UBISOFT^® TO RELEASE JAMES NOIR’S HOLLYWOOD CRIMES™ ON NOVEMBER 24 EXCLUSIVELY FOR THE NINTENDO 3DS^TM  

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA — November 8th 2011 — Ubisoft announced that James Noir’s Hollywood Crimes™ will be available in Australia on November 24^th exclusively on Nintendo 3DS™. In this brand-new franchise, players will go deep in an exciting and immersive adventure and be confronted to more than 140 intriguing puzzles and riddles to solve a series of murders.

In James Noir’s Hollywood Crimes™, the player embodies the participant of a TV game show gathering the best puzzle-solvers of the United States. But a diabolical criminal mastermind manipulates and defies players at every turn, and former winners are killed one after the other. To get out of this situation and discover the identity of the murderer, the player has to solve the puzzles left by the killer on every crime scene. 

Thanks to the Nintendo 3DS camera, the player becomes part of an interactive 3D movie in a very realistic 60s setting. 

For more information about James Noir’s Hollywood Crimes™, please visit: http://3ds.ubi.com.

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – November 7th, 2011 – Ubisoft has announced the coming release of a demo for its anticipated game Rayman Origins. The demo will be available from November 9^th, 2011, for free download on the Xbox LIVE^TM and on the PlayStation^® Network.

The demo content will include 3 maps from the Jungle, Food and Ocean worlds. By collecting 9 Electoons, demo players will unlock a new costume. The demo also features a custom map to navigate through the worlds.

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – November 7th, 2011 – Ubisoft has announced the coming release of a demo for its anticipated game Rayman Origins. The demo will be available from November 9th, 2011, for free download on the Xbox LIVETM and on the PlayStation® Network.
The demo content will include 3 maps from the Jungle, Food and Ocean worlds. By collecting 9 Electoons, demo players will unlock a new costume. The demo also features a custom map to navigate through the worlds.

A migration and deployment tool for PCs, servers and virtual machines  

Sydney, 8 November, 2011 – Acronis, a leading provider of easy-to-use disaster recovery and data protection solutions for physical, virtual and cloud environments, today announced the availability of Acronis Snap Deploy^® 4, the latest version of Acronis’ automated solution for deployment of data and systems to multiple PCs, virtual machines and servers.  

Acronis Snap Deploy 4 assists IT administrators and lab managers within organisations, such as educational institutions and training departments, to copy exact images of data and systems (including the operating system, applications and files) and move it from one device to another. 

Organisations operate a mix of PCs, servers and operating systems, which drives up the cost of management, including the cost of deployment. Acronis Snap Deploy 4 enables IT departments to standardise and control their infrastructure by deploying a standard master image, and reduce costs and time by automating deployment. 

Common business scenarios like the on-boarding of new employees or students, computer-based training exercises in lab or classroom environments and company mergers and acquisitions necessitate the deployment of a master image across new environments. In addition, a refresh of an organisation’s hardware and applications, as well as server consolidation or data centre relocation, can require an easy-to-use solution to transfer data. 

The solution is based on Acronis’ patented disk imaging technology and takes a snapshot of an entire operating system, its applications and data, creating a master image that can be installed onto multiple machines. The centrally managed solution can be deployed for the benefit of new machines or to reimage an existing machine back to a master image.

“Deployment can be a repetitive and painful task for many organisations. Take for instance a University which must prepare the same environment across thousands of machines for the start of each semester. To undertake this through manual installation is extremely time consuming and can be error-prone. We’ve got thousands of customers worldwide using Acronis Snap Deploy– many of which have more than halved the time taken to carry out mass deployment,” explains Karl Sice, General Manager, Pacific for Acronis.

This latest version includes the ability to customise configuration settings on a per-machine basis, such as setting a unique IP address. Support for virtual machines has also been enhanced with the ability to deploy directly from VHD files.  

Key features:  

• Per-machine customisation
• Hands-free mass deployment with centralised management and automation
• Hardware-independent Images – Acronis Universal Deploy^® allows deployment to dissimilar hardware
• Flexible scheduling options  

Pricing and availability:  

Acronis Snap Deploy 4 is licensed per machine or can be purchased per deployment in batches. Per deployment licenses include the Acronis Universal Deploy add-on in the license price. Pricing starts at MSRP AU$35 per workstation license and MSRP AU$159 per server.

It’s been a long wait, but the fourth installment of King Graham’s epic adventure to save his family is here! The Silver Lining Episode 4 — entitled ‘Tis in My Memory Locked, and You Yourself Shall Keep the Key of It — can now be downloaded, absolutely free, from the game’s official website: http://www.tsl-game.com/episode_iv.php

Previously in The Silver Lining, King Graham’s children fell victim to a dark curse and his wife Valanice struggled with devastating nightmares about her violent past. Now, when the source of an immense evil surfaces from deep within an ancient artifact, Graham finds himself in a race against time to find the final ingredients for the spell to save his children. Meanwhile, secrets about the past continue to surface — and the mysterious Ranger continues to show up at strange times and in strange places. And back in the castle, Valanice struggles with a destiny that is as dark as her origins as she finally awakens from her sleep, but not her nightmares… 

There are two Episode 4 downloads available: 

* If you already have Episodes 1-3 installed, download the Episode 4 Patch (approx. 600 MB)
* To download all four Episodes, download the Episodes 1-4 Full Build (1.7GB) 

To access the downloads, you’ll need to log into your account on the Phoenix Online website. If you’re a reviewer and don’t want to register in order to obtain a review copy, please email me for a direct link. Also: if you’re playing from the advance review build that was distributed on Friday, there have been some minor bug fixes and polish done since then, so you might want to download the new version. Your saved games will still work. 

Happy questing!

This December go back to the four most loved maps from Battlefield 2, boldly reimagined with enhanced destruction in the Frostbite 2 engine.

In this trailer, witness the very first ingame shots from Strike at Karkand, Sharqi Peninsula, Gulf of Oman, and Wake Island, from the upcoming expansion pack Battlefield 3: Back to Karkand.

This expansion pack also features new weapons, vehicles, persistence, and the return of the classic Conquest Assault.

NAMCO BANDAI Partners today confirmed the release dates in Australia & New Zealand for two of its eagerly awaited titles for Nintendo 3DS as follows:

• ACE COMBAT™ ASSAULT HORIZON LEGACY – 1st December 2011
• PAC-MAN® PARTY 3D – 9th February 2012

ACE COMBAT™ ASSAULT HORIZON LEGACY completely reinvents aerial combat exclusively for Nintendo 3DS, with explosive 3D visuals, new controls and intense action. Budding aces will have a chance to try their hand behind the controls of a whole range of real-world aircraft, including some never before seen in an ACE COMBAT game.

PAC-MAN PARTY 3D brings together family and friends with dozens of fun mini-games to compete or cooperate in. The game’s variety of control styles make full use of the Nintendo 3DS™ buttons, touchscreen, microphone, and accelerometer. With support for download play, friends can join in on the fun using just one cartridge shared across multiple consoles.

JWT SYDNEY AND SEGA LAUNCH AUGMENTED REALITY CAMPAIGN

To celebrate the 20^th anniversary of Sonic the Hedgehog^TM, JWT Sydney and SEGA have today launched a cutting-edge, multi-platform campaign based around an augmented reality app that can be used in conjunction with out-of-home, TV, magazines, online banners and websites.

The ‘Sonic Vision – Catch the Blue Blur’ iPhone app (www.sonicthehedgehog.com/getapp) allows fans to capture Sonic in the real world by locating augmented reality markers around the country using built-in maps and GPS.

To catch Sonic, players can point their iPhone at a poster and a gold ring appears on screen. Sonic speeds past onscreen and players have to respond quickly to capture him. The markers also appear on websites, banners, in magazines and on TV.

 “JWT has recognised the rising prominence of mobile amongst gamers and created an experience that is a fitting celebration of a gaming icon like Sonic the Hedgehog^TM,” said SEGA marketing manager Neroli Baird.

JWT Sydney National creative director, digital and direct, Ashadi Hopper added: “Sonic the Hedgehog^TM is one of the world’s greatest game franchises and it’s a privilege to have been able to create a new Sonic experience for Australian gamers.”

To deepen consumer engagement, fans can submit their points to a leaderboard and follow the progress of other players, win Sonic prizes and share their scores on Facebook.

ANNO 2070 ^TM DEMO
DETAILS REVEALED

Sydney, AUSTRALIA – November 7, 2011 – Ubisoft® has announced that a demo for Anno 2070^TM, the next iteration of the hugely successful Anno franchise, is now available to download. 

Anno 2070 shifts to the future for the first time, offering an island of new technologies and challenges for the player to manage, along with a deep economic system and a dynamic game world. 

The demo allows players to experience the first two missions of the game, where you will work for a tycoon leader who is building a hydroelectric power plant. Players will be required to generate manpower to construct a turbine for Global Trust, the organisation belonging to the tycoons. During the missions, the player is guided by quests through the core gameplay mechanics imbedded in the brand new setting, dealing with its challenges.
If you wish to try or host the demo it can be downloaded from: http://anno.ubi.com/anno-2070/demo 

Anno 2070^TM is scheduled to release on November 17, 2011.  For more information, head to the website HERE or Like Anno on Facebook HERE.