Multiplayer online gaming company OGPlanet today announced two upcoming contests to celebrate the first anniversary of its popular free-to-play online fighting game Rumble Fighter. The game celebrates its first birthday on Aug. 7, 2008. Both fan contests commence Wednesday, July 23, 2008.

Anniversary Cosplay Contest
Contest participants are invited to post photographs of themselves dressed up as their Rumble Fighter character to the OGPlanet MySpace page. Rumble Fighter’s wide variety of costume options allows players to create their ideal fighter and the Cosplay Contest will allow players to show off their creations in a unique way. Ten winners will be chosen based on both accuracy and uniqueness of costume and will be granted a birthday wish for any one in-game item that is normally available for purchase. The Cosplay Contest runs through Aug. 12, 2008.

Anniversary Commercial Contest
Rumble Fighter fans will compete to make the best video commercial based on their favorite feature from the game’s first year. Once they have made their video, players can post links to the videos for a chance to win a special limited-edition, short-term Birthday ExoCore that allows the player to transform during in-game battle with special abilities. The top 10 videos selected by OGPlanet will receive the limited edition prize. The Commercial Contest will run through Aug. 5, 2008.

Further details regarding both contests celebrating Rumble Fighter’s first anniversary can be found at www.ogplanet.com.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. - June 17, 2008 - As part of the year-long celebration of the 10th anniversary of its best-selling DanceDanceRevolution® franchise, Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc., today announced the launch of the official DanceDanceRevolution brand and community portal. Fans of DanceDanceRevolution can now go to www.ddronlinecommunity.com to join other DanceDanceRevolution enthusiasts as they enjoy a host of exciting features related to the DanceDanceRevolution craze. Included among the many features offered such as blog updates direct from the development team, the site offers opportunities for fans to create their own personal profiles, post videos, and write their own blogs. Additionally, they can chat with other DanceDanceRevolution fans around the globe and join special forums. Those who think they are among the DanceDanceRevolution elite will enjoy the live stats tracking feature that can be linked to profiles and scoreboards for DanceDanceRevolution Universe 2 for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft with a future iteration planned as well. Through the site, Konami will also keep fans updated on all DanceDanceRevolution related news including upcoming product releases, local and national events, and more.
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Today marks the fourth year since the launch of City of Heroes. To celebrate this achievement, the NCsoft NorCal team has created a City of Heroes / City of Villains calendar for fans of the game.  This downloadable calendar features each of the 12 “Issues” that have been launched since the games release, one for each month of the year.

The calendar includes a message from Matt “Positron” Miller, who gives an interesting tidbit of information about one feature the team is working to introduce at some point in the next few months:

“…I can’t tell you how excited I am for our game’s future, and although we have some major announcements yet to be made, one of the things I can talk about is a feature that we are planning. Similar in concept to our character creator, it allows you, the players, to create missions and story arcs for your characters and others to participate in…”

You can find the calendar on the website later today.  After all, even the most accomplished of Heroes will appreciate a calendar to help keep track of his or her appointments.

Also, since four years have passed, we thought it might be nice to share some fun facts about City of Heroes.

Since City of Heroes launched:

• More than 32 million characters created – that’s 4 times the population of New York City!
• Players have spent a combined 292 centuries playing City of Heroes and City of Villains
• More than 100 million items have been traded through the consignment (auction) houses since they were launched in 2007

Additional items of interest include:

Most Popular Origins

Mutant (25%)

Magic (24%)

Natural (21%)

Most Popular Archetypes

Hero: Blaster

Villain: Mastermind

Most Popular Travel Powers

Fly (34%)

Super Jump (30%)

Most Traded Item (via Consignment House)

Base Salvage:  Alien Tech Salvage

Most Wealthy Archetypes

Heroes: Scrappers

Villains: Brutes