RUSH FOR BERLIN

BASINGSTOKE, England (April 7th 2006) - DEEP SILVER and STORMREGION announce an exciting new way to experience World War II strategy gaming, in their upcoming PC DVD-ROM title; RUSH FOR BERLIN. In a desperate race against the clock to capture the German capital, players will have the edge on the battlefield with their Officers. Set for release 26th MAY 2006, Rush for Berlin will challenge strategy gamers to their limits.

Similar to heroes found in RTS or RPG games, Rush for Berlin introduces the heroic officers with their special skill system. The officer unit is an important "add-on" to the player's army. Learning from their previously released games, Stormregion now want to reward the player for using officers as "hero characters" on the frontlines instead of putting them at the edge of the map in order to keep them safe and not lose them and the whole mission at the same time. Rush for Berlin will motivate the player to send officer units into the action-packed battles. The officers will introduce special skills, influencing the units nearby, and will level up when fighting successfully. This, in turn, enables the units to learn new special skills. The WWII RTS game Rush for Berlin introduces a skill system for the officers, which is quite easy to use and understand while providing the gameplay with more depth.

The western Allies, the Russians, the French and the Germans are played differently in terms of tactics and gameplay. Each side also has 4 different officers with unique skills, all fitting into the style of the nation. Basically each officer has a standard weapon, e.g. a machine gun, and - most importantly - up to 3 skills. Even the strongest opponent will be crushed by the German tank ace's precision shot capability, while the Soviet commissar uses propaganda to demoralise his enemies, and the Allied supply officer uses supply planes to bring reinforcements.

Some more examples of officers' skills (excerpts only):

Russian Officers

The commissar uses the "Double Vodka" option to raise the morale of his soldiers. His call for "Propaganda" will cause a massive amount of propaganda materials to be spread over a designated area, lowering the morale of enemy soldiers significantly. The partisan leader will detect hidden units, e.g. units hidden in a building or in the forest as well as camouflaged or wooden "fake" units.

German Officers

The engineer uses the radio-controlled "Goliath". He sends an exploding miniature tank (the so called Zwergpanzer, a name meaning "dwarf tank", which really existed) to attack the target in sight. The Luftwaffe ground officer has the "Fliegerfaust" (literal translation: flying fist, an AA system) at his disposal and provides "Air Superiority": for a limited time, all hostile planes on the entire map will be shot down by Me 262 super jets (which really existed)! The Volkssturm officer has "Last Reserves" and lowers the cost of Panzergrenadier units.

Western Allied Officers

The SAS officer's "Sabotage" skill will slow down the hostile facilities' production. The communications officer orders a "Photo Recon" and for a limited time, the fog of war disappears on the entire battlefield. The supply officer calls for a "Supply Drop" from an airborne supply container next to him. But note that the plane can be shot down.

Last but not least, an example from the French campaign: The French Maquisard leader carries "High Explosives" kits. These kits can be blown up or defused on the bomb's interface. These explosives cause extra damage to buildings and vehicles.

Skills can be active or passive. Officers can die during a battle. In this case, another one of the same type can be deployed on the battlefield by parachute. Of course the player has to level him up again, which can be done more quickly the more he fights. Especially the combination of the different officers and their skills, plus their impact on other standard units nearby, adds a huge amount of tactical finesse to both the single player and multiplayer gameplay. Officers can also select their best action in automatic mode, which will be activated if the officer's vehicle is attacked or when he is shooting at the enemy. Each nation has been given an interesting combination of different skills.

The World War II title Rush for Berlin will be published by DEEP SILVER and distributed exclusively by KOCH Media in UK, Germany, France, Italy, Austria and Switzerland. The race begins, MAY 2006. For further information on the latest hit from the creators of Panzers, please visit http://www.rushforberlin.com

DEEP SILVER

Deep Silver is KOCH Media's premium games label. Deep Silver has been collaborating with international developers and publishers since 2002 to publish creative and innovative computer and video games. The multi-award-winning X2 and the daring Singles have already put Deep Silver at the top of the charts. Pipeline projects include co-publishing titles with Sunflowers (ANNO 1701, ParaWorld) and JoWooD (SpellForce 2, Gothic 3, etc). www.deepsilver.com

KOCH MEDIA UK:

Founded in 1994, KOCH MEDIA UK develops, publishes and distributes a diverse mix of titles for home console gaming systems, personal computers and the Internet. Based in Basingstoke, the company has distribution contracts with a number of software publishers, including NINTENDO. For publishers not in the UK, KOCH MEDIA exclusively markets, sells and distributes titles. Under its own brands of DEEP SILVER and EUROPRESS, KOCH MEDIA develops and publishes its own range of gaming and educational and lifestyle software. For more information on KOCH MEDIA and its products, visit www.kochmedia.co.uk

STORMREGION

Stormregion is the premier Hungarian game software developer, specialized in 3D RTS games fully developed with in-house technology, based on the GEPARD 3D engine. Following the massively entertaining "S.W.I.N.E.", the company went on to create "Codename: Panzers", a full-bred RTS set in the WWII epoch. An explosive mixture of fast-paced action and dazzling mocap cinematics, it was one of the top sellers of 2004 and received high praise from both customers and gaming journalists. In 2005 summer the standalone add-on for Codename Panzers launched and Stormregion successfully presented the playable demo of Rush for Berlin on the Games Convention. The company currently employs over seventy people, working on the the sequel of Codename Panzers (Panzers 2) and on the next release (Q2 2006) Rush for Berlin