Arrrrr! Polish up your swashbuckles and grab your sword, because legendary pirate Guybrush Threepwood sets sail today on the first all-new Monkey Island adventure in over a decade. Telltale's highly anticipated game series, Tales of Monkey Island, begins now at www.telltalegames.com for PC with Launch of the Screaming Narwhal, the first chapter in an epic five-month adventure created by the same team responsible for acclaimed episodic series including Sam & Max, Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures and Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People. The first Tales of Monkey Island chapter is expected to release for WiiWare in the coming weeks as well.

The saga begins with a heated battle involving the brave but often bumbling Mighty Pirate Guybrush, his beloved wife Elaine, and their nemesis, the demon pirate LeChuck. When the showdown goes up in flames, Guybrush finds himself marooned on a strange island with winds that always blow inward. How will our hero manage to escape this meteorological anomaly? What has become of LeChuck and Elaine? And what's the story with the infectious voodoo pox that's spreading across the Caribbean, causing Guybrush and other pirates to act like unruly hooligans? These are just some of the many questions posed in this first chapter of what will become one of the most rollicking and rip-roaring entertainment experiences of the summer.

Dave Grossman, Telltale's design director and a designer/writer for the original Monkey Island games says "I was laughing my eyepatch off on a daily basis while we were first cooking up Monkey Island at Skywalker Ranch, but if you'd told me then that it would become a classic, and that twenty years later I'd be working with a killer all-star piratey crew to spin an epic new tale and bring the series to a whole new generation of players, I would have said, well, probably, Look behind you, a three-headed monkey, but then I've always been a bit weird that way."

Tales of Monkey Island will unfold over the next five months, with each episodic chapter raising the stakes on Guybrush's quest to eradicate the insidious Pox of LeChuck, reunite with his wife, and vanquish his rival. Much like the best television and films series, the story becomes deeper and more engrossing with interweaving threads building to twists and surprises in the grand finale this fall.

Customers who order from Telltale's online store during the first week of availability can choose any other Telltale episode of their choice to include free with their purchase. Visit www.telltalegames.com/monkeyisland to get into the adventure now. Additional Tales of Monkey Island details, gameplay trailers, and a playable demo are also available at the site.

Full Downloadable Game On Sale For Only £9.99 / 1200 MS Points; Trial Version Available for Free.

DICE, an Electronic Arts announce that Battlefield 1943 is now available on Xbox LIVE Marketplace and PlayStation Network. Battlefield 1943 is an all-new download-only multiplayer action game that brings DICE’s first-class WWII action to gamers for just £9.99 or 1200 MS Points. Gamers can get a taste of the epic large-scale battles by downloading the free trial version on Xbox LIVE Marketplace and the PlayStation Network.

Battlefield 1943 is a critically acclaimed First-Person Shooter (FPS) multiplayer game that GamePro magazine describes as “a triple-A title at a quarter of the price” and GameSpot says is “rock-solid value”.



Battlefield 1943 introduces two thrilling new modes where 24 players can compete across four classic WWII Battlefield maps: Wake Island, Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima and Coral Sea. These maps are inspired by the award winning Battlefield 1942™ game, but have been redesigned and reengineered using the DICE Frostbite™ engine allowing players to rain havoc and destruction via land, sea or air. The free trial version will feature Wake Island and give players the freedom to choose from the full arsenal of weapons and vehicles on both sides of the battle, either the US Marines or Imperial Japanese Navy.

The Coral Sea map will be unlocked as part of a worldwide community challenge, where players will work together to reach 43M kills on both Xbox LIVE and the PlayStation Network. The official countdown begins on July 10, 2009 at 19:43 GMT.

“We are excited to witness the intense battles that are going to take place on these tropical Pacific Theatre maps, ripping them to shreds and leaving nothing but debris behind,” says Gordon Van Dyke, Producer on Battlefield 1943. “Reliving these classic maps with the DICE Frostbite engine’s destruction capabilities and full FPS gameplay ups the ante on what can be done in downloadable games. We’re proud to be able to provide this experience to shooter fans for just £9.99.”

For the first time ever Strategy First will release a five hour interview featuring Red Sox Hall Of Fame Pitcher Bill ‘The Spaceman’ Lee.

In four separate sit down interviews with Strategy First’s Emanuel Wall and the Red Sox Hall Of Fame pitcher covers the highs and lows of his career and personal life.

The entertaining, and informative interviews cover a wide range of controversial topics and interesting stories as seen through the eyes of Bill ‘Spaceman’ Lee.

“Bill ‘Spaceman’ Lee is an incredible person and we are thankful to have been able to conduct these interviews. Very few things in this world are free and we want to offer Gamers and Baseball fans alike an opportunity to watch these incredible interviews and no purchase is necessary, feel free to celebrate the all-star game with us.” Says Business Development Manager Emanuel Wall.

Strategy First and Out Of The Park Baseball 10 Bill ‘Spaceman’ Lee interview include same features listed below

- Bud Selig, Pete Rose, Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez

- President Barack Obama, President George.W.Bush, Governor Sara Palin, VP Al Gore

- Personal insight on his experience with the Yankees – Red Sox rivalry

- Who Killed the Montreal Expos

- Insight on writing ‘The Wrong Stuff’, ‘Have Glove Will Travel’, ‘Baseball Eccentrics’

- Barnstorming around the world from big cities, to small towns

- Learn the art and techniques of Pitching and its steady decline

- Being black listed by baseball

- Enemies of the Red Sox Nation

Be sure to watch all 5 hours for free while you still can.

800 Microsoft Points Gets Germany's First Space Combat Title

Black Inc., the core gaming division of RTL Interactive GmbH, today announces the release of Ion Assault, the first Xbox LIVE Arcade title from a German games studio. Developed by German developer Coreplay, Ion Assault offers Xbox 360 gamers a top-level gaming experience that makes full use of the technical possibilities provided by Microsoft's next generation console in order to offer arcade fans an action romp featuring outstanding graphics and gameplay.



In 2183 humanity discovers an energy source that facilitates travel into new regions of space. Gigantic mother ships collect the newly discovered fuel from the distant energy fields and transport it to Earth. When the fleet is destroyed in an alien attack, the player sets out on a perilous journey home in a small harvester. In Ion Assault, instead of conventional weapons, players use the free energy particles that are abundant in space to fend off swarms of aliens. The particles are bundled and the player is able to shoot them at asteroids and enemy ships. The particles are not destroyed in this process, but are redistributed in space, ready to be magnetically attracted again and re-used. Their random distribution makes for dynamic gameplay and calls for a more strategic approach.

"Through the dynamic particle and fluid system the player faces a constant challenge." says Peter Ohlmann, Coreplay Technical Director. "The immense variety of effects, and the scope of the variables, makes Ion Assault a true next-gen game. It would simply not have been technically possible to implement this game concept on older consoles."

Ion Assault offers four scenarios with gorgeous, detailed visuals, each with different types of opponents, bosses and background themes. In the course of the campaign players get to upgrade their spaceships and will, in turn, be able to affect power-ups that enable things such as an increase in ship speed, or an enlarged collected particles radius. Thanks to special power-ups, such as the ability to create temporary black holes, even large numbers of opponents can be dealt with. Players also get to show off their skills in various multi-player modes, and compare their scores to those of the world's best Ion Assault pilots through online high score lists.

Ion Assault will be available for download in the summer of 2009 via Xbox LIVE Arcade, priced at 800 Microsoft Points.

Free New Game Content Coming by Early August; Button Controls Included In Additional Summer Update

Electronic Arts announce its initial Downloadable Content (DLC) plan for Fight Night Round 4. Recently named the Game Critic Awards “Best Sports Game of E3 2009”, Fight Night Round 4 has been winning over reviewers since its release on June 23rd.

The first DLC pack, which will be available for free to both Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 users by early August, will include a new training gym, new gameplay sliders, as well as a host of new equipment that can be used for outfitting boxers. Xbox 360 users will also receive an exclusive alternate version of Sugar Ray Leonard in their first DLC pack, courtesy of Pizza Hut.

EA SPORTS will also be releasing a free downloadable game update by early September that will allow gamers to use face buttons on the Xbox 360 and PS3 game controllers to throw punches, hooks, uppercuts and haymakers.

“The depth and variety of new content we have planned this summer is going to make one of the most critically acclaimed games on the market even better,” said senior producer, Dean Richards. “Among the new content in development, our new button control scheme will give fans a choice for how they want to throw punches in the game.

We strongly believe that the refined Total Punch Control is the most intuitive way to throw punches in Fight Night Round 4, but we also want fans of the franchise to have an option.”