Village Gamer

Montreal – Ubisoft announced that it will bring the critically acclaimed Might & Magic Clash of Heroes to the Playstation® Network (PSN) from Sony and Xbox LIVE Arcade (XBLA) from Microsoft. Developed by Capybara Games, the creators of Might & Magic Clash of Heroes for the Nintendo DS ™ system, Might and Magic Clash of Heroes XBLA/PSN will give players the opportunity to enjoy the remarkable gameplay now in high definition (HD).

“We’re very excited to bring Might & Magic Clash of Heroes to PSN and XBLA,” said Senior Producer, Romain de Waubert de Genlis. “Not only have we had the chance to adapt all of our graphics to High-Definition, but we’ve also had the opportunity to improve the game even further, both in single-player battles and in the main campaign. We took many of the community’s recurring wishes into consideration, allowing players to match their strategic skills and taking full advantage of the online capabilities of PSN and XBLA.”

Might and Magic Clash of Heroes XBLA/PSN will take advantage of the next-gen console’s capabilities to increase its visual appeal and enrich the multiplayer experience. With a unique mix of RPG and an exceptional puzzle battle system. This upcoming release will give Might & Magic fans something to look forward to this Summer 2010.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7nzkoqIjrI]

Key features include:

* Rich Might & Magic Universe
* High-definition environments with manga art design
* Five different factions and five different heroes with five different stories
* Fresh turn-based puzzle battle system with offensive & defensive combos
* Unlockable heroes
* Online Level-up & Ranking
* Multiplayer mode for 2-4 players local and online.

Edmonton – Bioware has released information about new Dragon Age Origins: Awakening baddie The Architect – the first darkspawn to develop a will of his own and an unusual outcast who seems not to be subject to the call of the Old Gods, nor to the other darkspawn compulsions. Even though he is highly intelligent, the Architect has little understanding of humanity, and treating him as anything other than the darkspawn that he is would probably be detrimental to your character’s health. Awakening will be unleashed on the gaming public this coming Tuesday.

Calgary – iPhoneDevCamp 2 (YYC), produced by Robots and Pencils Inc., is taking place this weekend at Calgary Technologies Inc. The 1 day barcamp style un-conference starts at 9am and is open to people wanting to learn more about iPhone Apps development, marketing, business models and funding.

The list of speakers confirmed for iPhoneDevCamp 2 includes:

* Jon Lam of the iPhoenix Fund 1 and BigStack Studios Inc.
* Michael Sikorsky of Robots and Pencils Inc.
* Michael Loh of iKingdom Corp.
* Stephen Gazzard of Broken Kings Inc.
* Brenden Duddridge of TapForms.com
* Trevor Doerksen of MoboVivo Inc.
* Paul Thorsteinson of Big Nerds in Disguise
* Isa Goksu of ThoughtWorks Inc. Read the rest of this entry »

Vancouver – The highly anticipated expansion to Dawn of War 2 has gone live today. Chaos Rising is now available for download on Steam – although on the game’s Steam page, there is a message (as of 12 noon PST) which says the game will unlock in ten hours. Also, if you purchase the game right now for $29.99 usd, you will also get a free copy of Saints Row 2 for PC.

In Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising you will take command of the Blood Ravens and defend the sector against the Chaos Space Marines of the Black Legion. Purge the chaos filth and hold the chapter together as traitorous forces work from within to try bring down the Blood Ravens.

* New Single Player Missions – Continue your fight against the enemies of the Emperor and use your squads’ wargear, abilities, and experience to battle Chaos in 15 new missions
* New environment and Multiplayer Maps – New ice planet graphics set will increase the visual diversity and adds 7 new PVP maps
* Aspire to Glory – Build your existing squads up to level 30 and unlock even more devastating abilities
* Chaos Corruption Mechanic – New single player mechanic allows you to equip incredibly powerful equipment that corrupts your squad and will guide the story towards or away from the corrupting influence of Chaos
* New Multiplayer Race – Swear loyalty to the Chaos Gods and play as the bloodthirsty Chaos Space Marines in multiplayer battles against both Chaos Rising and Dawn of War II owners
* New Units – New units for the Space Marines, Ork, Eldar, and Tyranid armies in multiplayer.
* 2 New Last Stand Heroes – Face off against the relentless horde as either the Chaos Sorceror or Tyranid Hive Tyrant

Victoria – Nominations are now open for the 2010 VIATec Awards. Nominations close at 4:30pm on Friday March 19th. Recognizing technology companies in the Greater Victoria (BC) area, there are several award categories open:

* Technology Company of the Year
* Emerging Technology Company of the Year
* Product of the Year
* Innovative Excellence
* Online Strategy of the Year
* Executive of the Year
* Employee/Team of the Year
* The Colin Lennox Award for Technology Champion
* Environmental Excellence
* VIATeC Member of the Year
* Member’s Choice for Service Provider of the Year
* Employer of the Year Award

The VIATeC Awards Gala will be held on May 13th at the Victoria Conference Centre.

Montreal – Emmy® Award-winning Toon Boom Animation Inc. today announced the upcoming release of Toon Boom Animate 2, a new version that provides professional animators with more power and flexibility for creating traditional, digital, cut-out and Flash-style animation. Toon Boom has listened to the animation community and is now delivering a new Animate version that reflects its requests. Animate is totally dedicated to animators and takes care of their needs from start to finish of their animation projects.

New feature highlights include:

• Fast distribution of character parts to layers
• Easy adjustment of velocity on multiple character parts
• Efficient creation of richer-looking ambiance
• Full-fledged SWF export with effects
• Direct import of scanned drawings (TWAIN)
• Convenient text capability

Key benefits
Whether preferring traditional or digital methods, animators will greatly benefit from Animate 2‘s superior feature set throughout their entire production process. Read the rest of this entry »

Ontario via GDC – Executives from the Ontario Technology Corridor are attending the Game Developers Conference (GDC 2010) in San Francisco to show digital entertainment companies that Ontario is the best place in North America to expand or relocate their businesses. The Canadian province offers a deep talent pool, strong and stable economy, and targeted incentives.

Ontario’s fast-growing entertainment and creative cluster produces $15 billion in revenue and over 200,000 jobs, contributing $12.7 billion to the province’s GDP. In addition, gaming and digital media graduates from Ontario colleges and universities have proven to be prized employees at companies like Pixar Animation Studios, Electronic Arts, Walt Disney and Microsoft.

“Our job now is to add to our tremendous home-grown crop of companies. 35 Ontario gaming companies are at GDC 2010 to showcase their world-class creations, make business connections, and help demonstrate that Ontario is a prime destination in North America for gaming investments,” said Larry MacKinnon, Director, Business Development, Technology with the London Economic Development Corporation, an Ontario Technology Corridor partner. The list of companies based or with operations in Ontario and attending GDC 2010 includes Digital Extremes, Ubisoft, FileCatalyst, and Frozen North Productions. Read the rest of this entry »

Vancouver via GDC – Coming out of last week’s exciting announcement of a publishing deal with EA Partners to bring Shank to XBLA, PSN and PC this summer, Klei Entertainment has released a new video of its upcoming 2D cinematic brawler. Showcasing new levels, new moves and new bosses coming to the game.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhZCqzWPY7U]

This video supports its showing at this year’s Game Developer Conference in San Francisco, Calif. March 11-13, 2010. As one of the 2010 Independent Game Festival (IGF) finalists (and recognized for its excellence in “Visual Art”), Shank will be on display at the IGF Pavilion during regular Expo Hall hours.

Montreal – Ubisoft has released a new game play trailer for Prince of Persia: Forgotten Sands. In Forgotten Sands, the developers are using the setting to take the Prince back to the roots which were a big part of Sands of Time. Our hero will travel to his older brother Malik’s kingdom, which is under attack by the Sand Army. Those gamers who played Sands of Time will be able to make use of the Prince’s signature moves and acrobatics in The Forgotten Sands. Using the same Anvil Engine which was built for Assassin’s Creed, The Forgotten Sands will feature a rich environment with massive battle scenes. Just from watching the trailer, I know that my Prince character will be facing certain death a good amount of the time, however – The Forgotten Sands looks to me like another beautifully crafted historic time piece with lots of room to explore and details to take in.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlowGUFT1pk] Read the rest of this entry »

Vancouver – Last Friday evening we attended Massive Bear Studio’s Launch Party at the Granville Room – your new website is awesome – and I see some upcoming news that looks quite exciting, as well. Massive Bear’s projects have included work on Microsoft-Big Park’s Joy Ride, 2k’s Mafia 2 and Day 21 Studios’ Sky Pirates of Neo Terra. Thank you again to Tim Lewinson for a fantastic time and the invitation to celebrate with you – all the best as you set off for a full slate of meetings and seminars at GDC!

It’s not generally our policy to cover the employment downside of game development, particularly with the way the economy has been over the past year or so and the adverse effect it has had on many Canadian studios. While we will always let you, our readers, know about new studio openings and career positions, we feel that other media outlets provide more than enough coverage about job losses and we don’t really need to add to the mix.

That said, I cannot let a recent development pass without comment. For those who have not yet heard, Kelly Zmak formally announced his departure from Radical Entertainment this past Friday. This truly saddens me, as Kelly has been (and will continue to be, I hope) an integral part of the Vancouver development community. A powerful and motivational speaker, Kelly has worked hard on various Advisory Boards and industry committees. He has many times played host and emcee, and he has given me more encouragement and inspiration than he is perhaps aware. I have the utmost respect for Kelly as a business person, teacher and perhaps most important of all, friend. Kelly leaves some big shoes (or should that be hat?) to fill for his successor at Radical, and I would like to take this opportunity to wish him well with his future projects. Read the rest of this entry »

Vancouver – A reminder that nominations are open for the Canadian Videogame and Digital Arts Awards, which will be held May 5th, 2010 here in Vancouver, BC. This event will honour and celebrate the best and brightest in Canadian games, computer animation and visual effects. It will be a great, fun, fast paced night featuring Canadian hosts and presenters, as well as internationally renowned musical talent VideoGames Live! You only have until midnight, Wednesday, March 17th to get your submissions in – all nominations must be made on-line at the Canadian Videogame and Digital Arts Awards website.

All awards are for work completed in Canada by December 31st 2009. This includes products that were certified gold during the 2009 calendar year. Please note: videogame upgrades, expansions and mission packs are not eligible.

Vancouver – We’d also like to remind  you that the Technology Impact Awards also has a nomination deadline of March 17th. The BCTIA Technology Impact Awards celebrate the successes of our industry and the companies, people and innovation that continue to put British Columbia on the map and who serve as role models for others in our province. The Technology Impact Awards will be presented at the BCTIA dinner on June 8th. The dinner will be held at the Vancouver Convention Centre beginning at 530pm.

Vancouver – Last evening we stopped in at the Masters of Digital Media portfolio presentations, as always we were very impressed with all of the projects going on. The instructors, mentors and administrators at the campus have much to be proud of, and we foresee a very bright future for all of the innovative students in the current class. We invite you to check out the industry projects which we got a look at last night. We were particularly impressed with the innovative eLearning application Wound Care as well as with the Rainforest Project and the Bateman Centre Visualization Project.

Vancouver – Following the portfolio presentation we went over to the Pacific Space Centre to attend the VANarts graduation ceremony. VANarts also has many students to be proud of, as witnessed in the many student reels which were presented for 2D and 3D animation, Visual Effects, Game Art and Design and Digital Photography. We wish the graduating class all the best as they venture out into the wonderful world of digital media. Read the rest of this entry »

Vancouver – Electronic Arts has announced two new partnerships involving local studios. First, EA announced that it has inked an exclusive deal with Klei Entertainment to bring the studio’s provocative new game Shank to Xbox LIVE® Arcade, PlayStation®Network and PC this summer. Featuring a unique art style inspired by graphic novels and golden age comics, Shank blends the intensity of classic 2D side-scrolling action games with a gripping and mature storyline. The cinematic brawler is a finalist for “Excellence in Visual Art” at this year’s Independent Games Festival and will be featured at the IGF Pavilion during the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco next week.

“Our mission at EA Partners is to work with the best talent across the game industry, and we are thrilled to extend our expertise to the leading creative developers in downloadable indie games,” said Jamil Moledina, Outreach Director, Business Development at EA Partners. “The team at Klei Entertainment is among the best in the world at developing fun and engaging titles for digital distribution platforms, and Shank is an amazing experience.”

“As an independent development studio, we always focus on creating great, authentic experiences for players. Working with EA Partners expands our distribution and allows us to bring Shank to a much wider audience,” said Jamie Cheng, CEO of Klei Entertainment. “They have been a fantastic partner and their understanding of the space is incredibly exciting.”

Taking place in a stylized, modern-Western setting, Shank tells a classic betrayal story directed through a sophisticated cinematic lens, with addictive action gameplay found in classic 2D side-scrolling games.

EA’s second announced deal today is another exclusive publishing deal, this time with Hothead Games and their newest title DeathSpank, which will be coming to Xbox LIVE® Arcade and PlayStation®Network in 2010. Developed under the vision of The Secret of Monkey Island creator and industry icon Ron Gilbert, DeathSpank blends a story filled with Gilbert’s unique humor and wit with classic and addictive action RPG gameplay. Read the rest of this entry »

Vancouver – Clicktoy Interactive is pleased to announce the release of its software “The Meadow“for the Apple Mac. The award winning interactive software for children ages 1 to 5 is now available for purchase at local Canadian Apple Stores and select US Apple stores, and online at store.Apple.com.

Colourful 3-D graphics, nature sounds and original music bring nature to life on screen where children can join Mr. and Mrs. Bunny as they visit their friends living in The Meadow. With the simple press of a key, your child can guide the animals through the beautiful meadow environment.

“Any parent can tell you that when they’re working on their computer, the little one will come along and want to sit on their lap and press buttons,” said Ken Kavanagh, developer of The Meadow and president of Clicktoy Interactive. “As every key has a function, children are free to interact with the computer without worry.”

With The Meadow, parents and children can explore this charming and peaceful place together, featuring:

* Four detailed scenes
* ClickSafe locks the keyboard, prevents your child from exiting the application
* Stunning graphics and immersion in a virtual nature-walk
* Make up your own stories and imagine together

Available on the PC since 2008 “The Meadow” is now available for the Mac OS. Offered in over 17 languages the game sells for $24.95 and is available now for the Mac or PC.  Village Gamer congratulates Ken Kavanagh and Clicktoy Interactive with this new release – and fully recommends “The Meadow” to anyone who has a toddler and/or pre-schooler in their family.

Vancouver – Vancouver Film School is pleased to present the $30,000 Women in Games Scholarship for the second straight year. This Scholarship covers the full tuition for a female aspiring game designer to attend VFS’s acclaimed one-year Game Design program, named by L.A. Times as a Top 10 school “favoured by industry recruiters”.

With International Women’s Day on March 8 highlighting the achievements of women and the need to create a more equal and rewarding future for girls, the announcement of the Women in Games scholarship is timely. In an industry traditionally dominated by men – around 90%, according to Game Developer Magazine’s 2009 Salary Survey – the scholarship was established as a concerted effort by VFS to encourage greater opportunities for females wishing to pursue Game Design as a career. Read the rest of this entry »

Toronto – Microsoft Canada has a sweet contest going for Splinter Cell: Conviction fans. Check out the Contest Information page at GameStop (yes, this is a campaign to get gamers to pre-order SCC). The full rules for the contest, which is open to Canadians aged 18+ (or age of majority in their province of residence) only, can be found right here, but the idea is that 40 entrants will be randomly drawn from all pre-order registrants on March 18th, and those 40 entrants (along with a companion of their chosing, who must also be of majority age) will then be transported to Toronto on March 27th, where they will be hosted at a local hotel and given $100.00 in spending money. The 40 entrants and their guests will then become teams of two, and take part in a “scripted but realistic pure-skill challenge competition.”

According to the rules, each Team will travel through multiple checkpoints testing their skills against challenges inspired by the video game Xbox® Splinter Cell:  Conviction®.   The Team which most accurately and quickly completes all checkpoint challenges in the shortest period of time (thereby accumulating the highest number of game points) will be declared the winner. The winning Team will then stay another night in Toronto before traveling to Montreal for an overnight stay followed by a private tour of the Ubisoft offices and visit an EB Games or GameStop retail location. Please check the full rules page for more information.

Toronto – Working together with long-time collaborators Fresh TV Inc. and TELETOON Canada Inc., marblemedia has launched Stoked Interactive – to coincide with the March 4 premiere of new episodes of the series and push to the second season premiere in September 2010. With increasing interest in the program, the new site offers a tidal wave of new activities and experiences for fans around the globe. For fans of the French version of the series, teletoon.com has launched a French version of the site. Read the rest of this entry »

Vancouver – Yummy Interactive, Inc., developer of premiere digital distribution technologies, has partnered with Metaboli, Europe’s leader in digital distribution of PC games, to improve and enhance Metaboli’s class-leading online video game subscription services in Europe and in North America with GameTap.

“We’re very delighted to have partnered with Metaboli and to be helping them expand their subscriber base across the globe, especially with their many telecom partners in Europe and GameTap’s service in the United States. There is a strong fit between both companies regarding our culture and goals. Core to both of our company’s philosophies is creating the best experience possible for users playing games online,” says Nick Mellios, CEO of Yummy Interactive.

By integrating the Yummy Games delivery platform and associated APIs into its on demand service platform Metaboli has increased compatibility, download speeds and added more games to deliver exceptional value and ease of use for their customers such as British Telecom and France Telecom, along with their 50+ other white-label services.

Metaboli now offers support for games on 64-bit processors along with Microsoft Windows®7 compatibility. A variety of games will also support mods, patches, and custom maps adding even more value to Metaboli’s services.

“By partnering with Yummy we have been able to make a leap forward in our Games on Demand services. Because Yummy’s solution is so easy to integrate and feature-rich, we have been able to innovate for the next generation of online PC gaming, and we are now even better positioned to take advantage of the paradigm shift to downloadable game content,” said Olivier Decrock, CEO of Metaboli.

Edmonton – Bioware has updated the Dragon Age wiki with new information about Dragon Age: Awakening. Players can get more advance information about the enhancements coming when Awakening is released in two weeks for Mages and Rogues. It appears that there will also be new information coming soon for Warriors, Armour and Weapons, but those pages have not yet been added to the Wiki. In the meantime, here is the latest trailer which introduces Mhairi, one of the newest Grey Warden recruits. Read the rest of this entry »