Eurogamer's Czech Republic site has posted an article detailing a new expansion for Dragon Age titled Dragon Age: Awakening. Apparently culled from product listings from unnamed websites in New Zealand, the land of movie extras, the new expansion is said to take place after the events of the original game, with a new character, a new origin story, and upwards of 15 hours of gameplay.

We've been scouring New Zealand's finest gaming websites, but so far have only been able to find a listing for Dragon Age: Awakening at The Game Station, where the PC version is listed at $69.95 NZD and the Xbox 360 version listing for $10 NZD more. There is no PlayStation 3 version listed. Eurogamer.cz says the expansion will retail for two-thirds the price of the full title, so that sounds somewhere in the vicinity of right, all things considered.

It's certainly a plausible rumor. BioWare is committed to providing new content for Dragon Age, and a new expansion would sure taste great right about now. We've contacted BioWare for comment, but considering the holidays, we aren't holding our breath.

Odkrytí Dragon Age Procitnutí (Translation Here) [Eurogamer.cz - Thanks L.!]

I briefly got my hands on both the Goblins and the Worgen during BlizzCon 2009, and while I wasn't able to experience either area from start to finish, I played enough to realize that these two races are getting far better treatment than ten previous could ever dream of, all thanks to the bar set by Wrath of the Lich King's Death Knight starting area.

The Death Knight starting experience was unlike anything seen before in World of Warcraft. It introduced new gameplay elements such a zone phasing, which allowed for the area the player was playing in to change drastically during the course of their adventure, while adding in various mini-games to help the player feel that they were playing a larger role in the story. Blizzard takes these elements and applies them to the starting areas for the Goblins and the Worgen, The Lost Isles and Gilneas.

The demos for both races started off at level six. During my interview with lead developer Tom Chilton, he explained that this was simply because the 1-5 areas weren't quite finished, and they felt the 6 and up areas offered a more complete grasp of what they were trying to do.

Both races reach level 6 under dire circumstances. Your Goblin character winds up dead on the docks following a shipwreck, with an NPC desperately trying to revive him using everyone's favorite Goblin engineering item, the Goblin Jumper Cables. Once you've come to life, you set off on a series of quest to help your fellow greenskins recover from the traumatic wreck. The very first quest requires you blast open escape pods, with each freed NPC referring to you by name, hinting at a much more intimate story leading up to the beginning of the demo.

The Lost Isle takes a cue from Northrend in terms of design, presenting a much more vertical experience than standard World of Warcraft zones have in the past. You'll find yourself looking down on areas you've visited previously, in between run-ins with explosive-throwing monkeys, Alliance sailors, and the shadowy rogues of the SI:7.

Aiding in my explorations were the Goblin's two active racial abilities, Rocket Barrage and Rocket Jump. Barrage fires a barrage of missiles at a foe, while Rock Jump launches the Goblin forward for a tiny speed boost, perfect for escaping unsavory situations. The latter should make Goblin rogues absolutely insufferable.

While my time as a Goblin rogue was brief, I did come away with a strong feeling that Blizzard is intending on making Goblins serious Horde business, while maintaining the same lighthearted tone they have with Gnome society these past five years.

On the Alliance side of things, your Worgen wakes up in stocks, with NPCs arguing over whether or not you deserve to live or die. Can you control your curse, or will it consume you? Right from the start it is obvious that Blizzard is taking the werewolves quite seriously. Soon you find yourself freed, tasked with finding ingredients for a potion to help curb your more feral tendencies and helping defend the city from an undead invasion.

Where The Lost Isles are sunny and cheerful, Gilneas is dark and bleak. There's still the same sort of verticality to the playfield, with hills rolling a bit more than hills had rolled previously, but all in all it's a very familiar looking place. Think Darkshire and you're heading in the right direction.

Perhaps if I had tried the Worgen first I would have been a bit more impressed, but after the bright, humorous Goblin experience, the Worgen just felt like a bit of a letdown. It felt less like an exciting new race, and more like humans in furry outfits. In fact, one of their racial abilities lets you shift back and forth between human and Worgen, which means you essentially are a human in a furry outfit, albeit one that can run very fast for 10 seconds at a time on a 3-minute cooldown timer. Another new race that should give rogues even more ways to run away. It could just be that the excitement from levels 1-5 was more necessary to the Worgen experience than Blizzard expected. I suppose we will find out sometime next year.

Still, I can see the direction Blizzard is going in, making the starting areas for these two new races the same kind of epic experience as the Death Knight. My only worry is that rolling a Dwarf, Troll, or Gnome is going to be a great deal less appealing once Cataclysm comes out, unless Blizzard plans to share the innovation with every race.

New lands are all well and good, but seeing places where I've spent countless hours over the past five years completely changed is simply spectacular. Changing the existing world so drastically is an amazingly elegant way of adding new content without slapping another undiscovered landmass or alternate dimension to the game.

Among all of the changes coming in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, raising the level cap to 85 instead of following the pattern set by the game's previous two expansions is one of the strangest. Blizzard lead developer Tom Chilton took a little time during BlizzCon this past weekend to explain the smaller jump.

"It's certainly different. More than anything else it's a question of what we thought was the best use of our development time and what we thought the players really want the most. With this expansion we're delivering more total level up content than we have before - it's just not all post current max level."

But don't the players enjoy the rush to level up?

"We've gotten a lot of feedback from players that don't necessarily like it when an expansion comes out and they feel that they have to level up to the new max level as quickly as possible and then go back to their endgame activities. There are players out there who enjoy the level up experience, but by no means is it all of our players."

The decision all comes down to the goals of the expansion. With a brand new 1-60 experience on hand, the team really didn't need to put the endgame that much further out of reach for the influx of new Goblin and Worgen characters.

"In this case, we're trying to better balance the time and development effort we put into the different areas of the game. We're trying to make sure we get a little bit more endgame content while still appeasing the level up crowd with five more levels."

Ultima Online channels the classic first-person dungeon crawler Ultima Underworld on September 8th, with the Stygian Abyss expansion adding in the game's largest dungeon to date. They've filled it with imposing bosses like the Primeval Lich and the Stygian Dragon, and have even included PVP areas within for those who prefer killing each other at every turn. The expansion also introduces a playable Gargoyle race, with their homeland of Ter Mur just one of the many new places to explore.

"As the 12th anniversary of the storied Ultima Online franchise approaches this fall, we could not be more excited to launch UO's 8th expansion, Stygian Abyss," said Jeff Hickman, Executive Producer for Mythic Entertainment. "On September 8th UO players past and present will be able to experience all new content, including the new Gargoyle race and one of the largest dungeons in UO history."

The expansion will be available online for $29.99, or $39.99 with a month of game time. As a special added bonus, anyone who purchases the expansion before September 30th will receive a code to transform an existing character in a Gargoyle, which is sure to impress whatever ladies are still playing the ancient MMO.

Relic Entertainment's real-time strategy World War II masterpiece gets a healthy dose of new content with the Men of Valor standalone expansion, now available at retail, on Steam, and any number of digital delivering PC game stores around the internet. The box, be it digital or physical, contains three new single player campaigns, three new multiplayer modes, new units, new maps, and a direct-fire features that allows players to point and fire.

The new Invasion mode sounds particularly interesting, with a small force taking on increasingly powerful waves of enemies. It's like a real-time strategy version of Gears of War 2's Horde mode, only without all the chain sawing.

Tuesday marks the official launch of EVE Online's Apocrypha expansion, and it will indeed change the way both new and old players survive in the online game. New players are being treated to epic mission arcs that actually guide them through the factions of EVE Online, making the game more new-player friendly than ever before. Meanwhile, veteran players venturing through the newly appearing wormholes will find riches and enemies unlike anything they've ever encountered. Enemies that change tactics based on player performance, calling in backup, changing targets, and strategically using debuffs to keep the players on their toes.

EVE has been steadily expanding since it was launched, and Apocrypha stands poised to up those numbers even more. Check out the official expansion website for full details on the new features in EVE's latest free expansion.

These new screens are the first peek at the expanded forest of Lothlórien coming in Lord of the Rings Online Volume II: Book 7: Leaves of Lόrien, where players will be able to slowly but surely continue the epic storyline from the book series.

It never ceases to amaze me how well the lands envisioned by the Turbine artist match my own mental pictures of the lands Tolkien created in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Forget the movies, as entertaining as they might have been at times; this is what Middle-Earth was supposed to look like.

Bitter Rivals, running from March 3rd to March 10th, gives players a chance to unlock the new Dwarf Slayer and Orc Choppa classes by completing quests and participating in the new Twisting Tower Realm vs. Realm Scenario. In Twisting Tower, the forces of Order and Destruction battle for control of a ruined Chaos tower while a vengeful god rains fire down upon both armies. The event kicks off the massive Call to Arms live update, which culminates in June with the opening of a brand-new raid dungeon zone, The Land of the Dead.

Along with the launch of Bitter Rivals, Mythic has also opened the official forums for business, giving players an official place to bitch about balance issues, server lag, other players' moms - you know, the usual.

For more on the Bitter Rivals event, visit the official website. Otherwise, follow the link below to start name-calling and complaining.

Official Warhammer Online Forums [Mythic]

I'm actually rather excited to be able to take my Spore creations and do something a bit more game-like with them this spring, sharing Crecente's opinion that, while each of the game's stages was entertaining, they weren't particularly deep. I'm just a bit tickled that superior alien species can't come up with a separate storage space for their exploding barrels, or better yet - make barrels that don't explode. At the very least paint them a color other than red. Everyone knows that a red barrel equals an explosion. A little misdirection goes a long way. Hey, let's make the land mines square and white, with little red crosses on them! Anyone?

Unlike a traditional MMO expansion, A Call to Arms is being delivered over the course of several months, with several different live events leading up to the revelation of a whole new realm-versus-realm controlled dungeon, The Land of the Dead. "It's a little non-traditional in the way that MMOs do expansions, but we have so much that we are doing and so many things that are happening that we really felt it deserved that term applied to it," explains Hickman.

Call to Arms is the first major content update for Warhammer Online. Mythic spent the first months since release focusing on fixing bugs, improving performance, and getting the game up to speed. While Hickman wants to punctuate that they are nowhere near done tuning the game, they felt it was finally time to give the players something big and new.

"The Call To Arms expansion is important to us - it really focuses on three things. Retaining players...bringing back players who left for whatever reasons...and the new classes - now is the time to start a new character for any players who have never played before."

Several live events lead up to the final event in June. In late March we get our first look at two new classes, the Orc Choppa, which was previously cut from the game's initial release, and Dwarf Slayer - a Dwarf unable to complete his life oath, resigned to die in battle in order to regain his honor. The Slayer replaces the Dwarf Hammerer, also cut from the game's initial launch. Both are being introduced via a Bitter Rivals live event.

So why these two classes?

"We always liked the feeling of playing the Choppa...gritty and bestial...a heavy hitting, fast chopping maniac. It's just his mechanic was really raw, and just didn't feel right. Conversely, you look at the Hammerer, which was the other class that we cut, and the Hammerer was never our dream...when we went back to the drawing board, we knew we could make the Choppa better, but weren't sure what could make the Hammerer better."

"We went back to Games Workshop and said, "We really want to do the Slayer. How can we make this work?" And so we worked through the lore, worked with Games Workshop, and did whatever we could do to get the Slayer into the game."

As to how the classes play, both are berserker-type warriors, wearing little armor but making up for it in sheer toughness. Both will be able to buildup rage to fuel their abilities. Players can choose to keep their rage low and play cautious, or send the bar into the red, where they will deal more damage but also take more. Both should add an interesting new twist to the forces of Order and Destruction.

Once the new combatants are in place, the events begin to focus more and more on The Land of the Dead, a new area to the south that contains artifacts of great power of interest to both sides of the battle. A bridging event occurs in April, lasting 10 to 14 days, which "really focuses on looking southward, giving the players the first insight into what's happening down there."

Finally, in June, the Rise of the Tomb King event occurs - a massive race between the two opposing factions to open The Land of the Dead dungeon.

"The whole expansion arc kinda ties together a lot of different things, thematically based around finding, defeating, and gaining rewards out of the Tomb King dungeon."

Once the Land of the Dead opens, the struggle isn't over. Much like the Dark Age of Camelot dungeon Darkness Falls, The Land of the Dead is constantly contested.

"The Tomb King dungeon is really the brainchild of Darkness Falls. We really want to look at the things we did in Camelot, and pinpoint those things, make them better, and steal those things from Camelot and make them better. We need an RVR dungeon in Warhammer. We need a Darkness Falls."

Once one faction gains access to the dungeon, players can team up and work their way towards the grand pyramid in the center, but at any moment the dungeon can change hands, blocking access to their faction and flooding the dungeon with their enemies. It's hard to explain to someone who hasn't played Dark Age of Camelot, but the sense of tension generated by the mechanic is truly amazing.

So Call to Arms is set to change the face of Warhammer Online in a big way, but Mythic isn't planning on stopping there. Following another major update towards the end of the year, the company will begin looking at a boxed expansion for the game.

"Most likely we will (release a boxed expansion), we're still talking about it, but probably what's in store is something else free by the end of the year, and then I'm sure we're going to put a box on the shelves at some point. All in time and all at the right time. Right now the way we are doing this is exactly how we should be doing things. We've talked about a box, and right now there's a small team that meets once a week to discuss ideas for that, but in general we're all pretty focused on what we're doing right now."

For now, Warhammer Online will continue as it is, "Evolving instead of punching you in the face with new content."

Sounds good to me.

Ric Flair, that is. The 16-time world heavyweight wrestling champion joins an all-star lineup of new additions to the Red Alert 3 roster, portraying Commander Hill, one of the commanders players will take on in the new Commander's Challenge mode. Flair was understandably excited about the role.

“When I found out that EA wanted me to be part of Command & Conquer, all I could say was ‘Woooooooooooo!’”

...okay. Flair was seen back in October filming something in the EA Los Angeles gym with a person in a bear suit. Not that that means anything...I just wanted to point that out.

Along with Flair comes the legendary Malcolm McDowell, Jamie Chung from the live-action Dragonball movie, Prison Break's Jodi Lyn O'Keefe, and Holly Valance from the Dead or Alive movie. Check out pictures of the new set of scenery-chewing stars below!

EA Announces All-Star Celebrity Cast for Command & Conquer Red Alert 3: Uprising

Eclectic Ensemble Cast Stars in Newest Addition to the Red Alert Universe

LOS ANGELES—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS) today announced the members of the live action movie cast for Command & Conquer™ Red Alert™ 3: Uprising, the upcoming campaign expansion to last fall’s award-winning Command & Conquer™ Red Alert™ 3. Picking up in the aftermath of the events in the original, Command & Conquer Red Alert 3: Uprising features an eclectic cast starring in the all new, live-action movie sequences the Command & Conquer franchise is known for. From sci- fi legends to rising starlets and masters of the squared-circle, the cast of Command & Conquer Red Alert 3: Uprising includes (in alphabetical order): Jamie Chung, (Dragonball Evolution), Ric Flair (16-time world heavyweight wrestling champion), Malcolm McDowell (Heroes, Clockwork Orange, Wing Commander), Jodi Lyn O’Keefe (Prison Break), Holly Valance (Neighbours) along with returning fan-favorites Gemma Atkinson and Ivana Milicevic.

“Quality live-action movies and storytelling have always been a unique component to the Command & Conquer DNA and we wanted to make sure we did things right with Uprising,” said Amer Ajami, Senior Producer at EA Los Angeles. “We are really pleased we were able to assemble another large and talented ensemble for Uprising, and we think our fans are going to be pleased by everyone’s performances not only in the cutscenes, but also in Commander’s Challenge, where you’ll actually be battling some of our stars.”

“When I found out that EA wanted me to be part of Command & Conquer, all I could say was ‘Woooooooooooo!’” said 16-time world heavyweight champion, Ric Flair, who stars as Commander Hill, a commander players will have to take on in the new Commander’s Challenge mode. “I had a great time on set and while I may have retired from the ring, I think my fans are going to love seeing the ‘Nature Boy’ style and profile his way to victory. I know my kids are going to have a great time trying to take it to me on the battlefield.”

Malcolm McDowell, who plays Rupert Thornley, the president of the European Union, and had previously starred in the live-action movies for the Wing Commander franchise, added, “It’s great to be working with good actors and the more good actors you can get to do games, the better. In the past people might have thought you could get away with anything in games and that isn’t a good attitude. Kids are spending a lot of money and time on these games and they deserve first rate performers and I’m glad to say that this is what Uprising is.”

Command & Conquer Red Alert 3: Uprising will take players deeper into the Red Alert™ universe with four new mini-campaigns set in the aftermath of the events of Red Alert 3. The game also features the new Commander’s Challenge mode, a series of 50 challenging, over-the-top scenarios where players will need to battle through a gauntlet of commanders and obstacles in order to unlock the game’s powerful new units.

Command & Conquer Red Alert 3: Uprising will be available for digital download this March for $19.99 and has not yet been rated by the ESRB or PEGI. For more information about the game, please visit www.commandandconquer.com, home of Command & Conquer TV, EA’s dedicated online Command & Conquer network that goes beyond the game and brings players all the latest news, tips and strategies straight from the developers. This Friday, fans can go to the website to catch the first episode of BattleCastTM PrimeTime, the channel’s flagship program, which will have all the latest Command & Conquer news including an interview with Ric Flair.

And for a behind-the-scenes look at the making of Command & Conquer Red Alert 3: Uprising’s live-action movies and the debut of the game’s first trailer, tune in this weekend to “GameTrailers TV with Geoff Keighley” on SpikeTV (check local listings) and GameTrailers.com.

The free download will bring a major rebalancing of industrial craft - including a new Capital ship, the Orca - customizable storefronts for traders, weapons linking and a certification system for pilots.

At the back-end there are graphical tweaks and server improvements that take advantage of the new StacklessIO code to streamline network usage.

EVE Online: Free Quantum Rise Expansion Launches [Wired]

GCII:EU is a stand-alone expansion pack (meaning, we think, that it can be played without the original game) that adds news race-specific weaponry, skills and resources to the science fiction strategy game.

Still no multiplayer - and this is presumably the scrag-end of the GCII expansions - but still some fun to be had if you like old-school 4X.

The much anticipated expansion pack for the rediculously popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game hits on in North America, Europe, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and Russia, simultaneously. A day later, on Nov. 14, the pack hits in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand. And the expansion will be available in Korea and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau on November 18. No date has yet been announced for mainland China.

"We're looking forward to launching Wrath of the Lich King and finally giving World of Warcraft players a chance to take on Arthas and his minions," said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. "Until then, we'll continue to refine and playtest the expansion content to make sure it provides a highly polished and entertaining experience."

Activision also announced that the game will be available in a Collector's Edition for $70. That will include:

— The Art of World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, a 208-page book featuring never-before-seen images from the game.
— An exclusive in-game pet: Frosty, the baby frost wyrm.
— A behind-the-scenes DVD containing over an hour of developer interviews, the Wrath of the Lich King intro cinematic with director's commentary, and more.
— The official soundtrack CD, containing 21 epic tracks from the game, along with exclusive bonus tracks.
— A mouse pad featuring a map of the newly opened continent of Northrend.
— Two World of Warcraft Trading Card Game March of the Legion(TM) starter decks, along with two exclusive cards available only in the Collector's Edition.

Lich King has players pursuing the Lich King Arthas Menethil into the frozen continent of Northrend to battle LK's undead army. The expansion will allow player to advance characters to level 80 and gain new abilities. It also introduces several new features including an achievement system, expanded player-vs-player combat, and the Hero Class necromantic death knight.

The pack requires both WoW and Burning Crusade to play.

Sadly, they have plumped for the more prosaic (and, lets be realistic, more practical) option of a website where you can sign up in the hope your name gets plucked from the wizard's hat.

The Mines final-stage beta is invite only, but you can apply for consideration at the official site. As well as the titular underground complex, the expansion will contain a couple of new character classes, hundreds of quests and Balrogs.

Invites Open for Mines of Moria Beta [Wired Game|Life]

"Hubert Larenaudie is an experienced senior executive who has successfully built or expanded Asia Pacific operations for prominent interactive entertainment and consumer goods companies," said Gary Dale. "His in-depth knowledge of the region; his skill in creating the right product development, distribution and marketing strategy for each local market; and his track record of driving growth will help Take-Two realize the tremendous opportunities in APAC."

Along with EA, Larenaudie's previous employers also include Vivendi Universal, with whom he helped establish World of Warcraft's foothold in the region.

This is Take-Two's way of showing their shareholders that they mean business. They aren't selling to anybody, dammit! This train is barreling at full-speed and no EA is going to bar their path! Don't bail on us please, okay? We'll see how this whole strategy pays off during Take-Two's annual stockholder meeting this Thursday.

Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. Announces Asia Expansion Strategy; Adds Senior Market Leader Hubert Larenaudie to Head Asia Pacific

Focus on Broadening Distribution and Launching Online Game Offerings in High Growth Asia Pacific Markets

New York, NY - April 14, 2008 - Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTWO) today announced that Hubert Larenaudie, an accomplished senior executive with more than 15 years' experience in building successful Asia Pacific businesses, has joined the Company to spearhead its expansion initiatives in this rapidly growing region. Mr. Larenaudie, who previously served in senior roles with Electronic Arts and Vivendi Universal Games, holds the newly created position of President for Asia and is establishing an office in Singapore as the focal point for Take-Two's Asia Pacific operations. He will report to Gary Dale, Executive Vice President of Take-Two.

The top priorities for Take-Two in the region include: expanding distribution in the Asia Pacific (APAC) for the Company's interactive entertainment products; developing a strong presence in Japan; and establishing a meaningful online game operation, especially in China and Korea.

"Hubert Larenaudie is an experienced senior executive who has successfully built or expanded Asia Pacific operations for prominent interactive entertainment and consumer goods companies," said Gary Dale. "His in-depth knowledge of the region; his skill in creating the right product development, distribution and marketing strategy for each local market; and his track record of driving growth will help Take-Two realize the tremendous opportunities in APAC."

Mr. Larenaudie added, "Many of Take-Two's franchises, such as Grand Theft Auto, Midnight Club, Sid Meier's Civilization, and BioShock are international hits, and already have attracted large and enthusiastic fan bases in markets such as Japan, South Korea and China. With the Company's portfolio of leading brands, growing sports business, extraordinary creative talent and global appeal, I see exciting potential to build a significant Asia Pacific business for Take-Two, with a particular emphasis on the online game segment of the market."

Before joining Take-Two, Mr. Larenaudie was President of Asia Online for Electronic Arts. While there, he established leadership positions in the South Korea, China, Japan, Taiwan and Southeast Asia markets and oversaw product development, licensing and studio acquisitions in the region. Previously, he was President-Asia Pacific of Vivendi Universal Games (VUG). Under his supervision, VUG became one of the most successful interactive entertainment companies in the Asia Pacific region, with extensive market penetration for its World of Warcraft brand. Prior to that, Mr. Larenaudie held a variety of management positions in Asia, Latin America and Europe in high growth consumer goods companies.

D3Publisher of America Reveals New Expansion Pack for Critically Acclaimed Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords on Xbox LIVE Arcade D3PA and Developer Infinite Interactive Call on Fans to Name New Addition to Puzzle Quest Universe at www.puzzle-quest.com

LOS ANGELES—(BUSINESS WIRE)—D3Publisher of America, Inc. (D3PA) today revealed a robust new expansion pack for critically acclaimed Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords™ for Xbox LIVE® Arcade. Code-named "Puzzle Quest: 1.5" internally to reflect its tremendous amount of content, the expansion pack includes four new Hero professions, scores of new spells to cast and items to collect, challenging new quests, monsters and bosses and much more including the introduction of a new archenemy, Antharg, the Lord of Plague. D3PA and Infinite Interactive ask the devoted fan base to leave their mark on the Puzzle Quest universe by submitting game title suggestions to www.puzzle-quest.com starting at noon PDT Monday, March 17 and ending at noon PDT, Friday, March 21. The winning game title and two runners-up will be announced on April 2. The soon-to-be-named expansion pack will be available for play as an addition to Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords for Xbox LIVE® Arcade for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft in spring 2008.

"Infinite Interactive has delivered much more than the average expansion pack and the incredible amount of content that it will include sets a new precedent for offerings on Xbox Live Arcade," said Peter Andrew, vice president of product development, D3PA. "As much as 'Puzzle Quest 1.5' appropriately describes the new content, we look forward to having our fans name the next iteration in the Puzzle Quest universe."

The expansion pack will offer fans hours of additional gameplay with four brand new Hero professions: Bard, Rogue, Ranger and Warlock. Players will adventure with new or existing Heroes to explore an expansive new area on the Southern Map containing more than 25 challenging quests, cast more than 50 new spells and collect more than 40 new magical items as they're immersed into the compelling story of Antharg, the Lord of Plague and brother to the infamous Lord Bane. New monsters, bosses and more will challenge veteran and casual fans alike for hours of compelling entertainment.

For more information about the story and features of the "Puzzle Quest 1.5" expansion pack and naming contest rules and regulations, please visit: www.puzzle-quest.com.

Developed by Infinite Interactive Pty. Ltd., Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords artfully blends match-three puzzle gameplay with strategy, character-building elements and a persistent storyline. This unique combination of gameplay elements produces an appealing new videogame genre that entices casual and hardcore gamers alike, offering hours of fun-filled gameplay for the whole family. Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords has received numerous accolades acknowledging the excellence of the game. These include the prestigious Best Downloadable Game at the 11th annual Interactive Achievement Awards, a Best Puzzle Game of E3 2007 Award from IGN.com, and the esteemed iParenting Media Excellent Product Award for 2007.

Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords and "Puzzle Quest: 1.5" are developed by Infinite Interactive Pty. Ltd. and are rated "E 10+" (Everyone 10 and older—suggestive themes) by the ESRB.