Village Gamer

Ottawa – The Honourable Helena Guergis, Minister of State (Status of Women), is pleased to announce the Call for Nominations for the 30th Governor General’s Awards in Commemoration of the Persons Case. The awards were instituted by the Governor General in 1979 to honour the 50th anniversary of the “Persons Case” and the five Alberta women whose determination led to a landmark victory in the struggle by Canadian women for equality. The Famous Five achieved not only the right for women to serve in the Senate, but also paved the way for women to participate in other aspects of public life.

“Equality for women and their full participation in society are important for women, their families, their communities and our country. More than ever before, we need women leaders of all ages to help keep our country strong, economically, socially and democratically,” said Minister Guergis. “The Government of Canada is proud to recognize those who work to promote the equality of girls and women in Canada. Recipients of these awards continue the tradition of dedication and determination that the Famous Five inspired to enrich their communities.”
Read the rest of this entry »

Burnaby – Electronic Arts Inc. announced today that the highly anticipated Fight Night Round 4 is now available in retail stores worldwide. Recently named the Game Critic Awards “Best Sports Game of E3 2009”, Fight Night Round 4 is developed by EA Canada under the EA SPORTS™ brand. Fight Night Round 4 is the latest entry from the critically acclaimed Fight Night franchise, and is the first title ever that will allow players to pit “Iron” Mike Tyson against “The Greatest” Muhammad Ali.

Designed with a revolutionary physics-based gameplay engine, Fight Night Round 4 replicates the sweet science to an unprecedented degree of realism. Witness gloves grazing off an opponent as he dodges at the last second, or watch as a vicious uppercut rips through the block of a boxer who turtles for too long. With realistic physics, height and reach become major factors in how each boxer approaches a fight. Shorter fighters, like Tyson, will look to weave inside and deliver punishing hooks to the head and body, while taller fighters, like Ali, will use their reach advantage to pump their jab while staying out of range of their opponent’s punches.

An all new career mode, titled Legacy mode, challenges you to move up the ranks from an upstart amateur to become the greatest of all time. Create a boxer from the incredibly robust create-boxer feature, or import your own face into the game using the Photo Game Face tool and bring your virtual self into the ring. Make rivals, challenge for and defend belts as you journey to cement your name among the greatest names in boxing.
Read the rest of this entry »

It’s not about gaming, but it’s still fun and educational

Britannia Beach BC – The BC Museum of Mining (BCMM) has launched an advanced new website offering a host of multimedia features and downloadable material. With online archival images and historical newsletters, BC Museum of Mining Online is the place to learn about the history and the future of BC Mining.

The new website was created to enhance communication with visitors, students and teachers, and history enthusiasts looking to learn more about the Britannia Beach community, current exhibits and collections, and mining in BC. The easy to navigate new site offers a searchable database of archives, calendar, press area, tour information, and links visitors to the Museum’s social media pages such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

Future plans will see the Museum offering further online activities to engage our audience, such as: The Curator’s Blog, high-resolution image library, video footage, additional archives, and new collections.

The Britannia Historical Society, the governing body of the British Columbia Museum of Mining (BCMM), is a non-profit society. The society was established in 1971 to preserve the material and social history of mining in British Columbia, and to educate the public about mining. It is a registered charity. The Society is essentially self-sufficient in its ability to earn revenues to maintain its operation.

Burnaby – Electronic Arts Inc. announced today that starting July 9 gamers can download and compete in Skate 2’s Maloof Money Cup Pack, based on the largest pursed event in the history of professional skateboarding. The pack will be available in the PLAYSTATION® Store for $3.00 and on Xbox LIVE® Marketplace for 240 points in North America.

“Skate 2 has been embraced by the gaming and skateboarding community across the globe, making it the perfect stage for the Maloof Money Cup’s videogame debut,” said Joe Maloof, President of Maloof Companies. “Now players everywhere can experience the world’s greatest skateboarding championship and revel in the high-stakes excitement of the competition for themselves.”

Skate 2’s Maloof Money Cup Pack will feature separate gameplay events both online and offline – freeskate, single player vert and street contests that put gamers against world class pros, and an online mode in which gamers will be able to compete against their friends in new activities and challenges for bragging rights. Xbox 360 gamers get an added bonus as there are 250 achievement points up for grabs.
Read the rest of this entry »

Montreal – Meridian4 celebrates its 5 year anniversary by offering gamers a gift of great savings on all of our titles. Celebrating their 5th year in business, Meridian4 has arranged specials with their digital distribution partners on all of their products in the coming months.

Joel Kinnunen, Business Development Director at Frozenbyte wished Meridian4 a happy birthday, saying that “We are thrilled to see Meridian4 thrive in this business, they truly deserve it. We signed our first game Shadowgrounds to Meridian4 back when they were just starting out and we haven’t regretted it. It’s rare to find a publisher whose goals seem to match those of the developer. Meridian4 is one of those publishers and the whole gang has been a pleasure to work with. If our companies’ paths cross again in the future I wouldn’t hesitate one bit to work with them again.”

The 5th Anniversary celebrations kick off on Steam with a 50% savings on all of Meridian4’s games and packs, including Shadowgrounds Survivor and Indie titles Obulis and Space Trader, as well as the Meridian4 Complete Pack with 14 games for only $24.99. The sale begins June 29th and continues until July 6th.

Toronto – Wicked Interactive, a leading North American MMO publisher, today announced that it will launch a series of summer events for Yedang Online’s popular free to play MMORPG Priston Tale.

The Summer Events will consist of seven unique events during the month of July. Each of the events will begin on each Tuesday in July and will last for two weeks each. Priston Tale players will also receive increased experience rates throughout the month of July.

“We are excited to launch the Priston Tale Summer Events,” said Garvin Yeung, CEO of Wicked Interactive. “We hope that our players will enjoy and take advantage of the free fireworks and other great events we have lined up while they enjoy their summer playing Priston Tale.”

Event #1: Free Fireworks
The Summer Events will kick off by lighting up the night skies with free fireworks for all players of Priston Tale beginning July 1st to celebrate Canada Day, Independence Day in the U.S. and the beginning of summer.
Read the rest of this entry »

Burnaby – We attended the AI Grad Presentation last Friday night, and once again we were reminded first hand just how many talented young people are ready for careers in game design, animation, audio design, film and VFX. We spent so much time talking to students and viewing projects that we weren’t able to make it around to everyone – which brings to the forefront the one challenge many of the students said they had problems with during their tenure at AI  – time management. This seems to be a problem wherever we go – perhaps there needs to be a study done about the phenomena and why so many people have difficulty with the issue.

Pritika Prasad

We were pleased to meet the team behind TikiWiki, the 2009 PopVox Award winner for Best Student Project. The tribal sports game was developed on the Unreal Engine and uses team play to collect stone tablets and score points.

All of the students present were well spoken about their projects, and quick to acknowledge any assistance they received from others, as well as to recognize members of their teams on class projects. It was also promising to see so many talented female students in this graduating class, in particular Environment and Prop Modeler Pritika Prasad (right), whose work is very impressive and very professional.
Read the rest of this entry »

Montreal – It’s time for gamers around the world to embark on an all-new incredible adventure with their favorite sub-zero heroes in Ice Age™: Dawn of the Dinosaurs from Activision Publishing Inc. and Twentieth Century Fox Licensing & Merchandising (Fox Licensing). Based on the highly anticipated 3-D animated feature from Twentieth Century Fox, which debuts worldwide on July 1, the game allows players to command their favorite movie characters, including Sid, Manny, Diego, Scrat and the relentless one-eyed Dino hunting weasel, Buck, and venture into a mysterious underground world of dinosaurs, while solving puzzles and platforming through more than 15 exciting levels. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs was developed for the console and PC platforms by Eurocom and for Nintendo DS by Artificial Mind & Movement.

“Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs allows kids to play as some of their favorite movie characters on their own, or, for the first time in the series, with their family and friends in multiplayer mini-games,” said Rob Kostich, head of marketing for licensed properties, Activision Publishing, Inc. “Family game night will take on a whole new meaning as you compete in hilarious challenges like Sloth Throw, Dino Targets and Sloth Chase using your Wii Remote™ or gamepad.”

“The Ice Age franchise is so successful because the characters are extremely engaging and the story is fantastic – two elements that are perfect for a video game,” said Gary Rosenfeld, Senior Vice President of New Media for Fox Licensing. “This game is fun for the entire family and will provide hours of entertainment.”
Read the rest of this entry »

Toronto – Interactive Ontario (IO) is pleased to welcome Darko Milivojevic as Vice President, Industry Development, to its growing team. In this new role, Darko will be responsible for representing Ontario industry stakeholders’ interests, and increasing their visibility, on a national and international level.

“We are tremendously excited to have Darko join our team at IO,” said Ian Kelso, President and CEO, Interactive Ontario. “We know he will bring a wealth of industry expertise to the position that will create opportunities for Ontario Digital Media companies.”

Darko brings an expert understanding of interactive digital media and video game industry businesses with twelve years experience in Digital Media, nine of it in the video game sector. In addition to Digital Media, Darko previously worked in Film, TV/Broadcast, Technology, Casual Games and mobile games industries at Sympatico, AOL Time Warner, CHUM, CTV, Fight Network and Electric Playground. Darko has also partnered with some of the major players in the industry including: Xbox, Sony, Nintendo, Electronic Arts, Warner, Rogers, Bell, Omniture, My Thum, QuickPlay, FeedRoom and Marblemedia to name a few.

“Joining Interactive Ontario allows me not only to champion the Ontario interactive digital content industry, but to work with the best in order to make Ontario the example to follow for the rest of the world,” says Darko Milivojevic, Vice President, Industry Development for IO.
Read the rest of this entry »

Mississauga – There’s a new texting champion in Canada and her name is Kathy Spence. Today LG Electronics Canada crowned the winner of its 2nd Annual LG Canadian Texting Championship at the competition’s finals, held earlier this afternoon at Toronto’s Yonge-Dundas Square. Kathy, who is from Scarborough, received $25,000 in cash and prizes from LG’s Pat Button.

Kathy Spence

Today’s event marked the culmination of over three and a half months of preliminary trials across the country, as well as online competitions and Facebook challenges, which saw the participation of more than 20,000 Canadians. A final group of 12 texters participated in today’s finals, with
Kathy coming out on top.

The event, hosted by Nicole Arbour, and featuring a performance by chart-topping band, The New Cities, attracted over 1,500 spectators over the noon hour. Contestants competed on a variety of LG’s QWERTY phones including the LG Dare, LG Keybo, LG Reveal, LG Rumour and LG Voyager as well as new phones, the LG Rumour 2, LG Neon and LG Xenon.
Read the rest of this entry »