So much for a Day 1 release! Ages after everyone has finished playing Gears of War and Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties, we’re finally getting to see the retail copies roll out into shelves here. In an official press release sent out today, Microsoft India announced that copies of Zoo Tycoon 2: Extinct Animals Expansion, Flight Simulator X Expansion Pack, Viva Piñata (PC), Age of Empires III Gold (including AoE3 and The WarChiefs expansion), Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties and Gears of War for Windows will now be (finally!) available starting tomorrow.

Pity a lot of the people in India gave up waiting and bought their copies elsewhere.

The official pricelist:

Zoo Tycoon 2: Extinct Animals Expansion Pack - INR 1149
Flight Simulator X Acceleration Expansion Pack - INR 1649
Viva Piñata - INR 1649
Age of Empires III Gold - INR 1649
Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties - INR 1149
Gears of War (PC) - INR 1649

Enjoy. That is, if you haven’t already!

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This has been a tough couple of weeks for Indian gaming, what with games delayed every which way. But fear not, according to distributors World Wide CDROMS and Excel Interactive, our games should be here real soon.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 should be available at stores around tomorrow, along with The Orange Box for the Xbox 360, Gears of War for the PC and Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties for the PC. According to distributor Excel Interactive, though, Crysis has been delayed by another week, so expect it to be here in the first week of December. The game should retail for INR 999, but there’s no word on whether it will be the regular edition or the Collector’s Edition that will be available here. We tried contacting e-Xpress Interactive and Milestone for comments and release dates, but it looks like they’ve taken an early Christmas vacation or something, since we’re yet to get a reply from them.

To make matters sweeter, Guitar Hero III should also be available in stores at the end of the month, with the Xbox 360 version retailing for somewhere over INR 6,000, along with LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga, which I just can’t wait for, even though I’ve played Lego Star Wars I and II: The Original Trilogy to death!

And let’s not forget the ultra-great Mass Effect, releasing just two days from now! We’ll have a lot more on this soon, including information and impressions from the launch party, as well as a gushing review sometime later this week.

Keep watching this space for updates for more information from other distributors, if we ever get around to getting them!

We have been pretty much content living in Bangalore, that is, until now. With our correspondents living up north getting lucky two times in a row, it has become more and more difficult. First, it was the Halo 3 pre-launch party followed up with the XBL India launch announcement party, both in New Delhi. Come 16th November 2007 and these buggers will strike gold again when they get to attend yet another event being organized by Microsoft India.

Touted as the, “Biggest Gamers Night Ever Seen”, the event will be showcasing Mass Effect, PGR 4, Army of Two and The Orange Box besides Age of Empires 3: The Asian Dynasties and Gears of War for the PC. The event is an invite only with limited invitations being sent out to the early birds. But if you hurry, there still might be a few seats open!

Needless to say, we’re invited and are eagerly looking forward to all that will be on show besides the excellent food that our reporters, Vijay and Reggie, have become so accustomed to gorging on. Though NDAs are expected to be in place, rest assured that we will be bringing to you all the details that we are allowed to talk about. Expect to see in-detail coverage of the event with pictures and videos of our stuffed reporters putting their best foot forward as videogame “journalists”.

In the meantime, we will resort to poking needles into voodoo dolls of their likeliness, as we try to get a little love sent to us poor folks in other cities as well.

“Mr. Frodo! Look! It’s an oliphant!” Well, no, not exactly. But we have elephants! After not having the awesome mammoth creatures to squish, gore and destroy enemies in Ensemble’s Age of Empires franchise for a long time now, the upcoming expansion to the third AoE game, The Asian Dynasties, is all set to bring the mighty elephants back in the Indian campaign. Being an Indian myself, I can’t put into words how awesome it is to see my 8th grade history lesson come alive on my PC and how, years after that forced-labor camp called school (I kid, I kid..) I am learning more history through a PC game made in the United States… hmmm.

With a new bunch of hi-def videos touching upon the Japanese and Indian civilizations in the game, Big Huge Games’ CEO Brian Reynolds talked about how players would get six different elephant units, two camel units and a number of other special units like the Gurkha, the double-sword wielding Rajput, the Mansabdars and the Sepoy musketeer to take the fight against the East India Company in India’s first struggle for independence. Talking about the elephant units, Brian detailed the mahouts, with their powerful “splash damage” melee attack, howdahs full of archers, flail elephants that take on buildings and siege units and the all powerful siege elephants, with cannons mounted on their sides.

The interview spills a number of details about the Indian campaign, including how it’s the last of the three campaigns in the expansion, (hence seeing some of the most dramatic and challenging chapters in the game) the unique Home City cards system for India and the Indian wonders including the Taj Mahal, the Agra Fort and the Charminar Gate. Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties is scheduled for an Autumn 2007 release date.

The Asian Dynasties Updated Q&A - Details on India [GameSpot]
The Asian Dynasties Updated Q&A - Details on the Japanese [GameSpot]
HD Video - The Indian Civilization [GameTrailers]
HD Video - The Japanese Civilization Featurette [GameTrailers]

(Click the image for a larger resolution screenshot)

Age of Empires III, the latest in the AoE series from Microsoft, is all set to expand again with a second expansion pack, The Asian Dynasties, later this autumn. Developed by Microsoft Game Studios and Rise of Nations veterans Big Huge Games, The Asian Dynasties will feature a number of Asian civilizations, along with new content and revamped gameplay elements, random map styles derived from the previous AoE games as well as 15 new Asian “wonders” for players to build or destroy.

The game, like the previous expansion, The WarChiefs, will be available as a Games For Windows title for PCs running Windows XP as well as Windows Vista, and will feature all the benefits of the GFW platform, including easier installations and support for the Games Explorer and Parental Controls features on Vista. We will have more on the game as and when news comes up. For now, just enjoy the first new awesome screenshot, showing off a Chinese port village. We wonder if we will get to see an Indian civilization and the Taj Mahal wonder!