Crispy Gamer News

Cradle of Rome, D3Publisher’s new match-three puzzle game for the Nintendo DS, hits store shelves today just in time for the holidays for only $19.95. Developed by cerasus.media, Cradle of Rome lets players build more than 20 historical sites from 5 different epochs of Ancient Roman architecture by gathering resources such as wood, tools, gold and more by matching rows of 3 or more on the puzzle board and obtaining as many as possible before the time runs out. The more resources players gather, the faster they can build the city from a basic saw mill and progress to such historical monuments such as the Temple of Venus and eventually the mighty Coliseum.

In addition multiple gameplay modes offer various degrees of difficulty and bonus tools add incentives to continue the game and eventually become Emperor, according to D3 Publisher.

Family game night is alive and well if you belive all those Hasbro commercials. EA is doing its part for family hgame night with a a new game that gives you all those Hasbro classics without the encumbrances of bits, baubles, figures, paper money, tiles and boards. That game, hitting stores today is Hasbro Family Game Night and it’s available for the PS2 and Wii.

The video game combines six family board games including Connect Four, Boggle, Yahtzee, Battleship, Sorry!, and the all-new Sorry! Sliders (with Mr. Potato Head as the host). The wii version features four player multiplay, customizable enviornments, and party modes with mini-games.

I’m guessing this game isn’t exactly for Hasbro purists, but what can you do, right? Look for it in stores this week.

PopCap Games announced today that it will ship the first 500 boxed, retail copies of its new release, Bejeweled Twist to the non-profit Games For Soldiers organization tomorrow. GFS will deliver the boxed copies of the game to armed services personnel stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan in time for soldiers in the field to enjoy it during the holiday season. Meanwhile, for the rest of us, Bejeweled Twist will hit retail shelves next Tuesday.

“We really appreciate PopCap’s generous contribution – one of several the company has made to our organization – and are ramping up to distribute copies of Bejeweled Twist to soldiers in the field by mid-December, just in time for the holidays,” said Jesse Williams, founder of Games For Soldiers and Army National Guard soldier who returned home from a deployment to Afghanistan earlier this year. “So-called ‘casual’ games like Bejeweled, Peggle and Zuma are hugely popular with military personnel of all ages, ranks and backgrounds. These games lend themselves to the occasional and haphazard ‘down time’ common to military life in combat areas, and provide some distraction and even stress relief in what are often high-adrenaline and/or high anxiety environments.”
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Indie MMO company Three Rings has opened Whirled, its player-created virtual world. The online game lets players build and deploy their own creations using simple tools and code, much like Second Life. The site contains a suite of rich APIs, example code and a growing audience of players. Players can explore catalog of games, customize social areas and begin uploading games and other content today.

Whirled opens its doors with a library of over 12 complete, multiplayer example games like Corpse Craft, which has already gained notoriety for being cool and unique.

Players looking to try something different by visiting www.whirled.com.

EA’s casual game label is going bye-bye after the departure of Kathy Vrabeck. After one year serving as president of EA Casual, Vrabeck jumped ship looking for greener pastures and possibly leaving the division without direction. To address whatever problems or shortcomings the label had, EA has decided to roll EA Casual into its other casual brand: EA’s The Sims label. Honestly, the casual label made more sense than a label created entirely for Sims products, but apparently EA sees that label as the stronger, broader of the two. Go figure.

“EA has learned a lot about casual entertainment in the past two years, and found that casual gaming defies a single genre and demographic,” the company said in a statement.

The merge includes casual properties, licensed properties from Hasbro and the Casual label’s marketing organization. Of course, some of the 600 laid off last week after a dismal quarterly report were probably from this label.

Source: GI.biz

Celebrity Sports Showdown for the Wii is in stores worldwide today. Celebrity Sports Showdown is an all-new property from the new EA SPORTS Freestyle brand featuring 10 celebrities and allows up to 4 players to compete in 12 outdoor sports games. Play as your favorite celebrity such as Keith Urban, Fergie and Avril Lavigne, and athletes like Paul Pierce and Mia Hamm in party game atmosphere for the holidays.

Playing as one of these vapid, empty souls, players can take part in such mini-game sports as beach volleyball, wild water canoeing, inner-tubing, hurdle derby, slalom showdown, joust duel, cliff hangers, curling, smash badminton, arena dodgeball, rapid fire archery, and air racers.

Celebrity Sports Showdown retails for $39.99 and is rated “E.” While this game doesn’t sound like my cup of tea, it probably would be fun to smash Avril Lavigne in the face in a game of dodgeball.

Electronic Arts has opened a new studio in Austin, Texas to develop games for its popular casual online game portal, Pogo.com. The new studio, Pogo Austin, will focus on creating family-friendly casual titles based on Hasbro properties. The initial team of 12 features a strong foundation of Austin natives who boast more than 108 years of collective game experience and have shipped titles at companies such as LucasArts, Aspyr Media, Acclaim, Amaze Entertainment, Human Code, Origin Systems and Family Time Interactive.

The first title to be released from Pogo Austin is PICTUREKA! MUSEUM MAYHEM. a “quirky seek and find game” based on the Hasbro game of the same name. In the digital version, a player becomes the new curator for a museum and investigates some odd things that are afoot. The game is set to launch online in November at Pogo.com for $19.95 (US) and GBP11.95 (UK); it will be available at retail in early winter.