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While Waiting For Swarm on XLBA

swarmite [1]I am waiting (somewhat) patiently for Hothead’s Swarm [1] to appear on Xbox Live Arcade – even though I have roughly a dozen other games to play and comment on – but at least I could queue it to download, but alas, Swarm will not be on XBLA until sometime after midnight, I believe. It is, however, available now on PSN, for those of you with PlayStation 3 consoles.

Relic Entertainment [2]This little tidbit from THQ and Relic Entertainment [2] will make the Cavechild happy. Warhammer®40,000®: Dawn of War®II – Retribution™ [3] will be receiving a free update for The Last Stand™ mode is scheduled to be available for free via a downloadable patch on 6th April. The Last Stand, the game’s co-operative survival mode, will be getting an additional twelve new Steam [4] achievements. Unlocking each achievement will grant a new piece of wargear, giving the player even more options when equipping their hero.

Big Sandwich Games [5]Big Sandwich Games [5] announced today that their award-winning strategy title HOARD [6]™ is available for purchase in North America on the PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) system. To celebrate, the publisher has also put the PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system version on sale. Both versions are currently selling for the low price of $9.99, although the PlayStation®3 system discount is for a limited time only. The titles can be purchased via the PlayStation® Network. If you would prefer to pre-purchase Hoard through your Steam account [7], you can do that now, too. Steam offers versions for both Mac and PC, and remember, the Steam pre-purchase price is 25% off the regular price right now.animal pop [8]

Big Blue Bubble [9]Following the success of Burn the Rope [10], Big Blue Bubble [9] is proud to announce their partnership with startup Krot and Enot and the arrival of their latest joint effort, Animal Pop [11]!

It’s a bubble popping bonanza where you pop bubbles to save pets. Pop two or more bubbles of the same color to float all of the pets to the top and win. Watch for power-ups to pop those bubbles before your time runs out! Super easy controls and fantastic art combined with addictive gameplay make Animal Pop easy for anyone to pick-up and play!

Animal Pop features endless gameplay with simple pick up and play controls as well as piles of pets with power-ups galore. This looks like a very colourful and fun game – I’ll be taking a look at it later this afternoon.

Game Prototype Challenge [12]The fourth iteration of Game Prototype Challenge [13] has now concluded – well actually, it ended on March 21st, but I wanted to make sure that Jason had time to post all of the submitted prototypes to the Challenge’s web site. They’re up now, and you really should head on over and check out the thirteen “Burden and Sunshine” games. These games really do illustrate just how creative and imaginative our country’s game designers really are. You won’t be disappointed at all. I’m glad that winners don’t ever have to be chosen, because if I were a judge, I’d have a very difficult time of it.

If you’d like a chance to win a promo code for Good Guy Robots’ puzzle game Codex [14], check out the article over at Best WP7 Games [15] to see how to enter their contest. They will be giving away 15 codes at the end of this week.

Banff World Media Festival [16]Banff World Media Festival [16] has just announced its Media Leaders panel, which will be moderated by Gordon Pitts, Senior Reporter for The Globe and Mail’s Report on Business. These top executives will discuss the issues they find most pressing for today’s media ecosystem and field questions submitted online via Twitter [17] and Facebook [18] by BANFF delegates. Conference organizers will choose their favourite questions from among the submissions and present them to the panel at the Festival. This year’s panelist are:

Phil Lind, Vice Chairman for Rogers Communications
Paul Robertson, Group Vice President, Broadcasting & President for Shaw Media
Kevin Crull, Chief Operating Officer for CTVglobemedia
Kirstine Stewart, EVP English Services for CBC
John Riley, President for Astral Television Networks

Don’t forget about the Festival Meetups [19] being held in Calgary (March 29), Edmonton (March 30) and Vancouver (March 31). We’ll be at the Vancouver meetup, hope to see you there. There is a Meetup in the works for Toronto, but a date has not yet been confirmed. Chaos Theory Remixed Vinyl [20]

ubisoft [21]Ubiworkshop has released a vinyl edition of Chaos Theory Remixed [22], which will be sold exclusively on Ubiworkshop [23] for $30.00. The album is a Ninja Tune remix of the original Splinter Cell Chaos Theory OST composed by Amon Tobin. Big Ninja Tune names participated the project: Kid Koala, Lorn, The Qemists, King Cannibal, Eskmo and Daedelus, with artwork by Ninja Tunes’ own DJ Food. Coincidentally, it’s also the soundtrack for Splinter Cell 3D releasing soon on the Nintendo 3DS.