Village Gamer

Vancouver – Just a reminder to our readers – there is only one more day of voting left for the NMBC PopVox Awards, which will be presented next month during Vancouver Digital Week. Tickets for the PopVox Awards are still available through the PopVox web site. After a quick email verification process, members of the public can vote for their favourite entry in the following categories:

Best Student Project
Best Start Up
Best Do-Gooder (Social Change Initiative)
Best Company Use of Social Media
Best User Generated/Crowd-sourced Content Site
Best Mobile Application
Best Game (Handheld)
Best Social Media Application
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Toronto – Emanuel Rosen, author of “The Anatomy of Buzz Revisited”, will give a keynote presentation at Search Engine Strategies (SES) Toronto 2009. The largest search engine marketing conference in Canada, which will be held at the Sheraton Centre Toronto June 8-10, 2009, also announced that it is adding “Monetizing Your Audience: Live Site Clinic” to the agenda.

Emanuel Rosen

Now in its sixth year, SES Toronto is considered the definitive digital event for marketers, corporate decision makers, webmasters and search engine marketers (SEMs), including pay per click (PPC) advertisers and search engine optimization (SEO) professionals. The event is organized and programmed in cooperation with the SES Advisory Board, Search Engine Watch and Andrew Goodman, the founder and president of Toronto-based Page Zero Media.
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Ottawa – Trend Micro Incorporated, a leader in network antivirus and Internet content security software and services, announced today a definitive agreement to acquire the Third Brigade business, a privately-held security and compliance software company headquartered in Ottawa, Canada. Trend Micro is buying the business to accelerate its dynamic datacenter security strategy, and to provide customers with access to critical security and compliance software and vulnerability response services. These all contribute to protecting physical, virtual and cloud servers, and corporate endpoints, from sophisticated malware and malicious activity. The acquisition is subject to certain approvals, and is expected to close in the 2nd quarter of 2009. Financial terms are not disclosed.

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Vancouver-based Interactive Agency, Engine Digital, has increased its head count with the recent additions of award-winning Designer and Web Strategist, Sean Mitchell, and Interactive Producer, Justine Kwong.

As a recent contract resource to Engine Digital, Sean will now assume the role of Interactive Production Manager, bridging the agency’s creative and development teams, overseeing innovation, and quality control of digital campaigns and web strategy work. Sean will also assist with client strategy on key accounts including TELUS. Prior to joining the firm, Sean provided strategy, design, and development for a list of international clients including Acura, Adidas, OfficeMax, Purina, Rogers, Scion, Veer, and Yahoo!

Justine will utilize her solid set of Interactive Producer skills on campaigns for a variety of agency clients. Ms. Kwong brings to Engine Digital a notable CV of digital agency experience at Ottawa-based RealDecoy where she worked with clients such as Health Canada, Dept of Foreign affairs & International trade, Canada Science and Tech Museum, and the Canada Council for the Arts.
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Toronto – G4BOX Inc. a North American publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment media, announced today that it will host its first official PvP Arena Tournament for players of its popular MMORPG, Metin2. Players can go to the official Tournament Page for more information and to sign up.

Beginning April 30th at 4 PM EST, players from the FREE KINGDOM server can sign up for one of 16 spots for each level bracket. Opponents will be randomly chosen on the day of registrations and the chosen players will be revealed just 10 minutes before the start of the tournament!

Players are allowed only one entry per account in either the low level or high level category.

“Our players have enjoyed PvP play amongst themselves for awhile and we thought it was time we host an official tournament,” said Howard He, Chief Executive Officer of G4BOX. “We have some great prizes available and are looking forward to the excitement and energy of an arena tournament!”

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Sword-and-Gun Action Fighting Title to Return at Holiday 2009

Montreal – Today Ubisoft® announced Red Steel®2, exclusively on Wii™ system from Nintendo. Red Steel remains one of the most successful Wii titles and the only brand created specifically for the launch of the platform.

Red Steel 2 returns with an artistic style and flair created just for Wii. Set in a desert-bound, high-tech metropolis, Red Steel 2 is a revolution in the action-fighting genre, taking full advantage of the capabilities of the Wii MotionPlus™ accessory. Your movements are faithfully replicated on-screen, putting the emphasis on swinging, shooting and fun! With the ability of the Wii MotionPlus to sense the strength of a swing, you will literally be able to make an impact on your adversaries through power and precision.

“Red Steel was a unique opportunity for Ubisoft to work in tandem with Nintendo to create a title exclusively for the launch of the Wii console,” said Olivier Ernst, general manager at Ubisoft Canada. “Red Steel 2 is another milestone for the company as it is the first Ubisoft title with full Wii MotionPlus integration.”

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Tickets Go On Sale Today At Noon

Vancouver ACM SIGGRAPH makes a big-screen splash to celebrate its sixth anniversary, presenting one of DreamWorks Animation’s bright lights, Director/Writer Eric Darnell, fresh from the success of Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa. Start the evening in style mingling at the licensed industry mixer with free snacks and drinks. The first 50 through the door receive a free movie poster. Eric Darnell will be on hand at the mixer signing copies of the book for sale: The Art of Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa. At 7:30 pm get set for the main presentation and a screening of this visionary experimental director’s latest animated film.

6:30 pm – Book signing & industry mixer*
7:30 pm – Directing Madagascar w. Eric Darnell
8:30 pm – Q&A & door prizes
8:45 pm – Intermission
9:15 pm – Screening: Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (free)

* All ticket holders are automatically registered to industry mixer and screening.
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Developer: IonFX
Publisher: Meridian 4
Genre: Puzzle
Platform: Windows PC

Background: Based on IonFX’s award-winning mobile game of the same name, Obulis takes things to the next level by fusing highly compelling gameplay with outstanding graphics, music and state of the art physics effects.

I have had Obulis for a few weeks now, and while I generally try for a quick turn-around on game reviews, this one took me a bit longer than normal. The reason being was that I wasn’t sure if I liked the game and didn’t play very far into the game at first. I then set it aside for a few days, and as it turns out, there are some areas of the game-play which I truly liked, admittedly much to my surprise.  There were only two or three areas which I felt were negative, but they relate directly to my personal preferences – and as I advanced through the game, one of those negative issues became not so important anymore.
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