Do your Sims crave a little excitement too? They can also visit Egypt, China, and France in the Sims 3: World Adventures expansion pack. Al Simhara offers not just the Great Pyramids but also the Sphinx, the Temple of Queen Hatshepsut, and more hotspots full of archeological thrills. Your Sims might even encounter a mummy and find themselves cursed theyll have to figure out how to break that little moodlet or die, but if they learn the mummys secrets, theyll be able to summon one when they return home. Its sure to break the ice at any party.

In China, your Sims can visit the Martial Arts Academy to learn a new skill (remember, its for defense only; overly-aggressive Sims will find themselves facing the displeasure of the local monks). Afterward, they can meditate in the Scholars Garden and cap off their trip by purchasing and setting off colorful fireworks. Those who finely hone their mental skills may even discover how to teleport themselves across vast distances.

France offers the fine arts of nectar making and photography. The tranquil countryside is perfect for doing both, or simply indulging in a picnic nor far from the Eiffel Tower. Your Sims can take advantage of their photography skill in China and Egypt too; as it improves, they can use a variety of camera filters to take more interesting shots. Sims can even sell their best photos. Relics and coins found while tomb raiding in Egypt can bring in some extra Simoleons too, or simply brighten up a room at home.

Santa's Workshop is a festive themed mind boggling puzzle game. Suitable for adults and children, the logic required to solve these puzzles will get your mind working like nothing before. You play one of santas elves who's job it is to wrap the many gifts and place them in the correct location in the workshop.

The problem is that the gifts are so heavy you can only push them, you cannot pull them or climb over them. 96 puzzling rooms await you, can you solve them all?

With festive music and colourful visuals this is sure to entertain even after the decorations have been taken down.

Quantum is a fresh new take on the classic game of Asteroids, with a black hole relentlessly pulling everything into its inky maw. Unlike the original arcade game, rocks realistically collide with each other, and the player must account for the black hole's gravity when moving and shooting.

Contrary to all known science, if the black hole sucks in enough matter, it will explode and thus end the game. So, the player must try to shoot the asteroids before they reach the black hole, a job made more hectic by hostile aliens and the need to collect mysterious bonus artifacts.

Quantum features:

• Modern OpenGL graphics and OpenAL sound
• Numerous hostile aliens that fight back
• Mysterious floating artifacts that enhance the player's ship or provide bonuses
• Resizable windowed or full-screen modes
• Three difficulty levels
• Customizable controlsAnd much more

The Star Trek film and the Star Trek: D-A-C video game were designed to appeal to both long-term fans of the franchise and new enthusiasts alike, said Matt Candler, vice president of Interactive Development of Paramount Digital Entertainment. Given that Star Trek: D-A-C is a fun pick-up-and-play game on any platform, its a natural next step for Paramount Digital Entertainment to extend the game to Mac-based fans through this partnership with TransGaming.

The opportunity to add Paramount Digital Entertainments Star Trek: D-A-C video game to our portfolio for the Mac underscores TransGamings technology expertise and our value proposition for content creators, commented Vikas Gupta, CEO & president of TransGaming Inc. We are extremely pleased to be partnering with Paramount to bring Star Trek: D-A-C to the growing Mac gaming community.

In Star Trek: D-A-C, players choose from five ship types for both the Romulans and the Federation - Missile Cruiser, Support Frigate, Bomber, Fighter and Flagship - with each ship offering unique capabilities for players to master and manipulate from the Captains chair. The Missile Cruiser is a heavy artillery ship that features a longer range than any other ship in the game, but is vulnerable to close range attacks due to a low rate of fire and slower flight speed. The Support Frigate allows players to heal friendly ships and easily target escape pods. The nimble Bomber speeds in and out of battles, dropping bombs in its wake. The Fighter attacks ships head-on, blasting missiles and dodging attacks. The durable Flagship allows players to target enemies with a reticule and inflict damage with an auto-firing phaser that attacks nearby enemies. The Starfleet Flagship is the U.S.S. Enterprise featured in the Star Trek film.

Star Trek: D-A-C supports online multiplayer, online co-op and single player gameplay. There are four different game types Survival, Team Deathmatch, Conquest and Assault. In the single-player Survival Mode, Starfleet captains have only three lives to blast through waves of enemy ships. When destroyed, enemy ships and drones drop special ability and score pick-ups, and players are challenged to grab as many as they can before their lives run out. Top scores will move players to the top of the leader boards and Starfleet ranks. In Team Deathmatch, teams go head-to-head, clashing in a winner-takes-all fight to the finish. In Conquest, teams must simultaneously protect and conquer control points in space. In Assault, teams take turns trying to dominate or defend a sector of space.

• Mac OS X 10.5.8 Leopard or higher
• Intel Core Duo Processor
• 2 GB RAM
• ATI X1600 or NVIDIA 8600 GT or greater
• 450 MB Hard Disk spaceThis game will NOT run on PowerPC (G3/G4/G5) based Mac systems, or Intel integrated video cards.

Avernum 6 is the final game in the popular and long-running Avernum series. Explore a gigantic world, with a fascinating storyline, hundreds of quests, multitudes of side dungeons, and many hours of adventure. The game features clever enemies and dozens of interesting scripted encounters. Learn over 50 spells and battle disciplines. Hunt for hundreds of magical items or craft your own powerful artifacts.

The Story:
Avernum is a world underground. It is a nation of people living in an enormous warren of tunnels and caverns, far below the surface of the world. Once a prison colony for rebels and thugs, it is now a wild frontier, full of adventurous souls looking for wealth, fame, and magical power. Avernum's sole link to the surface world: a single magical portal, small and difficult to maintain.

And then the Blight came. Almost overnight, the mushrooms Avernum needed to feed itself withered and died. Then the denizens of the low tunnels, the savage, reptilian Slithzerikai, emerged. Sensing weakness, they struck, destroying much of a weakened Avernum and creating waves of hungry, desperate refugees. Now chaos and hunger stalk this land, and none seem to be able to find a solution or a way to stop the Slith Horde.

In the midst of all of this chaos, you joined the army. You had a good, simple reason: Soldiers get food. And yet, through a run of good (or bad) fortune, you find that you have a chance to discover and confront Avernum's enemies. The nation of Avernum is rapidly approaching its final destiny, and you will be at the center of events. Can you save your homeland? And, if Avernum survives, what will become of it?

As you wander the gigantic world of Avernum, you will experience:

• An enormous world. Hundreds of quests, dozens of dungeons and enemy fortresses, and multitudes of characters.
• A fascinating storyline, full of surprises, treachery, and epic battles.
• Many unique encounters. Not just mindless hack and slash. Many unusual enemies that will require clever tactics to defeat.
• Rich game system with over 50 spells and battle disciplines, many character building options, and powerful secret skills to unlock.
• Unique game world. Unique races and settings make Avernum different from any RPG out there.Experience with previous Avernum games is completely unnecessary to enjoy Avernum 6.

System Requirements:

• Macintosh running System 10.3.9 or later.
• 800 MhZ processor. Minimum 1.6 GhZ processor recommended.
• Video card or processor with OpenGL support and 32 MB video RAM (64 MB recommended).
• 512 MB RAM.
• 200 MB hard disk space.
• 1024x600 screen resolution with 32 bit color.
  Avernum 6 will run natively on Intel Macintoshes.

The service is designed specifically for the requirements of the game. Meaning that specific hardware has and continues to be used because the game was designed to run on it. The limitations now are that this hardware is pretty old, the storage capacity is more than enough to hold the data from an increased stash size, but at peak load can the service and database actually handle the ability to record all the data without fault? The feeling is probably not.

Now, that's only a reasonable doubt. If we were to throw caution to the wind and see if it works anyway the teams that would be responsible for cleaning up the mess are hard at work on completing the new Battle.net for StarCraft II. We're just not willing to bet the manpower that it will work and potentially impact one of our next major game releases.

The question then comes up that why don't we just upgrade the hardware? As I sort of hinted at this isn't off the shelf hardware and we can't simply throw in some new parts and hope it all works. It would be months of work, again, by teams of people that we simply aren't willing to remove from their current tasks.

- -

It has been a while since the last update, and I'm sorry about that, but we haven't had any new developments until recently. As much as some people want daily affirmations, they aren't helpful. We'll give updates when they matter, and we have a meaningful one going up this week.

In Din's Curse, there are 6 full classes and then hybrids. The difference is that a full class has 3 specialties and a hybrid character gets to choose ANY 2 specialties. Whether you choose to play a full class or a hybrid is up to you.

Warrior:
Muscle bound heroes employ brute force through almost any blunt or pointy object to demolish foolish foes.
Specialties: Weaponmaster, Gladiator, and Defender.

Weaponmaster:
This bruiser goes straight for the kill, an expert in various weapons.

Bonuses: higher attack per dexterity and higher damage per strength
Mana gen: Mana gain on successful hit
Armor: Cloth and Leather
Weapons: Maces, Swords, and Axes

• Power Strike - A powerful attack causing extra damage to the enemy.
• Whirlwind - Spreads pain to multiple opponents, up to 5 within range.
• Devastating Blow - A very powerful attack, all of the warrior's mana channels into one mighty blow.
• Adrenaline - Speeds up your attacks for a moment.
• Perfect Strike - Increases the chance to hit your target for a moment.
• Arms Mastery - Improves combat performance with any weapon.
• Sword Mastery - Improves sword combat performance.
• Axe Mastery - Improves axe combat performance.
• Mace Mastery - Improves mace combat performance.Bleed - Hits are more likely to cause deep wounds.

Where the game really shines is when you play with and against other players. Think of Warhammer Online as a Dark Age of Camelot spiritual successor, especially when it comes to the later levels of combat. Starting out, youll be able to participate in public quests with your fellow players. I joined in on a mission to put down an abomination that had been created due to a botched summoning ceremony and later a mission to clear a town of infected demons. Depending on your performance, youll be given a certain share of the loot. The public quests reset themselves after a certain amount of time, which makes sense but also reveals a bit of the games raw seams.

Later, youll be able to answer rally calls to join with your fellow forces as they seek to defend or invade a territory on the map. Dozens of fellow players will square off in combat, hoping to secure objectives. Youll love being able to test your abilities against live opponents and its great to feel like youre actually contributing to the overall war effort; but youll grow bored with the standoff nature of initial battles. Two armies taking pot shots at each other while no one advances can get boring fast.

To break up the deadlocked nature of some Battlefields, I hopped over to a couple Scenarios where I faced off against the opposing faction in a small map setting where each side vie to capture and hold objectives and gain points before time runs out. The game automatically levels the playing field so you wont have players at a higher level dominating lower level players.

Later, youll be able to participate in Campaigns where you can capture land, keep castles for your specific guild, and really take advantage of Mythics Realm vs. Realm combat system. You wont be able to enjoy this latter function until youre past the first tier of experience (capped at around level 10). After youve passed the first tier of experience, youll be able to travel to other lands through Dwarven Flight Masters and their Chaos equivalent.

Players take on the role of the young gentleman d'Artagnan as he sets off for Paris in hopes of becoming a Musketeer. Soon after arriving, d'Artagnan finds himself in duels with each of the famous three Musketeers: Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. By fighting alongside them, he is able to prove that he has the heart of a Musketeer and is accepted by them as a friend. When the evil Cardinal Richelieu launches a plot to disgrace the queen, only d'Artagnan and his three friends can defend her honor.

Created by independent developer Dingo Games, the game features an old school top-down perspective with hand drawn 2d graphics. Players gather loot, duel enemies, fire flintlocks, and play mini-games as they make their way through the main story. In addition, numerous side-quests exist for players who want to explore the entire game.

It took 165 years, but this classic tale has finally been faithfully adapted into a video game.

• An interview with Maarten Lens-FitzGerald, co-founder of Layar, about this new augmented reality system for the iPhone. What is it, and what games might you see with it?Also, a review of Machinarium by Amanita Design. Help Josef the robot defeat the Black Cap Brotherhood and save his kidnapped girlfriend in this delightful, artistic, and fun puzzle adventure game.

The Sims 3 World Adventures is the most robust expansion pack in the history of The Sims franchise, said Scott Evans, General Manager of The Sims at EA. Players can take their Sims to three new real-world inspired locations in Egypt, France, and China where they will embark on exciting adventures, master new skills, and discover exotic objects and treasures to collect. In addition, the enhanced building and customization features will allow players to express their creativity in exciting new ways. Were looking forward to seeing what players create and the new stories, content, and movies theyll share online.

The Sims have itchy feet and are looking for adventure far from Sunset Valley. Players travel with their Sims to three real-world inspired locations in Egypt, France, and China. They can search for treasure in ancient tombs in Al Simhara, Egypt, fill the sky with fireworks purchased from locals in Shang Simla, China and master the art of nectar-making in Champs Les Sims, France. Players can accept challenges, chase down new personal opportunities, and meet locals who will share their culture and style. Along the way, they can capture the funny, scary and exciting moments while using the brand new photography skill. Once they have completed their quests, players can bring their treasures home with them to reminisce and share with other Sims. Additionally, players will get exclusive, extra game content when they register their copy of the PC/Mac version of the game online. They will receive the Explorers Loot Set which includes exotic Egyptian furniture, Chinese dcor, and more as well as 1,000 SimPoints to be used in The Sims 3 Store to customize their game with additional in-game items.

The Sims fans around the world will be rockin out to new Simlish music in The Sims 3 World Adventures. Over a dozen artists lent their Simlish voice stylings to the game including GRAMMY Award-winners Nelly Furtado and LeAnn Rimes, plus hot rising stars Matt + Kim, Fefe Dobson, Pixie Lott, Natalie Portmans Shaved Head, Katie Melua, Esmee Denters, Young Punx!, Evan Taubenfeld, Madina Lake, and more.

• Requires The SIMS 3 game to play.
• Mac OS X 10.5.7 Leopard or higher
• Intel Core Duo Processor
• 2 GB RAM
• ATI X1600 or NVIDIA 7300 GT with 128 MB of Video RAM, or Intel Integrated GMA X3100
• At least 6.1 GB of hard drive space, with at least 1 GB additional space for custom content and saved games
• This game will NOT run on PowerPC (G3/G4/G5) based Mac systems, or the GMA 950 class of integrated video cards.Mac OS X Supported Video Cards:
• NVIDIA GeForce series (7300, 7600 8600, 8800, 9400M, 9600M GT, GT 120, GT 130)ATI Radeon series (X1600, X1900, 2400, 2600, 3870, 4850, 4870)
  Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) (GMA x3100)

"I certainly did not expect it to have such a transformational effect on our company and the industry as a whole ... we thought that WoW would be able to expand [the MMO genre], but I figured that... if any game would ever pass the 10 million subscriber mark, it would be in many years, many generations of MMOs, many different evolutions of the genre," Rob Pardo, Blizzard's Executive Vice President of Game Design (and one of TIME's People of the Year in 2006), told The Escapist.

Of course, Pardo and Blizzard recognize that WoW won't last forever - which is why he isn't too worried that Blizzard's unannounced "next-gen MMOG" will cannibalize the WoW playerbase, leaving the company doing twice the work for the same amount of people. "Obviously, we want to compete with ourselves, and create something bigger than WoW ... We know that someone is going to beat WoW one day. Someone is going to make a bigger MMO, it's going to be faster and better."

"If someone's going to beat WoW, it might as well be us.

Despite the game's massive success, the developers are extremely aware that they've made mistakes, says Pardo. The lack of a proper Looking For Group tool was something he was "really unhappy" to not have at launch, and that tool is only now coming five years later in Patch 3.3. Aside from all of the technological errors like having too few servers at launch to keep up with the demand, Pardo thinks that the single greatest mistake as far as design of the game is concerned was the choice to introduce competitive "e-sports" into the game via Arenas.

"I'm not sure that that was the right thing to do with the game ... we just added it on, so it continues to be very difficult to balance. Is WoW a PvE cooperative game, or a competitive PvP game? ... I don't think we ever foresaw how much tuning and tweaking we'd have to do to balance it in that direction. Either I'd go back in time to before WoW ever shipped and change the rules to make the basic game more conductive for being an e-sport, or if not that, just say it doesn't make sense. Right now, WoW has a bit of a schizophrenic philosophy behind it, and we're trying to figure out how to guide it.""

We will be giving away EVE Online prizes to 10 winners! Each prize includes:

• 1 x T-shirt (Faction and size of choice)
• 1 x Keychain (Faction of choice)
• 1 x EVE Shot Glass1 x EVE Patch (Faction of choice)

To get a chance of winning these, listeners have to listen carefully to the podcast for the sound effect demonstrated and then email with the correct number of times the sound is heard throughout the podcast. The demonstration sound does not count.
10 winners will be picked from those who get the correct number. The contest is only open to those living in USA, Canada and Europe.

The sequel to Zuma doesnt change the fundamental gameplay: Youre a frog who shoots colored balls at an advancing train (or trains) of colored balls, trying to match three colors to make them disappear. The trains double back on each other, making it hard to get the right shot, and the balls just keep on coming until you rack up enough points to fill the Zuma meter. Then no new balls emerge from the start point, but you still have to clear all the balls on the board before they advance to the end point--or you lose.

To assist you, Zumas Revenge tosses in power-up balls, including three new ones not seen in the last game. Youll get to explode parts of the train, shoot lasers, fire cannonball spray, eliminate all the balls of one color, slow down or reverse the train, and so on.

The frog doesnt even stay fixed. In some levels, he jumps between two vantage points to shoot from. Other levels let the frog slide back and forth on a track. After every 10 levels youll fight a boss character, who showers you with obstacles that slow you down, make the balls wildly change colors, and more. The linear, 60-level Adventure mode doesnt let you progress until you beat each level, but save points, free lives, and a generous continue system ebb the frustration.

Martial Arts themed costume set:
The Martial Arts themed male, female and huge costume parts include robes, shoulders, legs, gloves, footwear, mask, belt and head pieces, as well as new hair styles, chest emblems, and weapons. Male and huge characters also have the option to select the top knot hair style, while females will have the option for braided buns!

Character Emotes:
/em bringit
/em pushup
Costume Change Emotes:
Activate the following martial arts themed 'costume change emotes' using the costume change interface, selectable from the main Menu.
Smokebomb
Ninja Leap

Ninja Run power:
Dash through the city with the agility of a ninja! The Ninja Run power is a travel power enabled through the purchase of Super Booster IV: Martial Arts and is available for use at level 4. Use Ninja Run to strike fear in the hearts of your enemies as you increase your run speed and leaping abilities, and the best part? It doesn't use one of your power selections!

This purchase enables these features for all characters on your game account from level 1, but the costume change emotes do require that you unlock at least one additional costume slot. This can be accomplished by completing costume slot missions at levels 20, 30, and 40; and by using Halloween Event salvage (which can also be bought, sold or traded via the in-game Consignment Houses).