Ubisoft Ships Press Your Luck Videogame
Big bucks, no whammies.
<A HREF="http://de.ign.com/event.ng/Type%3dclick%26FlightID%3d134181%26AdID%3d148384%26TargetID%3d7367%26Targets%3d23233,6556,7367,7012,6781,6505,18399,22842,6918,19866,7143,7085,10619,13523,22977,23219%26Values%3d34,46,51,85,90,100,110,150,225,227,235,236,268,461,839,1503,1594,1818,2683,2684,2721,2889,3173,3932,4295,4799,6612,6744,8052,8140,59609%26RawValues%3d%26Redirect%3dhttp://coptherecruit.us.ubi.com/" target="_blank"><IMG SRC="http://ads.ign.com/advertisers/ubisoft/cop/Cop_300x250_Backup.jpg" WIDTH=300 HEIGHT=250 BORDER=0></A> By Saudi Ali, Friday 6.11.2009
November 5, 2009 - SAN FRANCISCO - Ubisoft today announced the official launch of Press Your Luck 2010 Edition. Currently available for the Nintendo Wii system, the Nintendo DS system and Windows-based PC, Press Your Luck 2010 Edition features single- or multiplayer modes so that more people can get in on the fun and play together. Additionally, the game allows players to design and customize their own personal avatar. The game has been created by Ludia and is licensed by FremantleMedia Enterprises (FME).
Press Your Luck is a true-to-life revival of the famous game show from the 80's rendered with a dynamic new design. Players assume the role of one of the three contestants competing to win by answering a series of trivia questions correctly, to earn "spins" on the Big Board of cash and prizes. All of the elements of the original TV game show, including thousands of general knowledge trivia questions to challenge players, are included, as well as animations of the memorably mischievous Whammy character to punctuate the game. Whichever player ends the game with the highest earnings wins, while successfully avoiding the dreaded Whammy or risk losing it all. Additionally, there are a host of special unlockable items to reward players for progress in the game.
Consumers can play mini-games that replicate the game show experience, as well as enter for chances at real prizes at the Press Your Luck 2010 Edition website at www.gameshowvideogames.com, which also include The Price is Right and Family Feud.
About Ubisoft
Ubisoft is a leading producer, publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment products worldwide and has grown considerably through a strong and diversified line-up of products and partnerships. Ubisoft is present in 28 countries and has sales in more than 55 countries around the globe. It is committed to delivering high-quality, cutting-edge video game titles to consumers. For the 2008–09 fiscal year Ubisoft generated sales of 1.058 billion euros. To learn more, please visit www.ubisoftgroup.com.
About Ludia Inc.
Ludia creates and distributes cross-platform interactive entertainment with mass consumer appeal. Located in Montreal and founded by experienced industry players, Ludia's innovative and high-quality product portfolio consists of original and branded properties including American Idol, The Bachelor & The Bachelorette, Family Feud, Hell's Kitchen, Press Your Luck, The Amazing Race, The Price Is Right and Where's Waldo?.
www.ludia.com
About FREMANTLEMEDIA ENTERPRISES & FREMANTLEMEDIA
FremantleMedia Enterprises is the brand extension arm of FremantleMedia, offering a one-stop-shop for all Licensing, Distribution and Home Entertainment. It is a division of FremantleMedia, one of the largest international creators and producers of entertainment brands in the world with leading prime time drama, serial drama, entertainment and factual entertainment programming in over 40 countries worldwide. FremantleMedia is a subsidiary of RTL Group, Europe's largest television and radio broadcast company, which is 90% owned by Bertelsmann AG, an integrated media and entertainment company that commands leading positions in the world's media markets. For further information, visit http://www.fremantlemedia.com.
About FREMANTLEMEDIA NORTH AMERICA
FremantleMedia North America (FMNA) is the U.S. production division of global media giant FremantleMedia. Based in Burbank, California, FMNA produces entertaining and innovative programs for network, cable, syndicated and online platforms, including the Emmy-nominated musical/reality phenomenon "American Idol" (FOX), "America's Got Talent" (NBC), "Let's Dance" (ABC), "Can You Duet" (CMT), "The Chilli Project" (MTV), "Secret Girlfriend" (Comedy Central), "Let's Make A Deal" (CBS), "Family Feud" (syndicated), "Million Dollar Password" (CBS), and the longest-running game show in television history, "The Price Is Right" (CBS).
About "PRESS YOUR LUCK"
First broadcast in 1983, Press Your Luck became a classic TV game show where contestants collected "spins" by answering trivia questions and then used the spins on an 18-space game board full of cash and prizes. It featured the animated Whammy character that included celebrity Whammies (Michael Jackson, Boy George and Tina Turner) as well as seasonal, sport Whammies and many more!
Gwen Stefani in Band Hero avatar argument
Ain't No Doubt about it
6th November 2009 16:19 GMT
US ska-pop band No Doubt - best know for its 1996 hit Don't Speak - has become the latest group to throw a hissy fit over the use of its lead singer’s likeness in a videogame.
The band agreed to lead singer Gwen Stefani’s likeness being used alongside three No Doubt songs included in Activision's videogame Band Hero, but they now object to gamers being able to ‘play’ Stefani alongside songs from other bands.
No Doubt has allegedly accused Activision of a breach of contract. Activision has said it “believes it is within its legal rights with respect to the use and portrayal of the band”, according to a report by the BBC.
The case smacks of a similar argument between Activision and early 1990s grunge rockers Nirvana.
Just last month the band’s surviving members – among them Foo Fighters’ frontman Dave Grohl – protested that gamers should only be able to use Kurt Cobain’s likeness to play Nirvana songs in Guitar Hero 5.
It is believed No Doubt is seeking unspecified damages and an injunction preventing Activision from distributing the game. ®
The band agreed to lead singer Gwen Stefani’s likeness being used alongside three No Doubt songs included in Activision's videogame Band Hero, but they now object to gamers being able to ‘play’ Stefani alongside songs from other bands.
No Doubt has allegedly accused Activision of a breach of contract. Activision has said it “believes it is within its legal rights with respect to the use and portrayal of the band”, according to a report by the BBC.
The case smacks of a similar argument between Activision and early 1990s grunge rockers Nirvana.
Just last month the band’s surviving members – among them Foo Fighters’ frontman Dave Grohl – protested that gamers should only be able to use Kurt Cobain’s likeness to play Nirvana songs in Guitar Hero 5.
It is believed No Doubt is seeking unspecified damages and an injunction preventing Activision from distributing the game. ®
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05:53 PM
I wish I could've played through F.E.A.R. back when it came out. I tend to get that odd motion sickness from playing old FPS games. From what I saw before I had to quit was great though. Creepy.
05:46 PM
Mass Effect, when I found a body of someone that was supposedly been dead for a long, long time, but when I looked closer, they... they were still blinking! Okay, that's more likely a glitch, but was still just a little unsettling.
08:40 PM
05:26 PM
Another thing that works for me is being able to attack me while I'm not expecting it. If I'm playing a horror game I expect the dead bodies to come to life, so that's not scary. It's in moments like Resident Evil when I first walked by a boarded up window, and then arms came out of nowhere, and grabbed me. Also when the Titan would just bust through a wall, when I was try to be very cautious.
05:15 PM
One day I'll finish it, but I refuse to commit to when.
Some people just don't dig the FF games, and don't find them scary - I have to think these are the folks who in no way, shape or form believe in an afterlife. I don't believe in zombies, so L4D and Resident Evil don't do much for me - but I seem to unconsciously believe in spirits, so playing Fatal Frame is like having an icy hand gripping my heart the whole way through.
04:31 PM
In real life, my greatest source of fear isn’t about physical danger, it's about disruptions of mind and thought. Loss of self-control, delusion, reality around me dissolving into incomprehensible chaos because I’ve lost my ability to reason- THAT’S terror. That’s helplessness.
So, I’ve been advancing through the game for a while- but now my straightforward, comprehensible, and above all rational (by Kojima standards) military adventure has been yanked away. People I’ve trusted and grown accustomed to suddenly have different personalities and are saying things that make no sense. Normal, comfortable, predictable conventions of reality (like the Game Over screen) are suddenly confusing and not behaving as they should. I’m being told I’m not really who I think I am and that my identity may be a delusion. The lines between reality and fantasy are blurring or collapsing entirely, both within the universe of the game (suggestions that Raiden is actually in VR) and beyond it (the Colonel telling Raiden to turn the game off).
I found it incredibly creepy and unsettling. I’m being attacked by terrorists or soldiers or a portly mad bomber on roller-skates- fine. I can evade physical attacks. I can kill them before they kill me. There’s nothing to dodge or run from or kill when rational, comprehensible reality itself is falling apart around me.
04:12 PM
I had opted to play with the radio always on. The static sound in my mind equated with nearby fiends. And yet, with the radio static going haywire, I could not see any monsters as I made my way down this linear path. Not in front of me, nor behind me. Yet the damn radio would not shut up.
All of a sudden (as most everything is) what I could only describe as a shadow dropped from the top of the screen, roared and slashed at me, and then pulled itself back up, within the span of a second.
And that, my friends, scared the ever loving shit out of me. It had not once crossed my mind that there would be any enemies on the ceiling. I ran to the end of that damn sewer as fast as the character's running speed could. And I never looked back.
I agree with most everything everyone has said here. A game's unique ability to immerse the player in it's world through interactivity overall trumps anything a traditional motion picture could ultimately provide in terms of horror, even if the title isn't specifically a "horror" game. Anytime a game yanks away freedoms you had previously been given, anytime you expect to encounter something, and then you never do.
Heh. ^o^ I love this entertainment medium.
03:12 PM
Fatal Frame scares me. They make you play the roll of a Japanese girl... so talk about your sense of vulnerability. To top it off, the only way to fight the ghosts in the game is to look at them through the claustrophobic lens of a camera and take their photo. Very weird and intimate and scary. Your impulse is to run, but you have to stand there and focus on these things as they are coming after you.
There was a point where I was standing outside the door to a room. I had to go into the room to continue the game but I was too afraid because I didn't know what would be in there... but I knew it would be bad. I finally sucked it up, jerked open the door and ran in at full speed. Not that I could outrun the triggered event... but that's where my state of mind was. I have yet to finish the game. I'm too much of a wuss.
I've gotten some good fear out of the Resident Evil series, but that's more a sense of jeopardy and "BOO!" scary than lingering dread. I'd say my number two scariest game was Eternal Darkness. What with the insanity meter and all, that game will screw you up.
02:42 PM
Then there's scary. Where something jumps out and scares you, like the early Resident Evil games.
A game that scares me is Gears of War. When I play multiplayer execution. It's just me and another guy left. Who I know is a good sniper and I can't find him. I get nervous because at any moment my head could get sniped off. When it's happened. It's scares the shit out of me!
02:36 PM
Random scares just don't work for me. I don't crap my pants when a monster suddely jumps down from the ceiling or something like that.
But bioshock had a terrific atmosphere, fantastically unsetteling and uncomfortable. Every step in rapture was a step with caution cause you could allways hear the danger, and the moment you didn't hear annything there was suddenly a creapy doctor standing behind you scaring the living hell out of you.
Just thinking about it makes me want to go back (L)
02:46 PM
There was that one part in Bioshock. That I'm sure scared a lot of people here. The now infamous part, where the room fills up with smoke or something. When you turn around, one of those medical doctors with the surgical mask is just staring at you. Scared the crap out of me the first time.
01:10 PM
Rosemary's Baby is always an example I give of a really effective horror film that doesn't rely on any of the slasher/monster movie tropes. In that film you really don't see anything shocking, there are no moments intended to make you jump, and on the surface everything looks perfectly normal. But as you watch it, little things seem a bit..off, and you slowly begin to question what you're seeing. For me at least, there was one point in that film when I has a moment of horrific realisation and I understood what was really going on. The chill down my spine stayed with me for days after I saw the film. I think if I was a woman I might have struggled to watch all the way to the end. Anyone who's seen it will probably understand what I mean.
Plenty of games have made me jump and throw my controller or mouse in shock. Those dogs through the windows in Resident Evil, the bear in the barn in Tomb Raider, everything looming out of the darkness in Doom 3 - these all provide shocks that, for what they're worth, are pretty extreme. But I think they are all lacking something.
For me, Silent Hill 2 is the game that comes closest to creating that genuinely troubling sense of unease that a film like Rosemary's Baby manages, or that you get when you hear the details of some particularly disturbing real-life event. Silent Hill 2 is fantastically atmospheric, uses lighting and sound to creep you out and to make you jump out of your seat, but it has something more than that. Once you begin to understand the subtext of the environment you are in, and the symbolism of the obstacles you face, you realise that the real horror isn't what you're playing through on a second-by-second basis, but the underlying truth that gives that experience its nature.
Zombie dogs are one thing, but the psychology and history of James Sunderland is far, far worse as far as I'm concerned.
01:03 PM
Cause you have no idea what going to happen do you? There might suddenly come a screaming monster scaring you out of your pants, OR the worst thing... The static, scaring you out of your pants and into a new pair just so you get scared out of those too!
I love and hate that feeling. I've finally overcome my habit of pressing pause when a game scares me, so I can recollect after the shock. Now, I keep playing, scared out of my mind, not thinking clearly and fighting a zombie or whatnot, wasting valuable ammunition on blind shots, like it would be in real life!
And that, ladies and gentlemen, partners in crime and fanboys/ fangirls; Is what I mean makes a videogame scary!
01:02 PM
12:59 PM
I also freaked out falling out of the boat in RE4 fighting the giant fish thing. The camera from the fish's viewpoint gave it a great cinematic feel.
Several of my friends also started Bioshock but were too scared to finish it. Though I didn't ask why its fairly obvious what made it the case:atmosphere.
12:56 PM
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12:41 PM
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12:35 PM
I liked Dead Space well enough, but once I'd died a few times, replayed sections of a level, and seen all the enemies (or enough of them to know what the rest were going to be like), there was just no tension.
The one gaming moment that really stands out to me comes from the first Gears of War of all things. You may hate it, but the art style, lighting, and overall bleakness really set up the first encounter with the huge brute horde guy for me. The whole situation was out in left field since things in the game are tense, but you are fighting back...
The giant brute, however, couldn't be hurt, and he really jumps at you the first time with that charge that breaks down walls and has you scrambling.
It was one of the few gaming experiences that honestly raised my heartbeat.
12:25 PM
12:22 PM
12:21 PM
System Shock 2, on the other hand, is really scary. BioShock is decently tense too.
12:58 PM
12:17 PM
-Grainy disturbing flashbacks
-Rumble support
-Background music or lack of background music
I think Fatal Frame captured the scary factor for me!
12:34 PM
Also, the camera battle system is just plain fun.
12:13 PM
12:19 PM
Thats not something we talk about...
*quiver
12:31 PM
That, or when you overwrite your sole save in an inescapable room or inches from inevitable death. .<
12:13 PM
Half way through Dead Space, I actually started laughing. Instead of cautiously progressing, I would run down corridors while in my mind shouting "LEEEEROOOOOY JENKKIIIINS". It wasn't even slightly scary after that.
The same thing happened on Condemmed, as I would be actually actively trying to hunt down enemies, pitying them as I smashed their faces in with a pipe.
However, give me the curveball that was the first Flood encounter on Halo, and my hands were practically shaking in worry of what was killing all of these enemies.
12:15 PM
12:12 PM