“The Dark Knight” lit up cash registers during its midnight debut, stealing away with a record $18.5 million from 3,040 theaters, distributor Warner Bros. said Friday.

That bested the 2005 performance of “Star Wars Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith,” which took in $16.9 million during its midnight debut in 2,915 venues.

“The Dark Knight” figure did not include any of its 3 a.m. or 6 a.m. showings.

And while Batman only strikes at night, all indications are that “The Dark Knight” will keep landing blows: Advance ticket sales were booming.

The early numbers mean “The Dark Knight” will likely join the ranks of 10 other films that debuted on non-holiday weekends and cleared more than $100 million from Friday to Sunday, said Paul Dergarabedian, president of tracking firm Media By Numbers LLC. Read more » »

Natsume, a worldwide developer and

publisher of family-oriented video games, announced today that the

company is celebrating the ten-year anniversary of its popular Harvest

Moon franchise this summer. In commemoration of the anniversary,

Natsume is launching two new Harvest Moon titles later this quarter

and offering a host of retail promotions surrounding the launches.

Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness for the Nintendo DS and Harvest Moon:

Tree of Tranquility for the Nintendo Wii will both be available at

retail later this summer, and will be branded with special packaging
Read more » »

The currently during Brash Entertainment announced today that key Hollywood talent from the upcoming animated movie, Space Chimps, will be featured in their videogame of the same name. Cheryl Hines (Curb Your Enthusiasm, RV) and Patrick Warburton (Bee Movie, Seinfeld) reprise their roles from the movie, Luna and Titan respectively, for the videogame. Based on the highly anticipated film produced by Vanguard Animation and presented by Starz Animation, the videogame is slated for release on July 15, 2008, just days before the film’s July 18, 2008 debut.

In the Space Chimps game, players follow the adventures of pioneering primates on a mission into outer space. Cheryl Hines as Luna, is a by the books, go-getting chimp, who graduated top of her astronaut training class. As the interactive plot of the game unfolds, Luna’s level head becomes an asset, and players take control of the character to explore alien territories and complete quests that explore lands and characters beyond the plot of the movie. Patrick Warburton as Titan, is the commanding officer of their space craft, and uses his deep stern voice to keep his crew in line. However, his quick temper and tendency to go bananas makes leading a squad difficult at times for this commanding chimp. Read more » »

As in past Civ games, the world is made up of a giant grid that mimics the layout of a map of the world (although the continents and oceans are variable, so it usually doesn’t resemble our Earth at all). It’s up to you to found cities, build them up by constructing different kinds of structures, and train military units to defend your borders.

The controls for Civ Rev on the DS are almost identical to its console cousins and the d-pad fills in for most of the selection duties. Of course, the DS’ stylus is put to good use and comes in handy for more minute selection options like when you have multiple units in one square and want to choose only one. Tapping the stylus on anything on the screen will select it (or you can scroll over it using the d-pad) and then you are free to direct your units by dragging the stylus from your unit to where you want it to go or whomever you want it to attack. While the d-pad seemed a bit more intuitive for actually moving units around, it’s nice to have the option of using the stylus if you so choose. Read more » »

Rock it in your pocket with the first portable version of the groundbreaking music game. Featuring an innovative Guitar Grip attachment and all the gameplay from its console cousins, On Tour delivers a very big sound in a very small package.

Why It’s Hot: What’s not to like? It’s Guitar Hero on the go! The Guitar Grip puts your fingers right on the frets, while the built-in guitar pick stylus lets you strum the touch screen like a real guitar. Most of the game’s 25 licensed songs are master tracks, not covers — and best of all, the thing works.

Why It’s Not: What’s not to like? Uh, a few things, if you believe the mixed reviews. Some critics feel the Guitar Grip isn’t particularly comfy, while other have complained about the sound quality and how the relatively short set list skews too heavily towards popular music rather than rock classics. No one said rock ‘n roll was easy. its with the on yahoo videogames for game summer 2008.

We ‘know’ that children who watch no-television achieve the least in school: comparable to children who watch 3-4 hours a day (fact published mid-’80’s); The ‘best’ students watched 0.5-1.0 hours a day (peak interpolated between).

But video games aren’t just DVD’s that mom returns if inappropriate material is found: they’re too expensive; and they’re not-really TV-like: they’re too intense; And content is effectually nonlinear (’random access’); And we have a ’stupid history of flaming’ on IRChats and MUDs– fueling video-prurience.

But there’s also a lot of ‘business’, in video too, And that, stirs violence in thought if its work-through becomes mentally cluttered … That disguises statistics-taking: We have to run multidimensional measurement-correlations.
Read more » »

The retailer Blockbuster is understood to be rolling out a standalone chain of games stores, a year after it sold its video games arm, Game Station, to Game Group.

The launch will aim to help Blockbuster secure a share of the burgeoning games sector. But a spokeswoman for the retailer declined to comment on the move, saying/ “We are not allowed to talk about company strategy.”

Last week, Blockbuster chief executive James Keyes talked about the company making a “bigger push” into video games and entertainment retail as he revealed its first quarter results. The US-owned company announced a net income of $45.4m (£23.1m) for the three months to April 6, compared with a prior-year net loss of $49m (£24.9m).

The move is likely to follow the $1.1bn (£550m) alliance between the world’s biggest electrical goods retailer BestBuy and Carphone Warehouse, which will see huge US-style stores opening Read more » »