Microsoft has announced that the British indie rock band, the Kaiser Chiefs, will be ambassadors for the “Xbox Summer Stadium” sports and entertainment campaign from 15th June until 12th August 2012. As part of their role the band have pledged their support to Microsoft’s charity partner, Right To Play, encouraging fans to take part in donating to a great cause.

The Kaiser Chiefs have joined Right to Play Athlete Ambassadors including UK High Jumper, Martyn Bernard, and Red Bull Cliff Diver, Blake Aldridge, to deliver a special message asking fans to unite in the virtual world and support the charity.

On 16th June 2012 at 6 p.m BST, fans across Europe are invited to take part in the 100m dash on the Xbox Kinect Sports game and help break a Guinness World Record for the most people in an online race. Participants will not only have the chance to be record breakers, but Microsoft will also donate funds to Right to Play each time a person is taking part.

Kaiser Chiefs lead singer, Ricky Wilson, commented: “We’re proud to be supporting Right To Play and want to encourage our fans and Xbox communities to raise funds for a brilliant cause. Tomorrow on 16th June, I’ll be joining people across Europe in the charity fun run on Xbox LIVE. It takes just 10 seconds of your time to do something which will actually help children around the world.”

On the weekend of 15th-17th June 2012, Xbox is providing free access to its Xbox LIVE Gold subscription service and for every person who takes part in the charity run on 16th June 2012, Microsoft will make a donation to Right to Play. These contributions will enable Right To Play to use the transformative power of play to educate and empower children facing adversity.

Right To Play Athlete Ambassador and UK High Jumper, Martyn Bernard, commented: “Working with the likes of the Kaiser Chiefs and Xbox helps raise much needed awareness of the great things we can do together to improve the lives of children through sport. With their support and fans we hope that more children from around the world will have access to and benefit from Right To Play’s sport and play programming. Here’s to a fantastic summer of fundraising.”

Sport fans will also have the chance to represent their countries in weekly online tournaments, as well as watch the world’s greatest sports events on Xbox LIVE. The Xbox Summer Stadium campaign will culminate with an exclusive and intimate gig by the Kaiser Chiefs broadcast on the closing weekend of 10th August 2012. Xbox Gold members can watch it exclusively on Xbox LIVE via the MUZU.TV app as well as win tickets to attend the gig.

The donation site is now live and full details on how to donate and take part in Guinness World Record attempt on 16th June 2012 can be found at www.xbox.com/right-to-play.

In the latest edition of EA's PWNED, find out more about The Secret World with Erling Elling from FunCom and the game lore that sits behind it. Darren Cross from Match Magazine gives us some help with scoring goals from dead-ball situations in UEFA Euro 2012, and Rasmus Hojengaard from Crytek gives us more detail on Crysis 3 and talks us through some of the thinking that has brought Prophet to this stage with Crysis 3.

The UEFA Euro 2012 expansion pack for FIFA 12 is now available to download in North America and Europe on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 or PC.

Available for a suggested retail price of £15.99, 1800 MS Points or 2500 FIFA Points on PC. The expansion pack includes all 53 UEFA member national teams and all the eight official stadiums of the tournament. Fans will be able to compete online as their favourite European country in the UEFA Euro tournament against rival nations in the group stage, progress through the sudden victory knockout rounds, and ultimately compete for the chance to be crowned UEFA Euro 2012 champion.

UEFA Euro 2012 also features a new mode called Expedition that enables fans to build, manage and compete with a customised team against other European nations. Fans will choose their favourite European player or FIFA 12 Virtual Pro to captain their customised team, win matches to earn better players from defeated nations, and then defeat the best nations to earn the best players in a campaign quest to defeat all 53 countries and complete the journey to conquer Europe.

To coincide with the release, EA Sports have unveiled plans to determine the best players in the world playing UEFA Euro 2012 on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The two best players on each console will be determined through a series of online qualifiers. Those players will meet in the championship final on the pitch at Olympic Stadium in Kiev, Ukraine, hours before their heroes step onto the same pitch to compete for the UEFA Euro 2012 championship. Competition details are available here.

EA Sports and Coca-Cola Zero are also teaming up to deliver an online service that will drive real-life story lines from the UEFA Euro 2012 qualifying campaign and during the tournament into the game, enabling fans to relive dramatic moments with challenges based on real-life matches. Fans are able to submit matches and vote on the ones they want to replay by visiting the EA Sports football community on Facebook. Challenges that receive the most votes will be pushed into the game weekly between April 27th and July 5th, 2012. Challenges will enable fans to earn experience points and level up their EA Sports Football Club profile.

Expedition is a new fantasy-team based single-player mode in UEFA Euro 2012, the exclusive downloadable expansion for FIFA 12.

You lot like to moan about publishers such as EA and Activision milking their franchises with annual series updates, or in the case of FIFA 12's upcoming digital-only expansion, a half-yearly update in the form of UEFA Euro 2012.

Read Full Article

Scheduled for release on April 24th, EA Sports UEFA Euro 2012 is a new digital expansion pack for FIFA 12 and a tie in with this summer's tournament in Poland and Ukraine.

EA have today announced EA Sports UEFA Euro 2012, a new digital expansion pack for FIFA 12 and a tie in with this summer's tournament in Poland and Ukraine, which kicks off on June 8th.

Scheduled for release on April 24th for a suggested retail price of £15.99, 1800 MS Points or 2500 FIFA Points on PC. The expansion pack includes all 53 UEFA member national teams and all the eight official stadiums of the tournament. Fans will be able to compete online as their favourite European country in the UEFA Euro tournament against rival nations in the group stage, progress through the sudden victory knockout rounds, and ultimately compete for the chance to be crowned UEFA Euro 2012 champion.

A live service will also drive real-life story lines from the qualifying campaign and during the tournament into the game, enabling fans to relive dramatic moments with challenges based on real-life matches. Challenges will enable fans to earn experience points and level up their EA Sports Football Club profile.

Also an all-new Expedition Mode designed exclusively for UEFA Euro 2012 enables fans to build, manage and compete with a customized team against other European nations, crafting the perfect strategy for European domination. Fans will choose their favourite European player or FIFA 12 Virtual Pro to captain their customized team, win matches to earn better players from defeated nations, and then defeat the best nations to earn the best players in a campaign quest to defeat all 53 countries and complete the journey to conquer Europe.

The UEFA Euro 2012 game will be a paid digital expansion for FIFA 12, EA has announced.
It will be released on 24th April in Europe and North America, and on 25th April in "other countries around the world".

Read Full Article

EA has beefed up the security of FIFA Ultimate Team. An update for the FUT and EA Sports Football Club areas of FIFA 12 goes live on Xbox 360 tomorrow, 13th March, and on PlayStation 3 on Wednesday, 14th March. It is designed to, among other things, protect FUT accounts against phishers and scammers, EA said.

Read Full Article

EA today announced that it has secured a four-year licensing agreement with the Football Association of the Czech Republic that will see the inclusion of the Czech National Team in upcoming EA Sports FIFA titles.

“Having the full national team, in the hugely popular FIFA series, with authentic jerseys and players, is a big win for Czech football fans,” said Miroslav Pelta, President of the Football Association of the Czech Republic. “Seeing the team in the world’s most popular sports videogame in the coming years is something that will definitely build the connection between our team and our fans.”

Following an increasing occurrence of Xbox Live account hack reports, we are growing concerned over Microsoft's Windows Live ID system, the only layer of protection between a hacker gaining access to a person's Xbox Live account and their information.

Read Full Article

Xbox Live is an extremely popular service, featuring a bunch of users with credit cards oh-so-conveniently attached to their accounts, so it’s an obvious target for scammers. Getting emails from users who’ve been had their accounts compromised is nothing new; it happens every single day. Tide goes in, tide goes out.

There was something different about the stream of emails from the past week, with a bunch of users mentioning FIFA. The first confusing tip-off these users had was finding FIFA 11 in their game library, despite never having played it.

Read Full Article

Electronic Arts have announced the most successful launch in EA Sports history as EA Sports Fifa 12 hit store shelves and online retailers across the globe. Fans around the world have already played more than 200 million minutes of online games.

Since its September 27th launch in North America and September 30th worldwide, Fifa 12 has sold-through an estimated 3.2 million units across all consoles worldwide, making it the biggest launch in the history of sports videogames and the biggest videogame launch of 2011 to date.

“Fifa 12 is a stunning achievement by our team at EA Canada,” said Andrew Wilson, Executive Vice-President of EA Sports. “The massive Fifa online community has overwhelmingly connected to the new live services in the game, including EA Sports Football Club, and we intend to keep them engaged all season long as Fifa 12 follows the heartbeat of the football season.”

The launch of Fifa 12 also saw the introduction of EA Sports Football Club. Millions of fans around the world have already pledged their allegiance to their favourite team through the Support Your Club feature.

To date, the clubs with the most supporters are:
Manchester United – 241,767 supporters
FC Barcelona – 144,709 supporters
Arsenal – 131,305 supporters
Real Madrid – 126,806 supporters
Liverpool – 118,182 supporters

Simon Humber goes in-depth about player progression, player scouting and the Youth Academy, in Fifa 12's Career mode.

Dice have revealed today that the expansion pack 'Back to Karkand' will be released one week early exclusively on PS3, before being available for other formats.

Back to Karkand is a themed expansion pack containing four of the most loved maps from Battlefield 2, "Strike at Karkand," "Wake Island," "Gulf of Oman" and "Sharqi Peninsula" all reimagined using the Frostbite 2 engine. It also features new weapons and vehicles, unique in-game dog tags, new persistence, as well as new Trophies.

Back to Karkland is available for free for gamers who pre-ordered the Battlefield 3 Limited Edition.

The FIFA 12 demo is now available to download for the Xbox 360 and the PC, the Playstation 3 demo will be available tomorrow (September 14th) as part of the Playstation Store update.

In the demo gamers can play as 6 different teams, Arsenal, Barcelona, Milan, Man City, Marseille or Borussia Dortmund and play the tutorials for standing tackle, sliding tackle, jockeying, running jockey, contain, team mate contain and push pull.

The PC demo can be downloaded here (1.5GB) or it can be queued for download for the Xbox 360 here.

EA have unveiled the complete music track listing for FIFA 12, featuring 39 artists from 15 countries.

The FIFA 12 soundtrack delivers new music from Kasabian, The Ting Tings and CSS and hot tracks by Chase & Status, TV On The Radio, Foster The People, The Strokes and Thievery Corporation. In addition, this year’s soundtrack includes such international breakthrough artists as Holland's The Medics, Brazil’s Bloco Bleque, England’s The Vaccines, Monarchy and Graffiti6, New Zealand’s Naked & Famous, Sweden’s Little Dragon, and American indie rock bands GIVER, Grouplove and Portugal. The Man.

Kasabian are no strangers to the FIFA soundtrack. This will be a second outing for the Leicester based band after EA featured their track L.S.F. (Lost Souls Forever), from their self titled debut, on FIFA 2004. Coming back 8 years later, EA will showcase their latest song ‘Switchblade Smiles’, taken from their 4th album ‘Velociraptor!’

The Vaccines burst on to the UK music scene in May 2011 with their debut album ‘What Did You Expect From The Vaccines?’ Herald by the industry as ones to watch, their debut single ‘Wreckin' Bar (Ra Ra Ra)’ will also be part of the FIFA 12 sound track.

The complete in-game soundtrack for FIFA 12 includes:

ARTIST	SONG	COUNTRY
Alex Metric & Steve Angello	Open Your Eyes	England/Sweden
All Mankind	Break The Spell	Australia
Architecture In Helsinki	Escapee	Australia
Bloco Bleque / Gabriel O Pensador	So Tem Jogador	Brazil
Chase & Status	No Problem	England
Crystal Castles / Robert Smith	Not In Love	Canada/England
CSS	Hits Me Like A Rock	Brazil
Cut Copy	Where I'm Going	Australia
Digitalism	Circles	Germany
DJ Raff	Latino & Proud	Chile
El Guincho	Bombay (Fresh Touch Dub Mix)	Spain
Empresarios	Sabor Tropical	USA
Foster The People	Call It What You Want	USA
GIVERS	Up Up Up	USA
Glasvegas	The World Is Yours	Scotland
Graffiti6	Stare Into The Sun	England
Grouplove	Colours (Captain Cutz Remix)	USA
Japanese Popstars	Let Go	England
Kasabian	Switchblade Smiles	England
La Vida Boheme	El Buen Salvaje	Venezuela
Little Dragon	NightLight	England
Macaco	Una Sola Voz	Spain
Marteria / Yasha	Verstrahlt	Germany
Monarchy	The Phoenix Alive (Kris Menace Remix)	England
Pint Shot Riot	Twisted Soul	England
Portugal. The Man	Got It All (This Can’t Be Living Now)	USA
Rock Mafia	The Big Bang	USA
Spank Rock	Energy	USA
The Chain Gang Of 1974	Hold On	USA
The Hives	Thousand Answers	Sweden
The Medics	City	Holland
The Naked & Famous	Punching In A Dream	New Zealand
The Strokes	Machu Picchu	USA
The Ting Tings	Hands	England
The Vaccines	Wreckin' Bar (Ra Ra Ra)	England
Thievery Corporation	Stargazer	England
Tittsworth & Alvin Risk / Maluca	La Campana	USA/Portugal
TV On The Radio	Will Do	USA
Tying Tiffany	Drownin'	Italy

FIFA 12 animator Kantcho Doskov demonstrates the new skill moves in FIFA 12, which include the Elastico Chop, Scoop Turn and two new freestyle juggling tricks the LATW and Reverse Toe Bounce.

EA Sports have given a release date for the FIFA 12 demo. The September 13th release date was revealed at the end of the GamesCom trailer which can be watched below.

EA have revealed the full list of features of the Wii version of FIFA 12.

There are two ways to play FIFA 12 either the traditional 11 versus 11 football matches with over 30 officially licensed leagues, 500 teams, and more than 15,000 players to choose from. Or you can hit the streets to compete in 5 versus 5 street matches with the world’s biggest stars. Any way you choose to play can produce rewards to develop your FIFA City.


FIFA City— See you personalized FIFA City grow as you complete and earn awards in every game mode. Earn buildings and infrastructure, better players, passionate fans, and grow your city into one of the world’s most desirable places to play. Unlock coveted players and build your own dream club of international superstars.

Intercity Cup— Defeat neighbouring cities in exclusive streets and stadium tournaments to claim the Intercity Cup. Complete awards in other game modes and hit population milestones to earn rewards—better players, powerups, and new kits—to create the biggest city and best club.
Awards— Featuring over 100 all-new awards throughout every game mode. Net the Last Gasp Winner in injury time or score a goal from a Scorpion Kick and you are on your way to building the best FIFA City.

Be A Manger— All-new manager mode enables you to take your favourite club to the top of the league tables –and keep them there! A new transfer market will test
your resolve as a manager and challenges you to manage your budget as you buy and sell players and upgrade facilities. Utilize a new training system to develop and train your players into the next football legends.

Custom Tactics—Become a first-team coach with the power to customize formations, tactics and more so CPU players and your team perform just like the real-world team or how you think the real team should play. Save your tactics to make strategic decisions to exploit your opponent’s weaknesses during the game.

Streets to Stadium (Be A Pro) — FIFA Wii brings its own unique style to the classic Be A Pro experience. Put yourself in the game with Create Player as you play your way from the streets into the biggest football stadiums in the world. On your way to becoming the next great football star you can unlock items such as trick packs, celebrations, or new hairstyles, earn fame and ultimately awards for your FIFA City. Choose to play locked to a player or in control of the whole squad as you try to complete your Created Player-specific match challenges-the key to your success in the mode.

Hit The Streets: Decked out in cool street wear, compete in 5 versus 5 street matches in famous cities and indoor environments. Customize the rules of each match for a true test of skill. Choose from different match types—first to score, Tug of War or timed—and from a variety of different goals to test your skills, including elevated nets for lofted touch shots, wall goals for continuous action and mini nets to test accuracy.

Hit The Pitch: Play a traditional 11 versus 11 football match, choosing from over 500 licensed teams from over 30 leagues, with authentic kits and stadiums.

User-Controlled Celebrations— Maneuver your player around the pitch to perform celebrations after every goal. Plus, you can unlock hidden celebrations.

In-game Street Power-ups: Build up momentum in your power meter and then activate game boosters at key moments in the game. Choose from power blasts, shockwaves, shoulder barges, big versus little and more. Or turn them off to play a more authentic street style.

Tournament Mode: Play in a variety of different offline tournaments to test your skills. Play with your friends, play against them.