Village Gamer

St. Catharines – Whiskey Mountain Wars is an online game based on the whiskey running of the 1970’s. If you ever wanted to become a whiskey runner but cannot afford the jail time for bootleg whiskey, now is the chance to do it safely in the comfort of your own home. The highlight of which is the addition of true turn-based player versus player battles within a text strategy game. This feature is a unique aspect within text-based role playing game’s (RPG).

Updated and new features added to the game include:

Player versus player (PVP) solo battles – Players can challenge other players to battle in the new PVP Arena, The Scrappin’ Yard. Players may choose to accept or deny the challenge. Prior to battle, players pay a small arena booking fee with in-game currency (shiny’s). The winner will earn experience but the player’s willpower is not affected.

Players may now set default weaponry, equipment and clothing; freeing the player from having to set those features each and every time players enter a run down quest.

A new feature called Whiskey Running enables players to transport and bootleg their illicit whiskey at various locations. The amount of whiskey the player can carry varies throughout the game based on the type of vehicle the players owns, limiting the amount of money players can earn for each whiskey run.

A new Trading Post has been upgraded and expanded to include an Arms Dealer for purchasing in-game weapons, a Pawn Shop to sell items for in-game money, and a Whiskey Wicket where players can sell whiskey for income. A General store has been added allowing players to purchase game coins to further enhance game play.

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First, congratulations to game studios Next Level Games, Bioware and Digital Extremes for being named in the Top 100 Canadian Employers.  Research In Motion was also named to the list. Next Level is consistently named as a Top Employer by several agencies, and Bioware has also won previous awards for being a Top Employer. 

Digital Leisure’s Word Searcher puzzle game has been released on WiiWare. You’ll need a sharp eye and a quick mind to complete these 100 themed word search puzzles. Word Searcher contains fun words from multiple categories including anatomy, world cities, ancient weapons and 97 other subjects. Packed with a huge assortment of subjects to choose from, there’s sure to be a puzzle everyone will enjoy. Help improve your vocabulary, memory and problem-solving skills with these addicting puzzles. Keep track of, and try to beat your own completion times again and again as words are scrambled every time you play. Get your thinking cap on and conquer all 100 today!

Ubisoft has announced that Hollywood actress Kristen Bell will reprise her role of Lucy Stillman in Assassin’s Creed II. Bell’s character will once again play a major role in the game’s intricate storyline. “Being a part of the first Assassin’s Creed video game was an amazing experience. Video games is such a creative entertainment medium, and to be able to see and play myself as a video game character was surreal,” said Kristen Bell. “As an actress, it’s both challenging and rewarding to play a complex character with this great mysterious background. I’m very happy to be Lucy once more, and I look forward to fans discovering more about her – they will be pleasantly surprised.”

Also available for viewing is a new video vignette showcasing the Assassination Arsenal. Media Labs is holding an AC2 film contest with a $10 000.00 first prize, but it’s only open to US residents over the age of 18.

EA Montreal has announced that renowned film composer Tyler Bates will be creating the impactful score for the highly anticipated third person co-op shooter Army of Two™:The 40th Day. The sought-after composer, best known for his work on the blockbuster films 300 and Watchmen, is crafting an immersive score that will highlight the epic co-operative battles gamers and their friends will face in the first major videogame release of 2010.

“Set in Shanghai in the middle of a major a disaster, Army of Two: The 40th Day dials up the action through a series of powerful scenes where players have to work together as a team to survive and escape the city,” said Lewis James, Audio Director at EA Montreal. “Tyler examined every part of the game and how players will move through the world to craft a score that truly represents their actions and the chaos unfolding around them.”

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IUGO Mobile Entertainment is thrilled to bring back its best-selling title, Zombie Attack! in the sequel – Zombie Attack! Second Wave. ZA! SW or ZA!2 is slated to be bigger, better and bloodier than ever before! It still keeps to the “tower defense with a twist” game play but throws in new zombies, more weapons and multiple, elaborate maps. “ZA! is our top selling game to-date,” explains IUGO’s Director of Business Development Sarah Thomson. “Tower defense is of course a hot genre, combine it with zombies and our users start salivating. This time ZA!2 will build upon all that was loved with the original and give our users more!”

ZA!2 is slated for submission with the App Store very soon. Keep an eye out (but not near a hungry zombie) for the launch of ZA!2 near the end of this month, early next month.

Not to worry though, Toy Bot is out to save the day. Recently launched on the App Store, Toy Bot Mini Missions will help you limber up those fingers prior to the Zombie onslaught which is about to happen. With 100 mini puzzles to test your Zombie preparedness, how can you help but not be prepared? Toy Bot, his friends and foes join him in 100 challenges ducking lasers, jumping obstacles and defying gravity in order to collect the big prizes.

Features:

• 100 mini games in total
• 12 characters to unlock and play with in total
• Great for short bursts of play as well as long gaming sessions
• IUGO’s new VIP program: Tell your friends, access more characters sooner!
• Your favorite 2D Toy Bot friends and new buddies in the Toy Bot universe!
• IUGO’s signature quality and polish

With IUGO’s fanbase growing, the independent mobile games developer has launched its exclusive VIP program. The offering is slated to reward users who are loyal to IUGO products, those who are heavy users and players who are able to refer their friends to grow the userbase. “We love our users and we wanted to create a vehicle in which our users could be rewarded for their loyalty, “states Director of Business Development Sarah Thomson. “The IUGO VIP program makes it easy for users to recommend our games to their friends and earn points towards in-game unlockables and other cool stuff. With the launch of this feature we have plans to grow and explore it so much more with ways that give back to IUGO fans”

The program also of course helps IUGO continue to grow its following and play upon the social networking aspects of mobile gaming. The IUGO VIP program had a soft launch in its recently released game Toy Bot Mini Missions. The VIP program will be seen in the upcoming Star Hogs update, the launch of Zombie Attack! Second Wave, Cliffed and Implode! For more information on IUGO’s new VIP program, please visit the IUGO community forums.

Edmonton – BioWare™ has released details about special bonus content crafted for Dragon Age™: Origins to be released on launch day. The award winning developer will release several packs of downloadable content (DLC) for the highly anticipated RPG including The Stone Prisoner, the Blood Dragon Armor and Warden’s Keep.

“BioWare is dedicated to delivering at high quality for our fans, and we’ve created something quite special here, some really cool new downloadable content. A brand new party member, fresh adventures and environments to explore, plus powerful new items and abilities – together these will enrich and extend the core game experience, and enable our fans to dive even deeper into the dark, heroic fantasy universe of Dragon Age,” said Dr. Ray Muzyka, co-founder of BioWare and the Group General Manager of the RPG/MMO Group at EA.

In Dragon Age: Origins, players take the role of a Grey Warden, one of the last of an ancient order of guardians. Now, as a rising evil threatens to destroy all life, it is up to players to unite the shattered lands and slay the corrupted dragon known as the Archdemon. To restore peace, players must make ruthless decisions and be willing to sacrifice their friends and loved ones for the greater good of mankind. On this journey, players will need to make critical choices that affect the various members of their party.

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Burnaby – NBA LIVE®10 is now available in stores for the PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system, PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) system and Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft. Developed by EA Canada in Burnaby, BC, the NBA LIVE franchise has graced multiple generations of consoles for over 15 years, and has sold more than 35 million units in its lifetime according to NPD Data. NBA LIVE®10 brings an unprecedented level of user control to the long running series, putting gamers in command of dribbling, passing, shooting and driving the lane, replicating the athleticism and agility that real NBA players display on the court.

In addition to gameplay and available to online connected users only, game visuals and in-game presentation have also received an overhaul in NBA LIVE 10. 90 throwback jerseys and more than 500 shoes will update throughout the course of the year. All new player models will elevate the look of each individual player in the game to reflect their real world counterparts. Authentic lighting and design for all 30 NBA arenas, and commentary that evolves throughout the season to reflect big trades, key match-ups, and injuries, will work together to deliver the most authentic presentation in an NBA LIVE videogame to date.

Evolving on the genre-defining Dynamic DNA, NBA LIVE 10 introduces a premium service called Dynamic Season to this year’s offering. Dynamic Season allows users to play along with the regular season as it happens. Powered by Synergy Sports Technology – the premier analytics provider for more than 25 NBA teams – Dynamic Season will update your game daily with the real results, injuries, statistics, trades and tendencies that happen in the NBA. As users play each game, their results are merged with the real NBA season, giving players the opportunity to alter reality and make their own 2010 NBA Finals. Dynamic Season and Dynamic DNA is free with all new copies of NBA LIVE 10. Consumers who purchase a used copy of NBA LIVE 10 can access the service for 1200 MS Points or $14.99 on Xbox Live and the PlayStation® Network, respectively. Available to online connected users only.

The game has been rated “E” by the ESRB

Montreal – Ovolo Corporation, Inc., a newly formed interactive game publishing company that brings ‘games-with-purpose’ to market, today announced the availability of “City Rain”. Created as an initial student concept project, City Rain is a puzzle and simulation game based on urban planning and sustainability. Players must rescue cities that are being ‘black listed’ from the World Environment Protection Agency (WEPA) by quickly making decisions to establish and re-organize urban developments that will make cities more sustainable and ‘green’. City Rain is available now as a free trial and for purchase on Ovolo’s web site. The game sells for US $9.95 as a PC download, and is expected to be available soon for Xbox Live Indie Games.

City Rain was originally a concept game, built on the Microsoft XNA Game Studio platform by Mother Gaia Studio, Brazil. The strategic urban-planning game quickly captured the attention of game developers and players, winning the Microsoft Imagine Cup 2008 (Paris), and becoming a finalist in the 2009 Independent Games Festival at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2009 in San Francisco, Calif.

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“As a fan of both SimCity™ and Tetris®, I immediately fell in love with City Rain based on its fun reference to those two classic games, but also because it introduces a meaningful and relevant purpose that educates players on how to think about creating ‘green’ and ‘sustainable’ cities and communities,” said Alexandre Renaud, founder of Ovolo Corporation and executive producer for City Rain. “The entrepreneurial and creative spirit I witnessed when I visited Brazil convinced me that City Rain was the first game I wanted to produce,” added Renaud.

City Rain Synopsis

Best described as “SimCity-meets-Tetris”, City Rain produces buildings that fall from the sky, which must be quickly place on a grid. Players are challenged to master the art of urban planning on the fly, requiring quick reflexes and a logical building placement that ultimately helps the community thrive and the ecology survive.

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Montreal – Ubisoft has announced the retail availability of a new interactive adventure video game titled “Where’s Waldo?® The Fantastic Journey.” Created by Ludia Inc., “Where’s Waldo? The Fantastic Journey” is the ultimate search-and-find adventure for the entire family, as players explore the unique and wondrous lands in search of Waldo, his friends and other hidden objects.The game is now available for the Wii™ system from Nintendo, the Nintendo DS™ system, Windows-based PC and Mac at North American retailers.

In the game, players look for Waldo and friends, in addition to hundreds of hidden items in twelve different magical worlds that unlock via a central map that becomes increasingly animated as players progress. “Where’s Waldo? The Fantastic Journey” can be played in single- or multiplayer mode, in Easy and Normal challenges to suit players of all ages and skill levels. Gameplay is enhanced through a variety of power-up features where players unleash different special effects to gain an advantage over opponents or enhance their own search capabilities.

Power-ups include:

* Wacky Paint: Splatter colorful paint onto your opponent’s screen to obscure the view.
* Thunder Clap: Cast thunder onto your opponent and make the screen shake.
* Frosty: Freeze the search window by encasing it in ice.
* Sparkly: Keep your eyes on the twinkle and glitter effects to detect items.
* And many more!

Edmonton – Bioware has announced that they will be releasing the Character Creator from Dragon Age: Origins on the 13th of October. This will give players three weeks to experiment and get their Player Character just right before launch of the game on November 3rd – 6th. While this feature will only be transferable to the PC version of the game, those of us who are console gamers can still download the Creator and preview the different character choices.

Downloadable as a separate application, The Dragon Age: Origins Character Creator will allow gamers to create numerous different characters before launch and experiment with the different classes, races, and create multiple faces for the six Origin stories and save them to their hard drives for safe keeping until the game is released. The Character Creator will be available for download from the Dragon Age: Origins web site and will be available in English, German, French, Polish and Russian, as well as in Czech, Hungarian, Italian and Spanish with English Voice Over.

Bioware’s Community Coordinator Chris Priestley also announced that “we are extending the BioWare community with a new social community site for Dragon Age: Origins. The great news is when we launch the Dragon Age: Origins Character Creator we will also be launching an open beta of the new social community site. You will be able to log into the new Social community site with your existing BioWare forums account name and password, and update it to the new social site account. Characters created with the Dragon Age: Origins Character Creator can also be uploaded to your account from within the Character creator. Once logged in to the social site, one of the first things you will be able to do is use one of your uploaded characters as your social website avatar for your profile on the new social website forums.”

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Bioware also recently released a new video introducing story character Zevran, an Elven assassin who was sent by the Antivian Crows to kill the player in Dragon Age: Origins. Luckily for the player, he had a change of heart and now fights with the Grey Wardens. At least, until the Crows come along to investigate about the apparent good health of the player.

I just finished reading the first novel in the Dragon Age series, The Stolen Throne, and I was very impressed with the story. In my opinion, David Gaider’s writing is easily on a par with that of David Eddings and Robert Jordan. The Stolen Throne had me hooked by the end of the first chapter, and while I binge-read the whole book, I didn’t want the story to end. Thankfully the next installment in the series, The Calling, is due for release on October 13, so I don’t have long to wait. Bioware has placed the first chapter of The Calling on the Dragon Age: Origins web site, but thus far I have resisted the temptation to read it. I haven’t even peeked. Yet.

As an added bonus, I realized after getting The Stolen Throne home, that the book had been signed by the author. Out of curiosity, I went back to my local Chapter’s store to check and see if the other volume on the shelf was also signed, and it wasn’t. This is when I am grateful for being left-handed and picking the one copy of the two available that was signed. I have tried searching the web to see if there was any significance to the randomly signed copies, but couldn’t find any information. If the writing in the novel series is anything to go on, I think that Dragon Age: Origins the game is going to reward players with an amazingly deep and highly developed world full of lore, something that I know many of us who RPG really appreciate.

The only area I am confused about in this pre-release period is the Pre-Order and Collector’s Edition bonuses. For those keeping track of what I have on pre-order, yes, I have Dragon Age: Origins Collector’s Edition for the 360 on pre-order. The Bioware forums do impart information about the bonuses, but they speak of pre-order codes, and I didn’t receive any type of pre-order bonus information from our EB Games outlet. Hopefully I can get some type of confirmation from Bioware about the different bonuses and how to obtain them – otherwise I will have to try to glean the information from the 110 pages of Collector’s Edition discussion on the Dragon Age forum.

Toronto-based developer Alien Concepts is excited to announce the launch of its first casual game Night of the Scarecrows. The rookie developers recently announced the release of the web and downloadable game through distribution portals Big Fish Games, MSN Games, Real Arcade, GameHouse and Wild Tangent among others.

With its striking cinematic sequences and an art style inspired by the likes of Tim Burton and Edward Gorey, this addictive puzzle game stands apart from its genre counterparts in the casual games space. The dark yet quirky art and design work by artists Jamie Richards and Bruno Amezcua are complemented by the moody soundtrack by composer Patrick Blakely. The game’s development team is rounded out by producer/co-designer Kala Ramachandran and Programmer Mike Darmitz.

“We were thrilled with how well the game demo was received at Casual Connect Seattle and at GDC San Francisco this past year”, said Kala Ramachandran, Alien Concepts co-founder and President. “We’re hoping to carry this momentum to our upcoming projects currently in the works.” The studio is currently hard at work on an iPhone version of Night of the Scarecrows, which is scheduled to hit the Apps Store just before Christmas 2009, as well as on an educational adventure game slated for release in late October.

*Mini Review*

I gave Night of the Scarecrows a quick play – okay I confess, the game is still open in another tab, I’m on level 3 and have a score of 16440. So far I am impressed with the game; it is a nice twist on the match three genre, with some very cute and comical characters who do a funky scary shuffle dance across the garden. I like watching the creatures almost gasp in horror when they realize they are about to be eliminated by a rampaging goat and clearing the garden with a burning torch appeals to the pyro in me. The death cringes of the characters as they ignite only adds to the amusement. Gee, that sounds just a tad sadistic, doesn’t it? It’s okay – they may be animated, but they are inanimate objects. No harm done, they’re only burning pixels. When the mystical power that pushes forth these Hallowe’en invaders fails to play nice and won’t give you any matches, you can call on the Power of the Crow. You can store up to three Crows by matching groups of seven creepy creatures or more, and when needed you can clear similar Scarecrows from one column. You can eliminate full rows by letting the Goat out of the pen. You can collect up to three Goats at any one time. Beware though – your Goat and Crow collections reset with each new level. The music and sound effects are well done and the audio is very clear. With the level of quality in this first title, you can be assured that I will be looking forward to more game products from Alien Concepts.

Ubisoft Montreal has released another Game Dev video walkthrough for the highly anticipated Assassin’s Creed 2. This video highlights several new game play components, such as the weapons dealer and new weapons like the smoke bomb, as well as Ezio’s ability to swim and use gondolas. I’m grateful for the new swimming ability, because in Assassin’s Creed 1 I seemed to spend a fair amount of time falling into the water and drowning. Also new to AC2 is the hiring of thieves and other unsavoury characters to do some of the dirty work like distracting guards. According to the new video, which was created for the Tokyo Game Show, the missions are extensive and somewhat unpredictable. One of my favourite components of AC1 was game environment exploration. Players can look forward to an even more rewarding system for exploration in AC2, as Ezio hunts the city for treasure which will help him upgrade his armour and weapons. Slated for release in mid-November, this is one title that will be in hot contention in the Village Gamer household. Thankfully, I am the one with the vehicle and the ability to pick up our pre-order at the store – and the “your order is in” call goes to my cell – thereby enabling me to beat The Cavechild to the game.

In other Ubisoft news, Battle of Giants™: Dragons has hit store shelves. Battle of Giants: Dragons is the very first DS game that will allow young gamers to play with the most impressive creatures they have always dreamed of – Dragons.

Developed for younger gamers by Ubisoft Quebec, players can feel the adrenaline rush of creating, controlling, customizing and battling with their very own fierce creature. Combat of Giants: Dragons offers a full immersion into the fantastic and mysterious universe of magic Dragons. Feel overwhelmed by exciting combat views and realistic fighting scenes! Battle of Giants: Dragons is rated E10 by the ESRB.

Key Game Features:

* Realism of fight as a key for immersion, pushed by a real-time innovative and intuitive combat gameplay.
* Customize your creature to make it your very own: 4 elemental dragons within their natural land, 5 different attack possibilities per Dragon, up to 125 different gems find and choose from!
* Land exploration through ground seeking or aerial traveling!
* Multiplayer: organize duels or tournaments, up to 4 players, to see which dragon will be the strongest of all.