It was recently announced that Ubisoft’s Vin Diesel starring Wheelman has gotten a pair of DLC packs, both free and premium.

The Free Street Showdown Pack will include a single new showdown mission eintitled Showdown in Avinguda Del Paral-lel. The Premium Street Showdown Pack, however, comes with 5 new showdown missions: Showdown in Museu Nacional, Showdown in Passeig De Gracia, Showdown in Grand Theatre De Liceu, Showdown in Cathedral De La Seu, and Showdown in Placa De Catalunya and will priced at 400 MS Points/ $4.99.

Both packs are available now on the Xbox 360 while PS3 owners won’t get access to them until May 5th.

Read (Kotaku)

What? You didn’t see this coming? I mean, FreeRealms is marketed almost dominantly towards kids so it’s no surprise Sony has taken appropriate action.

Anyways, it was recently announced that a deal between Sony Online Entertainment and Topps was inked resulting in a FreeRealms trading card game.

The first batch shiped to retailers includes 180 different trading cards broken down into both booster packs and starter decks. Kotaku is reporting that the starter deck will sell for $9.99 and include 40 cards, a playmat, an exlusive in-game pet, t-shirt and racing cart. The booster pack, however, will ship with just cards and will sell for $3.99.

The real thing that will have kids coming back for more, however, is that eat set will include a loot card which players can redeem for a virtual items.

EA has recently announced that there have been over 100 million created using the Spore Creature Creator to date which includes creatures, buildings, and vehicles.

Also included in the press release was the announcement that the 100 millionth creator will receive a NVIDIA GeForce 9800GT video card, Spore and the Galactic Adventures expansion pack.

Upon reading this announcement I took the time to flip through EA’s Sporepedia and picked out some creations that caught my eye, included above.

Spore Galactic Adventures will hit store shelves on June 23rd for both PC and Mac.

Now you may consider the fact that Ubisoft has decided to leave multiplayer out of Red Steel 2 a deal breaker, but fret not — Recently announced in the June issue of Nintendo power was just that, Red Steel 2 will not feature any form of multiplayer when it ships later this year.
Ubisoft gave the following reasoning:

“…our focus is on creating a strong single player experience and taking full advantage of Wii Motion Plus. Adding multiplayer would detract from that focus. That’s another example of something we learned from the first Red Steel.“

After being questioned about a multiplayer mode being released as a DLC pack at some point in the future, Ubisoft repsonded with:

“That would be cool. The world has changed, and we can do that sort of thing. I certainly think that would be cool. I’d buy it. But we need to be careful bringing out something that people think should be in the main game.”

So, Wii FPS fans, don’t give up hope yet!

Read (NintendoDpad)

The good old days of gaming back in the ’90s included quite a few big franchises, including one that we haven’t seen in a very long time – Thief. According to a teaser ad in the latest issue of Edge Magazine, it looks like Eidos Montreal is finally getting ready to bring the stealth franchise into the current era.

The ad teases the studio’s next project being announced on May 11, listing accolades such as Gamespy’s “Hall of Fame” and Gamespot’s “Greatest Games of All Time.” Inquisitive Gamespot forum users did some searching and determined the franchise to be Thief.

Eidos Montreal is currently working on Deus Ex 3 for release on the usual platforms.

They seem to be branching out to new locations, as That Videogame Blog, citing a confidential source, says Activision is pursuing licenses for Vietnam War-era music, as well as Cuban, Soviet Union and African music. The site also notes that Treyarch will be the developer for this supposed seventh installment in the Call of Duty series.

Noah Heller is said to be involved in the project; it should be noted that he was the senior producer on World at War, which basically confirms the participation of Treyarch. It isn’t exactly known why they are pursuing music from those eras. Vietnam War I get, but Cuban and African music? I’m guessing secret ops or covert operations.

The next game – Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 – is due out this fall on the usual platforms.

Gamers sure hate DRM, calling it “draconian” whatever chance they get. It appears EA has got that message, as they announced today that Dragon Age: Origins will only include the most basic of disc checks and no SecuROM whatsoever. Here’s the deal in their exact words:

We’re happy to announce that the boxed/retail PC version of Dragon Age: Origins will use only a basic disk check and it will not require online authentication. In other words, the retail PC version of the game won’t require you to go online to authenticate the game for offline play. We have chosen not to use SecuROM in any version of Dragon Age that is distributed by EA or BioWare.

With that out of the way, they also announced that the toolset beta has already been launched, offering developer-grade tools to fans. They also note that there will be a lot of downloadable content for the game post-release.

Dragon Age: Origins is due out this fall on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.

Companies get involved in various humanitarian and ecological causes for various reasons; tax write-offs, good press, actual concern for the greater good and in some cases simple marketing. Activision Blizzard has sponsored the Edinburgh Zoo’s wolverine habitat for a year starting May 1st in celebration (and promotion) of the X-Men Origins: Wolverine game.

“What better way is there to pay homage to the mighty Wolverine by making sure his real life cousins are cared for during the next year?” said Aruna Sinha, senior brand manager of Activison. Reportedly the lead wolverine in the zoo has voluntarily changed his name to Logan in honor of the adamantium-skeletoned protagonist. I’m sure the discussion went something like this:

Activision Blizzard representative: Mr wolverine, in a moment I am going to be throwing a steak into your pen. If you agree to change your name to Logan, please devour the steak to indicate your consent.

I’m sure your imagination can fill in the sounds of a hungry animal wolfing down a big hunk of cow flesh. It’s an odd marketing technique, but I have to applaud the company for putting a chunk of marketing budget towards helping keep an endangered species alive instead of slapping up a few more billboards.

 
Xbox Live programming director Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb announced that downloadable retro revival Arkanoid Live will debut on Xbox Live Arcade this Wednesday, joining Zombie Wranglers and Space Invaders Extreme.

The three games will sell for the same price – 800 Microsoft points ($10) a piece. All feature single-player and both online and offline multiplayer modes.

Arkanoid first appeared in the 1980s as a new style block-breaking game. The remake features more than 120 stages and both cooperative and versus modes. There’s also game customization in the form of custom gameplay, and there are new game modes as well.

Going up against zombies this time are plants in PopCap’s defense force game. To let gamers get a taste of what to expect, they have released a tiny demo that lets you play the game for thirty minutes.

Those who want to get more of Plants vs. Zombies action can shell out $19.95 to purchase the full version today. PopCap has a “PLANTS10″ coupon code that knocks 10% off their stated price. However, if you’re feeling frugal, there’s always Steam, which is selling the game for half price – $9.99.

The full version will unlock tomorrow. Those who pre-order will also receive Heavy Weapon.