Round Up: Dead Rising, Xbox Live Stats, NWN 2 Pre-Order

Today's round-up includes news of Dead Rising's extended advertising campaign, the top games being played over Xbox Live, and a Neverwinter Nights 2 pre-order campaign, as well as the latest Game Career Guide updates, GameSetWatch posts and Gamasutra job postings. - In an effort to continue to keep its popular Xbox 360 zombie-themed Dead Rising in the spotlight, Capcom today announced that it has added at extra $3 million to the game's marketing budget. The money will be used to fund a new national television campaign that matches the one which just concluded, and will support the overall marketing initiative, which includes print and online advertising as well as radio promotions and retail partnerships. Dead Rising has already shipped more than 500,000 units within its first two weeks of launch, and is the fastest selling next generation title for a Japanese publisher. - Xbox staffer Larry 'Major Nelson' Hryb has updated his weblog with the latest weekly Xbox Live top-played stats. As expected, the unshakable Halo 2 tops off the combined Xbox 360 and original Xbox lists. That said, the full version of Live Arcade's newest release, Texas Hold'em, ranked on top in the Live Arcade stats, while THQ's gritty action title Saints Row topped Xbox 360 titles being played over Xbox Live. - Publisher Atari and developer Obsidian Entertainment have announced a new pre-order campaign with Gamestop and Best Buy for the upcoming PC role-playing game, Neverwinter Nights 2. The pre-order offer is available now and will give those participating exclusive access to the Neverwinter Nights 2 toolset one month before the game is available. Additionally, the pre-order offer will include The Merchant's Friend, a special feature enabling players to obtain powerful items crafted especially for each of the 12 classes. Neverwinter Nights 2 is scheduled for release in October 2006. - The latest updates on Gamasutra sister alt.gaming weblog GameSetWatch include a look at a relativly unknown PC game called Dwarf Fortress, and a pair of videos taken from Atlus' upcoming Rule of Rose and Tetris-style German car ad. - News on Gamasutra's game education sister site Game Career Guide includes news of a call for papers for the upcoming 2nd International Conference of E-Learning and Games, Edutainment 2007. - Also updated today: the latest Gamasutra job postings, including openings from Blizzard Entertainment, Concurrent Technologies Corporation, Crystal Dynamics, Helixe Studios, Iron Lore, Konami Digital Entertainment, and Planet Moon Studios.