Erollisi Day, the celebration of love in EverQuest II
In EverQuest II’s eternal struggle between good and evil, sometimes even a Dark Elf or Ogre has to take time out for some lovin’.
(not necessarily with each other…)
Even though there’s no Barry White music in the background or the scent of “Jamaican Love” incense in the air, it’s Erollisi Day, and love is definitely in bloom in Qeynos, Freeport and everywhere in between. In fact, it seems to be having an effect on quests and items during this celebration of the Goddess of Love and the Erollisi Heart.
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PRESS RELEASe — Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) and Sigil Games Online announced today that the hotly anticipated massively multiplayer online role-playing game, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes™, is now available at retail outlets across North America and Europe. The game is also offered for digital download at www.station.com.
“From day one Vanguard was created with the vision of developing an MMO with an unparalleled feeling of immersion,” said Brad McQuaid, CEO of Sigil Games Online. “To accomplish this, we included innovative features that break the shackles of the traditional MMO experience. Our diplomacy system, for example, is one of many original concepts we employed to invigorate the MMO game play experience.”
Vanguard: Saga of Heroes features stunning environments reminiscent of classic fantasy oil paintings, as well as three fully-developed layers of gameplay (diplomacy, adventuring and crafting), along with a comprehensive character creation tool. Three vast continents are available for exploration, and players will enjoy a fully immersive experience as they delve into new lands riddled with powerful items, dangerous enemies and boundless adventure. As players reach higher levels, they can traverse the world freely on flying dragons, voyaging across far-reaching lands in a breathtaking, non-instanced world.
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Sony’s third-quarter financial earnings results, which are scheduled to be released tomorrow, could be down more than 50 percent from the same period the previous year, reports Bloomberg. The financial news service surveyed five analysts on Sony’s upcoming results, and the median estimate weighed in at 84.1 billion yen (approx $680 million), dramatically short of last year’s third-quarter earnings of 168.9 billion yen ($1.38 billion).
Sony CEO Howard Stringer has “failed to fend off Nintendo,” the report continues, with the Wii outselling the PS3 two-to-one worldwide. The company is likely to lose a record 191.9 billion yen ($1.57 billion) from games this fiscal year, compared with a profit of 8.7 billion yen ($71 million) last year, according to the survey.
In October, Sony cut its fiscal-year profit forecast to 80 billion yen ($656 million), a five-year low. Shares in Sony recently jumped 6 percent, the biggest single increase in more than a year.
As part of its strategy to attract nontraditional gamers to its latest console, Nintendo has offered a number of nontraditional features for the Wii, including Internet browsing and a Weather Channel with forecasts from around the globe. Today the third such offering arrived on the system in the form of the Wii News Channel, a feed of recent Associated Press stories and pictures delivered to the Wii via its Internet connection.
There are currently eight news sections: National News, Regional News, International News, Sports, Arts/Entertainment, Business, Science/Health, and Technology. Users can view the headlines for each topic or spin a virtual globe to see all news by city or region. Different icons indicate whether the news story can be shown by region and whether it has photos attached. Later in the year, an updated version of the News Channel will be made available in Europe, which will show “more extensive” European news for free.
Traditional opinion is that World War II lasted just under six years, from the German invasion of Poland in September 1939 to the Japanese surrender in August 1945. Some historians think that WWII actually started in 1937, when the Japanese invaded China and started a brutal eight-year campaign in Asia. In the game industry, however, World War II is fair-game. Every year, Activision’s Call of Duty, Electronic Arts’ Medal of Honor, and Ubisoft’s Brothers in Arms–among others–resurrect the epic conflict. Today, Midway announced that it, too, is jumping into the WWII game with Hour of Victory, a new shooter in development exclusively for the Xbox 360. The game is not yet rated or priced but is slated to go on sale this summer.
Hour of Victory uses the Unreal Engine 3.0, the same tech framework behind Gears of War and the recently renamed Unreal Tournament III. It features a series of battles from the European and North African theaters, which saw the Americans and the British take on the Germans and the Italians. Players can play each level as one of three characters: a stealthy cover operative, an American sniper, or a British commando fond of frontal assaults. Players will also be able to seize control of and drive any vehicle on the battlefield. Executive Producer Mark Caldwell said Hour of Victory’s more-character-driven, “big sandbox” approach and emphasis on adventure set it apart from other WWII shooters. “It’s an Indiana Jones approach, versus a Saving Private Ryan approach,” he said.
For years, Midway has entertained millions of arcade-goers and barflies with its touch-screen trivia and casual games. Now the company is compiling many of those games into a title for the only touch-sensitive portable on the market, the Nintendo DS. Though not yet rated, the game is due out this summer.
Titled Touchmaster DS, the game will feature 23 “classic” games from the full-sized touch-screen machines. Besides the trivia challenges, which have settled countless bar bets nationwide, the compilation will include a variety of card games, including the world’s most prevalent time-waster, solitaire. Also included are mahjong, several puzzle games (including Gem Slide), and a simple basketball game called Hot Hoops–a title Midway went as far as to trademark.
All games included in Touchmaster DS will take advantage of the DS’s touch-sensitive screen and stylus. Touchmaster DS will also use the handheld’s Wi-Fi connection to let players log onto the Midway Tournament Network, which will list high scores and daily rankings and will host tournaments sometime in the future.
One of the big reasons for the DS’s banner year in 2006 was the brain-training game craze. Released in April and in June, respectively, Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day and Big Brain Academy were solid sellers all year. As of December, the former had sold some 1.1 million copies in the US, while the latter moved 730,645 units. The two games helped spawn a brain-training phenomenon in Japan, where DS games in the genre remain in the top-selling game charts.
Last night at the 2007 Midway Gamers’ Day, the publisher announced it wants a piece of the brain-training pie–but on a different handheld platform. The publisher is prepping Hot Brain, an all-new game that will feature logic, memory, math, language, and concentration challenges for players’ noggins to overcome. The game will be released exclusively for the PlayStation Portable this summer, although no rating or price was announced.
Besides offering a range of noodle-bending mind games for the single player, Hot Brain will support up to three people in multiplayer action via the PSP’s ad hoc wireless connection. It will also feature some celebrity voice talent in the form of Fred Willard, who was the clueless-yet-loquacious dog-show emcee in Best in Show. Willard will voice the entire game, asking all the questions posed to players.
Pillaging villages and crushing enemies doesn’t require a lot of thought and preparation on the part of barbarians. Unfortunately, making a game about them does take time–a lot, in fact. Funcom’s Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game set in the universe created by author Robert E. Howard, was originally scheduled to be released in 2006. The game was then delayed to the first quarter of 2007, then later delayed to the second quarter of 2007 when Eidos agreed to copublish the game.
Now the game has been hit with another delay to allow time to “further hone the qualities of the game,” says the pair of publishers. The PC version of Age of Conan will now launch on October 30, 2007. “We believe that by spending even more time and effort into polishing and enhancing the game we will ensure that the game reaches its full potential in terms of quality and subscriber base,” said Funcom CEO Trond Arne Aas. “The prolonged development time reflects our ambition to meet and exceed the expectations of our fans for this game.”
Funcom and Eidos did not give any specific release date for the recently announced Xbox 360 version, saying only, “Following the release of the PC version a dedicated console version will be released for the Xbox 360.”
Next-gen auto enthusiasts are still waiting for the first car-tuning simulation to get out of neutral. With the Gran Turismo series taking a pass on a full release until Gran Turismo 5, the first next-gen hyperdetailed racer is setting up to be Forza Motorsport 2, developed by Microsoft Game Studios.
Provided the game isn’t beset with another delay, Forza Motorsport 2 will hit the streets of North America this May, says Microsoft. The game was originally scheduled for a November 2006 release.
“Our schedule right now has us hitting Xbox certification around the middle of April and going gold soon afterwards,” says Forza community representative Che Chou. “We want them to put the game on shelves as soon and fast as they can humanly muster. So optimistic estimates have us at retail in the first half of May–obviously the sooner the better, and that’s our goal.”
Microsoft also revealed the 12 tracks (of which various configurations will total 65 different courses) that will be featured in the game: Mugello Autodromo Internazionale, Suzuka Circuit, Sebring International Raceway, Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, Tsukuba Circuit, Road Atlanta, Silverstone Circuit, Nürburgring Nordschleife, Maple Valley Raceway, Sunset Peninsula Infield, New York Circuit, and Test Track. The Forza Motorsport 2 Web site has been updated with driving tips, a breakdown of several tracks with screenshots, and information on the game’s multiplayer component.
Microsoft’s preferred Xbox color scheme has always been heavy on the green, and that choice has never been more appropriate. Today, the software giant reported record revenues for the three months ended December 31, 2006, with a 76 percent spike in its Entertainment and Devices Division sales attributed in part to its green machine.
For the final three months of 2006, the division pulled in $2.96 billion, a leap over the $1.69 billion it posted over the same quarter in 2005, when the Xbox 360 launched. The number also represented nearly a quarter of Microsoft’s $12.54 billion total revenue, which was up nearly 6 percent from the same quarter the previous year.
In its SEC filing, Microsoft said the jump in sales was driven primarily by sales of the Xbox 360 console and its new media player, Zune, as well as greater licensing of its SQL Server, Windows Server, and Visual Studio offerings. Over the course of the quarter, Microsoft said it sold around 4.4 million Xbox 360s. During the three months prior, it sold approximately 1 million of the gaming systems.
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