Crispy Gamer News

GamesCampus has signed an online interactive licensing agreement with MLB Advanced Media, the interactive media and Internet company of Major League Baseball, granting it the right to incorporate official Major League Baseball league and club marks and logos, MLB ballpark images and more in its upcoming micro-transaction based online baseball game, MLB Dugout Heroes. It will be a free PC-based baseball game, to be made available in North America in time for the 2009 baseball season.

The multi-year agreement gives GamesCampus the rights to all current and historical Major League teams, ballparks, All-Star teams and jewel events such as the home run derby. GamesCampus will also have rights to the official 2009 Major League Baseball regular season game schedule, enabling fans to simulate real seasons through actual game and series matchups.

Those wishing to follow what GameCampus is creating can visit gamescampus.com.

Mario Super Sluggers is in stores today, giving gamers something besides Wii Fit and Mario Kart to play. Offering baseball fun using 40+ characters from the Mario universe, Mario Super Sluggers puts arcade action gameplay and special power-ups familiar to Mario fans front and center. Playing the game is much like Wii Play’s version of baseball using Wii Remote: swing the Wii Remote like a bat or make a pitching motion to throw a pitch. Finally, the game allows you to import your Mii’s to customize things a little.

The single-player game sends you on a tour of Baseball Kingdom, where you’ll encounter characters with different baseball skills that you must defeat in order to get them to join your team. These characters serve as team captains, who have special abilities on the field (like Mario being able to pitch a fireball, as an example). Just like real world baseball - and life in general - , some players play better together than others: different character combinations result in good chemistry for a team. In the world of Mario Super Sluggers, this could result in amazing catches in the outfield or the ability to interfere with fielders.

2K Sports has released Konami’s MLB Power Pros 2008 to retail today in North America. This year’s game, which is best played on the Wii (but available for the PS2 and DS as well if you’re interested), offers the same miniature Major League baseball players and teams, action focused gameplay, and pick-up-and play controls that the whole family can have fun with.

MLB Power Pros 2008 also lets you act as general manager and control the destiny of your own franchise in Season mode; or enjoy the role-playing game stylings of story modes such as Success and MLB Life. Gamers can also trade, sign free agents, coordinate practice schedules, purchase new equipment, call up and send down players from the Minor Leagues, and make lots of other management choices,

The Wii version of MLB Power Pros 2008 provides the option for players to import their Miis, from their Wii or Wii Remote (up to 10 Miis) to participate in the game.

Look for it beginning today at your favorite game retailer.

Sony Computer Entertainment America announced via the official PlayStation Blog that playable demos for MLB 08: The Show that will be released tomorrow, Feb. 14. Two demos (for PS3 and PSP) will be released on the PlayStation Store, giving players a slight taste of what this officially MLB licensed title from SCEA will offer when the full games are released on March 4. MLB 08 The Show is certainly getting some good press, mainly due to SCEA’’s extensive showing of the game on the official blog with weekly updates. This week’’s update shows off a little bit more of the game’’s ability to create a custom playlist using music on your PSP memory stick or on the PS3 hard drive.

Boston Red Sox Pitcher Curt Schilling is finally giving up baseball for the other love of his life: MMOs, or more succinctly, he’’s giving up baseball to develop them with his company 38 Studios. Schilling told a handful of media elites at a top-floor suite in Caesar’’s Palace during CES this week that this would be his last year playing baseball and that game development would be his bread and butter. He admits that the concept of a celebrity athlete developing games sounds pretty ludicrous but says that he is adamant about doing it.

Schilling and company showed what they called a tone video for their MMO title, codenamed Copernicus, to a handful of media including The Wall Street Journal, Barron’’s, Newsweek, USA Today and the Los Angeles Times. The clip showed off some heavily edited and scored footage from the MMO concept.

Copernicus will release sometime at the end of 2010, according to Schilling. Whether or not Schilling will succeed in this new endeavor is unknown, but it doesn”t hurt to have partners like bestselling fantasy author R.A. Salvatore and and comic book creator Todd MacFarlane on your team.