The road block has turned into a pile up this week, as Cars keeps the lead and prevents any movement in the top end of the all-formats sales chart for a fourth consecutive week.

Take Two's GTA: Liberty City Stories sits patiently in second, followed by the first of three top ten DS exclusives for Nintendo with New Super Mario Bros. in third place again.

The Sims 2 swaps places with its older sibling, jumping two places from sixth to fourth, just ahead of Pro Evolution Soccer 5, which also climbs two places from seventh into fifth.

Dr Kawashima's Brain Training drops one place into sixth, EA's Need for Speed: Most Wanted racing back up the charts to secure seventh place thanks to a budget price and retail promotion.

The lower end of the charts are taken up by The Sims in eighth, Animal Crossing: Wild World in ninth - having jumped from sixteenth place thanks to continued television advertising - and FIFA 06 coming in for extra time in tenth.

New releases are once again thin on the ground this week, as the industry holds off for the summer and prepares for the Christmas season onslaught towards the later end of the year. All of Which means, of course that the congestion at the top end of the chart could continue for another week, leaving everyone else to scrabble for a better position on the back of retail promotions and budget price points.

Via GIBiz ...

The chart-dominating EA Sports series is to incorporate broadcast quality TV and radio, with regional variations of programming, commentary, interviews and podcasts set to be accessible directly via the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

While demonstrating NBA Live 2007 at the Edinburgh Interactive Entertainment Festival, VP and COO of EA's worldwide studios, David Gardner, confirmed: "We're going to do intergration around FIFA titles with local broadcasters."

More details are expected to be revealed this week at the Leipzig Games Convention, but Gardner discussed the plans as part of the publishers desire to retain multitasking consumers as they become increasingly distracted by multiple media outlets.

"This is a little taste of how we intend to keep gamers connected to the game but still feed the need to multitask at the same time," Gardner said during a question and answer session.

And when asked whether multitasking in-game would distract from the pure gaming experience he stated,"Users are doing it anyway. It is happening whether they have multiple windows open or the iPod is playing. We're trying to bring that experience in a more organised way to people."

In a short demonstration film, Brent Nielsen, senior producer of NBA Live 2007 revealed the inclusion of broadcast content as the next logical step to features already present in some EA Sports games - such as real-world scores running at the bottom of the screen and short radio updates throughout the game.

"If you're listening to a two minute update and you wanted to dive deeper and get more information, it's like having ESPN.com right at your finger tips but on a console in the form of ESPN News," he said.

"But the feature we're most excited about is bringing television broadcasting right into the home console in the form of ESPN Motion. If there's an analysis from one of your favourite personalities, you can watch interviews, listen to their opinions or see programming that is again, right at your fingertips," continued Nielsen.

He added, "Another feature that will be making its debut this year is the radio podcast, which is like having ESPN radio playing directly through your console - so you never have to leave the videogame experience." ...

New from Lik Sang:



Dino King Battle Taiko Kara no Hyuuryuusha is a port of a japanese popular card game series called Dino King Battle. The game features over 300 different cards, which players collect and then use in turn-based battle. The aim of the game is to collect the most powerful dinosaurs cards to ensure your supremacy over other competitors.

More info --> http://www.yesasia.com/?/info.php?pro...7&lsaid=219793 ...

New from Lik Sang:



Dino King Battle Taiko Kara no Hyuuryuusha is a port of a japanese popular card game series called Dino King Battle. The game features over 300 different cards, which players collect and then use in turn-based battle. The aim of the game is to collect the most powerful dinosaurs cards to ensure your supremacy over other competitors.

More info --> http://www.yesasia.com/?/info.php?pro...7&lsaid=219793 ...

New from Lik Sang:



In Wrestle Angel Survivor, as a Wrestling team owner, players recruit and train wrestlers and manage their all girl wrestling team to enter different tournament against the computer and eventually become the strongest team in the league.

More info --> http://www.yesasia.com/?/info.php?pro...9&lsaid=219793 ...

News from Lik Sang

Originally for the Famicom over 16 years ago, Final Fantasy III sheds its 8-bit look this week and is reborn using the DS's 3D capabilities. The new more believable look creates an more mesmerizing atmosphere and infuses with the tale of four young heroes in search of magic light crystals. With Hiromichi Tanaka, a designer from the original at the helm, and Nobuo Uematsu who composed the original's music by his side, this remake was in good hands. Beyond graphics, further changes include your party members now having names, three of which are male, one female. Along with personalities, they've also been given bask stories and extra scenes, but loyal fans will be glad to know they haven't changed anything from the main storyline. Sub characters can also now join in battles, there's a new crystal and dungeon to explore, and the jobs system has been rebalanced and received a new class and abilities.



Trying to secure peace once again, you can wander through the diverse environments, chat and enter combat simply all using the touch screen. Those that'd rather opt for a traditional D-Pad and button control system can rejoice however, as that’s an alternative choice. Running at a steady 30 frames per second this looks even better than the original FF VII did on the PSOne, and that’s saying a lot for the power of the DS! Those who consider themselves Final Fantasy coinsures can rest assured that the magic is still here, and you can revisit a freshly reworked highlight in the FF line or experience the epic story for the first time; either way, you'll be hard pressed to find a more rewarding role-playing effort on the DS. Due in stock this week, this Japanese edition will work on any NDS the globe over, and is a true import gamer's delight. ...

News from Lik Sang

Originally for the Famicom over 16 years ago, Final Fantasy III sheds its 8-bit look this week and is reborn using the DS's 3D capabilities. The new more believable look creates an more mesmerizing atmosphere and infuses with the tale of four young heroes in search of magic light crystals. With Hiromichi Tanaka, a designer from the original at the helm, and Nobuo Uematsu who composed the original's music by his side, this remake was in good hands. Beyond graphics, further changes include your party members now having names, three of which are male, one female. Along with personalities, they've also been given bask stories and extra scenes, but loyal fans will be glad to know they haven't changed anything from the main storyline. Sub characters can also now join in battles, there's a new crystal and dungeon to explore, and the jobs system has been rebalanced and received a new class and abilities.



Trying to secure peace once again, you can wander through the diverse environments, chat and enter combat simply all using the touch screen. Those that'd rather opt for a traditional D-Pad and button control system can rejoice however, as that’s an alternative choice. Running at a steady 30 frames per second this looks even better than the original FF VII did on the PSOne, and that’s saying a lot for the power of the DS! Those who consider themselves Final Fantasy coinsures can rest assured that the magic is still here, and you can revisit a freshly reworked highlight in the FF line or experience the epic story for the first time; either way, you'll be hard pressed to find a more rewarding role-playing effort on the DS. Due in stock this week, this Japanese edition will work on any NDS the globe over, and is a true import gamer's delight. ...

News from Lik Sang

Square Enix's mammoth compilation of Final Fantasy VII continues this week with the US release of FF VII: Dirge of Cerberus on PS2. The Japanese edition came out way back in January, but Square Enix haven't just been sitting on their hands since. This US edition adds a whopping 40 extra missions, more unlockables, and further gameplay tweaks. Timeline wise this is also the end of the compilation, set after AC (Advent Children - The PSP movie), BC (Before Crisis - A mobile phone game), and CC (Crisis Core - An upcoming PSP title). Three years after the events of FF VII, events kick off here in the midst of the Revival Festival when Deep Group soldiers lay siege on the town of Kalm. This army of Shin-ra comes in search of Vincent Valentine, who far from a secret character, this time has the lead role. Packing some serious firepower, Dirge of Cerberus is a third person shooter with many RPG elements, and beyond a wide range of guns to choose from, Vincent can also transform into his Limit Breaks such as Galian Beast, Chaos and possibly more!



Not wanting to be compared to Devil May Cry, designer Tetsuya Nomura explains how it's more influenced by Half Life. Tetsuya was the character designer for the original FF VII, and many of these staff members also played their part in the 1997 epic, including Writer / Director / Producer, Yoshinori Kitase. So here we have a shooter with the brightest stars of Japan behind it, a storyline that expands on the most famous RPG of all time, and includes characters like Cloud Strife, Yuffie Kisaragi, Lucrecia Crescent, Hojo, Tifa Lockhart, Barret Wallace, Cid Highwind, Cait Sith, Azul, Reeve Tuesti, Shelke, Shalua Rui, Rosso, Nero, Vice and more. It keeps getting better though with three multi-player modes, starting with Team vs. team, then a free-for-all deathmatch, and finally a mission mode to gang up on a boss. Culminating in one hell of an action packed adventure, this dramatic ending finale to Final Fantasy VII is in stock now. ...

THQ has championed the use of Xbox Live Marketplace to distribute pre-release demos of Xbox 360 games, revealing that the recently released Saint's Row demo was downloaded 350,000 times during its first week online.

The demo release forms part of a wider pre-release marketing campaign, which also includes television advertising in seven countries, cinema campaigns in Europe and Asia Pacific, print advertising, and retail pre-order campaigns.

Those pre-ordering in-store will be able to take home a specially made DVD containing the Xbox 360 demo, a "making of", original music and Marketplace icons and themes.

The full game is due out on August 29th in the US and on September 1st in the UK, and is exclusive to Microsoft's next-generation console platform.

"We've put significant resources behind the Saint's Row marketing campaign, generating tremendous buzz with creative grass roots efforts and the strategic timing of pre-release content," said THQ's senior vice president of worldwide marketing, Bob Aniello.

"Our multi-million dollar advertising campaign will continue to fuel anticipation in the weeks leading up to launch and we believe extensive plans for post-launch downloadable content will further establish it as a must-have title this holiday season," he added.

Pre-release Xbox 360 downloadable demos have proved immensely successful so far, with Fight Night Round 3 said to have enjoyed a 40 percent demo-to-purchase conversion rate following the release of its demo.

Meanwhile, the Dead Rising demo is currently one of the ten most popular activities among 360 owners with Live connectivity - with strong US sales pushing the full game to second in the same list behind Call of Duty 2. ...