People who have been ignoring their civic duty and have been spending more time gaming than being involved in the shaping the future of our country, your days are numbered.

Last week while gamers were pealing out in Burnout Paradise, a new title released by EA; they noticed when passing one of those hairpin turns an Obama campaign billboard rising in the distance. It has recently been confirmed that Barack Obama is indeed the first Presidential Candidate to purchase ad space inside a video game. according to the Associated Press Obama has paid for add space in 9 EA titles, including Madden 09, and Burnout Paradise.

“I can confirm that the Obama campaign has paid for in-game advertising in Burnout” Holly Rockwood, the director of corporate communications at Electronic Arts stated “like most television, radio, and print outlets, we accept advertising from credible political candidates.” She also went on to say “Like political spots on the television networks, these ads do not reflect the political policies of EA or the opinions of its development teams.”

The idea of advertising within video games is a relatively new concept and was less than a consideration for candidates 18 months ago.  Although some may say Obama is sending mixed messages through these ads; seeing how he had stated earlier that parents should cut back on their children’s game time, maybe it is just his less than subtle way of motivating gamers to get involved.

Frankfurt (Germany), September 18^th 2008 – The new official community website is available online as of today at www.mycrysis.com. It has been created for gamers of Crytek’s constantly growing world wide community. MyCrysis.com provides all forms of information on the Crysis franchise and also offers the official forums, where fans will be able to find all of the latest news and content directly provided by the developers.

“We developed Mycrysis.com to give our fans, our worldwide community a premier platform for all things Crysis”, said Cevat Yerli, CEO & President of Crytek. “Our community is the most important reason we produce games and we want to give them an easy and fun way to get involved in the Crysis franchise.”

“Mycrysis is going to be the new home for our general online community. It’s going to be full of resources for all of our games, and people will be able to network on a whole new level. Where Crymod will still be focusing on all of your modding related needs, Mycrysis will act as our central hub for all of our titles. I’m positive that everyone will really like the new site, and the work we’ve put into it.” said Eddy Dew, Lead Community Manager at Crytek.

Crytek GmbH (”Crytek”) creators of the multi-award winning first person shooter Far Cry®, and the recent blockbuster hit Crysis®, awarded best PC Game of both E3 2007 and the 2007 Leipzig Games Convention, and awarded Best Technology at the 2008 Game Developers Choice Awards, is an interactive entertainment development company with its headquarters located in Frankfurt Main, Germany and additional studios in Kiev (Ukraine), Budapest (Hungary) and Sofia (Bulgaria). Crytek is dedicated to creating exceptionally high quality video games for the PC and next-generation consoles, powered by their proprietary cutting edge 3D-Game-Technology CryENGINE® 2.

Development teams who are interested in obtaining a commercial license for the CryENGINE® 2 middleware should visit www.cryengine2.com.

Crytek, Crysis and CryENGINE are registered trademarks or trademarks of Crytek GmbH in the USA, Germany and/or other countries

Redwood City, Calif. - September 16, 2008 - Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) and Crytek GmbH announced today that Crysis Warhead®, the next installment in the award-winning Crysis® franchise, has shipped to retailers in North America and Europe and will hit store shelves and participating digital download services starting September 18, 2008 exclusively for the PC. Containing a new single player campaign featuring Crytek’s trademark open-ended gameplay and stunning visuals along with Crysis Wars®, the exciting new multiplayer suite for the Crysis universe, Crysis Warhead is a tremendous value at only $29.99 and does not require the original Crysis to play.

“The launch of Crysis Warhead marks a significant milestone for the entire Crytek family,” said Cevat Yerli, CEO and President of Crytek.  “The team at Crytek Hungary has delivered a dynamic and intense single player experience more than worthy of the Crysis franchise, while the multiplayer team in Frankfurt has revisited and extended multiplayer in the Crysis universe with Crysis Wars.  They are both great representations of our studio’s core values of technical excellence, craftsmanship and quality.”

“Crytek is a world-class partner and quickly becoming one of the most formidable independent developers in the industry,” said David DeMartini, Senior Vice President and General Manager of EA Partners.  “Crysis was one of the best games of last year and we are thrilled to have the opportunity to bring Crysis Warhead, a game that actually improves upon Crysis’ core experience, to the largest possible audience on a global stage.”

Crysis Warhead takes place alongside the events of last year’s critical hit, with players experiencing the explosive battles against waves of challenging enemies on the other side of the island through the eyes and nanosuit of the bold and aggressive Sergeant “Psycho” Sykes. Crysis Wars features 21 maps and three diverse multiplayer modes, including InstantAction, frenetic deathmatch enhanced by the power of the nanosuit, PowerStruggle, a serious team-based mode and introducing TeamInstantAction, a mix of fast-paced action in a team-based environment.  Both are built on Crytek’s award-winning CryENGINE 2, optimized now to deliver the high-fidelity graphics Crytek is known for with an improvement in performance across a wide range of PCs.

Crysis Warhead has been rated ‘M’ for Mature by the ESRB and ‘16+’ by PEGI.  For more information about the game, please visit www.crysiswarhead.com or www.mycrysis.com.

To view entire press release visit Crytek News section.

Let the games begin!

Every year computer security becomes more of an issue then the year before.  As virus’ seem to pop out of the wood work more often, and seemingly are undetectable, many people are now investing more money then ever in anti-virus packages.

As the internet become more of a desktop application instead of a browser simply viewing files on a far-off server, users’ computers are more vulnerable then ever to attacks.  Free downloads, file sharing, and instant messengers are also to blame for the trend in virus infections.  For the business world virus’ cause upwards of $70-100 MILLION in damages and IT costs every single year, and the totals do no seem to be getting better any time soon.

The home computer is no different users need to be protected, and stay protected.  Virus infections are the number one software-related repairs problems among non-commercial users; and every year the total grows staggeringly higher as more internet users are skimping on Virus protection.

Below we will be reviewing the main players in the anti-virus world; so that you can make a much more informed decision next time you decide to buy security software.

We will be reviewing:
Kaspersky 7.0


Norton Anti-Virus 2008


McAfee VirusScan Plus 2008 with SiteAdvisor

What to look for?

There are so many things to look for when choosing your anti-virus program, but obviously one benchmark stands out from the rest; “how well does it detect virus’?”.  This is the major benchmark most important to most users but we will also be reviewing scan speed and boot speed; these three metrics are very important for most users.

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Scan Speed:
Kaspersky 7.0: 3
Norton Anti-Virus: 4
McAfee VirusScann Plus 2008: 3.5

Boot Speed:
Kaspersky 7.0: 4.5
Norton Anti-Virus: 2
McAfee VirusScann Plus 2008: 3

Virus Detection:
Kaspersky 7.0: 4.5
Norton Anti-Virus: 4
McAfee VirusScann Plus 2008: 4.5

Conclusion

All three packages have more then enough virus detection for 90% of users.  Users whom have kids which feel the need to download and install everything they find, file share over KaZzaA, Napster, and (Name your program) will probably need to go with Kaspersky 7.0 to get the top protection.  However it comes with a price, with slower scan and boot speeds this package will slow your computer down a bit when it’s running.  Also, it’s very typical of most “good” anti-virus programs to be a hit heavy on RAM when all protection features are activated, so which ever program you choose be sure to have adequate hardware resources.

Virus scanners are neccessary in todays world; there’s no getting around it.

Round table discussions between two of the biggest US game makers have been taking place since the rejected February 2008 bid from EA (Electronic Arts) to buy Take2 Interactive the makers of Grandtheft Auto and Bio-Shock.  EA, most famous for it’s legendary Madden NFL and The Sims Series has made several round-table attempts since February to purchase Take2 Interactive.  The lastest offer of $25.74 per share to take over Take2 Interactive was ignored and passed up at it’s August 18th deadline.

This week the US Federal Trades Commission approved the merger however, talks seem to indicate that this might play out much longer still yet.

Last year’s revenue for EA totalled more than 4 Billion dollars and ranked them as one of the top 8 largest software companies in the world.  Take2 speculated to be worth around 2 Billion while not quite as big, also has a great bargaining chip on the table with the new release of Grandtheft Auto IV coming out they expect to rake in record profits during this economy down turn.

While theaters and restaurants are struggling, companies such as Dish Network, DirectTV (Hughes), and most of the entire gaming industry are experiencing a huge upturn in sales.  Instead familes are opting to stay home for entertainment and save the gas money; in May of this year, the gaming industry posted an astonishing 53% increase in sales.  The sales have gone up so much, that XBOX 360’s set for Japan have all sold out, and the US sales are getting close as well.  The Nintendo Wii, the first physically interactive gaming system is experiencing the same problem since Christmas 2007, and most stores that carry the system sell out the day they arrive.

For more news on EA, you can visit thier news section ..  EA News.

To follow the press with Take2 Interactive you can check out their press release / news section.