Fox Atomic will join forces with videogame creator Warren Spector to bring his Ninja Gold story to the bigscreen. John Woo will direct and produce. Spector, who will executive produce, is a 20-year veteran of the game industry. His projects include Deux Ex: Invisible War, Thief: Deadly Shadows and Underworld: The Stygian Abyss.

Source: Variety

Valve is delivering free games to all owners of ATI Radeon graphics cards via Steam. All owners of ATI Radeon graphics cards may receive a free copy of Half-Life 2: Lost Coast and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch via Steam. Steam will automatically confirm the presence of ATI Radeon hardware and then enable immediate access to full versions of the games free of charge.

Steam will also be included in all ATI Catalyst software and driver packages through early 2008.

And customers who purchase the new ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT will receive, upon release via Steam, Team Fortress 2, Portal and Half-Life 2: Episode Two.

Customers will be required to download and install the Steam software.

More at steamgames.com.

Majesco today announced Kengo: Legend of the 9 for the Xbox 360. Developed by Genki and scheduled for a fall release, Kengo: Legend of the 9 sets players in feudal Japan on a mission to become the best samurai warrior in the land.

Kengo: Legend of the 9 features nine real samurai warriors, including Musashi Miyamoto, Jubei Yagyu and Sanako Chiba, among others. Each has his or her own storyline, attack techniques and upgradeable attributes. Four modes of play offer a range of gameplay options, including Story Mode; Mission Mode, which challenges players to complete 10 missions within a specific time frame; Combat Mode, which features two-player head-to-head battles; and Xbox Live Leaderboard, where you compete for new equipment and the best ranking by pitting AI profiles against other players.

Kengo: Legend of the 9 will be available this fall for a suggested retail price of $39.99.

SUN Sports & Entertainment has announced plans to create an Art of War video game. Art of War for the Xbox 360 is being developed as a fighting game that focuses on the Art of War competition. The game will use the likenesses of the league’s current and future roster of fighters. International distribution is expected. Art of War will be developed for Wild Hare Entertainment by Barking Lizards Technologies.

Publisher Tri Synergy and developer Chaos Concept have shipped their sci-fi strategy game, UFO: Extraterrestrials, to retail stores across North America. UFO: Extraterrestrials offers a blend of real-time and turn-based strategy set on the fictional planet of Esperanza in 2025. Having seen alien forces shoot space patrols in orbit around Esperanza to pieces, you are thrust into the position of leading the defense of the isolated planet against the assault of hostile invaders. You’ll be able to fight back using squads of soldiers, light and heavy support combat vehicles, robots and air units located in bases throughout Esperanza.

More at ufo-extraterrestrials.com.

Ubisoft has shipped WarTech Senko no Ronde for the Xbox 360 to retail stores. WarTech — a new take on a famous arcade game released in Japan in 2004 — is set in a distant future, when humanity has colonized countless new galaxies and Earth is being mined for its natural resources. As a result, a violent war has erupted between nations. WarTech features fast-paced arcade fighting and head-to-head two player battles on Xbox LIVE.

Codemasters will ship Hospital Tycoon for the PC on June 8. In Hospital Tycoon, you take the role of hospital director and manage the medical staff, keeping an eye on the patient numbers and making sure each facility has the equipment required to provide cures.

An essential piece of equipment is the Research Machine, used in the diagnosis of unknown conditions. The more diseases that are researched and discovered using the machine, the more patients your hospital can treat. Then there’s the Microbial Luminescence Chamber, which causes any germs on a patient’s body to glow. There’s even equipment to help the staff, such as the Neural Upgrade System, which encodes new information into a staff member’s memory, providing new medical qualifications in seconds.

Gamecock plans to bring Red Fly Studio’s Mushroom Men to Nintendo’s Wii and DS. Mushroom Men allows you to jump into the microcosm that’s the backyard battlefield. You can create weapons from everyday items and team up with other plant forms to battle a multitude of household pests.

Midway Games today shipped Mortal Kombat: Armageddon for Nintendo’s Wii to retail outlets nationwide. The game is available for a suggested retail price of $49.95. Mortal Kombat: Armageddon features a new control scheme, a revamped Endurance Mode and a new kharacter – Female Khameleon.

THQ today announced Relic Entertainment’s Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War real-time strategy series is now available in one set dubbed the Platinum Edition. The collection contains the original game, the Winter Assault and Dark Crusade expansions, and a bonus DVD featuring playable demos of Company of Heroes, Supreme Commander and Titan Quest. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War — Platinum Edition is available for the suggested retail price of $39.99.

Activision and Infinity Ward have confirmed the development of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. The new action game from the creators of the Call of Duty series will toss players into battles in hotspots around the world.

Jason West, project lead at Infinity Ward, said the single player campaign will introduce new gameplay at every turn: “One moment you’re fast-roping from your Blackhawk helicopter after storming into the war zone with an armada of choppers; the next you’re a sniper, under concealment, in a Ghillie suit miles behind enemy lines; the next you’re engaging hostiles from an AC-130 gunship thousands of feet above the battlefield.”

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare will also delivers advanced visual effects, including depth of field, rim-lighting, character self-shadowing, real time post-processing, texture streaming and physics-enabled effects.

In addition to single player, Infinity Ward is using a dedicated team to deliver the game’s multiplayer experience.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is in development for the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. The title is scheduled for release this fall. More at charlieoscardelta.com.

Blizzard Entertainment has adopted a take-no-prisoners approach to fighting in-game gold spamming in World of Warcraft. Here’s the latest word from the developers, posted in the WoW forums:

“As many of you know, the latest content patch, along with many great new content additions, contains technical countermeasures designed to combat in-game gold spamming. Our efforts to reduce in-game abuse and create a fun, safe environment for everyone are never-ending.”

“That said, we felt it was important to share with the community just how serious we are in our efforts to combat this type of abuse. Blizzard has filed a federal lawsuit against the operators of Peons4hire, a popular gold-selling organization many of you have no doubt seen advertised. As part of the lawsuit, the operators of Peons4hire have been asked to immediately cease all in-game spamming efforts by all entities and websites under their control.

“If this organization refuses to act accordingly, further legal action will be taken.”

Microsoft is delaying the release of Halo 2 for Windows Vista after partial nudity on the game was discovered, the software giant said Friday.

Halo 2 for Windows Vista is now expected to hit the stores sometime in the first week of June, approximately two weeks behind the revised May 22 schedule. The game was originally scheduled for release on May 8, but was delayed due to some technical problems, Microsoft said at the time.

The software giant attributes the most recent delay to an “obscure content error” found in the initial production of Halo 2′s map editor. That error was partial nudity.

Despite the error, Microsoft said it would be difficult to stumble across the offending content.

“This file is not in the game itself, nor will someone who simply plays the game ever encounter it,” Microsoft stated.

Majesco yesterday shipped The New York Times Crosswords for Nintendo DS. Developed by Budcat Creations, The New York Times Crosswords features more than 1,000 puzzles from The New York Times archive. The New York Times Crosswords features the ability to write in answers with the stylus or use a Touch Screen keyboard to enter letters. Various modes of play include Puzzle Me Quick, Puzzle Week with progressive difficulty, and Challenge mode with adjustable time and difficulty settings. In addition, the game includes both cooperative and competitive four-player play. Rated T for Teen, The New York Times Crosswords has a suggested retail price of $29.99. More at majescoentertainment.com.

Got Game Entertainment yesterday announced that PuzzleScape for the PSP has gone gold. Slated to hit North American retail shelves June 1, the offering will debut with a suggested retail price of $19.99 and is rated “E” for Everyone by the ESRB.

In PuzzleScape, you arrange blocks of different colors into chains that are exploded by 2×2 same-colored blocks. By exploding blocks, you create background landscapes in four different themes: Cells, Flowers, Machines and Dream. Each theme contains ten scenes, creating 40 levels. Power-ups are on hand to help you win.

PuzzleScape features both time and goal-oriented gameplay (Architect mode) and score-oriented play (Artist mode). Both modes can also go co-op via the PSP’s wireless connection, while Duel mode allows two players to go head-to-head. The Bomb Run mode, for example, allows up to eight players to attempt to beat their rivals at destroying a given amount of each of the colored blocks. More at gotgameps.com.