Village Gamer

We will be posting an in-depth PROTOTYPE review & announcing a contest this week

Vancouver – GameTrailers.com (GT), the premier provider of video for gamers and a division of Viacom Inc.’s  MTV Networks Entertainment Group, announced today that Radical Entertainment’s popular open-world action game, PROTOTYPE™, released by Activision Publishing, Inc., earned the GT Diamond Award for exceeding an astounding ten million video views. In PROTOTYPE players fight as the biologically altered and solitary Alex Mercer cutting down anything in their path, be it military, civilian, or monster to make it through an infected New York City. Additionally, players have the capability to consume and become anyone, gaining their appearance, memories and abilities, as they slowly take down key targets throughout the city and unravel the plot behind Alex’s existence.

PROTOTYPE relies heavily on the player’s relationship with its protagonist, Alex Mercer. With an expansive system to upgrade play mechanics throughout the game, players are easily able to find a gameplay style that adapts to their personal preferences. A fully explorable Manhattan gives the game a strong sense of freedom, which was rarely seen in similar open-world games until now with the release of PROTOTYPE.

“Being an open-world game with so much action going on all around you at all times, PROTOTYPE is a game best experienced in motion,” said Kelly Zmak, President, Radical Entertainment. “GameTrailers and their community was a natural fit for showcasing our videos of Alex Mercer using his over-the-top powers, and we’re honored that so many fans continue to closely follow PROTOTYPE. This award really means a lot to the development team here at our studio.”
Read the rest of this entry »

St. Catharine’s – Cerebral Vortex Games Inc., a multi-platform developer of casual games, will be showcasing a diverse line-up of games at Casual Connect Seattle next week. The line-up includes addictive titles for iPhone, PC downloadable and Web.

“Cerebral Vortex Games has a great line-up for fall 2009,” said Keith Makse, President of Cerebral Vortex Games, Inc. “Whether you want to solve crimes, give your brain a workout or battle ghosts, we’ve got you covered. We’re actively seeking partners to distribute our games and we encourage everyone who loves games to drop by booth B10 to see what we’ve got.”

The line-up includes live playable demos of:

Ghost Breaker (iPhone): Battle murderous phantoms using your iPhone camera, powered by a mystical artifact that drains spectres of their essence. The spookiest part is not the ghosts, but the fact that you battle them in your own home, literally!
Read the rest of this entry »

Hopefully this is a sign that GDC Canada will also be getting an IGF added to its roster in the future

San Francisco – Think Services has announced the 1st annual Independent Games Festival China (IGF China), to be held in conjunction with the 2009 Game Developers Conference China. GDC China returns to the Shanghai International Convention Center, October 11-13 of this year.

After 11 years of the main Independent Games Festival competition being held at GDC in San Francisco, the Independent Games Festival will present itself to Shanghai, China for the first time in 2009, in a competition specifically designed to encourage innovation and showcase standout games from smaller companies in the Asia-Pacific region.

The first-ever Independent Games Festival China encompasses three main components. Firstly, an Independent Games Summit event held on the opening day of GDC China will feature multiple sessions with smaller, entrepreneurial Chinese and Asian firms showcasing their work. Secondly, the IGF Pavilion will showcase all finalists’ games on Sunday and Monday (October 11th and 12th) of GDC China, with the Independent Games Festival Awards ceremony being held on
Monday evening.
Read the rest of this entry »

Gormley – Digital Leisure Inc. a leading developer and publisher of interactive video-based titles and console games, announced today the launch of Sudoku 100,000,000 on the AppStore, designed exclusively for your iPhone and iPod Touch.

With over 100,000,000 Sudoku puzzles, you’ll never see the same puzzle twice in Sudoku 100,000,000. You can select the classic nine-by-nine Sukodu gameboards as well as Grand Sudoku, which challenges you to complete five intersecting Sudoku boards simultaneously! Just a beginner? Don’t worry – With three difficulty options, even the most novice player can complete a Sudoku with ease. But if you’re a seasoned pro, challenge yourself in ‘Expert’ mode and test your true skills. It’s time to get your thinking cap on and see how many Sudoku puzzles you can conquer!

Sudoku 100,000,000…the last Sudoku app you’ll ever have to buy is now available for only $1.99 usd on the AppStore.

Digital Leisure plans to follow up Sudoku 100,000,000 with classic arcade shooter Mad Dog McCree and other iPhone and iPod Touch titles in the coming months.

Waterloo – The majority of people consider browser history to be private, but that is no longer the case. Any website you visit can determine your browser history by exploiting the very features designed to enhance your Internet experience, a fact many people are not aware of.

Sample Collage - Not From Our PC

Web2.0collage.com is a new site designed to illustrate how easily browser history can be sniffed by compiling a list of popular (and safe for work) websites illustrating which ones the user has visited. Once this list has been compiled it is used to produce a visual collage representative of the user’s browser history, providing an artful reminder to all who visit that their private history really isn’t all that private.

The first version of Web2.0collage.com was created in a weekend by Holden Karau (a.k.a. pantsd), a University of Waterloo student. What started as a quick hack to learn new programming techniques quickly gained momentum as interest in the privacy implications of the project spread by way of Slashdot. The University of Waterloo Computer Science Club (CSC) graciously provides the computing resources necessary to keep Web2.0collage.com online. As traffic to the site increased Anthony Brennan (a.k.a. hatguy), a fellow student and CSC sysadmin, quickly offered to help resolve critical scalability issues resulting from the crushing load of curious users. For the technically inclined the source code is made available for review under the terms of the AGPL.
Read the rest of this entry »

Halifax – Following a hard-fought tournament, 23 year old Matt Wood emerged as the undisputed winner of the FIFA Soccer 2009 Pan-American Qualifier on Saturday. The Windsor, Ontario resident will represent Canada at the next WCG Pan-American Championship in Guadalajara, Mexico, from September 11-13. All expenses will be paid for by WCG (air travel, accomodation and meals on site). Also known as “Wizikakor” to his opponents, Wood defeated FijiStyler in the final. Thanks to all who participated!

WCG Canada is also pleased to announce the first qualifying tournaments for the upcoming  World Cyber Games Canada Nationals.  This year, Canada will be entering players for Guitar Hero: World Tour and Virtua Fighter 5 on the XBOX 360 console system as well as Counter-Strike 1.6.  Another official game title will be announced over the next few days.

The Eastern Canada Qualification will take place from July 24-26, in the Greater Toronto Area.  Long time WCG Canada partner, LANapalooza, will be host of this important tournament.  This qualifier allows players to move on to the WCG Canada National Finals, which will be held next August in Toronto.

Participants must be Canadian citizen and must have a valid passport to travel to China where the World Cyber Games Grand Final will take place later this year.

Register now to take part in the only live qualifier in Eastern Canada this summer.  For more details about the tournament rules and registration, please visit www.zeropingevents.com.

Canada – As always, it’s nice to start our Fridays with some cool links and information from our favourite tech info guru, Bradley Shende of MEDIA2O and ConnectedLife. Bradley appears every Friday morning on Global BC’s morning news show. Today’s cool links included BoardTracker and BoardReader – two great services for busy people. Be sure to catch his segment next week for more great info. You can view past GlobalTV ConnectedLife segments on Global’s site – just scroll down the index and choose Connected Life. Also, congratulations are in order to Bradley and Sarah, who are expecting twins in a few months’ time.

Ubisoft has launched the official dev blog for James Cameron’s Avatar The Game. There isn’t very much content up yet, but UbiGabe is working on it. The dev blog promises the latest news, links and info regarding Avatar. UbiGabe says he is also looking forward to telling some of the secrets which have been kept, well, secret about the game. Avatar is also available now for pre-order at most game store locations, and will be available for Xbox 360, PS3 PSP, DS and Wii.

Also announced by Ubisoft today is a chance to win a trip to Ubi Montreal to play Assassin’s Creed 2 with the developers. The cryptic details were released on Twitter, with a coded URL to follow. We will share the link with you right here – good luck in the contest. All you need to do is have an account on Ubi.com, grab and share the widget and hope you win. If you win, take us with you – we’d greatly appreciate it.

Sheridan Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning has released their comments about the recent Ubisoft Toronto announcement.
Read the rest of this entry »

via DFAIT – The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT), in partnership with Launch Party Vancouver, present a one-day bootcamp on September 14, 2009, for new media and wireless companies interested in pitching VCs in California.   This one-day program will feature experienced investors from both the Silicon Valley and San Diego markets, and is specifically designed to help facilitate access to the California market.

Pitch Preparation topics will include

• What are California investors looking for?
• Presenting your go to market strategy and your business model. Is your business fundable?
• How to effectively present the problem, the opportunity and the solution.
• Presenting who’s on your team, establishing credibility etc.
• How to present your evaluation of the competition.

Pitching Session to a Review Board of Investment Professionals

• 10-minute company pitch to local and California investors
• Instant pitch feedback by the Board

Networking Event
Read the rest of this entry »

Lévis – Creaform, developer and manufacturer of the Handyscan 3D line-up of handheld and self-positioning laser scanners, and specialized in 3D technologies, announces an important investment from two major Canadian investment companies: Novacap and Capital régional et coopératif Desjardins (CRCD). Creaform had very positive sales results in Q1, enjoying a 35% increase in year over year revenue.

“Creaform now has two first-rate financial partners, said Charles Mony, president of Creaform. Their expertise in finance and economy will be very precious to us, in particular in the realization of future expansion and acquisition projects. Plus, Novacap’s and CRCD’s financial support will help us speed up our growth and strengthen both our well-established line-ups of products, Handyscan 3D and HandyPROBE, while carrying on with our R&D efforts.”

“Creaform is certainly a jewel amongst the Canadian high technology companies, and will rapidly become a world leader in its industry. Creaform is a great addition to Novacap’s technology portfolio, and we are thrilled to work with them going forward and to contribute to their success”, said Pascal Tremblay, general partner at Novacap.

“We are proud to join Novacap in supporting Creaform’s growth. Thanks to the quality and diversification of its clientele and the experience of its team of employees, Creaform is well-positioned on the growing market of 3D scanning”, said Luc Ménard, vice-president of Desjardins Venture Capital.

Vancouver – Techneos Entryware 6.4 mobile survey software was released today; we at Village Gamer can see many uses for this product within the game industry – especially at conferences and expos. Providing seamless compatibility with Windows Mobile devices and enhanced capabilities for mobile research, Entryware 6.4 provides a powerful set of capabilities for both face-to-face interviewing and diary studies using a wide range of mobile devices. This release, combined with the recent announcement of Techneos Entryware mobile survey software running on the Palm Pre, strengthens Techneos’ position as a global leader in mobile survey software. Techneos also provides rich tools for engaging people at the point of experience using Windows-based tablet PCs, Netbooks and Ultra-mobile PCs, as well as PDA and Smartphone devices running the Palm Operating System.

Highlights of this Entryware 6.4 upgrade include: improved look and feel for all handheld surveys; photo capture on Windows Mobile devices; 5-way navigation allowing for quicker and easier movement through a questionnaire; and an optional new “diary engine” which enables research managers to lock down Windows Mobile devices so that other applications cannot be accessed by mobile users.
Read the rest of this entry »