Viva Piñata, a high-energy, mass-appeal entertainment property created by Rare Ltd. that brings a vibrant world of living piñata animals to video games, television and beyond. The Viva Piñata universe showcases an engaging cast of colorful, wild-roaming piñata animals that entertain and challenge imaginations.

Osaka-based developer Yuke's Company, known for THQ's WWE Smackdown series and the Rumble Roses series for Konami, announced today that it has opened its first North American office, Yuke's Company of America. Yuke's Company of America is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Yuke's Co., Ltd., and intends to publish games on a number of platforms including the PS2, PS3, Xbox 360, and the PSP.

Oblivion is a single-player game that takes place in Tamriel's capital province, Cyrodiil. You are given the task of finding the hidden heir to a throne that sits empty, the previous emperor having been killed by an unknown assassin. This v1.1 patch UK/US versions of the game) addresses various bugs, crashes, quests and plugin issues.

Heroes of Might & Magic V offers a highly immersive scenario, a variety of appealing factions, modern 3D graphics, a revolutionary tactical combat system, and a story-based campaign mode. Ubisoft has released the first patch bringing your retail game to v1.01 and adding some new features, fixing bugs and crashes, as well as tweaking the game.

Explore a Las Vegas-style resort from the comfort of your own home and become a virtual high roller in Playwize Poker and Casino. The game offers players four, fully 3D, virtual casinos to discover, packed with fellow gamblers to chat with and featuring multiple dice tables, poker games, slot machines and more besides.

French publisher GOA announced that it has secured exclusive European publishing and online operational rights for the Mythic's MMORPG, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.

In Battlefield 2142, players choose to fight for one of two military superpowers - the European Union or the newly formed Pan Asian Coalition -in an epic battle for survival. EA has narrowed down the BF 2142 from Winter 2006 to October 19th.

ATI announced today that it is working with middleware provider Havok to drive physics on its latest GPUs. Using Havok FX, developers can enable more convincing environments that include richer, more detailed explosions, smoke, debris, fluids, and cloth by combining the rendering of two ATI graphics cards, with a third devoted to modeling the environment.

Test Drive Unlimited challenges players online to experience the most exotic and fastest vehicles on more than 1000 miles of diverse Hawaiian roads. Gamers win races, challenges, missions and tournaments to earn credits and purchase new cars, bikes, rare performance parts, clothes, apparel, homes and garages.

Spacewars is considered by many to be the first video game ever developed by Alan Kotok, a computer pioneer who worked on the development of early Digital Equipment Corp. computers. Kotok worked with fellow MIT students to develop the Digital's PDP-1 minicomputer, which was used to create Spacewars back in the 1960s. Kotok passed away last week at the age of 64.