Aspiring to be the best all-around golf experience, we’ve built in a deep single-player campaign that transports players to several exhilarating courses around the world and comes loaded with six customizable characters, remarkable cartoon-style visuals and a daunting 144 unique holes packed with a variety of hazards and interactive objects.

In addition to the single player campaign, we have also included a full suite of multiplayer options – from a local hotseat mode to regular weekly tournaments and worldwide competitions where players can battle it out to see whose nation reigns supreme.

That’s all for now, but we’ll have more exciting news hitting over the next couple of weeks – including a more in depth look at the games online and customizable features.

To further whet your appetite as we gear up for launch, the Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 table boasts a record five multiball game modes, a massive amount of killer action-packed missions where players can unleash a ridiculous amount of punishment with lightning-fast weapon combos, ball slicing effects, electricity charged ramps and much more!

Currently, we have a tentative release date scheduled for October 2009, so mark your calendars and plan to spend some quality time slashing your way through the Sky City Tokyo-themed table come this fall. As always, stay tuned to this blog or check out the official ZEN Pinball site for the most up-to-date information.

Until next time, keep those flipper fingers loose!

And for everyone looking for a great value… well you can be the judge and jury! In the US you can grab the Street Fighter inspired table for only $2.49, and a mere 1.99 EURO in Europe. Not bad, right? For more information, be sure to check out the official site for ZEN Pinball at: www.zenpinball.com.

To give you a little idea of what makes this table so unique, we’ve loaded it with all the iconic Street Fighter II characters that revolutionized the fighting genre, from Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, and Guile to Sagat, Evil Ryu, Vega, Balrog and even M. Bison! The locations, missions, and even the tempo of the game capture the feel and look of the Street Fighter brand, so if you’re a fan of the franchise you’ll need to check this table out.

Right now we have a tentative release date scheduled for sometime in August 2009, so stay tuned to this blog, or check out the official ZEN Pinball site for more details.

Zsolt, the managing director for ZEN Studios here! I’m sure you’ve been keeping up with this blog, so you’re probably familiar with our upcoming title, The Punisher: No Mercy, inspired by Marvel Comics’ rich Punisher comic book history. Needless to say, I’m back and I come bearing awesome news for all you true Punisher fans!

It’s been a long time coming, but today our studio has finally confirmed that this PSN-exclusive is set for release on July 2, 2009. If that’s not enough, we also nailed down a price that should get all you virtual vigilantes foaming at the mouth. Come the 2nd, you’ll be able to pick up No Mercy exclusively through the PlayStation Store for only $9.99.

For those new to the game, No Mercy is an action-packed first-person shooter! You can fight alongside or take on an eclectic mix of Punisher allies and villains in online arena-style multiplayer matches that feature a variety of solo and team-based missions with up to eight players (We’ve written about it here a few times before).

In addition, No Mercy also boasts a single-player story mode where you can unleash your vengeance on hordes of villains while unfolding an original storyline and unlocking new additional content. Beautiful art by Mike Deodato too!

Until next time, I leave you True Believers with a few never-before-released screens, but be sure to stay tuned for more details and exclusive content as it becomes available at www.punishernomercy.com.

The next Marvel game coming your way is Zen Studios’ The Punisher: No Mercy – and as you probably know, it’s a PSN exclusive…and it’s coming very soon. If you’ve been reading this blog over the past few months, you know the basics. But here’s something about the game you might not know…

As an arena-style first-person shooter built on the Unreal engine, No Mercy sports a lot of in-game taunts and other dialogue from all eight characters — close to 400 in total. Many of these lines were written exclusively for the game, but the rest? Well, one of the most important responsibilities we have here at Marvel is making sure our characters are, well, in character — and what better way to ensure this than to rip them straight from the comics?

So, that’s what we did. I can personally attest that work isn’t so bad when your job is to pour through hundreds of pages of comics.

Want some examples? Well, here you go. Just click on the images to hear the words on the page come to life — just like you’ll hear them in the game.

A defining character line from Silver Sable (Ultimate Spider-Man #87).

You’ll hear Finn Cooley tell you this if he kills you (Punisher MAX #12).

Jigsaw does his best Rambo imitation (The Punisher, Vol. 2 #38).

As if those lines weren’t enough, I challenged the guys at Zen Studios to create situational taunts. For example, if it’s the Punisher against Bushwacker, the guy with the skull on his chest has a thing or two he only tells the assassin with a gun-arm who used to be a priest. Something like this from War Journal #13:

There’s all kinds of stuff like that.

I leave you with our favorite foul-mouthed Punisher enemy, Barracuda. In order to keep this a family blog entry, this panel from issue 34 in the MAX series is one of the few I can show you (it’s heavily cropped), and it’s attached to one of the few sound clips we can play for you.

To answer your question…Yes, his teeth really do say that in the game.

All you pinball fans can breathe easy, PlayStation Network is finally getting some pinball arcade action! ZEN Studios is extremely excited to announce that after all the long hours and hard work we finally wrapped up development for ZEN Pinball and have confirmed the release date for May 14, 2009.

In case you haven’t heard, Zen Pinball not only brings some intense pinball action, but it comes packed with options including several in-game missions, head-to-head online bouts and multi-day worldwide tournaments. In addition, we included a solid offering of four tables in the initial download with more to come as DLC after launch. As far as we are concerned, this is pretty much the Ferrari of pinball games. We suggest you check out the trailer to get a better visual of the game.

Also, if you want to get an exclusive look at the list of the ZEN Pinball trophies, you can do so by visiting PSU. Stay tuned for more details as they become available at www.ZENPinball.com.

Today, Zsolt sent us the answers to those questions from Hungary(!) I hope you find the answers you’re looking for below – I know his response on Trophies will please many of you…

Q: What kind of graphics can we expect from The Punisher: No Mercy?

A: With so many great looking First Person Shooter(FPS) and Third Person Shooter(TPS) games available, we simply can’t afford not to give gamers the same kind of high quality. We’ve licensed great technology and we’re pushing it to the limits.

With the overall feel of The Punisher: No Mercy, we’ve included dark, smoky / hazy levels with realistic characters and environments, but we’re still keeping several comic pages impressions that truly capture the essence of what fans have come to expect from the Punisher franchise.

Q: Why is Zen Studios using the Unreal Engine to build The Punisher: No Mercy?

A: Unreal Engine is one of the best in the industry, perfect for a multiplayer heavy FPS / TPS game. It was exceptional at the time we licensed it, but over the last months the Epic engineers made drastic improvements for the PlayStation3 code with tons of new special technologies and features. We are working very hard to make sure you see some of these improvements firsthand in The Punisher: No Mercy.

Q: Is there going to be a trophy system?

A: Yes, the Trophy system is fully supported.

Q: When can we expect to see a trailer?

A: The first trailer will be available within the coming weeks.

Q: Is there a single player mode?

A: Yes, there is a single player story mode where players need to beat hordes of bad guys in different challenging game mode to unfold the original story and unlock all elements of the game.

Q: Is there going to be character customization?

A: Yes! Players can select special abilities before the battle that can give you tactical benefits on the field if you exploit them cleverly. We’ll have more details at a later time.

Q: How many different weapons will be in the game?

A: Creating an impressive arsenal in The Punisher: No Mercy has been one of our top priorities. We’ve included different categories of weapons that players can choose from (close quarters, long range, and special weapon). As players collect more and more frags or weapon power-ups, the arsenal becomes more and more lethal.

Q: When can we see the first screen shots?

A: The first screenshots are currently available on Gamespot, and many more will be available in the near future.

Q: Any idea of how big a download this will be?

A: Hopefully below 1gig, but it may be difficult as we want to include all the cool graphics and environment that we are currently working on.

Q: Will there be Hungarian subtitles? (from EmThor in Hungry!)