Xplosiv shoots, spooks and gambles its way into 2005!

Xplosiv | London, January 2005, Xplosiv is set to get 2005 off to a great start with its first batch of releases for the New Year due in March continuing it's trend of quality games at the best budget prices. As usual there will be a good selection of titles positioned in the £9.99 and £4.99 ranges that should please the palette of any gamer with a good dose of war gaming, space adventure and even a bit of ghoulish management thrown in into the fray.

Releasing at the £9.99 budget price point are critically acclaimed free-form space combat sim/trading game Freelancer, 'the finest WWII RTS to date' Blitzkrieg and historical RTS American Conquest. The 'spooktacular' haunting sim Ghost Master and the flash and brash city-building sim Vegas: Make It Big are both releasing at the £4.99 super-budget price point.

Freelancer's original review scores speak for themselves - 90% PC Gamer 'it's a classic', 84% PC Zone, 8.5 gamespot.com, 83% gamespy.com. Freelancer presents players with a vast, open-ended universe filled with an infinite number of adventures. Playing as freelancer Edison Trent, an intergalactic jack-of-all-trades, your mission is: do whatever you want. Become a smuggler or a ruthless space thug, a naval hero or a trader. Dodge through asteroid fields while piloting elite spacecraft, making your way through 48 known star systems.

Also at the £9.99 budget price point, for RTS fans there is Blitzkrieg's 'rock solid and intuitive' gameplay (PC Zone) and the large-scale, cannon-happy warfare of American Conquest ('it really is a splendid game...' 9/10 Eurogamer). Last but by no means least, at the £4.99 super budget price point, are top-selling Sims Ghost Master ('spooktacular' 87% PC Zone; 'an open-ended scare-em-up that's as good-looking and funny as it is original' PC Gamer) and Vegas: Make It Big.

The new releases are great additions to the range, 2005 promises to be a great year for Xplosiv" commented Jo Fawell, Product Manager for Xplosiv, 'we have some great PC and PlayStation 2 titles planned for this year, delivering the best possible quality, value and choice for consumers".

Xplosiv's portfolio now boasts a range of over 60 titles for PC and 20 titles on PlayStation^®2, with over 30 new PC releases and a further 10 new PlayStation^®2 releases planned for this fiscal year. Xplosiv has also taken its first steps into value software for Xbox and Gamecube with 5 titles available on these platforms.

Notes for editors

About Xplosiv

Empire launched Xplosiv as a value brand selling low-price PC software in mid 2000 and PS2 in 2002, proving a great success in the UK and overseas due to the group's license wins with, Sega, Ubisoft, Taito, Activision, Microsoft, Vivendi and CDV. Further information on Xplosiv products can be found at www.xplosiv.net

About Empire Interactive

Empire Interactive is a leading publisher of interactive entertainment software that has been established for 14 years. The company floated on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) of the London Stock Exchange in July 2000. Headquartered in the UK, Empire Interactive also has offices in the US, Germany, Italy and Spain. The company develops and publishes a varied range of titles across all platforms in the US, Europe and Asia. Further information about Empire Interactive and its products can be found at: www.empireinteractive.com

For further information please contact Adam Hartley at NICE PROMOTIONS email [email protected] t 07739 127450