Pojo's Friday News Page
July 29th - 2005

PRESS RELEASE
A New Wave of Heroes and Warriors Join the “Battle of All Time” in Milton Bradley’s Heroscape’s

EAST LONGMEADOW, Mass. (July 13, 2005) - Past, present and future heroes from different historical and mythical backgrounds are introduced this summer in seven new expansion sets for Milton Bradley's HEROSCAPE game. The expansion sets feature a new cast of victorious warriors such as the savage Marro Drones and the honorable Knights of Weston. And for the first time, expansion sets allow players to further customize their battlefield with new terrain sets that feature lava pieces for the ultimate addition to their HEROSCAPE Master Set.

"We continue to enhance the HEROSCAPE experience with new game play options and an ongoing storyline that puts players in the midst of epic battles as they unfold," said John Santanella, director of marketing for Hasbro Games.
"The new expansion sets, together with the game's rich Web site featuring an online comic book, a short animated film and other exclusive content, creates an incredibly immersive world for HEROSCAPE fans."

In the HEROSCAPE game, players strategically pit heroes throughout history against one another to determine the ultimate warrior. The game comes alive as players choose a battlefield set-up from the game or create their own customized field. The warrior grudge matches unfold across a self-constructed, three-dimensional game board battlefield in the mythical land of Valhalla.

Every weekend Bigkatts hosts Duel Masters, Yu-Gi-Oh and Magic tourneys at their store in Florida

Supported by modern era evil battle creatures and heroes, duel masters from five different mysterious civilizations contend at Bigkatts store every weekend.

July 16 was no exception, but it was also a special occasion. It was a Duel Master's Invitation Circuit Open event where more than 30 people gathered to contend for either a paid trip or an invitation to play in the Continental Championship at Los Angeles in October. FullStory

Fantastic Hand: Friends duel in world of cards in North Carolina

Although John Kilbourne and Justin Benton walked the same hallways of Reynolds High School, they never crossed paths enough times to become close friends.

Kilbourne and Benton are just two members of a diverse group that meets at the All About Sports store on Jonestown Road each Saturday to battle in the fantasy world of Yu-Gi-Oh! FullStory

Roborally Relaunch Ready

Celebrity game designer Dr. Richard Garfield (creator of the popular MAGIC: THE GATHERING Trading Card Game) has returned to iconic strategy board-game brand AVALON HILL to help relaunch the award-winning RoboRally, his classic game of battling robots. Out of print since the late ‘90s, this game of mechanized mayhem has maintained a dedicated following of fans and fanatics through game clubs, play-by-mail forums and internet communities. In July, RoboRally aficionados worldwide will be treated to an updated printing of the popular game. AVALON HILL is published by Seattle-based hobby game leader Wizards of the Coast, Inc. FullStory

PS Meeting 2005: PS2 Games Aplenty
Forget the PS3 -- the PS2 is looking mighty nice.

The PS3 and PSP may have commanded the greatest share of time at this year's PlayStation Meeting in Japan, but coming out of the event, we were most impressed by Sony's PlayStation 2 lineup. That's right, more than five years following release, and there's no stopping the current generation PS2!

How impressive is Sony's upcoming Japanese lineup? Following all the sales talk (that we summarized here), Sony shared a video reel consisting of trailer clips of games due out over the next year for the format. Here's what the list of titles looks like: These

Pokemon link to porn sites

Cartoon characters like Pokemon and My Little Pony, which are children's favourites, have been used as fronts for links to pornographic sites on the Internet.

Science, Technology and Innovations Minister Datuk Seri Dr Jamaluddin Jarjis cited a case in 2000 when a search on these characters turned up 26 websites containing hundreds of links to indecent material, of which 30% were hardcore pornography. FullStory

New Pokemon, Fire Emblem get release dates

Nintendo is planning to atone for its lackluster summer release schedule by shipping three heavyweight titles in one month. While everyone is preparing for All Hallow’s Eve, expect the Big N to bombard stores with three top-notch games every two weeks throughout the month of October. Pokemon and Fire Emblem are finally getting their console RPG debut in the US on the 3rd and 17th of October, respectively, so Game Cube fanatics better set aside quite a bit of time for the RPG’s you have greatly craved. FullStory

Bandai making Gundam for Xbox 360

Japan's biggest toy-maker reveals three games for Microsoft's next-generation console, including an FPS based on the Gundam franchise.

At the Xbox Summit 2005, Bandai announced that it is developing a new first-person shooter Gundam title that will be exclusive to the Xbox 360. The game is being developed by Dimps, the studio that develops the Dragon Ball Z series for Bandai on the PlayStation 2. FullStory

Sony chief warns PS3 will be "expensive"; PS2 hits sales highs

Last week at Sony Computer Entertainment's PlayStation Meeting in Japan, company president Ken Kutaragi appeared on stage to discuss further information on the current status of the PlayStation 3.

Kutaragi started out by reconfirming that the PS3 will be backwards-compatible with PlayStation and PlayStation 2 games and support high-definition TVs. "We're looking at a life cycle of 10 years with the PlayStation 3. FullStory