NewsSpots: MOH demo, LOTRO, UT3, WiiWare, Source

MOH: Airborne demo lands on XBL, contest announced
With Medal of Honor: Airborne's September 4 release less than a week away, Electronic Arts has put up a demo of the game on Xbox Live. Weighing in at a hefty 973MB, the demo will feature the first combat mission from the game. It recreates the 82nd Airborne division's invasion of Sicily from a US Army paratrooper's point of view. MOH: Airborne will also be released for the PC next week, with a PlayStation 3 edition to follow in November.

EA also announced that it will be staging an MOH: Airborne contest on Xbox Live called Medal of Honor: Operation Live Jump. The "operation" is in fact a 72-hour sweepstakes beginning on September 7 in which Airborne leaderboard winners receive a prize every hour. Details and registration instructions can be found on the official Xbox.com site.

No prerelease PS3 UT3 demo
PlayStation 3 owners hoping to kick the tires of Unreal Tournament 3 before it arrives this holiday season are apparently out of luck. During last week's Leipzig Games Convention, Epic Games vice president Mark Rein told Eurogamer that his studio has no plans to release a sample level of the game for Sony's console in 2007. "[It's] what we told Microsoft last year. They wanted a demo for Gears of War, and we said, 'You've got a choice--you can have the demo this year or the game this year.'" Retailers are currently listing the game as arriving in mid-November for the PC and PS3; the game will also ship for the Xbox 360 in early 2008.

Turbine launches seven-day Lord of the Rings Online trial
Earlier this year, the massively multiplayer online role-playing game The Lord of the Rings Online: The Shadows of Angmar got off to a solid start, selling 172,000 copies in seven weeks. In an effort to further bolster the game's subscriber base, developer Turbine, Inc. announced today a seven-day free trial of the game for new players. Those interested can go to trial.lotro.com to sign up for the trial, which will allow players to keep their characters at the end of the period if they become subscribers.

Second WiiWare game announced
Though Nintendo announced WiiWare back in June, hardly any studios have announced original casual games for the Wii. Today, little-known British shop Medaverse announced on its forums that it is working on a WiiWare title. Called Gravitronix, the game is an arena-based action/battle game for one to four players that will arrive in early 2008, according to Medaverse. It is the second WiiWare game to be announced, following Plattchen: Twist 'n' Paint from Austrian developer Bplus.

Chilean studio says "si" to Source
Though it's been somewhat overshadowed by Epic Games' widely used Unreal Engine 3, Valve's Source Engine is still attracting some licensees. This week, Chilean developer ACE announced Zeno Clash, a new game using the toolset. Like most other Source-based games, it will be a first-person action title, albeit set in "a punk fantasy world." No platforms other than the PC have been announced for the game, which is due out sometime next year.