WarBirds III in Simon & Schuster's hand

Simon & Schuster Interactive has secured the worldwide publishing rights to WarBirds III, iEntertainment Network's online World War II flight combat game. The company will publish WarBirds III: Fighter Pilot Academy, a retail game with a number of new features. Players will undertake a series of single-player training missions against computer-controlled opponents. Once players have completed the training missions, they will have the skills necessary to compete online against other players.

WarBirds III was previously released online as a downloadable game. The online game currently has players from more than 70 countries around the world. The upcoming retail game will be released for the PC and Macintosh platforms in August. For more information, take a look at our full review of the game.

iEntertainment also announced that it has developed three additional games and is negotiating with publishers to release them this fall.