All Topics Gaming older than one year ago

NinjaBee is working on a Kingdom for Keflings sequel, which takes the logical next step and is quite expectedly titled A World of Keflings. IGN has the first details of the follow-up that has "multiple kingdoms to explore, each with its own climate, resources, and culture." A World of Kelings sound like it's the same gameplay you remember from the original ... just bigger and stuffed with more Keflings. NinjaBee President Steve Taylor says the game has "a new story focus, with new exotic lands, characters, quests, buildings, customization options, and a lot more." The game will release sometime this year and will feature local multiplayer -- a feature awkwardly missing in the original.

The heroes fight their way through the tower to rescue the princess.

Encounter various beasts and enemies while roaming the plains of Balandor.

Sure, Critter Crunch is cute. But it is also barf-inducingly hard. Thankfully, a new patch (releasing today) will help make the more challenging stages "less insane." In addition, the patch adds support for in-game XMB music, so you can play while listening to your extensive Miley Cyrus collection. The full patch notes are below: Additions: XMB Audio support Language select available for all! Hey losers! You get a little XP even if you lose in multiplayer Tweaks: Player feedback regarding DIFFICULT LEVELS has been taken to heart. Tough levels got a little less insane! Coop networking tweaks to decrease pesky lag Multiplayer "Disconnects" are now awarded more accurately Catching a jewel while feeding glorious vomit to your son will no longer interrupt you Your rank will now be retrieved more reliably when playing Adventure Nasty bug fixes: No more annoying audio glitch No more Wins/Losses upload issues when the server is in "'maintenance" mode Player score for Challenge levels now correctly handled in ALL cases "Barf Success" icon now shows up correctly in ALL cases "King of the Jungle" Trophy now successfully unlocks correctly even with a score of 0

Filed under: USA, FanHouse Exclusive, SnowboardHe's improving. They've taken out the breathing tube. They say he's responding to simple commands. But the U.S. no longer has two contenders favored to perhaps win both gold and silver halfpipe medals in next month's Olympic Games. Though Shaun White may be the one watching his country's flag raised in his honor after an electrifying run, snowboard star Kevin Pearce will still be in the hospital, trying to relearn to walk. On December 31, Pearce was working out in the giant Superpipe at Park City Mountain Resort (PCMR), the same pipe used for the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics. He was training for the final selection event for the Olympics, the Grand Prix coming up on January 22-23. The U.S. Olympic snowboard team will be announced at the awards ceremony after the competition. But the 22-year-old Pearce, one of the very few riders to defeat Shaun White, won't be there. Pearce misjudged his air while training and hit his temple on the knife-sharp icy edge of the pipe as he finished a trick. He hit hard. It severely damaged his brain. Kevin lay at the bottom of the pipe, convulsing, while other riders screamed for help. Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Filed under: USA, Alpine Skiing, AustriaLindsey Vonn says Austrian coaches have apologized to her for suggesting she had an edge over other skiers because of her weight.Austrian media last week reported that Vonn, the reigning downhill and overall World Cup champion, would have an advantage in speed events because she was carrying additional weight.Vonn said the comments didn't weigh on her but served as motivation when she won a trio of World Cup races, dominating three days of speed racing in Haus im Ennstal, Austria, last weekend.Vonn said in a teleconference Monday that she takes pride in being fit and fast and "if weight were the key to success in ski racing, then everyone would be stuffing their faces with food." Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Filed under: DopingLAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) -- IOC president Jacques Rogge is confident that out-of-competition testing and work with Canadian authorities will stamp out drug cheats at the Vancouver Games.Rogge said Thursday that the lessons of the last two Winter Olympics proved the effectiveness of surprise doping controls and police action when needed. The same strategy will be used next month in Canada, where 2,000 doping tests will be conducted at the Feb. 12-28 Olympics."We have a zero-tolerance policy for doping," Rogge said at the International Olympic Committee's headquarters. "We are going to continue our policy of unannounced, out-of-competition testing. This is a weapon to trace the cheats. We're also going to store the samples for eight years, like we did in Beijing."Months after the 2008 Beijing Olympics, a new test for the endurance booster CERA led to retroactive tests that caught five athletes, including 1,500-meter winner Rashid Ramzi of Bahrain. He has since been banned and stripped of his gold medal. Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Filed under: Alpine Skiing, SwitzerlandWENGEN, Switzerland (AP) -- Swiss ski star Lara Gut will miss the Vancouver Olympics after failing to recover from a dislocated right hip.The announcement was made Thursday on her Web site. She met with Swiss team doctors and her surgeon, who performed the operation in October after a training crash.The 18-year-old Gut hoped to ski again this week and compete later in the month at the World Cup meet in St. Moritz, Switzerland.Now she does not play to ski again before February. The Swiss Olympic team is selected Feb. 1.Gut was expected to challenge American star Lindsey Vonn in speed events at the Vancouver Olympics.Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. Active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL. Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Filed under: USA, Alpine SkiingWENGEN, Switzerland, (AP) -- Bode Miller won a World Cup super-combined event on the Lauberhorn course Friday for his first victory since March 2008. The American completed his slalom run in 49.05 seconds after leading the morning downhill for a combined time of 2 minutes, 35.96 seconds. Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Filed under: USA, Bobsleigh, SkeletonU.S. women's bobsled driver Bree Schaaf could hardly believe it Saturday when realizing that she clinched a spot on the Olympic roster.By day's end, she had plenty of company.The U.S. Bobsled and Skeleton Federation formally announced 11 spots on its roster for the Vancouver Games on Saturday, and another berth -- for bobsledder Mike Kohn, who wasn't even in the Olympic picture when the season began -- was clinched earlier in the day when he finished 12th in a World Cup race at St. Moritz, Switzerland."Going to the Olympics will feel like going home, but I had to get there first by driving a new track every week," said Schaaf, who lives in Bremerton, Wash., not far from Vancouver. "I can't believe I get to walk in opening ceremonies. I dreamed about this, but now it's really real."Real for a lot of other people, too. Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Filed under: USA, Freestyle SkiingPARK CITY, Utah (AP) -- Heather McPhie and Bryon Wilson wrapped up their first trips to the Winter Olympics on Saturday night with strong World Cup moguls finishes.Reigning Olympic gold medalist Jennifer Heil of Canada edged McPhie for her third straight win at Deer Valley and fourth straight World Cup triumph, two days after tying the Park City native for the top spot.France's Guilbaut Colas won the men's event for the third time in his last four tries.In the thick of internal team competition, U.S. women were second through fifth, stacking the podium until they were upended by Heil in the night's final run."Our team is unbelievable right now,'' McPhie said. "Every single day is more pressure if you let it get to you coming up to February, and we're all answering, harder than we've ever answered. It gives me goosebumps to talk about my team. It kills me that we can't all go." Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Filed under: USA, BobsleighJohn Napier will race for his country in Vancouver. He might represent his nation in a different manner after that.Shortly after being selected to the U.S. Olympic bobsled team on Sunday, the 23-year-old from Schenectady, N.Y., again said he has inquired about joining his National Guard unit in Afghanistan.Napier is a sergeant with the Vermont National Guard, which earlier this month had more than 200 troops head to Indiana for training before deployment overseas. He has spoken several times in recent months about serving overseas, often saying that he remains "a soldier first."Napier enlisted in the National Guard in 2007 and is a member of the Army's World Class Athlete Program, which helps provide him with support and training. Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Filed under: USA, Figure SkatingSPOKANE, Wash. (AP) -- Most countries would be thrilled to send a world champion to the Olympics. Or a Grand Prix final winner. Heck, even a world medalist would be good.The United States has all three, an abundance of talent not seen since Brian Boitano's days.Jeremy Abbott earned a trip to the Olympics by winning his second national title Sunday and will be joined in Vancouver by world champion Evan Lysacek and Johnny Weir."Very strong," Lysacek said when asked to assess the team. "I'm very honored to be part of this team and stand next to these two guys. Of the six, seven, eight, nine, 10 incredible men that competed tonight, we came out on top."We're going to work really hard, and we're going to do really well."The United States has won only two medals since Scott Hamilton and Boitano's back-to-back golds, the last being Tim Goebel's bronze in 2002. But with the talent the Americans are sending, it won't be a surprise if one of these guys comes home with an extra souvenir. Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Filed under: USA, SnowboardSALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Snowboarder Danny Davis is recovering after successful back surgery he needed due to a season-ending accident on a four-wheeler in the Utah mountains.An update posted on his Facebook site Tuesday said doctors are, quote, "very pleased" with the outcome of Davis' surgery on a vertebrae in his lower back. The update said an official statement from the doctors would be coming in the next 24 hours.Davis was a strong favorite to make the U.S. Olympic halfpipe team, but his season ended after an accident early Sunday morning in which he crashed an all-terrain vehicle into a closed gate.Davis is good friends with Kevin Pearce, another top snowboarder and one-time Olympic hopeful who is in a Utah hospital recovering from a head injury he suffered during training last month.Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Filed under: Sports Business and Media, Figure SkatingOnce upon a time in Baltimore, by law, Colts games couldn't begin before 2 PM ET on Sundays, a fact that used to drive the television networks mad as they could only show one-and-a-half games in the market that week.Of course, the seemingly odd start time made it possible for fans to go to church or enjoy a leisurely brunch or tailgate before walking through the Waverly neighborhood on the way to Memorial Stadium.Well, both Memorial Stadium and the Baltimore Colts are gone. So, too, is that 2 PM ET law, perhaps marking the last time real people won out over television networks.Now, not only are fans are inconvenienced by the needs and wants of the great god television, so now are the competitors themselves.To wit, the United States Figure Skating Championships are being stretched, leaving three days in the middle of the week where nothing is happening, so that NBC can have competition, or as much of that that actually takes place in figure skating, over two weekends.The pairs and men's competition went off this past weekend in Spokane, Wash., with the ice dancing and women's skating taking place this coming weekend. Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Filed under: USA, SpeedskatingKEARNS, Utah -- It's the last Olympics for speed skater Jennifer Rodriguez. Vancouver will be the fourth and final time she marches into the opening ceremony with the American team. It's one more Olympics than the multi-medaled Olympian ever thought she would skate in. But this time, she has no idea what will happen."Before, I always knew what my expectations were. This time I don't, because I took two years off after Torino, and I'm still trying to work my way back up," she said.This ending will be a total life change for the 33-year-old Miami native, who was just four years old when she wobbled onto the pavement near her home in a pair of inline skates that didn't quite fit. From that moment, skating was all she wanted to do. After years of rolling around Miami's streets and sidewalks, she finally tried the smooth floor of a skating rink, and suddenly realized she was good -- good enough to go pro. Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Filed under: USA, SnowboardTELLURIDE, Colo. (AP) -- To the snowboardcross and X-Games world in which she resides, she is Lindsey Jacobellis, the most dominant figure in her sport, a multiple champion at almost every level.To the rest of the world -- the world that pays attention to these things every four years at the Olympics -- she is that girl who lost the gold medal when she was trying to show off.Jacobellis has, she insists, put that ill-timed embarrassment from the 2006 snowboardcross final behind her, admitted the "method grab" and the ensuing tumble she took because of it -- when she was in the lead, far ahead of everyone -- was a mistake.But the 24-year-old Vermonter, whose Olympic silver looks a bit odd mixed in there with all those other gold medals, knows there's only one way to get that off people's minds: By closing the deal when the world is watching in Vancouver next month."It definitely was a mistake," Jacobellis said, an admission that didn't come so easily in the immediate aftermath of the gaffe. "It was a 'Whoops, Oh, dear. I don't know what happened.' But you learn from mistakes and all you can do is grow. If you just stop there and be sour about it, it doesn't show that you're a true athlete who craves the next race."Only a true athlete could get to where Jacobellis has gone in a sport that is as much about avoiding the next injury as winning the next race. Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Filed under: USA, Figure SkatingSPOKANE, Wash.(AP) -- Sasha Cohen brought the buzz back to U.S. skating.Looked pretty darned good doing it, too.At her first competitive practice in almost four years, the reigning Olympic silver medalist did an effortless run-through of her short program Wednesday, reminding everyone -- fans, media, even other skaters -- why she remains the Americans' biggest star. Not to mention the best hope for a medal at the Vancouver Olympics."It felt great to be out there on competitive ice," Cohen said afterward in a text message. "I am really excited."She's not the only one. The Americans, long the dominant force in women's skating, have been searching for their next big star for three years now. Rachael Flatt, Mirai Nagasu, Ashley Wagner -- they're all very talented, bright and have good stories to tell. But they can't command an audience like Cohen.Few can. Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Filed under: Figure SkatingOne of the reasons many sports fans don't take figure skating seriously is because the winner is determined by judges. Boxing has judges too, but frequently they're rendered unnecessary because one fighter pounds the other into goo. That's not the case in skating. Eight years ago, a coalition of Olympic figure skating judges told everybody they didn't see what they swore they saw. It looked like the Canadian pair of Jamie Salé and David Pelletier had outskated Russia's Yelena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze, but the judges said otherwise. Eventually a French judge admitted she was pressured to give the gold to the Russians. Apparently, that wasn't the first time something like this had happened. Or so says legendary figure skating coach Frank Carroll. Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Filed under: USA, Alpine SkiingCORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) -- In three weeks, the only things that will matter for Lindsey Vonn will be gold, silver or bronze.Saturday, however, was a day for milestones.Vonn made it five wins in five downhills this season. Her 30th World Cup victory tied her with Croatia's Janica Kostelic for eighth place on the career list and nearly halfway to Austrian leader Annemarie Moser-Proell's 62 wins."It's crazy! When she was dominating the World Cup I thought she was unbeatable,'' Vonn said, referring to Kostelic. "She was so good - too good - and I don't really see myself as the person that's got the same amount of wins that she has. She is just as big a legend in ski racing as Moser-Proell or (Renate) Goetschl. She's a huge name.'' Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Filed under: USA, SnowboardPARK CITY, Utah (AP) -- Shaun White was so angry following a rare halfpipe loss two weeks ago, he decided to ditch a planned vacation for a little extra practice instead.Good call.The snowboarding star put together a near-perfect run Friday -- unveiling his latest trick in the process -- to dominate the U.S. Snowboarding Grand Prix and send a message that he's more than ready to defend his Olympic gold medal at Vancouver. Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Filed under: USA, Figure SkatingSPOKANE, Wash. (AP) -- Seems hard to believe, but it was only about a decade ago that cracking the top 10 was a monumental achievement for a U.S. dance team.Now the Americans are sending not one, but two medal contenders to the Vancouver Olympics.Meryl Davis and Charlie White won their second straight ice dance title at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships on Saturday, beating Olympic and world silver medalists Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto for the first time in their careers. Long overshadowed by Belbin and Agosto -- at home and internationally -- Davis and White left little doubt they are now equal to their friends and former training partners, as well as the other top teams in the world. Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Filed under: USA, Figure SkatingSPOKANE, Wash. (AP) -- Her Olympic dreams over, Sasha Cohen stuck around to watch Mirai Nagasu and Rachael Flatt."They're great,'' Cohen said. "They're cute, they're excited.''That they most definitely are.Flatt and Nagasu earned trips to the Olympics with their 1-2 finish at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships on Saturday night, and the folks in Vancouver should consider themselves warned. The rest of the world might not know who they are -- heck, folks in America will brush up on their bios -- and they might not wind up on the medals stand.But they sure will put on a show. And that's just at the news conferences."I'm just excited about all the free stuff we're going to get,'' the delightfully filterless Nagasu said. "I hope a medal will come, too.''Despite all the wailing about the sad state of the U.S. women these last few years, don't count them out. Flatt entered Kim Yu-na and Mao Asada territory with her final score of 200.11 points, and the high school senior is one of the few people who's beaten Kim in the last two years. Sure, it was in the free skate at Skate America, but she's shown it can be done. Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Filed under: USA, Alpine SkiingCORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) -- Lindsey Vonn was encouraged simply by making it to the finish Sunday in her weakest discipline, giant slalom. The 19th-place result wasn't exactly what she was aiming for after consecutive victories in super-G and downhill the past two days, however, and Vonn was again critical of the way officials injected the course with water to create a more icy surface. "Here in Cortina it's the best snow on earth -- it doesn't get any better than this. They had a perfect track and in my opinion they ruined it," Vonn said. "There's no need whatsoever for injection on this hill." Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

This particular Best Buy location is completely out of Mario Kart Wii. This sucker just won’t stop selling. I just had no idea that it was welling so well!

The development of Star Wars Battlefront III has been rocky, to say the least. Work began at Free Radical before Crytek snapped up the company, then the game was rumored to be in Rebellion's care before it eventually dropped from the face of the earth. Meanwhile Pandemic, the recently shuttered studio behind the first two games, apparently had nothing to do with the title at all. The latest rumor, courtesy of Kotaku, puts development of a brand new Battlefront project, entitled Star Wars Battlefront: Online, in the hands of Slant Six Games and LucasArts. Slant Six is the studio behind several games in the SOCOM tactical-shooter series, making it a reasonable candidate for a Battlefront developer. The game will reportedly arrive in 2011 on PS3 and Xbox 360. It will focus on online play and, presumably, Star Wars. According to Kotaku, Star Wars Battlefront: Online is also the source of the Star Wars Battlefront III casting rumors that popped up last December.

*SPOILER* The fate of Shepard and his crew is revealed in the first of six in this endgame gameplay series.

*SPOILER* The second installment of six in the endgame videos for Mass Effect 2.

*SPOILER* The end of Shepard and company's second story continues in the third of six endgame gameplay series.