gOt sKillz?!

Microsoft is still holding its position that the death of HD-DVD doesn’t mean that Xbox 360 will be getting a Blu-Ray attachment any time soon, but the Chinese beg to differ.

According to the Chinese Economic Daily News, Pegatron, an OEM subsidiary of ASUS, has won the order from Microsoft to assemble “Xbox 360 consoles with Blu-Ray drives”.

Shipments are expected to begin within Q3 2008 and the consoles should be available for consumers by Q4, same year.

Nintendo has thrown down the gauntlet for Mario Kart Wii racers worldwide. Now it’s time to see who’s up to the challenge, as players take on the world in Mario Kart Wii Tournaments.

Every few weeks, a new tournament will appear on the Mario Kart Channel, an online feature that not only allows players to compete in tournaments, but also exchange race data with friends. Tournaments might take the form of a challenge for players to race a certain course as fast as they can with specific characters, or to collect a number of coins on a course using the Wii Wheel accessory or another control setup. They can feature unique rules or obstacles on the course.

The first tournament, which appears today, directs racers to compete for the fastest time on the Mario Circuit. Look closely though - something may be different. Players can attempt the challenge as often as they like during the duration of the tournament. Their best time will be recorded and added to the worldwide rankings, allowing players to see how they stack up against the best racers from around the world.

Fans of The Chronicles of Narnia will get to experience two unique film scenes only one way - on their home consoles or Windows-based PC.

Disney Interactive Studios announced today that two original scenes for Disney/Walden Media’s The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian video game were filmed exclusively for the product and appear separately from the film. The unique scenes link The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and Prince Caspian stories with Dr. Cornelius (Vincent Grass) telling Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes) the story of how Narnia fell to the Telmarines hundreds of years ago.

The scenes were shot on the film set in Prague, Czech Republic, during principal shooting and feature dialogue revealing plot based on the events of the book, game and film. The creation of the live action content was directed by Andrew Adamson, the film’s director. The two original scenes are part of 18 live action moments in the game, which include 16 excerpts from the feature film.

“The special filmed content that is exclusive to the video game provides insight into Narnia and the events around the ‘Prince Caspian’ story like nothing else,” said Andrew Adamson. “With movie fans’ enthusiasm for unique experiences in video games as well, these scenes are ideal to complement the ‘Prince Caspian’ game’s action.”

The England-based game production and development teams worked in cooperation with the London-based film crew and Andrew Adamson to assure the game’s overall accuracy to the film. Capturing two original scenes was only possible through the collaborative partnership between Disney Interactive Studios; and Walt Disney Pictures and Walden Media.

“The close partnerships we maintain with our film division and Walden Media allowed us to utilise the cast, crew and set to create two unique scenes exclusively for the video game,” said Ed Bainbridge, vice president of European production, Disney Interactive Studios. “These entertaining and memorable scenes enable us to portray a part of the Narnia history that is drawn from the fiction and played out in the game.”

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian video game will be available for Xbox 360 Playstation 3, PlayStation 2 and Windows-based PC. A separate Nintendo DS version will also be available.

Developed by Traveller’s Tales, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian for home consoles and Windows-based PC takes players throughout Narnia and includes a gameplay level, which is unique from both the novel and the film. The level, which is set between the events of “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe” and “Prince Caspian,” takes place at the castle of Cair Paravel and tells the story of how Narnia fell to the Telmarine hordes. In “Prince Caspian,” Cair Paravel is seen only as abandoned ruins the Pevensies discover hundreds of years later.

The action/adventure game offers gameplay for one or two players on the same system and drop-in/drop-out features, allowing either player to join the game and leave. With combat, exploration and puzzle solving that extends beyond the film. The game features more than 20 playable characters including the ability to play as Prince Caspian.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian for Nintendo DS, which is an action/role playing game, will include the debut of DGamer, Disney Interactive Studios’ innovative new technology that provides a fun, connected game community for Disney video game fans. With DGamer, players earn content, interact and chat with others on Nintendo DS through the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection or on a computer through the Disney.com website. DGamer will be offered in North America in future Nintendo DS games from Disney Interactive Studios with a future launch scheduled in other global regions. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian for Nintendo DS is being developed by Fall Line Studio, the Nintendo platform-dedicated development studio of Disney Interactive Studios.

Having a hard time the best Online Poker Rooms? Do you need a good and trusted online poker to play from? Then read on.

What is poker actually? According to wiki.
Poker is a popular type of card game in which players bet on the value of the card combination (”hand”) in their possession, by placing a bet into a central pot. The winner is the one who holds the hand with the highest value according to an established hand rankings hierarchy, or otherwise the player who remains in the hand after all others have folded (the player who makes an un-called bet.).

Poker has many variations, all following a similar pattern of play. A rather simple version is called “5-card stud”. Depending on the variant, hands may be formed using cards, which are concealed from others, or from a combination of concealed cards and community cards.

Other games that use poker hand rankings may likewise be referred to as “poker”. Video poker is a single-player computer game that functions much like a slot machine.

So now you have an idea on what poker is. So if you are interested in playing poker you can visit this Online Poker Rooms. But before you play on this Online Poker Rooms please read the review first of the online poker listed on their page to help you know which is the best online poker around. Have fun!

Getting addicted to MMORPG specially WOW?

What exactly are MMORPG?

According to wikipedia. Massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a genre of computer role-playing games (CRPGs) in which a large number of players interact with one another in a virtual world. The term MMORPG was coined by Richard Garriott, the creator of Ultima Online, the massive multiplayer online role-playing game credited with popularizing the genre in 1997.

As in all RPGs, players assume the role of a fictional character (most commonly in a fantasy world), and take control over many of that character’s actions. MMORPGs are distinguished from single-player or small multi-player CRPGs by the number of players, and by the game’s persistent world, usually hosted by the game’s publisher, which continues to exist and evolve while the player is away from the game.

MMORPGs are very popular throughout the world. Worldwide revenues for MMORPGs exceeded half a billion dollars in 2005, and Western revenues exceeded one billion USD in 2006.

And WOW means World of Warcraft one of the best selling games blizzard entertainment has to offer. If you don’t have enough time to play world of warcraft to get your character strong. Then consider yourself buying a world of warcraft accounts
that has a high level already and some equipments to get you started. Well with this WOW account you can already enjoy playing WOW without wasting time leveling it up. You would just keep the boring part and have a shortcut to the best part which is raids and more! So get your MMORPG accounts now!

Speaking to Reuters, several analysts expected that the success of GTA IV’s launch will be more beneficial to the Playstation 3 than it is to the Xbox 360.

Grand Theft Auto 4 is expected to sell between 9 million and 12.5 million units in 2008. According to Michael Pachter, an analyst with Wedbush Morgan, if sales come in at the high end of that range, the game will directly spur sales of 2 million additional PS3s in 2008, versus 1 million Xbox 360s.

“I think PS3 ‘wins’ this battle,” Pachter said.

“So many people who owned the PS2 went into PlayStation family because of ‘GTA’. The release of ‘GTA4′ could expedite their decision to upgrade,” said Edward Williams, an analyst with BMO Capital Markets.

On the other side, Microsoft has already managed to secure exclusive GTA IV downloadable content for Xbox 360 and they are marketing through and advertising campaign rivaling that of Halo 3. Not to mention the mandatory 5 minutes installation required for the Playstation 3 version only.

“Online is such a strong part of the game and Microsoft has done such a great job of developing the online community, so for people who own multiple consoles, they will buy it for the 360,” said IDC analyst Billy Pidgeon.

One last point to consider is that Halo 3 has been released just a few months ago and that most gamers interested in Xbox 360 would have bought it by that time.

The popular attorney with a self proclaimed mission to stop games from ruining our bodies and souls, Jack Thompson, has struck again against GTA IV.

This time around, Mr. Thompson managed to get Miami’s transit authority to remove Grand Theft Auto IV ads from local bus shelters.

“The posters were removed after a review of our approval process and contract”, stated an official email from Miami’s transit authority. “Be assured that the circumstances around placing and removing these specific posters were reviewed before action was taken. We are governed by our contract with our shelter contractor and County ordinances.”

Take-Two Interactive spokesman said that they are still reviewing the situation, but jack Thompson wasted no time before sending out this letter to the media:
“Jack Thompson has today persuaded the Miami-Dade Transit System to pull all advertisements for the Grand Theft Auto IV cop-killing simulation game from its bus stops,”, Thompson’s letter reads.

The letter goes on: “In the wake of this success, Thompson is proceeding to get all GTA IV ads pulled from all US transit systems since such ads clearly violate promises made by the [ESRB], found right at its web site, not to place ‘Mature-rated’ game ads in venues that will be seen by teens.”

When asked for clarification, an ESRB spokesman said that “Considering the overwhelmingly adult demographic profile of mass transit riders, the placement of GTA IV ads in these types of outlets would typically not be in violation of [Ad Review Council] guidelines.”

Electronic Arts and Maxis today announced that a free downloadable demo, and complete retail version of the Spore Creature Creator will be available starting June 17, 2008.

The Spore Creature Creator gives Spore fans, and those who are creatively curious, the first hands-on opportunity to design their own species and share it with their friends. All creatures designed with the Spore Creature Creator can be imported into the full retail version of the Spore for PC and Mac when it launches on September 5, 2008 in Europe and September 7, 2008 in North America.

“We are thrilled to finally be putting the creative tools of Spore into the hands of players around the world,” said Will Wright, chief designer, Maxis. “The amazing creations players design this summer will help populate the game universe we all enter when Spore ships this September, so in a sense, the Spore Creature Creator is the birth of Spore.”

The free demo version of the Spore Creature Creator will be available worldwide via download from the game’s official site. The demo lets players mold, shape, paint and play with an unlimited number of creatures, using 25 percent of the creature-making parts from Spore. Gamers can then share these creations with their friends, including seamless uploads to YouTube. The demo will also be included in the The SimCity Box, which ships on June 23.

A complete retail version of the Spore Creature Creator will also be available in North America for $9.99 and most European territories for €9.99, which gives players access to all the creature-making parts in the game.

Spore gives players their own personal universe in a box. Create and evolve life, establish tribes, build civilizations, sculpt entire worlds and explore a universe created by other gamers. Spore gives players a wealth of creative tools to customize nearly every aspect of their universe: creatures, vehicles, buildings, and even UFOs. Players can then seamlessly share their creations with the world or explore infinite new galaxies created by other gamers.

Most press releases are dull and unimaginative pieces of marketing propaganda, but every once in a while we come across one that stands out for being really funny (that’s when we forget to put the quotation marks) or bizarre.

Co-developed by Black Wing Foundation, Dreamlore and N-Game, the bizarreness of the title of the Russian-American game, Stalin vs. Martians is only superseded by that of its official press release.

The press release kicks off by the usual marketing propaganda, claiming that the game is ” probably the most bizzare gaming experience of year 2008.” But then it gets funnier.

The press release actually says that “the title of the game alone is a piece of art, and the playability doesn’t even matter here. The very concept is just enough. It makes your brain explode. Surprisingly though, we have more than that to offer.”

The conclusion of the press release is not too vainglorious indeed. The final paragraph reads: “Stalin vs. Martians is also a good real-time strategy. Fast, simple, intuitive and incredibly fun. Trashy and absolutely over-the-top, arthouse kitsch production in its finest. With a good technical basis and some healthy gameplay innovations. A natural choice for anyone bored of hundreds and hundreds of identical ‘World War II strategies’. And a perfect choice for anyone who just hates the strategy genre.”

Looking for more fun, we checked out the game’s official website and found out that their faq is not without a sense of humor. Answering to a question about the ability to play as Stalin himself, the faq states that “Yes, but not from the start. Stalin is our commander and he gives us orders. Closer to the grand finale he will appear on the battlefield as a playable unit - a huge colossus, five times higher than any other creature. Just like it was in the real life.”

The faq states clearly that it is no coincidence that some of the Martians resemble characters from other games, because “Stalin vs. Martians is not only a kitsch (check Wikipedia for this word if you’re from Iowa), but also a parody. Sort of.” According to Wikipedia, ” Kitsch /k?t?/ is a term of German or Yiddish origin that has been used to categorize art that is considered an inferior, tasteless copy of an existing style. The term is also used more loosely in referring to any art that is pretentious to the point of being in bad taste, and also commercially produced items that are considered trite or crass.”

Unfortunately, the game itself doesn’t look that impressive. It looks like a standard run of the mill world war 2 RTS with one army replaced by happy Martians of different sizes. We may be wrong, but we’ll have to wait for a demo or gameplay video to reach a final decision.
Don’t forget to visit the screens tab where 8 screenshots of Stalin vs. Martians are available

pOrtal might have been one of the shortest blockbuster games ever created, but that doesn’t mean that its sequel can be finished in less than a year and a half. At least, according to Vavle.

“In typical Valve tradition, it won’t be Portal with different colors”, said Valve’s Doug Lombardi.

“I think that when you hit something like that, you have two choices: you can quickly replicate it and stick it out there - do the opportunistic thing and cash in on it - or you can do the crazy thing like we did after Half-Life was so successful and go off and try and say, ‘Okay, that was revolutionary, so its successor has to be equally as revolutionary’”, he explained.

Lombardi went on to say that they won’t release a sequel for pOrtal this Christmas because “that would just be boring”.

“I think you have to be ambitious,” he concluded. “For us, that’s really paid off. Half-Life 2 was the right decision, it was painful, six years and upwards of 40 million dollars to develop, but that paid off. That’s our recipe.”