Wednesday 19th December/…  Bellevue, WA.— ArenaNet® has announced that music from its Guild Wars® franchise of games will be performed as part of “PLAY! A Video Game Symphony.” This world-wide symphonic tour features music from a number of top videogames, including songs from Guild Wars. The tour kicks off in Fort Worth, Texas, on January 19, 2008.

The “PLAY! A Video Game Symphony” program will be performed by world-class orchestras and choirs in some of the most prestigious venues, including the Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth and the Benaroya Hall in Seattle, Washington. Game images projected on large screens above the orchestra accompany the scores, highlighting memorable moments from the video games and enhancing the entire experience.

Guild Wars has been praised for its rich soundtracks created by renowned video-game music composer Jeremy Soule and co-composer Julian Soule. The Soule brothers have created music for the entire Guild Wars franchise including the original Guild Wars, as well as the Factions™ and Nightfall™ campaigns. The music of Guild Wars is also featured on CD in special edition retail packages for each campaign.

“We always felt the work Jeremy and Julian did on the Guild Wars soundtrack was one of the best features of the game,” said Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet. “We’re incredibly happy their music has been included in the PLAY! Tour, so that even more people can enjoy the music that millions of Guild Wars players have grown to love.”

“Guild Wars brings a worldwide audience to our world tour, which is an exciting prospect for us,” said Jason Michael Paul, producer and creator of the PLAY! tour. “Guild Wars certainly has one of the most compelling and exciting music scores, which will be a great addition to our concert program.”

The Guild Wars franchise has sold more than 4.5 million units since the release of the original Guild Wars campaign, in 2005, making it one of the most popular online role-playing games of all time.

For more information on the Guild Wars franchise, go to: www.discoverguildwars.com. The award-winning Guild Wars campaigns can be purchased from retailers or downloaded from the PlayNC store at http://eu.plaync.com/eu/store/

Wednesday 19th December/… Massively Multiplayer Online RPG fans can look forward to a wealth of career opportunities in NCsoft’s forthcoming Aion: The Tower of Eternity next year, with gamers able to literally choose their destiny thanks to the game’s two-tiered character class system.

Characters begin their journey by choosing one of four base professions – Warrior, Scout, Mage and Priest. This initial tier of development impacts on everything from a character’s strength, to their combat prowess, to their magical abilities, ultimately shaping the players actions throughout the game. However, higher-level players can tailor their character further still, with each profession offering two advanced classes, bringing the total number of character types available in Aion: The Tower of Eternity up to eight.

While the initial choice of character class will largely depend on each player’s personal style, the ability to develop a character through the advanced class system ensures that players have all the tools they need to create a character that is unique to them.

The Warrior
Bold, brave and possessing immense physical prowess, Warriors excel in close-quarter combat. Strong performers in a wide range of situations, Warriors are relatively easy to master and when fully realised can unleash a spectacular range of physically devastating skills.

Depending on how players prefer to approach combat, Warriors can specialise as either Gladiators, who concentrate on dealing damage through brute force, or Templars, who combine fierce fighting with defensive chants and techniques.

The Scout
The Scout combines great agility with swift attacks. Scout players require a deft and accurate touch to get the most out of this tricky class, however the rewards are great and offer the greatest variety in play style of all the basic classes.

Scouts that specialise in ranged combat develop naturally into Rangers, an advanced class equally adept in the use of blades and traps. For those Scouts who prefer to stay hidden and strike from the shadows, the Assassin class is the perfect choice of advancement.

The Mage
Mages compensate their weakness in physical combat with the ability to launch devastatingly powerful magic attacks. In addition, Mages must learn to divert and evade the enemy so that they’re able to attack from the relative safety of range.

As Mages advance, so their mastery over the elements of water, air, earth and fire increase, their choice of advanced class determining how that mastery is manifest. Spiritmasters can summon and control elemental spirits, while Sorcerers channel elemental power into fearsome magical bolts and missiles.

The Priest
Spiritual warriors, Priests can use healing and self-protection spells to excel in melee combat, and launch powerful ranged magic attacks too. This makes them not only useful support characters in a party of adventurers, but also powerful combatants in their own right.

Priests that specialise in healing and protecting their allies naturally progress to the advanced class of Cleric, the ultimate support class. Alternatively, Priests can become Chanters, pious warriors that boast both healing and ability-boosting powers.

Players will be able to experience all eight character classes for themselves while exploring the incredible world of Atreia when Aion: The Tower of Eternity launches later next year.

Duck for cover as Codemasters puts players in charge of the emergency services in the most accident-prone city of all time!

Set to put the urgency into emergency, Codemasters® today announced Emergency Mayhem™ exclusively for Wii™. Coming Q2 2007, Emergency Mayhem puts the player at the helm of the three emergency services in a frantic race against time to hold together Crisis City, a mad metropolis falling apart at the seams.

Combining chaotic driving sequences with arcade mini-games, you’ll be in stitches controlling the frenzied police, fire service or paramedics as they dash around the city from one emergency situation to the next. With over 30 missions, it’s a non-stop time crisis where you’ll be rescuing people from burning buildings, defusing bombs and more.

However, in this city, the emergencies are of a decidedly slapstick nature; crazy situations will have you hurling bananas at out-of-control monkeys, using a trampoline to bounce escaping prisoners back into custody and herding penguins to safety with hilarious consequences. In a city where there’s always an urgent situation calling out for your attention, even those mischievous monkeys will get in your way

In Emergency Mayhem time is your enemy, relentlessly counting down as you take charge of a fire truck, ambulance, or police car to speed through the city’s eight different districts to the next emergency. Have you got the nerves necessary to beat the clock and save the city? Find shortcuts, such as making use of the city’s underground railways lines and even sewers, to get there on time and save the day.

When you reach the scene of the emergency play switches to one of over 30 mini-games which take unique advantage of the Wii Remote to solve crazy crises. Using the Wii Remote, you’ll have to pump the to practice CPR, point it to direct water from a powerful hose, mimic a wrench to bring bursting water-hydrants under control and aim it to fire tranquiliser darts into on-the-rampage monkeys!

Get ready to put down those monkeys and put on the uniform in Q2 2007 when Codemasters launches Emergency Mayhem to the sound of sirens for Wii. If in urgent need of emergency assistance please visit www.codemasters.com/emergency for more information.