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Microsoft Drops Xbox Price to Compete With Wii

Microsoft has lowered prices on the Xbox 360 to compete with the hot-selling Wii from Nintendo. The basic Xbox 360 will now cost about $50 less than the Wii. The Nintendo costs $250 and the entry-level Xbox 360 Arcade will now cost $199. Microsoft is also cutting the price of its more expensive Xbox 360 units. The cost of the mid-range Xbox 360 model (includes 60GB hard drive) drops from $349 from $299, The Xbox 360 Elite (includes a 120GB hard drive) drops to $399 from $449. The price drop will begin on September 5th.

"We are thrilled to be the first next-generation console on the market to reach $199, a price that invites everyone to enjoy Xbox 360," said Don Mattrick, senior vice president of the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft. "Xbox 360 delivers amazing performance at an extraordinary value with the leading online service and best lineup of games, downloadable movies and TV shows available from a console. The majority of consumers make the decision to buy consoles once the price falls to this mark, making this an important milestone for consumers and the industry."

Team Xbox notes that there have been rumors about the Xbox 360 price drop.

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Best of GC Winners Announced

The Best of GC winners from the Leipzig Game Convention in Germany have been announced. Here they are:

Best PS3 Game: LittleBigPlanet - Sony Computer Entertainment Europe

Best PSP Game: Resistance: Retribution - Sony Computer Entertainment Europe

Best PC Game: Spore - Electronic Arts

Best Xbox 360 Game: Mirror's Edge - Electronic Arts

Best Wii Game: Skate It - Electronic Arts

Best DS Game: Sonic Chronicles - Sega

Best Mobile Game: PES 2009 - Konami

Best Online Game: Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning - Mythic Entertainment

Best Hardware: PlayTV - Sony Computer Entertainment

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Making Virtual Crowds More Realistic

This video from New Scientist shows how researchers in Dublin are looking at how to make virtual crowds more realistic. Developers want to make sure the animated clones get lost in the crowd. It looks more realistic if people playing a game or watching a movie don't notice the duplicated clones in a given scene.

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Favre as a Jets QB in Madden 09

Madden 09, the latest incarnation of EA's successful Madden NFL franchise is now in stores. This is the 20th anniversary of the franchise. Over seventy million units of Madden NFL have been sold so far. The 2009 version of the game has been getting great reviews - EA has rounded up a few of them here. Sports Illustrated has a review here.

Brett Favre was traded to the Jets in an odd turn of events over the summer. Where's Favre in Madden 09? It depends which version of the game you are using. A roster update with Favre as the Jets' starting quarterback is available for Xbox 360, Xbox, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PSP and Wii. Offline users will find Favre on an all-time greats team in the final packaged version of the game and can place him on whichever team they choose. Here's a video with Brett Favre as a Jets QB.



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Nvidia PhysX - The Great Kulu

Here's another demonstration of the Nvidia Physx capabilities. This one is called the Great Kulu. This one shows a strange sea creature brought to life in a simulation meant to provide a "soft and squishy" experience. It's pretty cool but Nvidia's Medusa one was even cooler.

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Online Time Killer: Bubble Tanks 2

Bubble Tanks 2 is a sequel to Bubble Tanks 1 from Hero Interactive. You pilot a bubble tank and try to kill enemy tanks and steal their bubbles. Steal enough bubbles and you get to advance to a new level where you can improve your tank and your weapons.

Similar to BT1, you must travel through giant bubbles, destroying enemy tanks and taking their bubbles to fuel your growth. As you grow, you constantly evolve and get ever better weapons. In the end, you'll have to face the ultimate adversary and defeat it to win the game. This game has been in development for a long time and I?m proud to finally release it! It has FAR more content than the first game- 26 unique tank states, over 30 weapons, and over 50 enemy types! Hundreds of comments on the first game have been considered in the development of this better version!

Bubble Tanks 2 is quite addictive and habit forming. You will likely play longer than you intended to. Bubble Tanks 2 also has great and relaxing music.

Posted in Time Killers

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British Gymnast Alison Carroll is New Lara Croft

Eidos Interactive has revealed that 23-year-old British gymnast Alison Carroll will be the new face of famed videogame character Lara Croft. Carroll will portray the heroine for the next year, with her first appearances to be made promoting the latest installment to the gaming franchise, Tomb Raider: Underworld, which ships November 2008.

The new Lara Croft's role is essentially a promotional one but as a gymnast Alison has no problem moving around as Lara Croft as you can see in the video below. The Daily Mail and London Telegraph have more photographs of Alison Carroll as Lara Croft.

"This is a fantastic opportunity and I look forward to embracing Lara?s world," said Alison Carroll. "It's unbelievable how realistic her movements are in Tomb Raider: Underworld and it?s so gratifying to be able to use my years of gymnastic training to portray such a beloved character."

Alison Carroll will be following in the footsteps of Angelina Jolie, Karima Adebibe, Jill de Jong and Nell McAndrew and several other actresses and models who have played Lara Croft either in games, movies or as promoters. Wikipedia has a full list on its Lara Croft entry.

"With her tremendous athletic ability and striking look, we feel Alison embodies the spirit and strength of Lara Croft," said Robert A. Lindsey, executive vice president of sales and marketing for Eidos Inc. "We're excited to be working with her for the launch of Tomb Raider: Underworld and beyond, and can't wait to see the reactions of Tomb Raider fans around the world to Alison?s uncannily realistic portrayal of Lara."

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Online Time Killer: Pandemic 2

Here's a fun game called Pandemic II that lets you create an infectious disease and try to wipe out Earth's human population. You get to name your disease and then select whether it is a virus, bacteria or parasite. As the game goes on you try to evolve your disease to make it more and more deadly. Breaking news items tell you about your progress and other events happening in the world. You can use your evolution points to strengthen your disease. If you start to do well scientists will try to come up with vaccines to stop you.

You should watch the tutorial as the game is a more complex than typical arcade and shoot-em up games.

Below is part 1 of the tutorial and part II can be found here.

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G4TV Hosts Princess Leia Bikini Contest

G4TV's Olivia Munn looks for a successor to wear the slave bikini as she hosts a Leia bikini contest. Olivia Munn was slave leia last year which is why she refers to herself as Slave Leia #1. Still, Munn may have been outdone by Yvonne Strahovski when she wore a slave leia costume on Chuck.

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Beach Games Featured in Wii Sports Resort

It is no surprise that a sequel to Wii Sports is on the way. The beach-focused package called Wii Sports Resort is sure to be a bestseller when it is released in Spring 2009. The game will ship with an updated controller called the Wii MotionPlus. Wiifanboy describes a few of the beach games in the package.

The theme here is beach games -- perfect for people like us who don't particularly enjoy going outside, let alone baring our flesh. On stage at Nintendo's E3 press conference, we were treated to demos of games such as Disc Dog (lobbing a frisbee for your dog), Jet Ski (self-explanatory), and a sword-jousting minigame in which players attempt to knock each other off of a platform.

Here's a presentation of Wii Sports Resort and the Wii MotionPlus from the E3 conference. There's a few more screenshots of the game here on Wiifanboy.



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Frag is a Documentary about Pro Gaming

FRAG is a documentary about the pro gaming industry from independent filmmaker Cohesion Productions. The film was first showed at QuakeCon.

In short, FRAG provides an introduction to the professional video gaming, cyberathletes and eSports. It also discusses the controversy and corruption in the industry. The film also spotlights the struggles individual cyberathletes face while breaking into professional video gaming and maintaining success. You can buy the video from the film's website.

Here's a great detailed video review of the movie from Awkward Todd.

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Birmingham Salvo Wins 2008 CGS Championship

Birmingham Salvo defeated San Francisco Optx 22-15 in the 2008 World Final championship match of the Championship Gaming Series (CGS). Birmingham Salvo won $500,000 and the Mountain Dew World Champion trophy.

"I'm extremely proud of my team right now," said Michael O'Dell, General Manager for Birmingham Salvo. "They truly deserve the title of World Champions. We faced a lot of tough competition throughout the season, but when our backs were against the wall, every player demonstrated the skills and the poise to step up when it mattered the most. My players spent hundreds of hours practicing this season, and their hard work paid off tonight."

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SimAnimals Coming in January, 2009

Electronic Arts Inc. announced plans for SimAnimals, which is a new franchise from The Sims Label. EA says SimAnimals will establish a whole new category of wild animal games. SimAnimals will be available exclusively for the Wii and the Nintendo DS in January 2009.

In SimAnimals players can engage with animals in their natural simulated surroundings. Players control an on-screen animated hand that allows them to reach out and touch, pick up and move everything in the game from foxes and bears to trees and flowers. Players cohabitate with these animals in their natural surroundings. The animals will come to love or dislike the players depending on how players treat them.

Some of the friendly wild animals include deer, squirrels, rabbits, hedgehogs and owls. There will also be some mischievous characters like foxes, raccoons, badgers, crows and bears who EA says love to stir up trouble. Perhaps, in the future EA may release a Safari or Australian version of SimAnimals that features more exotic animals.

Here's the video from YouTube that shows the animated hand you control. The graphics for the game look very good.



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Google Said to Be Testing In-Game Ads

VentureBeat reports that Google has been quietly testing advertising technology that will allow videos ads to be inserted in games. Google already has huge marketshare in online text and video ads so this sounds like a logical move for online ad behemoth. The VentureBeat store mentions a number of tech companies that already provide in-game ad technology. Google is a little late to the party but Google is big enough that a late entry won't keep from having a huge impact on the industry.

Sources close to the matter said that the company has developed an in-game advertising technology that allows it to insert video ads into games. In demos of the technology, a game character can introduce a video ad, saying something like, "And now, a word from our sponsor," before showing a short video at the end of a sequence in a game. Since testing has been going on for some time, Google could launch the technology fairly quickly, if it so chooses.

But it's not clear why Google hasn't already launched its in-game advertising business, given that the seeds of AdSense for Games were planted in early 2007. Google did not respond to a request for comment this morning. I'll update if that changes.

"I don't know what's taking them so long," said one source close to the matter. "They could move into this market very quickly, given what they have shown off."

If the company enters the market, it should stir up the competition the way it has in other ad markets. Companies such as Double Fusion, IGA Worldwide, Microsoft's Massive, MochiMedia and NeoEdge Networks have been carving out niches with in-game or wrap-around ads for some time.

The first obvious thought is that Google will use the technology with its recently launched Lively virtual world. Lively may just be a stepping stone and testing ground for Google which probably has bigger plans for online gaming and virtual worlds. Virtual worlds and online games are going to have enormous numbers of users and the advertising giants are going to be battling over the marketshare. Users of some of these worlds have enjoyed a long period of ad-free play that probably won't last much longer.

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Scrabulous No Longer Available on Facebook

The popular Scrabulous game on Facebook has been disabled reports the New York Times' Bits blog.

If you try to pull up the popular Scrabble-like game, you get the following message: "Scrabulous is disabled for U.S. and Canadian users until further notice. If you would like to stay informed about developments in this matter, please click here." If you click, you get a form from the Scrabulous founders asking for your e-mail address so they can keep you posted on further developments.

It is a bit of a surprise that Scrabulous, an obvious copy of the board game Scrabble, managed to avoid shutdown as long as it did. I loved to play Scrabulous as much as the next person, but Hasbro, owner of the rights to Scrabble in the United States, was not amused.

Earlier this year Hasbro wanted the popular application shut down but there were hopes that Hasbro and the developers could come up with an amicable agreement. The latest update on the Bits blog is that it was the Scrabulous developers that shut down the popular Facebook application. Outside the U.S. and Canada the game can apparently still be played. Inside the Canada and the U.S. it is going to leave a lot of Facebook Scrabulous addicts unhappy.

Hasbro and its partner Electronic Arts are no doubt hoping the interest in online Scrabble to its online Scrabble game which recently debuted on Facebook.

Scrabulous can still be played from the website. Here's a song for all of you Scrabulous die-hards.



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Online Time Killer: Typing Ninja Hunter

Typing Ninja Hunter is a fun online game that combines typing skills with ninja killing game play. If you can type the short word that appears above each evil ninja they will die.

In Ninja Hunter it's up to you to defend the temple against an army of invading Ninjas! The only qualification: can you spell 'Ninja'? We sure hope so, because spelling correctly and quickly is the only way to stave off this martial arts onslaught.

With five different types of Ninjas to defeat, a boss battle after each level, Upgradeable Defenses and Skills and an Epic final battle, Ninja hunter is Ninja Hunting Fun for everyone!

Try it. You'll be surprised how much fun it is to destroy ninjas just by typing a word.

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Carmen Electra Wii Fit Pole Dancing?

The National Ledger ran a story a few months ago about a Carmen Electra pole dancing exercise game for the Nintento Wii. The story suggested that Peekaboo Pole Dancing - the company that makes a Carmen Electra pole dancing kit - would be behind this video game.

According to the report, Peekaboo Pole Dancing, the company behind the Carmen Electra home pole dancing kit, is looking to bring the new exercise to the makers of the game. The report speculates, "Pole dancing would certainly be an interesting fit for the Nintendo Wii, and it would be something to see how big of a pole they would actually ship with a game."

The Wii Balance Board will be out soon, will it become a striper board as well? Best guess is no, but it certainly would be right on the edge. In other Carmen news, the busty Playboy model is engaged. Electra's rocker boyfriend, Rob Patterson, popped the question in Las Vegas over the weekend, and she said yes a rep for Electra said.

The Wii Fit is already here but we don't see any signs of a Carmen Electra pole dancing video game. An I4U article says Nintendo did not approve the game but that an Xbox version might happen. An Xbox version just wouldn't be the same as a Wii Fit version.

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Google Takes on Second Life and the Sims With Lively

Google isn't leaving much left unchallenged in its battle for Internet dominance but it's new virtual world entry will need work. Lively is the name of Google's embeddable new virtual world. The downloadable service offers avatars that chat, emote and dance and users can create rooms replete with furniture and other objects. The Lively avatars can also interact with these objects and with the avatars of other Lively users. What's missing is the expansive interactive world that Second Life has. It also isn't available for the Mac yet as Businessweek's game blog notes.

Lively is a mash up of instant message, chat room, virtual world, and Web page. Think: Second Life in a web browser. Rooms, like the avatars that represent the users within, can be customized and individually linked to. "If you enter a Lively room embedded on your favorite blog or website," Google's Niniane Wang said in the announcement post, "you can immediately get a sense of the room creator's interests, just by looking at the furniture and environment they chose."

Lively is a 20% project, still in Beta, and it shows. Even on a powerful machine the performance is clunky and, for the moment, it's Windows only. (Mac and Linux clients are on their way.)

Jose Gormez has an interesting review (via Slashdot). In it he notes that porn has already made it was into Lively.

The fact that Lively isn't complete means that Google could make many changes to this service over the next 12-24 months. It is certainly worth keeping an eye on because Google is behind it. The embedabble feature could also make Lively grow much more quickly than competing virtual chat tools. The L.A. Times reports the National Geographic is coming to Lively so maybe this service will quickly get more interesting than it currently is. Here's Google's introductory video to the Lively world.



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Giant NES Controller

This video below shows a giant NES controller made by Kyle Downes. He says he made the big controller to replace his coffee table. Information about how Kyle Downes made the huge controller can be found on his blog.

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Teens Copy GTA in Crime Spree

A group of teenagers apparently emulated Grand Theft Auto in a crime spree that involved baseball bats and crow bars according to the AP video below. The teens themselves are blaming the game according to Kotaku but this is not likely to help them get a lesser defense. The crime spree will no doubt be used by advocates to get the game pulled from store shelves.

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Advertisement: Plurk is a fun new microblogging service. You can get an invite here!

NVIDIA's Medusa DX10 Demo

The following trailer is NVIDIA's Medusa DX10 Demo to show off graphic capability. It's a very cool demo and an interesting twist on Medusa. It is unfortunate that you can't play this as a game. Also check out the realistic rain demo here.

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iTech Fitness Opens 50th XRKade Location

Nintendo has focused on fitness with Wii Fit but this is for home use. A company named iTech Fitness Inc. is setting up arcades called XRKades that feature fitness gaming equipment. They recently announced the 50th XRKade location in North America with the Atlanta YMCA Association at the Northwest Cobb branch. They claim to be the largest exergaming club in the U.S.

Mike Hansen, President & CEO of iTech Fitness, said, "We have experienced a significant amount of growth over the last year which is a direct result of our 'Brand Xperience' business model, our knowledgeable team, and our strategic partnerships. We are on par to break the century mark in XRKades and plan to capitalize on this by releasing a mixture of new products and services that will enhance the overall brand experience for all users."

The company also recently announced expansion plans into the international markets by signing a partnership in South Korea for 26 locations over the next 4 years. The company also sells exergaming and interactive fitness products.

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Play Space Invaders While You Pee

Are you tired of using non-interactive urinals? Well now you can play space invaders while you pee thanks to two Belgian beer drinkers who have created interactive toilets. The toilets are called a Place to Pee and they allow toilet users to play several video games including space invaders and skiing game. Peers can also compete against one another. This could quickly get annoying if it leads to long bathroom queues. (via pmb)

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Xbox Hits 10 Million Sold in U.S.

Geek Gestalt reports that Microsoft has achieved a total of 10 million Xbox 360 units sold in the U.S.

"Our goal was to hit 10 million (Xbox Live users) in a year's time," Greenberg said, "and we've doubled it in less time. The majority of Xbox owners on a global basis are connecting to Xbox Live."

Another milestone the Xbox recently reached, Greenberg said, was that with more than 1 million copies of Rockstar Games' monster hit, Grand Theft Auto IV, having already sold on Xbox 360, the console has now reached 16 different titles with 1 million sales or more in the U.S.

By comparison, he pointed out, that's twice the number of million-plus titles that have sold for the Wii in the U.S. The PlayStation 3 has had just two, he said.

While the 10 million total Xboxes sold in the United States is certainly notable, it also must be noted that the console had a full year's head start on its competition.

They have also sold a total of 19 million Xbox units worldwide. The Wii appears to be ahead of them with a total of 25 million units sold worlwide. Big game releases like GTA IV continue to drive the console market for the Xbox and PS3 while the Wii thrives on playability and its unique sports games. The fact that so many people now own an Xbox 360 also drives the concept of marketing big games in the same way big blockbuster movies are marketed. Any game developer releasing a game for the Xbox 360 in the United States has huge sales potential with 10 million Xbox users out there that might purchase their game.

Photo source: Jake of 8bitjoystick.com

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GTA IV: Huge Sales, Big Controversy

The reviews for Grand Theft Auto IV have been very good - see here, here, here, here and here. CNN reports that sales are expected to be huge - $400 million in the first week. The game may even dent Iron Man's box office take.

The answer could come this weekend when video game enthusiasts find out whether "Grand Theft Auto IV," expected to set sales records in the gaming world this week, will steal glory and revenue from a different entertainment empire: the movies.

As the hype for "GTA IV" continues to grow and reviews scream perfection, some speculate that the game will put a dent in Marvel Studios' opening weekend box office for "Iron Man."

"GTA IV" is the ninth incarnation of a video game in which the user acts as a criminal roaming a city. The series has faced criticism for being too violent, because users are allowed to beat, stab, shoot and kill citizens and police officers. "Iron Man" is a movie based on the Marvel comic book superhero who creates an impressive suit of armor to save his life and help save the world.

"GTA IV" was released Tuesday at midnight and is expected to gross about $400 million in the first week.

Surely GTA IV gamers will take a break to see Iron Man? Reviewers are applauding the game and gamers are engaging in hours-long GTA IV play but not everyone is pleased with the new game. MADD has already come out against the game. They are angry about a drunk driving scene in the game.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) is the latest group to join the fray, criticizing a sequence in the game that allows players to drive drunk. The group has asked the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB), which sets the ratings for video games, to change the rating from M for "Mature" to AO for "Adults Only." An AO rating is generally considered a kiss of death for games, as major electronics retailers refuse to carry AO-rated games.

"Drunk driving is not a game and it is not a joke," MADD said in a statement this week. "Drunk driving is a choice, a violent crime and it is also 100 percent preventable."

MADD likely won't the last organization to complain about the game and call for an AO ratings upgrade. GTA IV thrives on controversy and hype so while MADD has a valid concern this will probably only help sales of game. The hype is huge enough that even The Daily Show weighed in. The only thing that might hurt sales is how annoying and widespread these reported glitches turn out to be.

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Sega Names Cover Athletes For Beijing Olympics Game

Sega landed the licensing deal to create the official video game of the Beijing 2008 Olympics. They are calling the official game Beijing 2008. It will be available for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and the PC sometime this summer. Sega has announced that U.S. gold medal contenders Amanda Beard, Tyson Gay, Nastia Liukin and Reese Hoffa will be on the box cover for the video game.

Amanda Beard, a seven time Olympic medalist, is expected to continue her success as she prepares for her fourth Olympic Games this year in Beijing, China. She has competed in the Atlanta 1996 Games, Sydney 2000 Games and Athens 2004 Games, making her one of the most prolific Olympic athletes ever. Amanda became the second youngest gold-medal swimmer in USA swimming history when she won her first gold medal at the Atlanta Games at the age of 14. She currently holds the Olympic Record in the 200m breaststroke and the American record in the 100m breaststroke, 200m breaststroke and 200m individual medley.

Tyson Gay will be sprinting for the title of "Fastest Man on Earth" as he makes his bid to win gold and shatter Olympic Records this year at the Beijing 2008 Games. Last summer, he became a double World Champion at 100m and 200m, and topped that off by winning gold as part of the U.S. 4x100m relay team. Tyson was selected as the IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federations) male World Athlete of the Year for 2007 and is currently ranked #1 in the world.

Nastia Liukin is a Senior International Elite gymnast and is expected to be one of the top contenders on the U.S. Women's Gymnastic Olympic Team. Specializing in uneven bars and balance beam events, she is a two-time world champion, a six-time world medalist, a four-time U.S. National Champion and has won the American Cup titles in 2006 and 2008. Tied for the most ever, Nastia is a nine-time World Championship medalist and is widely considered to be the most graceful and artistic gymnast in the world today.

Reese Hoffa is poised to take home gold in men's shot put, when he makes his second Olympic Games appearance of his career this summer in Beijing. A member of the U.S. Olympic Team in the Athens 2004 Games, he has earned a number of prestigious titles in his shot putting career including 2007 USA outdoor champion, 2006 world indoor champion, 2004 world indoor silver medalist and 2003 Pan American Games gold medalist. Reese is the reigning world champion in shot put and currently ranks 11th on the world all-time list for the sport.

Hopefully this won't cause any added pressure for these athletes :-) Sega also has a Mario and Sonic Olympics video game coming out this summer. You can find information about both of the games here.

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Mario to Play Wii Baseball

Nintendo has revealed plans for Mario Super Sluggers for Wii. The game features Mario

"Mario is truly a one-of-a-kind character; clearly fans can't get enough of him and his friends," said Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America's executive vice president of Sales & Marketing. "We're giving Wii users brilliant new ways to enjoy him while expanding our series of active-play games."

In the same spirit as other sports-themed Mario games on Wii like Mario Strikers Charged and Mario Kart Wii, Mario Super Sluggers blends richly interactive baseball action with eccentric characters and elements from across the popular Mario universe. Players can swing the wireless Wii Remote just like a real bat or wave it toward the plate to deliver a masterful pitch, enjoying the same intuitive, easy-to-learn controls that helped make Wii Sports a living room hit. With Mario and his unpredictable pals filling out the roster, imagination and active-play innovation are sure to dominate the diamond in this lively title, scheduled for release later this year.

It was just a matter of time before game makers combined sports games with the popular series stars. Most adults prefer the serious games populated with "real" baseball stars but kids are happy to have the lovable Mario and friends around. Wikipedia has a list of the Mario characters that will appear in the baseball game.

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Quake 3 on the iPod Touch

Here is a short video of Quake 3 running on the iPod Touch via 9to5mac.com. Fortune's Apple 2.0 blog says the iPod Touch/iPhone version of Quake 3 comes from HermitWorks Entertainment, a casual game developer based in Grande Prairie, Alberta.

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Tribune Launches Jumble.com

The Tribune Company has launched Jumble.com, a resource offering downloadable and mobile word scramble games.

Jumble.com is the new flagship site for "everything Jumble." The site also offers a Jumble shopping experience where fans can buy books, board games and other puzzle and game products. Later this spring, Jumble.com will feature a Jumble "Player's Forum" and a blog where Jumble creators David Hoyt, Mike Argirion and Jeff Knurek discuss classic and new Jumble games in print, online, and on mobile.

"Jumble.com offers Jumble fans a destination for all things Jumble," said Steve Tippie, VP Licensing at Tribune Media Services (TMS), which owns the brand and licenses Jumble products. "Jumble has been the most popular and most syndicated word puzzle in newspapers for more than fifty years and has a fanatical player base in print. In the last ten months, TMS and our game development and publishing partners uClick have created interactive and mobile versions of the popular newspaper puzzles-Daily Jumble, Jumble for Kids and Jumble Crosswords -- and five all-new Jumble-themed games, with more to come."

The site also has printable games for those who liked to work them with a pen or pencil.

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IFAW Launches IFAW Island

The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) has announced the launch of its new space, IFAW Island, in Second Life. IFAW Island will serve as a virtual meeting ground for those interested in animal welfare issues.

"IFAW is constantly seeking ways to connect with individuals through their preferred means. We are very pleased to be offering this virtual resource to our supporters and to those who may not be as familiar with the International Fund for Animal Welfare's activities across the physical world," said Cassandra Koenen, IFAW's Director of Online Campaigns and Marketing.

IFAW Island offers visitors a virtual African savannah space with species information on elephant populations and background on poaching, illegal trade and migration. Additionally there is a theater presentation space for multimedia campaign updates, a skybox with photo galleries, trade maps and donation tools.

Second Lifers can visit the space by searching "IFAW Island" in the Map tool. The SLURL is http://slurl.com/secondlife/IFAW%20Island/111/179/37

IFAW's official website can be found here.

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Avnet Recreates Technology Museum In Second Life

Avnet has recreated its technology museum inside Second Life. The virtual museum allows people to closely examine items down the minutest detail. The idea originated with the museum's curator according to a press release from Avnet.

As traffic in the real-world museum is somewhat limited, the museum's curator, Avnet's Director of Multimedia Services, Bryan Carter, suggested an experiment with recreating the museum experience, down to the minutest detail, in the virtual world to bring it to more people, or avatars, as they're called in Second Life. "The result is a real geek-fest," according to Carter. "Visitors to Avnet's space in Second Life tell us they're fascinated with the in-world freebies on our giveaway table, with the ability to zoom in on objects in the museum and with the speedboat trips they can make around the Avnet island."

Highly interactive, the Avnet Second Life experience gives in-world visitors the opportunity to talk to the receptionist, an artificial intelligence greeter named Samantha, and also to ask for more information about Avnet, inquire about job openings and find out who the trading partners are that Avnet works with in the real world.

Carter says one of the recent visitors went giddy when he experienced the virtual recreation of the Leak Amplifier in the museum. "I had one of these!" the nostalgic visitor noted on his guest comment card.

"Resources allocated to Second Life are considered R&D; investments, since the platform is new and many of the sales, marketing and training possibilities it offers haven't even been thought of yet," said Jan Jurcy, Avnet's vice president of digital communications. "We look at this as another piece of the social media revolution. In fact, all of the buzz we've created so far with Avnet's presence on Second Life has come from word of mouth among visitors. Wow. We've come full circle in the communications arena - all the way back to people simply telling other people. Well, ok, they're probably telling each other via their BlackBerrys."

It would be wonderful if more museums would do this. There are a few other museums with Second Life exhibits including International Spaceflight Museum, Open Art Museum and the Holocaust Museum. See also this post: Jumping into Art in Second Life.

To visit Avnet on Second Life, search for "Avnet" on the map found within the Second Life application, or access by direct link, which will launch the Second Life client if users already have it installed. The SLURL is: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Avnet/150/154/39

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Online Game Puts You In Immigrant's Shoes

Breakthrough.tv's game about immigration called ICED has created quite a controversy. ICED stands for I Can End Deportation. The game lets people play someone trying to get across the Mexican border into the United States. The Associated Press says the game has become a hit with teens in the video below. Some more discussion of the game can be found here, here and here.



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