Week of February 18, 2007

CDV Software Entertainment USA and Ascaron Entertainment are pleased to announce that Tortuga: Two Treasures, the swashbuckling action-adventure title for PC, has gone gold today. Set to ship to North American retail on March 5, Tortuga: Two Treasures will challenge players to prove their mettle in swashbuckling, sword fighting and sailing as they seek revenge on the dreaded Blackbeard. For more information on Tortuga: Two Treasures, please visit http://www.tortugagame.com.

Tortuga - Two Treasures will have players setting sail as pirate captains in search of action, adventure and of course, treasure. The game tells the story of the young swashbuckler Thomas ‘Hawk’ Blythe, a pirate in the employ of the sinister Blackbeard. After Hawk is captured and betrayed, a dramatic battle for power, romance, treasure and truth commences beneath the Jolly Roger. Two Treasures features epic land and naval battles, featuring everything from sword fights to cannon-battles.

Gamers are in for a treat on Wii’s Virtual Console™ this week as Nintendo releases two new classics to download. Every generation, certain titles set the standard for all others. With stories so enveloping and gameplay so addictive that they define the generation. One such game, heralded by many as the greatest adventure game ever made, was The Legend of Zelda™: Ocarina of Time™ released on the Nintendo® 64.

This week Wii owners will also get to enjoy the popular NES title, Kid Icarus™. Some twenty years after its original release, Nintendo is bringing the classic platform title back to the Virtual Console for gamers old and new to enjoy. Players take on the role of a young angel called Pit in his struggle to defeat the minions of darkness and free the Goddess of Light from her prison in the underworld. Kid Icarus is available to download now for just 500 Wii Points.

To mark the occasion, the website is the exclusive location for the fantastic new trailer. Log on at Tombraider.com now.

The website hosts loads of exclusive material on the new game, including the latest news, artwork, screenshots, desktop wallpapers, trailers and links to the Tomb Raider online community. You can also pre-order the game to ensure you’re one of the first to play Lara’s new adventure.

Tomb Raider: Anniversary is a brand new Lara Croft adventure based on the original Tomb Raider game, recreating and enhancing the memorable visuals, locations, enemies and storyline. Packed full of bonus features, it will be a very worthy celebration of one of gaming’s best loved and most successful gaming icons ever – Lara Croft.

Tomb Raider: Anniversary is set to be released on PS2, PSP and PC DVD in summer 2007.

thanks to the Alchemy System in "Two Worlds", players can now let their talent for experimenting run free and wild - magical elixirs, poisoned traps, shrapnel bombs, magical power-ups for weapons, you name it, anything goes... and it's all oh-so-easy too! Just drag-and-drop your selected ingredients from the inventory to the cooking pot! All kinds of plants you find, including herbs and mushrooms, are suitable for "Two Worlds" alchemy - and you can use ready-to-drink potions and parts of dead animals and monsters, as well as minerals and bombs. The possibilities are practically endless, but all these ingredients have their own individual properties - so give your mixture some thought beforehand if you want to achieve the right results!

If you're happy with the outcome, you can give your formula a special name and save it in the cookbook! So you can make really effective potions and bombs anytime you like... but only if the necessary ingredients are available! Sometimes recipes are awarded for a successfully completed quest - or you can buy them for cash in a shop. Alchemy really starts to explode in the MMO mode of "Two Worlds", where you can even trade those magical recipes of yours - and you might just get yourself a real bargain too… if you keep your eyes open!

We've put a small teaser animation on alchemy on the "Two Worlds" site at 2-worlds.com.

Next month’s Platinum Hits release, starting at an estimated retail price of $29.99 (U.S.), will include the following titles in the Americas:

• “Battlefield 2: Modern Combat™” (Electronic Arts)
• “Burnout™ Revenge” (Electronic Arts)
• “Call of Duty 2” (Activision)
• “Dead or Alive 4” (TECMO Inc.)
• “Fight Night Round 3” (Electronic Arts)
• “Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter” (Ubisoft)
• “Top Spin 2” (2K Sports)
• “Rockstar Games presents Table Tennis” (Rockstar Games)


In Japan the Platinum Hits titles listed below will be available in March for 2,800 yen:

• “Battlefield 2: Modern Combat (Electronic Arts)”
• “Burnout Revenge” (Electronic Arts)
• “Chrome Hounds” (Sega Corp.)
• “Perfect Dark Zero” (Microsoft Game Studios)


In the Asia Pacific region these new Platinum Hits titles will be available. New pricing for these games will vary slightly by region:

• “Dead or Alive 4” (TECMO)
• “N3: Ninety-Nine Nights” (Microsoft Game Studios)
• “Project Gotham Racing® 3” (Microsoft Game Studios)
• “Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter” (Ubisoft)


Gamers throughout Europe are able to pick up the following new Platinum Hits titles, launched earlier this month, for an estimated retail price of 29.99 euros:

• “Call of Duty 2” (Activision)
• “Dead or Alive 4” (TECMO)
• “Project Gotham Racing 3” (Microsoft Game Studios)
• “Rockstar Games presents Table Tennis” (Rockstar Games)
• “Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter” (Ubisoft)
• “Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Legend” (Eidos Interactive Ltd.)

EA has released an internal interview with Producer Kristoffer Bergqvist, discussing both the booster pack in general and the new IDV Goliath specifically.

Read the interview

THQ released a Developer Diary concerning the combat systems within S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadows of Chernobyl. Along with it are six new screenshots.

Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS), the world’s leading interactive entertainment company and Pandemic Studios, one of the world’s leading independent game developers, today announced that Mercenaries 2: World in Flames™, will ship simultaneously on four platforms worldwide – the Xbox 360™ video game and entertainment system, PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system, PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system and PC – in holiday 2007.

Veteran online Designer/Producer Anthony Castoro and accomplished entrepreneur Donn Clendenon announced today the formation of Heatwave Interactive, Inc.

The newly formed company combines its passion for original games with the rigorous discipline needed to get products to market profitably. With a library of original IP in pre-production, the company is preparing to discuss its future with investors at the upcoming Game Developers Conference.

Heatwave promises a new take on gaming. “This is not ‘just another MMO’ company,” states Mr. Castoro. “The current crop of ‘massively multiplayer’ games only provides a glimpse into the power of connected gaming. Heatwave Interactive’s mission is to create original games that unite the power of online gaming with the excitement of traditional single-player video games.” Mr. Castoro is well known in the industry for his work as a game designer and Producer at Electronic Arts and most recently as Director of MMO Games at Codemasters.

With a solid financial background, Mr. Clendenon brings his experience and initiative in founding and managing gaming and technology companies. Founder of World Gaming Corporation, which was sold in December of 1999 to Women.com, Mr. Clendenon is glad to be back in the gaming environment. “This is the most exciting time to be in the gaming business in the past ten years. With much of the industry rehashing the same formula hoping to realize the success experienced by a select few, a vast opportunity exists for Heatwave which is dedicated to creating innovative character-based experiences.”

Visit the website at www.heatwaveinteractive.com for more information.

Legendary Nintendo Composer Koji Kondo is scheduled to perform live and meet with fans at the 2007 Game Developers Conference. The GDC will present the World Class Concert Event & Festival where Kondo-san is scheduled to appear.

Read the Press Release

Sony Computer Entertainment America announced that three games will be available on the PlayStation Store tomorrow. The old arcade classic Q-BERT for $4.99 and a free demo of Ridge racer 7. However the real highlight is flOw. The unique and surreal title will be available for $7.99.

NCsoft and Cryptic Studios have released an in-house preview of Issue 9 Breakthrough for City of Heroes, detailing the finer points the "Statesman's Strike Task Force" feature in their upcoming free expansion.

In anticipation of a new chapter for Lineage 2: The Chaotic Throne - Interlude, NCsoft has released new details about the chapter along with ten new screenshots. The chapter is set for an April 2007 release.

Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS), the world’s leading motherboard, barebone system, and notebook manufacturer, releases yet another quad-core motherboard capable of turning on the gaming heat. The NF650iSLIT-A LGA775 ATX motherboard, built around the impressive NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI MCP supporting Intel® Core™2 Extreme Quad-Core processors, is designed for gamers, overclockers and multimedia enthusiasts extracting the most performance out of their systems. With 8-channel HD audio and NVIDIA SLI technology for dual graphics card power, the NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI MCP delivers a high-performance gaming experience, giving overclockers an amazing 1333 MHz FSB (OC) bandwidth and expansive connectivity.

Complete Connectivity

The NF650iSLIT-A comes with an impressive list of features and I/O ports that cater to performance users and is more than ready to run the graphics-driven Windows Vista™ Premium operating system. Along with up to 8GB of dual channel DDR2 800/667/533 memory, it has two PCIe x16 slots (SLI x8 + x8), two PCIe x1 slots, Gigabit LAN and features NVIDIA SLI technology bringing NVIDIA® FirstPacket™ technology for faster online gaming. Gamers can play online whilst chatting via Skype without significantly sacrificing connection speed. It supports up to ten USB 2.0 ports for high-speed device connectivity. For data storage, the motherboard supports up to four Serial ATA II devices with RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5 and JBOD configuration, includes three PCI slots and support for up to four IDE devices.

Powerful Digital Audio Support

The NF650iSLIT-A’s multimedia prowess revolves around the 8-channel HD audio codec. It provides two SPDIF connectors for high quality coaxial and optical digital audio output which enable users to connect a variety of home-audio devices for recording and playback. These interfaces mean the sound will be noticeably cleaner and support for a wider frequency response.

CDV has announced that their strategy game WarFront: Turning Point has shipped to North American stores. In honor of the release, we have six new images to help sway your vote to "Purchase." ;)

Looking for some serious golf action on your Nintendo Wii? We've got three new screens of EA Sports' Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07.

505 Games released six new images of their latest mech action game Armored Core 4, due out on the PlayStation 3 later this year.

Though it should be on UK store shelves as we speak, it didn't stop Ascaron from sending out nine new images of the adventure game Tortuga: Two Treasures.

We have some new images for a couple of game. First, five new art pictures of NCsoft's MMORPG Aion: Tower of Eternity. Second, SouthPeak Interactive sent us four new screens of their action game Monster Madness.


Aion: The Tower of Eternity

Monster Madness

Today Nintendo adds four new classic games to the popular Wii(TM) video game system's Wii Shop Channel. The games go live at 9 a.m. Pacific time. Nintendo adds new games to the channel every Monday. Wii owners with a high-speed Internet connection can redeem Wii Points(TM) to download the games. Wii Points can be purchased in the Wii Shop Channel or at retail outlets. This week's new games are:

With our news scripting problems behind us, we're happy to provide you with a new round of game reviews. Of the ten reviews we present you today, four of them are for the Xbox 360.