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Activision Publishing, Inc. announced today that Little League World Series Baseball 2009, the sequel to 2008′s acclaimed hit baseball game, will be released this June for Wii and Nintendo DS. The title is a natural progression for the franchise, offering Little Leaguers and their families more features and refined, accessible gameplay.

“We are very proud of the warm reception our first Little League baseball video game received last year,” said David Oxford, Activision Publishing. “Little League World Series Baseball 2009 aims to broaden the franchise’s appeal even wider, giving experienced gamers a sense of depth and to feel more challenged while still making it easy for parents or grandparents to pick up and play!”

Little League World Series Baseball 2009 is the second officially licensed Little League video game for next-generation consoles, and once again it is being developed by world renowned Japanese studio NOW Production. Players will have the chance to become a Little League World Series baseball Champion, or play with up to three other friends in a variety of exhibition modes. New features include a full team editor, regional tournaments, all new stadiums, new skills challenges, an expanded set of collectible content and much more. Both versions improve upon the popular motion and stylus controls, respectively, for batting and pitching.

“The response to last year’s game was phenomenal, and Little League fans have been enthusiastic in giving us ideas for the 2009 version,” Jud Rogers, Sr. Marketing Executive, Little League International. “Activision and NOW Production are the best partners imaginable and we look forward to creating the best family-friendly baseball game of all time.”

For more information, visit www.activision.com.

MLB Dugout Heroes has confirmed that the Open Beta will begin on March 19, 2009 at 3PM PST. Here’s some new screens, and don’t forget to check out the open beta of the first fully-licensed online Major League Baseball game at http://mlbdugoutheroes.com/

Death Can Be A New Beginning With This New Gameplay Feature In the Upcoming MMORPG

True Games Interactive today revealed the full details and a video showcasing the unique features of the “Spirit System” in its upcoming MMORPG, Warrior Epic (www.warriorepic.com). Warrior Epic’s “Spirit System” is a unique gameplay feature where the death of a character can actually be the beginning of a whole new strategy in the game. The “Spirit System” offers a player the chance to revive their fallen warrior and use them in a number of different ways to advance through the game.

About the Spirit System
Sprits are a unique feature of Warrior Epic, where the death of a warrior is the beginning of a new aspect in strategy and game play. When a warrior dies during an adventure, it turns into spirit form and resides in the sanctuary of the player’s hall. The years of constant war have blurred the line between mortality and the outer realms. This distortion has allowed spirits to be summoned by the player’s living warriors on subsequent adventures where it will unleash devastating attacks on enemies; or be bound to the player’s equipment to imbue the item with special powers. Both the warrior’s class and level affect the spirit’s capabilities. These spirits can also be resurrected back into living form.

In addition to warrior spirits garnered from a player’s own warriors, there will also be monster spirits that can be found in-game. These monster spirits are useful for upgrading a player’s equipment without sacrificing a warrior.

Warriors and Monster Spirits can be found in the Sanctuary of the player’s Hall. The Sanctuary houses the spirits of the dead and can be viewed by the Hall Lords at their leisure; this is also where the spirits can be revived by the player. The spirits are not on a timer; meaning they won’t disappear and players will be able to keep their spirits for as long as they like. However, after a player decides to infuse the spirit into a weapon or other piece of equipment, it cannot be undone. This sacrifice ensures the item will be permanently upgraded. Hall Lords must choose wisely!

About Warrior Epic
Warrior Epic (www.warriorepic.com) is an online, action role-playing game set in an original fantasy universe. In the game, players will assume command of a Warrior Hall from which they manage their characters’ adventures. They can recruit from a wide array of Warrior Classes, each with its own style of play. The Classes and the Hall itself can be upgraded visually as well as functionally. Players adventure together in multiplayer campaigns, adventure mode, solo quests and PVP.

Unlike most MMO’s today, Warrior Epic will offer players a satisfying online experience even if they have only a few hours a week to play. One of the ways Warrior Epic achieves this is by putting a heavy emphasis on focused, session-based missions. These 20-30 minute sessions allow a player to make significant progress in regards to leveling their Warrior, gaining loot, and accomplishing more in a much shorter timeframe than other existing games.

Some Screens for you from the press conference in SF a couple days ago:

(sorry, no DS screens)

SPIL GAMES, the world’s ultimate online game destination, confirmed today that it has become the largest casual game portal network worldwide based on results from the latest comScore Media Metrix assessment. According to recent reports, SPIL GAMES’ worldwide traffic grew 75% in 2008, bringing its casual game portal network worldwide ranking from the #5 position in early 2008 to the #1 position at close of the year. SPIL GAMES surpassed other top online game portals as the leading dedicated destination network for casual games. SPIL GAMES also reports a 269% increase in traffic in the United States as well as a global revenue growth of 125% in 2008.

“We are particularly proud of reaching the number one ranking in casual game portal networks worldwide. SPIL GAMES is a stand-alone, fully-dedicated and independent portal network, while competitors like Yahoo! Games and MSN Games are general portals with a channel for casual games. And, over the last year, we’ve been dedicated to growing our audience through a strategy focused on providing quality, fun-to-play, localized, and segmented portals,” said Peter Driessen, CEO of SPIL GAMES.

In addition to substantial traffic growth in the United States, SPIL GAMES saw increases in traffic in many other territories in its network of casual game portals last year: year-over-year traffic grew 113% in the United Kingdom, 52% in France, and 19% in Germany. In addition, SPIL GAMES finished the fourth quarter of 2008 with stronger-than-ever revenues. While the greatest concentrations of advertising revenue stream from the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, and France, SPIL GAMES works closely with advertising partners all around the world to develop advertising solutions and provide advergame seeding that reaches specific segments on its portals, making it not only the ultimate online destination for gamers, but for advertisers seeking the captivated attention of this valuable market as well.

For more information about SPIL GAMES, visit www.spilgames.com.

North American Servers Added for the Free-to-Play Tennis MMORPG

Burda:ic, a publisher of online games worldwide, today announced that free-to-play MMO Fantasy Tennis will be available to North and South American gamers beginning March 12 with the launch of Fantasy Tennis Season 2. The fantastic and colorful sports RPG pits player against player as they level up their characters and take to the courts with a variety of powerful strikes and spells. Aspiring virtual athletes will need both quick reflexes and sharp thinking to win, because even the easiest lob can be difficult to return from the middle of a meteor storm.

Season 2 features a number of updates from the original Fantasy Tennis, such as improved opponent AI, new clothing sets, and a freshly-updated user interface. Equally significant is the all-new Heroic System which raises the level cap from 50 to 60. Those extra levels could make a big difference in the soon-to-be-added Guild Warfare, as there’s sure to be a lot of competition for ownership of the league castles!

Fantasy Tennis Season 2 Features Include: 

• Standard tennis matches or battle matches with magical spells and items 
• Themed islands with a wide variety of minigames and quests to complete 
• Leveling and experience system that lets you choose your strengths 
• Battlemon pets who partner with you in doubles matches 
• All-new graphical user interface and improved opponent AI 
• Enchantment system to improve the power of items and outfits 
• Item shop featuring a ton of unique costumes, special items, and Battlemon

For more information about Fantasy Tennis Season 2, visithttp://ft.alaplaya.net

At present, Zu Online (http://zu.igg.com/) focuses most attention on developing later versions, improving the current version, holding in-game events and maintaining the game server. Since its debut, Zu Online has received great support and loyalty from players. Now we are pleased to reveal the recent development trend of Zu Online in order to give something back to our players.

First of all, I would like to talk about the development of later versions. We are going to raise the level cap by up to 265 and also add related contents such as new zones, new monsters, new quests, etc. They are all in development now. In the later versions, the Wind Calamity quests are the first to be released. You may have noticed that the Honored Immortal title had been added to the titles list.

Are you eager to challenge the Wind Calamity? All right, but please be a bit more patient. Here is some good news. We have completed readjusting the style and overall arrangement of the Wind Calamity related zone-Sharpwind Castle. We have completed the quests design of the first two scenarios and also reversed the mounting settings in Sharpwind Castle so that players are unable to mount in the castle. We’ve also strengthened the monsters there.

In addition, we would like to talk about the improvements made to the current version. Class balance is one of the most important issues that we are concerned about. First, we will change the effect duration and cooldown of the Sun Warrior’s Heavenshot and Heaven Hegemony spells. Also, we will raise the Moonmaiden’s attack power but how to raise that is still being tested. Currently, we are trying by raising the damage of some spells. Swordsmen will be strengthened too. At present, we have 2 choices to strengthen Swordsmen. One of them is to raise the Swordsmen’s defense and maximum health. The other one is to raise the Swordsmen’s attack range and attack speed. They are being tested too. As for Summoners and Bead Fairies, we’ve not yet made plans.

Also, considering it’s not easy to gather precious materials for making equipment, we will raise the chance of getting the Mystic Stones back when disenchanting equipment. We may adjust the chance to 30% from the former 20%. But, it is being tested too.

In addition, in order to help beginners get started easier, we will add signposts to the two beginners zones-Blue Mountain and Ghost Canyon, and also add some more detailed descriptions of the daily online reward system and the spirit training system.

Above is merely a brief introduction to the recent development trends in Zu Online. Are you looking forward to them? Anyway, we will keep working hard to improve Zu Online. Again, thanks for your continued support!

For more information on Zu Online, please visit the official site: http://zu.igg.com/ .

Neil Alphonso to oversee level design for studio’s new AAA title.

London, England – 10th March 2009 – Splash Damage today announced that Neil Alphonso has joined the company to head up its level design team for the studio’s AAA multi-platform title in development. Neil comes to Splash Damage from Guerrilla Games where he worked on the PlayStation®3 hit Killzone^TM 2 as Lead Level Designer.

Neil is the latest high-profile hire at the London-based studio, which has doubled its development team in the past 12 months – a direct result of the immensely successful recruitment drive that followed its announcement of a partnership with Bethesda Softworks, developers and publishers of the recent blockbuster, Fallout® 3.

“The Splash Damage guys know how to build great multiplayer experiences that are a cut above most of what is available today,” said Neil Alphonso. “Their refined approach is even more appealing to me as a Lead Level Designer, and provides an excellent base for me to push on into the frontiers of gaming.”

“I love Neil’s considerable focus on advancing our players’ experience, born-out by his refined design talent and stunning accumulation of knowledge while working on games such as Killzone 2 and Splinter Cell,” said Paul Wedgwood, Owner of Splash Damage. “He’s the perfect man to lead our team of really skilled Level Designers. I can’t wait for our fans to see what he and his team are working on.”

Neil joins Splash Damage with over seven years of multi-platform development experience, spanning Xbox®, PlayStation, and PC. He began his career designing environments for the critically acclaimed Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell®, and then served as Level Designer on Duke Nukem Forever^TM at 3DRealms before achieving the lofty post of Lead Level Designer on Killzone 2 at Guerilla Games in 2007.

Splash Damage is currently looking to fill additional positions in art, design, and programming fields. A complete list is available at www.splashdamage.com/jobs.

Land of Magic OBT (Open Beta Test) is scheduled for its launch on March 12, 2009.

Lizard Interactive is proud to announce that Closed Beta Test of Land of Magic (lom.neofun.com) has successfully ended without major bugs or system errors to be found. Thanks to grand support of active testers, Lizard interactive has selected 2 awards winners for remitting bug reports and achieving high levels testing variety of contents. Land of Magic will start Open Beta on March 12, 2009. Land of Magic, developed by Penguri Entertainment based in Korea, is a classic 2D massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) with unique story of an ancient battle which took place between God and Dragon. Fast level up system, easy control of interface and balanced game skills among different classes were praised by CBT users.

Many interesting events welcome open beta users. Lizard interactive is inviting all MMOG lovers around the world. With comfortable computer spec. requirements, and massive game contents, Lizard Interactive is confident to build massive game community for all to enjoy.

Beta testing is an important stage in making a good game and determining the success. Closed beta results were very satisfactory, as Lizard Interactive claims, and showed very promising signs for Land of Magic.

It is free to play and you do not need super computer to play it. Everyone is invited to the mystic Land of Magic. Are you the hero or heroine we all been waiting for?

For further information, please visit the website lom.neofun.com.