Sprint Cars Road to Knoxville™

Genre: Racing

Sometimes just making it across the finish line in one piece is a successful race.

Buckle up. You're going for a ride. Race at speeds over 140 MPH on dirt, on the proving grounds for today's top professional drivers. Shoulder to shoulder sprint car racing makes for spectacular crashes, and white-knuckle driving. Start out as a small town star and work your way up through the ranks to become a national legend.

* Push your driving abilities to the limit behind the wheel of 3/4 Midgets, Open-wheeled Modified and the famous Winged Sprint Cars.
* Compete on over 20 tracks including Eldora, Dodge City, Williams Grove and the world-famous Knoxville Raceway.
* Play a quick game or make a career out of it. You're in the driver's seat from buying your car to choosing the races, through Arcade, Career and Time Trial modes.
* Take it from the track to the information superhighway. Compete online and see how you rank against racers from around the world.
* Compete to unlock 6 never before raced vehicles like dune buggies, golf carts and pickup trucks!
* The road to Knoxville is made of dirt. Compete at 20+ tracks and earn respect, trophies and sponsorship as you drive your way to the ultimate finish line—the National Series in Knoxville.
* Are you ready for sensory overload? The only thing louder than the cheers of the crowd is the roar of 3/4 Midget, Open-Wheeled Modified and Winged Sprint Car engines.
* Can you handle the pressure? Compete against racers from around the world via online competitions. How will you rank?
* Get maximum bang for your buck. Use your winnings to customize your sprint car, then take it for a spin against the toughest dirt racers in the world.
* Spin your Wheels! Sprint to unlock 6 over-the-top vehicles including semi trucks and hover crafts.

Warhammer® 40,000™: Dawn of War® II

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II Ships for Windows PC

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II, sequel to Relic Entertainment's critically acclaimed Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War, has shipped for Windows PC. Set in the 41st Millennium amidst the chaos of relentless warfare, Dawn of War II offers innovative, tactical gameplay, stunning visuals and destructible environments throughout a non-linear single-player experience and features a fully cooperative multiplayer campaign via Microsoft's free Games for Windows – LIVE service. Based on the popular Warhammer 40,000 Games Workshop table-top war game, Dawn of War II is now available at retail and online outlets in the US for the suggested retail price of $49.99.

"Relic Entertainment is a premiere RTS developer and a driving force for innovation in the genre," said Kevin Kraff, vice president of global brand management, THQ. "With Dawn of War II, the studio has once again redefined the core foundations of the genre, replacing base building and massive armies with intimate, tactical gameplay and a customization-driven single-player experience."

"Dawn of War II offers a unique single-player experience with branching storylines, unit customization and deep tactical gameplay," said Tarrnie Williams, general manager, Relic Entertainment. "It also offers all new multiplayer and co-op modes that take the tactical gameplay to an all new level. Once gamers play Dawn of War II, it might be hard to go back to the old model."

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II transports players into Games Workshop's vast Warhammer 40,000 universe, where an intergalactic war between ancient races has raged on for countless millennia. Featuring vicious front-line combat, destructible environments, a fully cooperative multiplayer mode, four unique playable races and a non-linear single-player campaign with branching storylines, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II delivers the ultimate sci-fi fantasy RTS experience. Disposable units will become a thing of the past as gamers feel the intimate brutality of war and develop a personal connection with fully customizable squads.

For more information, visit www.dawnofwar2.com.

City Of Heroes

While in San Diego, we talked with NCSoft about the newest issue for City of Heroes. Issue 16 will include a variety of updates, including more options for the Mission Architect system and the ability for players to customize their powers.

Power customization will mainly allow players to change the color of their power aniimation. There are a good number of color options and some powers will have multiple color schemes (light and dark) to choose from. Pink firebolts are cool to see! For some of the combat moves, players will now be able to choose alternate animations. They won't have to kick every time now, though it's weird to punch for a kick move. With the modifications to the power system, NCSoft has made a change to the character creation making swapping between costume and power customization very easy. Existing players will be able to customize powers by going to a tailor.



Another change coming with this update will be a difficulty slider added to mission creation. That means players won't have to spam the chat anymore looking for ohters to join their group to make the mission harder without actually doing the mission with them. A single player can tell the mission to treat them as a group of 8 instead.

NCSoft is about two weeks from putting this update into beta and expect the update to go live 4 weeks after that. The developers are also hard at work on the next expansion, titled Going Rogue, which will allow players to go from hero to villain or villain to hero. This expansion will have an in-depth mission system to really immerse the players in this serious change of alignment. No date has been set for that release.

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