards become powerful and spend more time in Grizzleheim, they will uncover a great mystery about the world.

Grizzleheim also features new opponents for players to battle, such as wood spirits, barbarian boar mercenaries, and other mysterious creatures. Currently live on the test servers, KingsIsle expects to open the new expansion to all players in early July.

Popular with families who like to play together or connect over distance, Wizard101 was designed with the safety of young players in mind. It is rated E10+ by the ESRB. Anybody with a Windows based PC can play the Free-to-Play areas of the game for as long as they like. Advanced content is available by subscription or microtransaction. Wizard101 gift cards can now be found at more than 13,000 retail outlets nationwide. For details, visit https://www.wizard101.com/site/home2/wizard101/page_8ad6a404207fb2fd0120a1589af60841.

Machinarium: Daedalic to Publish in German-speaking Territories

We are the robots: Daedalic Entertainment will publish Machinarium from Czech developer Amanita Design in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The point & click adventure game sees player explore a strange, metallic city populated by robots.

"Machinarium is an exceptional game and a perfect fit for our line-up. We are very happy to be able to bring it to retailers in the German-speaking territories. Machinarium has everything you want from a great adventure games: fun puzzles, outstanding animation, quirky humour and a unique, lovingly crafted, game world," said Carsten Fichtelmann, Managing Director of Daedalic Entertainment.

The game's protagonist is a little robot who has been unjustly expelled to the scrap yard behind the city. Players must guide the little robot back into town to rescue his robot-girlfriend and stop the bad guys from the 'Black Cap Brotherhood' before they can bomb the central tower that houses the city's ruler.

Czech developers Amanita Design received worldwide acclaim for their Flash masterpieces Samorost 1 and 2 and have already been awarded the 2009 Independent Games Festival Award for Excellence in Visual Art for Machinarium. The one-of-a-kind adventure game features hand-drawn backgrounds filled with odd details and inventive puzzles. Thousands of animations bring life to every action of the charming characters and the atmospheric music draws the player in with unusual, mechanical sounds.

Mega Man Star Force 3 demo now live on the Nintendo Channel!

Attention Mega Man fans:
Head on over to the Nintendo Channel now and download the DS demo (available for a limited time).

Mega Man Star Force 3 ships next week!

Cities XL patch build 185 out now full fix list here...

Over the past few days, you have been very active in sending us tickets about various bugs in Cities XL. We thank you for your feedback and we have now been able to determine and fix a certain number of these issues already (others are still being worked on.)

Please find below a list of the bugfixes and additions coming with Patch Build 185, which is available now:

Install/Uninstall
- Microsoft VC Redistributable Setup will now be automatically installed for newcomers.
-The uninstaller now closes Cities XL if it is still running.

Interface
-The community managers are now identified in the chat through an "MC" prefix and all their messages appear in green.
-The backspace button now works two ways in the chat:
It correctly deletes the text written in your chatbox when you are talking on a channel.
When someone whispers to you, you can now click on your chatbox, press Backspace and your answer will be whispered back to them.
- When deleting a big city, the empty slot now returns to a normal-sized white slot on the planet.
- You can now press " Enter " to open chat.
- Cities XL news will now be updated automatically on the Planet Interface.

Tutorial
We have added the following tutorials to Cities XL:
-Tutorial 4: Citizens & satisfaction.
-Tutorial 5: Industries & satisfaction.
-Tutorial 6: Industries & resources.

Buildings & additional content
-We have added billboards along some roads.
-New fillers for office areas.
-The game will now give you written guidance when trying to place interchanges.

Planets
- We have added two new French & German speaking planets: Ariel(GER) and Proteus(FR). Planets can now be selected by language (EN/FR/GER).
This brings the total to 5 planets:
-Oberon (EN): 3000 slots
-Galatea (EN): 3000 slots
-Hyperion (EN): 3000 slots
-Proteus (FR): 5000 slots
-Ariel (DE): 5000 slots

+Many ingame text corrections/modifications…

To retrieve Patch Build 185 you just need to launch Cities XL as usual and follow the instructions given to you as you log in.

Spore Galactic Adventures video game expansion arrives worldwide

The Spore universe is expanding with infinite adventures! Maxis announce that Spore Galactic Adventures, the expansion to the critically-acclaimed game Spore, is now available at North American retailers and will hit store shelves internationally on June 25th. Designed to expand the Spore universe, Spore Galactic Adventures delivers hilarious new adventures to players who aspire to become their own space captain, beam down to strange new planets, create customized adventures, and take their favorite Spore creature from zero to galactic hero!

“Spore Galactic Adventures enhances the Spore experience by blasting players off into space, turning ordinary creatures into legendary Space Captains,” stated Lucy Bradshaw, VP and General Manager at Maxis. “For the first time, players can beam their creatures down to planets to experience all-new adventures or create custom-made missions of their own and share them with the world. With more than 105 million creations available in the Sporepedia, the Spore library of user-generated content for use in players’ missions, the only limit is their imaginations!”

Expanding on the original Spore game, Spore Galactic Adventures adds variety and fun by allowing players to get out of their spaceship and explore colorful, wacky new planets. Players will turn their creatures into space captains, battle epic monsters in intergalactic arenas and fight intense planet-side races. In each mission, players earn experience to rank up their captain and earn game-changing items such as the Plasma Pulser and Swarm Magnet. In the box, the game includes 16 off-the-wall missions as well as an “Adventure Creator” tool that players can use to design their own missions. These personally-created missions can be shared with friends online and can be classed in leader boards that track accomplishments, rank and medals earned.

In addition to the adventures in the box, players can download ten all-new adventures created by the writers of the outrageously funny, pop-culture parody TV show, Robot Chicken. Available for free to all Spore Galactic Adventures owners, the Robot Chicken adventures take players through such wacky quests as a mission to obtain a library card by finding a ruler-yielding librarian her true love, and an adventure to save a princess by battling demonic snowmen in a snowglobe. Conceptualized by Robot Chicken co-creators Seth Green and Matt Senreich, the Robot Chicken Adventures were imagined by the show’s writing team including Matt Beans, Doug Goldstein, Mike Fasolo, Breckin Meyer, Dan Milano, Tom Root, Kevin Shinick, Hugh Sterbakov and Zeb Wells. With such a unique cast of imaginative characters, players can expect to experience missions with exploding poo, angry yetis, and banana wars.

To support Spore’s dedicated fan community, www.spore.com will feature a bevy of fun content including additional downloadable adventures, contests and news.

Available for PC and MAC for $29.99, Spore Galactic Adventures is rated E10+ by the ESRB. The Robot Chicken adventures are rated TEEN by the ESRB. As an expansion pack, Spore Galactic Adventures requires the original Spore game to play.

Tropico 3 video game from PC to Xbox 360

Kalypso Media have announced the release of Tropico 3 for the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft.

In what was previously a PC exclusive title this release will see Kalypso Media enter the next-generation console market where they will be concentrating exclusively on Microsoft platforms.

Stefan Marcinek, Global Managing Director Kalypso Media Group said “The Tropico 3 release on the Xbox 360 is a first for Kalypso and marks the beginning of an exciting entry into the console market. Throughout 2010 Kalypso Media have plans to release four titles in tandem on both the Xbox 360 and PC. Through this we will be able to demonstrate our strong PC Line up with new multiplatform games and this gives us some great opportunities for the year ahead.”

The Xbox 360 release of Tropico 3 will be developed by Haemimont Games in Bulgaria who are also responsible for the development of the PC version for Kalypso Media.

Tropico 3 will be released on Xbox 360 and PC this September.

Monster Hunter Freedom Unite PSP video game arrives this Friday

Capcom is pleased to confirm that Monster Hunter Freedom Unite for PSP (PlayStation Portable) will be available to buy at retail across PAL territories from this Friday June 26th. European gamers will also be able to purchase and download the complete version of the game from the PlayStation Store at the same time.

Capcom will continue to support the release of Japan’s most successful PSP title in Europe with a series of post launch initiatives. Monster Hunter gamers will be able to enjoy free downloadable content for the title on an on-going basis. Regular updates featuring new challenging quests and bonus items will be available shortly after launch meaning fans will be able to experience new journeys through the world of Monster Hunter.

Gamers are never alone in the world of Monster Hunter and to unite players Capcom has launched the Encyclopedia Gigantica. Preparing players for the journey ahead, the Encyclopedia is a great online source to meet like-minded hunters and share all your strategies and tips on how to successfully hunt down some of the most ferocious beasts that ever lived. Experienced hunters can aid fellow gamers on their quests by sharing their knowledge about the monsters they will encounter and guide them through the hundreds of quests awaiting them.





To bring hunters together to experience the social gaming phenomenon that is taking Japan by storm Capcom will open a dedicated Monster Hunter Gathering Hall in central London on July 3rd. Players are invited to arm themselves with their PSP and copy of the game to unite with fellow hunters and embark on an epic multiplayer gaming experience. Visitors to this unique gaming centre will be able to download exclusive content and quests and regular tutorial nights will be held at the venue for rookie hunters to learn all about the secrets of the hunt.

Monster Hunter Freedom Unite is the latest instalment in the epic Monster Hunter series, delivering over 500 hours of gameplay spanning some 400 missions. Using the Ad-Hoc connection players can adventure with up to three friends for a savaging multiplayer hunting party. From devising strategies to executing the attack, players will need to work together in order to hunt down the ferocious beasts and progress through the wide range of quests on offer.