General Gaming News

Both Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. and NetEase.com, Inc. have come together so that they can license Blizzard Entertainment’s StarCraft II, Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, and Battle.net platform off to Shanghai EaseNet Network Technology Limited. Guess multiplayer gaming in China will soon take on a whole new life of its own, thanks to Blizzard’s solid base and slick programming which was built up over the years.

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All seems to be moving along nicely when it comes to preparations for the summer Olympics in Beijing that will kick off in exactly one week from now. This can only mean one thing – a cash cow that has to be weaned to its maximum, and game developers are not lost on this fact for quite some time already. We’ve seen numerous sports titles released to date, much earlier than the event itself, and I can clearly remember Mario & Sonic at the Olympics for the DS platform as being one of the more fun titles to date. Conspiracy Entertainment has a new title for sports buffs, known as Summer Athletics. Unfortunately, it seems to be available only for the PS2 and will retail for an affordable $14.99.
players.

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Majesco will be releasing the hugely popular anagram game, Bananagrams, later next month (August 18 to be specific) as a free Facebook Application. It will be developed by Large Animal Games, doing away with all the rules of traditional board games in favor of an every-player-for-themselves approach that delivers lightning-fast puzzle play guaranteed to get the mind moving and drive players “bananas.” According to Gui Karyo, Executive Vice President of Operations, Majesco, “Casual gaming applications have exploded on social networking sites like Facebook and Bananagrams is an ideal fit for the demographic. With its fast-paced action and addictive but simple gameplay, we believe this game has potential to become one of the most popular gaming applications on the site.”

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Gameloft is certainly taking the right steps in creating some hype for the upcoming football season by launching NFL 2009 as part of its mobile licensing agreement with the National Football League (NFL). This inked deal enables Gameloft to create an authentic NFL experience for fans by featuring all 32 NFL teams, NFL players, NFL stadiums and detailed stats.

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Fans of Rock Band, rejoice! A dozen classic songs by The Who have received a new lease of life by being released as new levels on Rock Band. Both MTV Games and Harmonix recently announced today that a sweet selection of the legendary group’s greatest hits will be included in the Rock Band catalog of downloadable content with the release of “The Best of The Who: Rock Band Edition.” According to Roger Daltrey, lead singer of The Who, “We’re really pleased to have our songs featured in Rock Band. It allows our established fan base to interact with our music in a way that’s fresh and exciting, while also exposing our songs to new audiences.”

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The Diablo series from Blizzard has been acclaimed to be a mouse killer for many people having played it in the past, and it is no wonder why. This highly addictive dungeon crawler just makes you feel as though you want to level up more and more each time you boot the game up, with various character classes and routes to take to complete the game. It is with great pleasure that Blizzard has just announced Diablo III, the third outing in this franchise. Once again, the sleepy hollow of Tristam is under siege by evil creatures, and it is up to you to eliminate them. I wonder just how much longer the citizens of that town must suffer, considering they have been under the evil clutches of Diablo, Mephisto and Baal for quite some time already. Surely the inhabitants are scarred psychologically beyond measure by now.

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Is it me or is it a generalization that deadly female Soviets tend to go by the moniker Natasha? Anyways, Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 is in the works and will be released sometime in the near future, featuring Natasha who not only looks good but is capable of offing you with an icy cold stare. Taking on the tradition of the Command & Conquer series, you can expect some B-grade acting in the videos that lend to an air of authenticity of a future Cold War era to the entire game.

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Video game sales have soared yet again this year, with Nintendo’s games and systems leading the pack in the US. Research has shown that retail sales of video games managed a phenomenal 57% jump to $1.7 billion in March, according to market researcher NPD Group. Judging by the sales figures, one could safely be forgiven to think that the US economy is nowhere under distress despite being otherwise in real life. I suppose more folks decided that spending more time at home trying to complete the latest game they purchased is way more cost effective than spending a night out – after all, a $59.90 game might last you for weeks on end as you subsist on TV meals, while going out on a date will easily cost you more than that amount in a single night.

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The Grand Theft Auto truly took off in a big way thanks to its appearance on the PS2 which heralded a new era of open-ended gaming, and good thing that GTA IV won’t be a PS3 exclusive as Xbox 360 owners will be able to enjoy this genre defining title as well. In fact, the hype surrounding GTA IV is so huge and has been whipped up into a massive maelstrom, with even some industry analysts touting the potential of this title to be one of the biggest titles of all time. With such potential, it is no wonder that Amazon and Rockstar Games are at the forefront where there’s good money to be made – both companies have come to an agreement that features a unique new model where digital music distribution is concerned; gamers will be able to purchase music from within the game itself for their iPods, PCs, and other compatible devices.

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Looks like the Nintendo Wii will be getting a whole lot of shovelware love from Gameloft, as the latter has recently announced that it is working on an apparently strong line-up for WiiWare – the new downloadable game service from Nintendo for their next-gen (now current gen) console. The entire library of new games has been slated for launches across three continents, mainly in Europe, the US and Japan. This line up will feature a host of games including Block Breaker Deluxe, Midnight Pool, Midnight Bowling and TV Show King. All these games will be built from scratch or is some sort of rehashed title that has been recreated specially for the Wii platform, taking advantage of the motion sensing controller in order to maximize your gaming enjoyment.

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