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With the price of petrol going through the roof this could mean the nail in the coffin for Boy Racers, Speed Maniacs, Street Racing and Joy Riders. So how are you going to get your thrill of driving through city centres in illegal street races, where you need ram your foot on the accelerator and bugger the consequences?

Well now you can experience that excitement in your own home thanks to… Data Design Interactive - a successful video games publisher and games developer, who today announced a new title to be added to their Nintendo Wii label, Popcorn Arcade, Urban Extreme: Street Rage.

Urban Extreme: Street Rage is set in Fortune City. As an experienced Street driver you are forced by the Underworld into a series of extreme and sometimes lethal urban races. Competing in these contests is a dirty business and could cost you your car, and even your life..

* 32 Unique play and unlockable vehicle designs. 

• 16 level choices and Cup challenge modes set in a gritty urban environment. 
• Test your nerve and take out the most cars with explosive results in Carnage Mode.
• Split screen multiplayer support with widescreen, and hires progressive scan modes.
• Career mode: Spend your hard earnt prize money to buy new cars and enter more expensive races.

The rules of the road don’t apply in this high-speed, anything goes competition……

Hurley, NY (June 26, 2008) – TONNER today announced an agreement with Eidos Interactive Limited™ to release TONNER CHARACTER FIGURES™ (TCF) based on the Lara Croft™: Tomb Raider Legend™ video game.

TONNER’s Lara Croft™ is the first of its kind. Leaping from the pixels on the screen into the hands of collectors at a noble 17” tall, Lara Croft™ features 14 points of articulation, rooted hair, and several different outfits. “In creating Lara Croft as a TCF™, I wanted to capture her essence and spirit in all the detail,” Robert Tonner, CEO of TONNER explained. “We worked closely with Eidos to ensure every facet of the figure is completely accurate.”

With Lara Croft™, Tonner does for figures what Eidos™ did for gaming by giving the collector and player what their imaginations were asking for; a powerful, independent, determined heroine. The result is one of gaming’s most recognized and well-known characters, a powerfully independent, determined heroine that was honored with a star on the Walk of Game in 2006 and a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records, recognizing her as the “most recognizable female video game character.”

“Lara Croft was an opportunity for me to enter a new realm,” Tonner said. “As a sculptor, a chance to create an entirely new body is incredibly rewarding. Lara Croft allowed me to express, in the sculpt, both the strength and femininity for which she has become legendary.”

TONNER’s Lara Croft™ launched June 26, 2008 at Wizard World Chicago to an audience of 68,000 eager attendees. Wizard World is a four-city tour that brings the world of comics, collectibles, and pop culture to fans and collectors alike. Enthusiasts had the opportunity to purchase a Lara Croft™ TCF™ from the first 100 of the introductory production run.

Exclusively available via TONNERDirect™, collectors can visit tonnerdirect.com or call 800-794-2107 to purchase Lara Croft™ TCFs, accessories, and outfits.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - 06.26.08 - dSonic co-founder, Kemal Amarasingham, gives some insight into the directorial techniques he adopted during the voice-over sessions for the latest installment of Atari’s Alone In The Dark franchise. dSonic created the creature sounds effects for the game. Check out some examples here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dffVPC2Zo9I

Developer, Eden Games, wanted the creatures in the game to sound like suffering, tortured souls rather than the usual moaning and groaning zombie fare, so Amarasingham directed the actors to make guttural attack sounds tinged with rage and pain rather than high-pitched, aggressive, attack sounds. He offers this example of his direction: “I asked the actors to think of ‘that’ scene in a war movie where a soldier is shot but is suppressing his agony so he can keep on fighting. I wanted to hear the struggle of someone battling pain and suffering within themselves, as well as determination in their voices.”

“It was important to us that the player has a real feeling of the suffering of the creatures in the game - we didn’t want these to be just average monsters but rather victims suffering a terrible fate with their human instincts in conflict with the forces that possess them,” said David Nadal, Game Director, Eden Games. “The work that dSonic has done has played a key part in making this a reality.”

Making these guttural pain sounds kept the creatures from cutting through the audio mix too much when in large numbers, but was extremely hard on the actors’ voices. Multiple short recording sessions were scheduled to remedy this.

Kemal Amarasingham adds, “What made this project unique voice-over wise, was that the creatures in the game had almost no actual dialog. The actors watched video of the characters in different poses and then vocalized the emotion behind each pose, in sync with the video.”

Alone In The Dark, the 5th installment of the franchise, is an apocalyptic action survival game based in New York’s Central Park. Developed by Eden Games and published by Atari, the game was released in North America on June 24, 2008 for Xbox 360, PC, Wii and PlayStation 2. A version for PlayStation 3 will follow later in 2008. For further details, visit www.atari.com

dSonic, an award-winning audio production company with studios in San Francisco and Boston, provides music, sound effects and voice-overs exclusively to the game industry. They have over seventy titles to their credit and have contributed to AAA titles such as 2K’s Bioshock, winner of the Game Developer Choice Award for Best Audio in 2007, and Bethesda’s Oblivion. For more information, visit www.dsonic.com

The Popular Free-to-play MMO Golf Simulation Will Host a Series of Four Tournaments This Summer

San Jose, Calif. (June 26, 2008) - San Jose-based online game publisher, Gamescampus.com (www.gamescampus.com, run by OnNet USA), announced today that it will launch the Hurricane Cup, a series of four Shot-Online golf tournaments, this July. The tournaments will take place in the following order throughout the month of July Tournament 1: Prometheus National Tournament, Tournament 2: Freya Classics Tournament, Tournament 3: The Player’s Tournament and Tournament 4: Potter’s Bank Championship. The game can be downloaded and played for free at http://shotonline.gamescampus.com/index.asp.

The Hurricane Cup is a championship where players participate in online golf tournaments to earn points. Points are awarded to the top ten players of each of the four tournaments, and then combined at the end of the fourth tournament to determine the overall winner from the series.

The top three players of the Hurricane Cup will win a sponsorship deal from Hurricane that gives them a full set of non-repairable clubs and the first-place winner will receive a full set of repairable Hurricane golf clubs. Each tournament purse will also include in-game currency, GamesCampus cash, and other in-game items as prizes.

Like real life golf tournaments, each of the four tournaments will run weekly and last four days (Thursday through Sunday). The first in the series will commence on July 03, 2008 and run through July 06, 2008.

The subsequent tournaments will be scheduled as follows: Tournament 2: July 10, 2008 through July 13, 2008; Tournament 3: July 17, 2008 through July 20, 2008 and Tournament 4: July 17, 2008 through July 20, 2008. The Hurricane Cup invites anyone from newbies to experienced players to participate, as long as they make the cut!

“We are very pleased to announce our new Shot-Online Hurricane Cup tournament series to our players,” said David Chang, Executive Vice President of Marketing and Business Development for Gamescampus.com.

First images and information depict the beginner zone of Taborea
After first story fragments of the new fantasy online roleplaying game Runes of Magic, a detailed game design document now describes the environment in the starter zone. Illustrated with many original screenshots, the scroll portrays villages, forests, mines, caves and lowlands of the Howling Mountains that every new adventurer will set his feet in at start.

The Howling Mountains, once a meeting place of lower demons and wild hordes, are nowadays characterized by their mellow landscape. Loud screams of former sacrificial rituals resounded through the area before the Council of Varanas and the Eye of Wisdom banished the howling in a great wraith expulsion. Since then humans have settled in the peaceful, hilly ley. The Settler Valley, the Pioneer’s Colony, the Crushed Plain and a windmill serving as Logar’s landmark invite adventures onto a discovery tour through the Howling Mountains. But there are also ominous places there. The Barren Caves for example. Formerly a breeding ground of terrifying daemons they even now instil fear into the humans heart. It is said that goblins now dwell there and that they have begun to look for the daemon’s treasures. Further details are explicitly described in game design document no. 1.

Runes of Magic – a world full of wizardry and adventure
With an extensive range of features Runes of Magic prepares to redefine the standard of free-to-play MMO games. Right from the launch Runes of Magic will convey its absorbing story in over 600 quests embedded in an atmospheric world. Players can choose from six main classes. Combined with a secondary class they dispose of 36 individual character classes over all. All characters possess unique skills with impressive combo attacks and can use mounts in the later stages of game play. A particularly attractive feature for guilds and players is the possibility to arrange their own virtual homes with individual furnishing. Thanks to an extensive crafting and reputation system, thrilling PVP as well as demanding dungeons and boss-monsters no wishes remain unsatisfied. The Taiwanese developer Runewaker has developed Runes of Magic according to western MMO standards within a time frame of three years. The studio will provide new challenges for players every three to four months with free add-ons and updates. MMO fans can find first pictures and a registration form for the newsletter on the official teaser site www.runesofmagic.com.

Runes of Magic features

• Free2play, no monthly fees, free download
• Dual class system with switchable primary and secondary classes
• Enthralling background story
• Already over 600 quests and level comprehensive quest series on launch
• Instanced and persistent dungeons
• Individually developed skills and spells
• Armor sets with special bonuses
• Dynamic item system: Upgrades with hundreds of runes
• Activatable PvP system (Player vs. Player duels)
• Epic crafting system with the possibility to improve existing items
• Individual coloring of clothes and armor
• Housing: personalization with individual furniture for players and guilds
• Special zones for guild houses
• Reputation system
• Scalable user interface based on the users flavor (development of own add-ons possible)
• In-game map and radar system to find dealers, resources and quests easily
• Auction house: auction and purchase items
• Teleporting possibilities per runes
• Different and unique mounts
• Controlling with mouse (point & click) and keyboard (WASD or arrow keys) possible

Free-to-Play MMORPG Reaches 100,000 Concurrent Player Milestone, Serving Over 7.2 Million Registered Users

SAN JOSE, Calif. - June 25, 2008 - Joymax, an independent developer and publisher of interactive entertainment, today announced that the company’s popular free-to-play MMORPG, Silkroad Online, has garnered over 7.2 million registered users and is supporting 100,000 concurrent players on their global servers (including North America). Including their licensing partners in four other countries, along with the players on the Korea servers, Silkroad Online actually services over 18 million registered users and 170,000 concurrent players. Joymax recently released a new expansion, Legend III Roc Mountain, featuring new territory, quests, weapons, and an increased level cap for adventurers to enjoy within Silkroad Online.

SANTA MONICA, CA – June 25, 2008 – Combining the best selling game of 2007 with the world’s most popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game, Blizzard Entertainment®’s World of Warcraft®, players across the globe will soon be shredding to a free downloadable track for Activision Inc.’s (Nasdaq: ATVI) Guitar Hero® III: Legends of Rock.

World of Warcraft players will remember the hit “I am Murloc” as the tongue-in-cheek tribute to the beloved race of fish-people by Blizzard Entertainment’s house band, Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftain. The thrash metal-style song debuted to delighted attendees at Blizzard Entertainment’s BlizzCon™ 2005 gaming convention in Anaheim, CA.

Rock stars will be able to rip it up to “I am Murloc” by downloading it on Xbox LIVE® Marketplace for Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and the PLAYSTATION®Store for the PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system starting on June 26, 2008 in advance of the 2008 Blizzard Entertainment Worldwide Invitational held in Paris, France June 28 and June 29.

Blizzard Entertainment’s critically acclaimed hit PC game World of Warcraft is the world’s most popular MMORPG, with more than 10 million subscribers. It allows players to take on the roles of fantasy heroes and interact with thousands of other players, exploring exotic locations, fighting deadly monsters, and claiming legendary treasures in a vast realm. Gamers who have yet to visit Ironforge and Orgrimmar or venture into the depths of the Black Temple can explore the full version of World of Warcraft by downloading a free 10-day trial from http://www.warcraft.com/ghero.

Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock offers the ultimate rock experience with new wireless guitars, freshly added content and features including a multiplayer action-inspired battle mode, grueling boss battles, a host of exclusive unlockable content and visually stunning rock venues. Expanded online multiplayer modes allow axe-shredders worldwide to compete head-to-head for true rock status as they riff through a star-studded soundtrack including master tracks by legendary artists such as Aerosmith, Guns ‘N’ Roses, The Rolling Stones, Beastie Boys, Rage Against the Machine and Pearl Jam, as well as original songs by guitar icons Slash and Tom Morello. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock is now available and is rated “T” for Teen by the ESRB. For more information visit www.community.guitarhero.com.

Titles already available include Battle Mages, Battle Mages - Sign of Darkness, Operation Matriarchy, Entente – WWI Battlefields and just recently, Pacific Storm became available on Steam and if you purchase it before July 1st save 20% off the regular price of $19.99.

For more information on these titles, visit the games section of the Meridian4’s web site at www.meridian4.com/games/ or visit www.steampowered.com to get your copy of Pacific Storm at the special low introductory price.