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Some more good news for Virtua Fighter 5 fans showed up yesterday with WCG announcing that VF5 will be one of the featured games in the international tournament this year. The interest for this game has waned over the past 6 months considering most people would rather be playing VF5:R (or any number of the new fighting games that are coming out) so hopefully this will revitalize the scene here in North America to some degree.

From WCG Website:

NEW YORK, NY, February 5, 2009

-- World Cyber Games (WCG / www.wcg.com), the premier international video game competition, has announced the first five Official Game Titles for the WCG 2009 season. The lineup includes Counter-Strike^TM 1.6 (PC), Starcraft®: Brood War^TM (PC), WarCraft® III: The Frozen Throne^TM (PC), and Guitar Hero®: World Tour (Xbox 360), and Virtua Fighter® 5 (Xbox 360).

All five games have been a staple at past WCG competitions. Counter-Strike 1.6^TM and Starcraft®: Brood War^TM have been Official Tournament Games since 2001 while WarCraft® III: The Frozen Throne^TM has been part of the WCG since 2003. Guitar Hero®, which marked WCG's first foray into music games, and Virtua Fighter® 5 Online will be in their second consecutive year as Official Game Titles.

''As interest in WCG continues to grow around the world, we have become much more discerning in selecting the official games for this year,'' said Hyeong Seok Kim, president and CEO of World Cyber Games, Inc., organizer of WCG. ''This year we decided to unveil the games in two separate announcements to pique the interest and anticipation for the official game lineup. These first five titles constitute the best and most popular games in a wide variety of genres including real-time strategy, first-person shooter, fighting, and music. In March, fans can look forward to another group of elite titles that will certainly satisfy every type of gamer around the world.''

National team selection, including TEAM USA, which won the world championship in 2007 and placed second last year, will begin in March through online and offline preliminaries.