Disney Epic Mickey 2 Confirmed for Wii U Launch

Disney has revealed that Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two will be available for the Wii U at launch in the UK and America.

While we already knew that the game would appear as one of 23 games on Nintendo's console when it launches in America on November 18, Disney has now confirmed that the game will be available when the Wii U launches in the UK on November 30.

This now brings the number of Wii U launch day titles available in the UK to 12, and it remains to be seen if more will be announced as we move closer to the console's release.

Luke Karmali is IGN's UK Editorial Assistant. You too can revel in mediocrity by following him on IGN and on Twitter.

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Romney Stops Pulling Punches

“That’s why they call it a battleground; because you have to fight like hell to make it out alive.”

-- An advisor to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign to Power Play on new polls showing President Obama expanding his lead in key swing state Ohio.

Whatever Democratic skew may exist in the public polling on the presidential race, there’s no question about the current trajectory of the 2012 campaign: Republican Mitt Romney, who has steadily trailed by a small margin, is losing ground.

If he means to win Romney will have to do what successful Republican candidates have had to do for 40 years, tune out the background noise of the press and stay relentlessly on message, a message that seems to be fairly simple: We can’t afford the government Barack Obama has created and time is running out to stop it.

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Conservatives and the Romney campaign may say that the swing state polls which shows a widening lead for Obama are out of whack, but the trend is unmistakable. A month ago in must-win Ohio, Romney trailed in the Quinnipiac University poll commissioned by the New York Times and CBS News by 6 points. It’s now 10 points.

Polls may not be predictive, but even a poll that doesn’t reflect the actual condition of the electorate can still show you the trend line. And right now, there aren’t any indications that Romney is closing the gap. Romney may be closer than a double-digit deficit, but he’s sure not where he needs to be.

Romney’s attack slogan on President Obama has been “Obama isn’t working,” but it’s clear that Romney’s strategy hasn’t been working.

That slogan itself is a great encapsulation of where Romney’s campaign has been in the five months since he clinched the Republican nomination. “Obama isn’t working” is a nod to the Margaret Thatcher’s successful 1979 campaign slogan “Labour isn’t working.” Very subtle, sophisticated and droll, no doubt, but seeing as it lacks the pun and doesn’t really seem to mean anything, it hasn’t exactly been a barnburner among heartland voters.

Romney has been a supremely cautious candidate when it comes to attacking Obama. Fearful that he will be called racist, mean or angry, Romney has pulled a lot of punches when it comes to the commander in chief.

At times, Romney has sounded like an insurance salesman respectfully submitting that his package of home, life and auto insurance is actually better than the coverage offered by a customer’s current carrier -- if you don’t mind him saying so, ma’am.

Part of this is rooted in a desire not to offend voters who took a chance on Obama in 2008 and still like him, but just believe that he hasn’t done a very good job. The message to these largely female voters has been that it’s okay to break up with Obama because your new suitor is a very nice and understanding guy. He doesn’t blame you a bit.

But another part is that Romney clearly fears what would happen if he, a decidedly white, awkward retail politician, and very wealthy man born to privilege, is out swinging brickbats at the first black president.

It ought to be some comfort to Romney that even with the delicacy of his campaign to this point, he has still been accused of race baiting, cruelty and dishonesty. The comfort should come from the fact that whatever he does, he will be accused of those things by many in the establishment press. So why not swing harder if you’re going to pay the same price?

Obama, who admitted to CBS News last week that his own ads have been misleading, has been spending millions every month since May in all of the swing states on an ad campaign that has been mostly a series of personal attacks on Romney’s character.

The Romney campaign has demanded accountability for the president and found puzzlement from reporters who can’t believe the Republican nominee doesn’t understand the game by now: Enough about your claim that you are not actually a vampire, governor, are your welfare ads really a dog whistle for racists? And a follow up, governor, Harry Reid says he has a friend who says you really are a vampire and drink the blood of middle class children exclusively. Care to comment?

While Obama has been raining down the most negative, most personal presidential re-election campaign in history all over Romney’s head, Romney has been telling voters that Obama is a nice guy who just isn’t quite up to the job. What’s so nice about a guy who dumps $100 million in attack ads that he himself says aren’t exactly true?

In fact, Romney’s “nice guy” theme has given Obama additional cover for running a campaign of such scorching negativity. And after all these months of attacks, it’s hardly a surprise that Ohio voters aren’t so sure they want to take a chance on this challenger, whatever they may think of the job the incumbent is doing.

While Republicans may console themselves by saying that the polls aren’t really as bad as they seem, Romney doesn’t seem to be looking for consolation. He looks like he’s finally had enough.

When Romney hit the ground in Ohio on Tuesday, he was swinging hard.

On Obama’s equivocations about the ongoing Muslim uprising and the attack in Libya, Romney told FOX News colleague Carl Cameron that the president was trying to hide the truth from voters. Is Romney really accusing the administration of a cover up? Yep, said running mate Paul Ryan. The sputtering began at once that Romney was politicizing foreign policy as if Democrats didn’t win in 2006 and 2008 by doing exactly that.

And on Obama’s vision of the role of government in American life: “This is a vision of government that’s entirely foreign to anything this nation has ever known.” The dog-whistle detectors must have practically exploded at that one. If folks who thought talking about Obama’s golf game was an allusion to Tiger Wood’s satyriasis, imagine what happened when Romney used the word “foreign.”

But maybe Romney, with less than six weeks to go until Election Day, is ready to start communicating some urgency and something about the direness of what he says is the nation’s condition. Maybe he is also ready to start ignoring a political press that is likely to find him guilty, whatever the charge.

If he means to win Romney will have to do what successful Republican candidates have had to do for 40 years, tune out the background noise of the press and stay relentlessly on message, a message that seems to be fairly simple: We can’t afford the government Barack Obama has created and time is running out to stop it.

If Romney is ever going to find his inner John Sununu, now’s the time.

Chris Stirewalt is digital politics editor for Fox News, and his POWER PLAY column appears Monday-Friday on FoxNews.com. Catch Chris Live online daily at 11:30amET  at  http:live.foxnews.com.

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China unveils first aircraft carrier to enter service

BEIJING –  China formally entered its first aircraft carrier into service on Tuesday, underscoring its ambitions to be a leading Asian naval power, although the ship is not expected to carry a full complement of planes or be ready for combat for some time.

The Defense Ministry's announcement had been long expected and was not directly linked to current tensions with Japan over a disputed group of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea.

In a brief notice on its website, the ministry said the carrier's commissioning significantly boosted the navy's combat capabilities and its ability to cooperate in responding to natural disasters and other non-traditional threats.

"It has important significance in effectively safeguarding national sovereignty, security, and development benefits, and advancing world peace and common development," the statement said.

China had partly justified the launching of a carrier by pointing out that it alone among the five permanent United Nations Security Council members had no such craft. That had been particularly glaring given the constant presence in Asia of carriers operated by the U.S. Navy, which maintains 11 worldwide.

President Hu Jintao, also chairman of the commission that controls the military, presided over a ceremony Tuesday morning at the ship's home port of Dalian, along with Premier Wen Jiabao and top generals. Hu "fully affirmed" the efforts of those working on the ship and called on them to complete all remaining tasks according to the highest standard, the Defense Ministry said.

The carrier is the former Soviet navy's unfinished Varyag, which was towed from Ukraine in 1998 minus its engines, weaponry and navigation systems. Christened the Liaoning after the northeastern province surrounding Dalian, the ship began sea trials in August 2011 following years of refurbishment.

So far the trial runs of the aircraft carrier have been to test the ship's propulsion, communications and navigation systems. But launching and recovering fixed-wing aircraft at sea is a much trickier proposition. It will take years to build the proper aircraft, to train pilots to land in adverse weather on a moving deck, and to develop a proper carrier battle group.

China is developing a carrier-based fighter-bomber, the J-15, derived from Russia's Sukhoi Su-33, along with a prototype stealth carrier fighter, the J-31.

Beijing hasn't said what role it intends the carrier to fill other than helping safeguard China's coastline and sea links. The Liaoning has also been portrayed as a kind of test platform for the future development of up to five domestically built Chinese carriers.

Writing in Tuesday's China Daily newspaper, retired Rear Adm. Yang Yi said the carrier will be used to master the technology for more advanced carriers. He said it also will be used to train in how to operate such a craft in a battle group and with vessels from other nation's navies.

Without specifically mentioning China's territorial disputes, Yang acknowledged other countries' concerns about its growing military might, but said Beijing wouldn't shy from flexing its muscles.

"When China has a more balanced and powerful navy, the regional situation will be more stable as various forces that threaten regional peace will no longer dare to act rashly," Yang wrote.

Whatever its practical effects on China's global status, the carrier embodies huge symbolism for China's political and military leaders as a totem of their country's rise from weakness to strength, according to Andrew S. Erickson, a China naval specialist at the U.S. Naval War College.

"While (Chinese navy) acceptance of this `starter carrier' is the first step in a long journey, it is a journey that will take place in full view of the world, and one that will ultimately take Beijing to a new place as a great sea power," Erickson wrote on his blog.

The carrier's political importance was highlighted in Wen's remarks to the ceremony, in which he said it would "arouse national pride and patriotic passion."

"This has mighty and deep significance for the opening of a new facet in our enterprise of socialism with Chinese characteristics," he said.

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Russia rejects US' calls for pressure on Syria, Iran

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia –  Russia on Saturday soundly rejected U.S. calls for increased pressure on Syrian President Bashar Assad to relinquish power. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton tried to prod Moscow into supporting U.N. action to end the crisis in Syria and she expressed hope that Congress would repeal Cold War-era trade restrictions on Russia.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, after meeting Clinton on the sidelines of a meeting of Pacific Rim leaders, told reporters that Moscow is opposed to U.S.-backed penalties against the Assad government, in addition to new ones against Iran over its nuclear program, because they harm Russian commercial interests.

"Our American partners have a prevailing tendency to threaten and increase pressure, adopt ever more sanctions against Syria and against Iran," Lavrov said. "Russia is fundamentally against this, since for resolving problems you have to engage the countries you are having issues with and not isolate them."

"Unilateral U.S. sanctions against Syria and Iran increasingly take on an extraterritorial character, directly affecting the interests of Russian business, in particular banks," he said. "We clearly stated that this was unacceptable, and they listened to us. What the result will be, I don't know."

Clinton, who also met with Russian President Vladimir Putin during the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum summit in Vladivostok, had urged Moscow to reconsider its opposition to the penalties, particularly against Syria in order to convince Assad that he should agree to a political transition, according to a senior U.S. official.

Clinton told her Russian counterpart that the Security Council needed to do more to send "a strong message" to Assad, given the escalating level of violence in Syria, said the official, who was present during the meeting. Clinton made clear to Lavrov that the Security Council risks "abrogating its responsibility" if it fails to act.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the conversation was private.

Russia and China have blocked three Security Council resolutions that would have punished Syria if the Assad government did not accept a negotiated political transition. Clinton said in Beijing this past week that the U.S. was "disappointed" by the vetoes.

She had earlier called the actions "appalling" and said they put Russia and China on the "wrong side of history." That assertion was rejected by Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi at a news conference with Clinton on Wednesday, when Yang said history would prove China's position to be correct.

On Saturday, Lavrov said Russia's opposition to penalizing Syria was based on the premise that "they don't achieve anything."

The question of sanctions against Syria and Iran will be a main topic of conversation among officials later this month at the U.N. General Assembly, and the U.S. official said Clinton had discussed both with Putin during dinner in Vladivostok.

Clinton, who's in Russia's Far East representing President Barack Obama at the APEC summit, also discussed with Putin topics including wildlife conservation, the upcoming winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, and bilateral trade and investment, the official said.

Despite Russia's refusal to join the U.S. and its allies in seeking more pressure against Syria and Iran, Clinton told business leaders at the APEC meeting that the Obama administration wants Congress to repeal a 1974 law that denies Russia normal trade relations with the U.S because of Soviet-era laws restricting the emigration of Jews.

Now that Russia has joined the World Trade Organization, Clinton said the Obama administration is "working closely" with lawmakers on that issue and hopes that "Congress will pass on this important piece of legislation this month."

At the same time, Washington is looking for Russia to play a greater role in the Asia-Pacific region as the U.S. tries to quell growing maritime tensions.

Territorial disputes, including between U.S. allies Japan and South Korea, sparked by nationalist rhetoric have fueled fears of conflict.

Clinton has spent the last week in the region urging peaceful resolutions to competing territorial claims between China and its smaller neighbors in the South China Sea. The U.S. wants to see the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and China establish quickly a code of conduct for the area to be followed by a mechanism to resolve the conflicts peacefully without intimidation, coercion or clashes.

She began Saturday by signing an agreement with Lavrov that will enhance U.S.-Russia scientific cooperation in the Antarctic, as well as link national parks on either side of the Bering Strait.

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