SEGA Europe Ltd. is pleased to announce that the demo for Yakuza 3 is now live on the PlayStation Network.

In the demo, players will take on the role of Kiryu Kazuma as they explore rich and realistic Japanese environments and complete a series of side missions from the game. They will also be able to try out the new deeper combat experience with two brutal and intense boss battles.

Read the full story

SEGA and Rebellion can confirm that a new updated version of the Aliens vs Predator demo is available now on PlayStation Network. The first iteration of the Aliens vs Predator multiplayer demo has now been taken down from PlayStation Network and replaced with this new version.

Read the full story

Cold off the press, Polar Panic, the new arcade puzzle game is soon to be released on Xbox LIVE Arcade and PlayStation Network for PS3. Spanning 50 icy story levels join Polar in his fight against Mr Big, with 50 puzzle levels to set your brain into a spin and both single and multiplayer survival modes, this is a game perfect to play during the long, cold winter nights.

Can you guide Polar to victory against the Trappers, across the frozen wastes, through the night forests, rolling on the high seas, on the back of ice-trucks to the final oil rig showdown? Learn to build ice-bridges, destroy the enemy generators, find hidden pickups and free captured bears. With clubs, guns, fire, ice and dynamite, each Trapper has his own strengths – together they make a fearsome foe. Scoring an ‘A’ rating on the hardest setting will be a challenge for even the best of players.

“This is a really exciting time for us and Polar Panic shows what the indie development community is capable of. Polar Panic combines classic casual gameplay with the audio-visual experience you expect of modern consoles and PCs. Polar Panic features a multitude of gameplay fun; classic arcade action, fiendish puzzles and the most frantic local multiplayer mode you have ever seen!” commented Graeme Monk, Managing Director of Eiconic Games Ltd.

50 Ice-Shattering Story levels with 4 levels of difficulty (Easy, Normal, Hard and Insane)

50 Brain-Freezing Puzzle levels

Explosive Boss battles

Single-Player Survivor mode

Battle 2-4 Players in local multiplayer mode

Polar Panic, the fast-based arcade puzzle game coming soon on Xbox LIVE Arcade and PlayStation Network for PS3

Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc. today announced Frogger Returns for Nintendo WiiWare and PlayStationNetwork. Based on the timeless arcade game, the latest iteration of Frogger delivers the addictive dodge-and-run gameplay fans know and love on an all-new platform.

In Frogger Returns, players are thrown back into the hustle and bustle of city life to guide their amphibious friend, Frogger, from the city back to his home marsh. Frogger Returns stays true to the classic arcade gameplay style, but is enhanced with improved graphics, a new camera angle, and new levels. Streets, sewers, subways, and numerous other obstacles and enemies are in play – all for the sake of keeping Frogger away from returning home!

But Frogger isn’t surrounded by just hurdles; new power-ups including time reverse, invincibility and time freeze also aid Frogger in his travels.

Frogger Returns boasts a game 12 times the size of the original, crisp 3D graphics and local multiplayer capabilities. Players can go head-to-head in timed capture-the- pad races, as well as compete with friends by showing off their best scores. With a 25-year legacy, innovative controller options and extended levels, Frogger Returns provides all players the ultimate casual and core gaming experience.

Frogger Returns will be available for download later this fall on Nintendo WiiWare™ and PlayStation®Network.

Competition for the coveted Zombie World Tour 2009 vacation is heating up on the Burn Zombie Burn! leaderboard, with less than one week left until a winner is named.

Players have until Monday, Nov. 2 to vie for top position on the Burn Zombie Burn! leaderboard by playing the Secret Lab level on Freeplay mode. The highest-ranked zombie killer will be whisked away on a tour of some of the world’s creepiest locations, compliments of Kuju Entertainment and doublesix. Right now, therealfire is in the lead, with a score of 49,751,233. You can check for the latest leaderboard updates at http://burnzombieburn.com/leaderboard.

A Grateful Dead Whirlwind World Tour
The winning player and a friend will start their journey in Paris, where they will stay at The Aida
Opera Hotel, in the heart of the city, for three nights. While in Paris, they will tour the Catacombes
de Paris, a labyrinth of tunnels covered entirely in the skulls and bones of 18th century Parisians. The catacombs, officially known as l’Ossuaire Municipal, were constructed in the late 18th Century to accommodate the overwhelming number of bodies as population soared beyond the capacity of church cemeteries.

The next stop in Paris will be Pere Lachaise Cemetery, one of the most famous cemeteries in the world, and eternal home to the likes of Jim Morrison and Oscar Wilde. Pere Lachaise Cemetery was established in 1804 by Napoleon I, following a ban on cemeteries within the city limits of Paris. If there are zombies to be found in France, the master zombie-killer who wins this tour is sure to find them at these eerie historic locations.

Once Paris has been cleared of any undead, it will be off to Egypt, where the winner will spend five nights at the Mercure Hotel in Luxor, overlooking the Nile River. By day, they will explore ancient Egyptian history with tours of the Valley of the Kings, final resting place of Egyptian kings and nobles including King Tutankhamun, and Hatshepsut Temple, a mortuary temple dedicated to the sun god.

The Valley of the Kings contains at least 63 tombs, with new ones discovered as recently as last year. Nobles, pharaohs and their families were laid to rest there from 1539 BC to 1075 BC. Do they remain at rest? That will be for the Burn Zombie Burn! contest winner to find out for sure!

A private tour of Hatshepsut Temple will introduce the winner to Hatshepsut, the fifth pharaoh and the longest-reigning woman in the Egyptian dynasty. As was the custom, Hatshepsut oversaw the construction of her own mortuary temple, which stands today on the West Bank of the Nile River, near the entrance to the Valley of Kings.

Additional details and official contest rules can be found on the Burn Zombie Burn! Web site at www.burnzombieburn.com.

Creat Studios (Canton, MA) today announced the release of Mushroom Wars for the PlayStation Network. Mushroom Wars will be available for download on the PlayStation 3 computer entertainment system, offered via Sony’s PlayStation Network on October 15th in North America and Europe.

Mushroom Wars is an all-ages, fast-paced, real time strategy (RTS) game that brings arcade skirmish gameplay to the forefront. With a quaint visual style featuring opposing tribes of mushroom armies, your battles take place in close-quarters maps using simple, straight-forward controls. Play short campaigns with Domination objectives where your goal is to take control of key strategic points, or play Conquest battles where the only way to win is to completely annihilate your opponent. Upgrade your bases to support larger armies, improve weaponry or act as defensive installations. Local multiplayer allows players to determine the toughest little army in the meadow. Move your armies into position and hopefully win the day.

Mushroom Wars for PlayStation Network features:

• Test your strategic tactics. There are 18 levels you can play in Skirmish mode. As you progress through the levels, the number of AI opponents increases. Do you think you can overcome three AI mushroom armies? Don’t worry, there are three difficulty settings.

• Need a change of scenery? With 25 levels in Campaign mode, you can battle in the meadow, forest and foothills of mushroom land.

• Divide and conquer. Local multiplayer allows two players to battle on the couch.

• Additional features. Includes custom music support and players can upload their gameplay to YouTube.

Read the full story

ZEN Studios, the definitive leader in arcade-style pinball videogames, announced today a partnership with Tecmo to create the Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 expansion table exclusively for PlayStation Network.

Inspired by one of the most intense action game franchises of all time, the table combines the same Ninja Gaiden slice-and-dice presentation that defines the series’ paired with the fast-paced action, stunning visuals, and true-to-life ball and table physics from ZEN Pinball.  This expansion table for the critically acclaimed ZEN Pinball is currently in development and is scheduled to release in October, 2009.

ZEN Studios takes pinball brutality to a whole new level as players become super ninjas, exploring the Sky City Tokyo themed table with a multi-level playfield, several speedy ramps, hidden holes, and tricky platform jumps.  Boasting a record five multiball game modes, the Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 Table features a massive amount of killer new action-packed missions to complete where as players can unleash a ridiculous amount of punishment with lightning-fast weapon combos, ball slicing effects, electricity charged ramps and much more!

Developed by ZEN Studios, the Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 Table is one of the several expansion tables slated for release within the coming months.  For the latest news and information on ZEN Pinball, please visit the official website at www.ZenPinball.com.

Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 is rated “M” by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB).  For more information about Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, please visit www.ninjagaidengame.com.

ZEN Studios is gearing up to make an announcement this week for the Playstation 3 system. Here is a picture “hint” of what this big announcement could be.

HHmmm… I wonder what it could be. :)

Zen Studios will officially announce this big news tomorrow on the official PlayStation Blog. Call me crazy but I have this strange feeling that it has to do with Zen Pinball and a very popular Japanese franchise.