In the game of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, players return to Hogwarts – reproduced from movie blueprints in exacting detail - to help Harry survive a fraught sixth year. Players will be able to master gesture-based spell-casting as they explore the Hogwarts school grounds, from the heights of the Astronomy Tower to Professor Slughorn’s Potions classroom in the depths of the dungeons and iconic locations in between such as the Gryffindor common room and the Great Hall. For the first time players can move and cast spells simultaneously, creating intense and fast-paced wizard duels as the champions from each house line up to challenge the Boy Who Lived. Players can also chase down the Golden Snitch as they take to the air as the Seeker on the Gryffindor Quidditch team. In addition to spell-casting and flying, players can put their potion-mixing skills to the test when they learn how to mix and brew magical ingredients in Potions class. Players may even get sidetracked by Ron’s romantic entanglements as they journey towards the dramatic climax and discover the identity of the Half-Blood Prince.

This title was developed by EA Bright Light and will be available on the Wii, PS3, Xbox 360, PS2, PC, Mac, DS and PSP platforms. Through experience, probably the PC, Mac and home console versions are worth looking at - the handheld versions tend to be more filler than killer.

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The Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs video game takes players on a quest through the frozen tundra to a lush jungle teeming with mysterious plants, fierce dinosaurs, wild new adventures and all-new friends. Offering more than six playable characters, the game allows fans to master the unique abilities and combat skills of each through continuously changing gameplay challenges. Every level presents new and exciting opportunities to defeat enemies with Sid’s spin attack, utilize Buck’s lasso to swing across treacherous landscapes, avoid obstacles as Scrat using his wall jumping and ceiling crawling abilities and escape from perilous situations flying on the back of a pterodactyl with Buck, Crash and Eddie. In addition, up to four players can share the Ice Age experience in eight competitive multiplayer mini-games.

It will be out for the Xbox 360, Wii, PS3, PS2, DS and Windows platforms (where’s the PSP?), retailing for $49.99, $49.99, $49.99, $29.99, $29.99 and 419.99, respectively.

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The Daring Game for Girls is an entertaining and informative adventure that lets players virtually experience activities straight from the popular book. Players can pick from one of several character models with a wide range of ethnicities and features. As they play, girls will earn gear and collectibles while having fun in spy missions, cave exploration, freeze tag, double dutch, basketball, arts and crafts, managing a corner stand, making friends, and much more. Players will also learn educational facts about famous women in history and use that knowledge to ace Pop Quizzes. Only by earning all six types of Daring Girl Badges — including Girl Lore, Life Skills and World Knowledge — can players realize an adventure to Africa, the Amazon or Mt. McKinley and become a true Daring Girl!

Developed by WXP, you can pick up The Daring Game for Girls on Wii and Nintendo DS sometime later this October 2009. No idea on pricing, but it ought to retail for $19.99 for the DS and $39.99 for the Wii as with most other titles.

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With 500 hours of gameplay and previously unreleased monsters, weapons and missions, Monster Hunter Freedom Unite is set to be the biggest game of the series so far. Players can experience this social gaming phenomenon by adventuring with up to three friends for thrilling multiplayer hunting parties utilizing the PSP system’s wireless Ad Hoc network. Throughout the strategic gameplay experience, players are rewarded for their combat maneuvers and tactics, encouraging players to seek out more experienced Monster Hunters to team up with in order to benefit from their experience. North American fans will be able to experience the incredible adventure with more than 2000 armor sets, 1400 weapons and over 400 missions to choose from.

Some of the features unique and new to Monster Hunter Freedom Unite would be the fully customizable A.I. “felyne” companion for single player hunts, where players will be able to take advantage of this assistant in their quests to gather additional resources which can be used for sharing and trading with other players. For those who have invested tons of hours in previous series can port their character and data from Monster Hunter Freedom 2 over to Monster Hunter Freedom Unite.

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Roxio CinemaNow offers a broad selection of regularly updated premium video entertainment for rental or purchase, including new releases from major Hollywood studios often on the same day the DVD is available in stores. CinemaNow’s cloud-based media services power devices from multiple manufacturers, forming a connected ecosystem that consumers can use to seamlessly choose, move and view video entertainment.

At long last, it looks as though the kiddie-like Wii has grown up and is entering puberty. After all, both of Sony and Microsoft’s consoles for this generation are already more than capable of being decent media hubs in the living room, so to see Nintendo take positive steps by working with various partners to make the Wii more serious is always encouraging. We hope that with greater cooperation among various partners, competition between the three will be fierce enough to offer the best to gamers in the end.

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Some of the new features found in Little League World Series Baseball 2009 include :-

• New Power-ups that boost your players with special abilities
• More customizable features to edit your players and teams
• Regional Tournaments, in addition to the World Series Tournament
• Nine real world stadiums, including Lamade Stadium in Williamsport, Pennsylvania
• Unlockable player cards add to more strategic gameplay
• Legendary announcers Gary Thorne and Brent Musberger call on all the play-by-play action

If you’re going to pick up the Wii version, be prepared to fork out $39.99 for it, while folks who own a DS will need to come up with just half that amount at $19.99. The title for both platforms have been rated “E” for Everyone.

Serious Sam HD is not your mother’s generic, large-scale, orchestral scored, Space Marine-themed epic FPS with dialog that pretends it’s an RPG…instead, Serious Sam HD is a grab you by the jibblies run and gun, twitch FPS: BIG guns, TONS of enemies, 4-Player Online Co-Op and stunningly superfluous HD graphics that rival retail boxed games. You’ve waited forever but Serious Sam is back from the nether with its award-winning game play that will remind you why you play FPSs in the first place. The game is being produced by Devolver Digital, a brand new production and publishing company based in Austin, Texas, specializing in delivering top quality entertainment to gamers worldwide at affordable prices by any and all means available.

According to Roman Ribaric, CEO of Croteam, “We are really excited to update our hero and recreate Sam in stunning high definition for Xbox LIVE Arcade players. The fans have lobbied us hard to do this, so we are stoked about bringing Sam back as big, bold and bad as he ever was.”

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The Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen game for the next-gen consoles and PC lets players take on the role of their favorite TRANSFORMERS, picking from the largest, most diverse range of playable characters - each with their own distinct abilities and weaponry. Set in unique environments across the globe such as Cairo and Shanghai, the game allows players to instantly switch between vehicle and robot modes as they drive, fly, fight and blast their way through intense, pressure-packed levels. After engaging in single player action, players for the first time ever will be able to go online and battle friends in all-new multiplayer modes.

Depending on the platform where you choose the game for, you will get different types of gameplay. Take for instance the Wii and PS2 versions - both of them will follow a similar storyline to the film, enabling players to battle in the form of Autobots as well as Decepticons through 15 action-oriented levels that will boast vehicular sequences, flight-based rail levels and blistering combat chains for those who love a nice beating session. For the DS, however, gamers can engage with someone else across the globe thanks to Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, helping either side turn the tide of the battle. Needless to say, the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions will have the best looking graphics available to date.

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Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars follows the story of Huang Lee, a young Triad who travels to Liberty City after the mysterious death of his father. Within the game, players will navigate their way through the streets as they uncover the truth behind an epic tale of crime and corruption within the Triad crime syndicate, delivering the unprecedented amount of depth that has become a true trademark of the franchise. Specifically built for the PSP platform with upscaled widescreen graphics, enhanced lighting and animation; and including all-new story missions; this version of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars will take full advantage of the power of the PSP system.

It will be interesting to see how the game will pan out as the DS version was strangely engaging and enjoyable despite being viewed from the classic top-down perspective. We suppose it will use a somewhat similar engine to other previous GTA outings on the Sony PSP, but hopefully newer gameplay elements will be introduced. You know what would be really neat? The ability to play ad-hoc Wi-Fi games with your friends regardless of what version of console they’re currently using…

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According to Jason Kapalka, PopCap’s chief creative officer, “One-minute Bejeweled was initially an in-house joke because who’d think anyone would play a ‘casual’ game with such a frenzied time limit? But it turned out the one-minute timer actually made the game more accessible, as a bite-size entertainment for people busy doing other things on Facebook. The social nature of the game felt like the missing link. Playing Bejeweled on your own was always fun, but playing with and against family and friends takes it to another level.”

This again goes to prove that having a social game is much more fun than going up against a standard AI. Well, bosses had better watch out for this for you just don’t know how many hours your employees will spend in Facebook each day, eh? Perhaps they should start a Blitz version of the numerous other titles from PopCap Games, who knows – these might actually also take off in an equally big way?

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