Village Gamer

That’s right Vancouver and Victoria – Canary Derby time is fast approaching and those of you in the diverse technology and digital media industries need to get your cart on. The Canary Derby is a soapbox derby which is held annually to help raise funds for early cancer detection research.

The fifth annual Canary Derby once again brings together the technology and business communities of Victoria and Vancouver, Canary Foundation of Canada, and BC Cancer Foundation to help support early detection cancer research. Similar to last year’s event, the rivalry is twofold: the competitors within the individual Derbies and an overall competition between the Victoria Derby on June 12 and the Vancouver Derby on September 25.

Last year’s events were fun-filled and well attended – and who better than our innovative technology industry to design this year’s most imaginative and fastest carts while raising money for a great cause? This is your studio’s chance to participate in out-of-the-box team-building while racing a soapbox to victory. There are many awards up for grabs – top fundraiser, fastest cart, most stylish cart and of course the infamous bent wheel award.

Last year’s Vancouver teams included 6S Marketing, BCTIA, Wired Woman, Webnames.ca, Aquatic Informatics, Rogers Wireless, Cisco Human Network, finCAD and more. Check out the Village Gamer Canary Derby photos to see just how much fun can be had at this event. Even Princess Peach and Mario had a great time – and by the looks of it, several of them are already registered for the 2010 Great Race Event.

There will be a team get-together evening on Monday, April 26th for those interested in participating in the Vancouver leg of the derby. Canary founder Don Listwin will be present to give some background information about the Canary Foundation and the derby. This will be followed by information in regards to the fundraising tools which will be available to the teams as well as cart-building guidance and of course informal networking with your fellow racers. If you are – or think you might be – interested in participating, please contact Stephanie Price for details on the meeting.

What’s holding you back? Innovate – Create – Race!

In today’s news leads, many of you probably already know that Ron Gilbert has left Hothead Games. On his blog, he stated that with DeathSpank‘s production winding down and heading for certification, his task is complete, although he will still be working closely with EA and Hothead to help promote the game.

Ubisoft Montreal will be holding a world exclusive autograph session with the Splinter Cell core team at the Montreal Future Shop on Ste Catherine Street next Tuesday, April 13th from 10am to 1pm.  Celebrating the release of Splinter Cell: Conviction, Alexandre Parisot (producer), Maxime Beland (creative director), Patrick Redding (game director/coop mode) and Steven Masters (lead game designer) will be present to meet the fans and autograph the games.

I played through the new DLC for Mass Effect 2 last evening – the availability of Kasumi – Stolen Memory was plagued with server problems yesterday, which made for many unhappy ME2 players who were waiting to purchase the expansion. The new expansion, which adds Master Thief Kasumi Goto to the Normandy squad took me about an hour or so to play through, and while at first glance the 560 Microsoft Points price doesn’t really seem to give much value for the points, it’s important to remember that now an extra squad member and a new SMG will be available for subsequent re-plays of ME2. I guess that will even out the price and the shortness of the required missions. I would like to note, however, that there are areas where your character can (or in my case, will) get stuck. Without giving away the DLC plot – stay away from the chairs in a certain building during Kasumi’s loyalty mission. They act like a one way ramp and you’ll have to reload the game.

Burnaby – Turn up the music, raise your hands and voices and join the celebration! Electronic Arts today revealed the 28 artists across 20 countries who will usher in the EA SPORTS™ 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa™ with an international soundtrack that celebrates the cultural vibrancy of the first FIFA World Cup™ to be held in Africa.

EA SPORTS 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa™ captures the sounds and history of the musical landscape in Africa with a rhythmic, tribal blend of 28 songs that, through mass exposure to soccer, videogame and music fans, will become synonymous with the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa™ worldwide. Somali-born poet, musician and rapper, K’NAAN, headlines the soundtrack with his song “Wavin’ Flag Coca-Cola Celebration Mix”.

A full playable demo of 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa for the PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system will be available for download at the PLAYSTATION Store, and for the Xbox 360® videogame and entertainment system on Xbox Live Marketplace, beginning April 8 worldwide. Play as Spain or Italy and discover a soccer experience that brings to life the passion and emotion of the actual tournament. New players to the FIFA Soccer franchise will be able to choose to play the demo utilizing new Two-Button controls designed to enable new gamers to pass, shoot and compete for the 2010 FIFA World CupTM with an accessible control scheme that utilizes just two buttons. In addition to playing a match soccer fans and gamers will be able to upload their replays from the demo to EA Football World for other fans to watch.

“2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa is a landmark project in the evolution of world music and its African heritage,” says Steve Schnur, Worldwide Executive of Music and Marketing at Electronic Arts. “We’ve brought together such legendary African artists as Nigerian drummer/activist Babatunde Olatunji, Senegal icon Baaba Maal, and ‘The Bob Marley of Ghana’ Rocky Dawuni, with global superstars like Sergio Mendes and Nas & Damian Marley. But we’re perhaps most proud of K’NAAN, the unsigned Somali artist we discovered in 2004 whose music has now appeared in five different EA SPORTS video games.” Read the rest of this entry »