Today, developer Funcom and publisher Eidos have made a joint mediatic effort to lift the veil on what they call Age of Conan's "promising future", revealing selected new features which are now in production - including a massive new PvP update called "To the death" (going live near the end of June), followed later this year by a MASSIVE (ed. - notice the CAPS) free update called "Kingship!". Which will basically be a guild alliance warfare system.

Age of Conan is a fantasy-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed for PC-gaming. Like poker many other Internet-based games, players of Age of Conan interact with one another in the virtual world and is probably one of the reasons why it has become successful around the world.

During autumn, a reward and character evolution system called "Powerpoints" will also be introduced, along with the mandatory new areas and dungeons in the months ahead, improved player-made villages and Battlekeep systems, social updates, and the generic "more adventures". You'll find all of these detailed below. (...)

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We've been making a conscious effort to avoid any news related to Limbo of the Lost, the newly controversial adventure game developed by Majestic Studios (a.k.a. a group of old farts from Kent), and particularly to keep a safe distance from its appalling trailers. Up until now, that is. Because GamePlasma made a tragi-comical observation this week, by pointing out an undeniable resemblance copy-pasting between Limbo of the Lost, and the slightly better known RPG The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.


But it's not just Oblivion - as the above mock-up boxshot suggests. By now, thanks to the NeoGAF forumers and other perceptive gamers, more popular games and movies have been found to be the source of "inspiration" for Limbo of the Lost, which now stands accused of also stealing assets (or just strikingly similar ideas) from the likes of Thief 3, Diablo 2 (the UI as well), Unreal Tournament 2004, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Painkiller, the movie Pirates of the Caribbean (cinematics), the movie Spawn (cinematics)... and the list could probably go on and on, after a thorough inspection of the game's full version. Which may not bee too easy, considering this press release we received today from publisher Tri Synergy: (...)

 Continue reading 'Limbo of the Lost, The Rip-off Thickens'...

Star Ocean 4 - the RPG sequel surprisingly previewed by Square Enix last Christmas - will be released (exclusively?) for the Xbox 360 console in 2009. According to Famitsu, the announcement was made at a recent Microsoft event in Japan, although some speculate that a delayed and enhanced PS3 version is all but inevitable - much like with Tales of Vesperia, another awesome looking Xbox 360 RPG confirmed for the PS3.

Following the event, Square Enix producer Yoshinori Yamagishi did make a comment regarding the game's exclusivity, but a clear conclusion is nowhere to be found at this time:

"We cannot announce anything on that. We can say that it will be released first [on the Xbox 360]. Whether we'll release it on the PS3 is undecided. We may release it, we may not."

The complete title of the game will be Star Ocean 4: The Last Hope, and the story will take place a few hundred years before the first Star Ocean. Below we posted some new high-res screenshots, and of course we couldn't miss this cool new trailer. Make sure you don't, either!

The self-professed, made-in-Taiwan future of free-to-play MMOs, to be more precise. This is how the German publisher Frogster announced its latest acquisition, Runes of Magic - a fantasy MMORPG originally developed by the Taiwanese studio Runewaker Entertainment under the title Radiant Arcana, which is already completed and currently in open-beta phase in China.


This definitely lends credence to Frogster's plans of releasing it before Christmas 2008 in Germany, and "soon afterwards" in English-speaking territories. But the rest of their communique isn't too convincing in regard to their earlier claim, about Runes of Magic being "the future". Just the usual set of features, topped by the promise of a "free2play, no monthly fees, free download" MMO. You can find them all listed on the Runes of Magic website, along with the game's story, various artworks, and a "beta infoletter". The first screenshots are just below this abstract from Frogster's announcement: (...)

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A very interesting move from Nintendo – the fellows of Kotaku just received a press release wich states that the Japanese company will be kindly skipping Leipzig’s Game Convention this year. The reasons are plenty – and not that, God forbid, GC would somehow totally suck ass, but because, well, “the country where the sun shines” (to quote an illiterate and extremely retarded ex-colleague of mine, who, sadly, is not dead yet) already hosts too many similar events that Nintendo has attended so far. And will probably do so even more, as the time casually passes by.

And the results, being the positive results they are, convinced Nintendo to skip this year’s most awesome European gaming gathering. So, after E3, they will stick their heads back in their asses and return to Japan and their daily routine, because:
1. Japanese girls are the best.
2. Japanese girls look the youngest.
3. Local legislation is many times tolerant regarding doing various things to Japanese girls.
4. Akihabara.

This decision should only last one year though.

Tired of chasing around little sisters on your old, rusty, and filled with God knows what bodily fluids keyboard? Fear no more, friends, for both PSM and Electronic Gaming Monthly combined (they are a sort of Captain Planet) will feature cover stories in their next issue, regarding the fact that Bioshock, the game that put “pedo” into “pedophile” (except Japanese visual novels, of course), is paying a visit to Sony’s next-gen console.

So, what will this version bring new to the table? I guess, nothing much. Some graphical improvements here and there, tweaks, blah blah, but I expect nothing groundbreaking. Just the fact that you will mindlessly steer through Rupture via a gamepad, not a keyboard. Fascinating. According to EGM, we should see this new Bioshock out on the store shelves somewhere around the 2008’s holiday season.

Personally, I’m pretty curious, as always when it comes to ports, about the controls. Really.

We, real men, take great pride (and joy) in the majestic art of peeing. Especially after a long, well sustained drinking session, where beer flows just like the Spice should flow, where vodka glitters friendly from the nearby glass, and where every God damned woman looks like she is hot. I pee, therefor, I am. Seriously.

And since some of us do these things quite often (both peeing and drinking), two Belgian drunktards fellow citizens decided to make it even better – just think about it, what is better than drinking with friends? No, not weed. At least not in this certain context – it’s gaming, booze and friends! We all know Belgians like to drink. And that they have more than exquisite beer. Hell, even I, who enjoy strong drinks only, have a certain fetish for Belgian beer – especially Leffe. And we also know that (some) Belgians are smart. Take these two for example, a software developer, Werner Dupont, and an electrical engineer, Bart Geraets – they went out for a (couple of hundreds) drinks, and came up with an excellent idea.

A video game, folks, but not your ordinary, top notch, “I invested 100 milion dollars in this shit” kind of video game – just a fine urinal sport that allows you to ski or to shoot some evil aliens, using… The Unleashed Force of Your Pee! So, you go to the toilet, and you start doing your job. Inside the urinal, you will “spot” several sensors that, vigorously motivated by the power of your toxic waste, will move the characters on the screen. Even more, you can challenge the guy next to you for some multiplayer matches… As long as he can keep up.

Women are also part of the equation, since these guys designed a special paper cone that lets the ladies do what they usually cannot do – shoot straight. Heh, this little game made my day. So in the near future, watch out for a... strange toilet near your favorite pub. It might get interesting.

Arigatou, Reuters

As I have stated before, along side good ol’ Uwe Boll, Jack Thompson is one of my favorite characters related to the gaming industry. He is a fascinating man, with strong, yet terribly unnatural beliefs, who still thinks, after years of practice, that all the world spins around his misconceptions. Well, too bad for him, it seems.

Game Politics, a website that also loves Jack Thompson almost as much as we do, tells us the story of a Florida Judge who decided to… recommend Mr. Thompson as guilty for no less than 27 counts of misconduct. In other words, if the Florida Supreme Court is sane enough to say yes, Jack is screwed. Initially, there were 31 such counts, most of them (21, to be more precise) are related to his infamous epic-fail crusade against Rockstar and Grand Theft Auto, while others hint at his (again failed) attempt to “convict” Bully of being a major suck-ass game.

I guess it all started with that kid who went rampage and Starfire-critted two police officers and one dispacher, an indeed sad event followed by a lawsuit, in which Thompson represented the victims’ families. The kid was playing, amongst other games, GTA, and Jack quickly assumed that this here title, and only this, is the sole unquestionable reason for the murders.

We are passionately awaiting to see the results of such great events. Hell, we should probably start to write a script for a Jack Thompson-inspired soap opera - until then, we’ll leave him in his medicine’s care.

One must, with the power of mighty Thor, love Internet rumors. They are just fabulous. Recently, the dudes and dudettes (and all their little sisters combined) from Blizz Planet gave the fanboys some new wanking material, stating that the more-than-purple, legendary gaming guru magazine, PC Gamer, will feature a full fledged Diablo 3 announcement, from the golden mouth of Blizzard itself.

You have to realize the insanity this little thing spawned on the web. I bet if those people reading the said “news” had guns, they would have gone to some country in South Africa and start a revolution, proclaiming the Everlasting Empire of Diablo’s Left Kidney. Ah well, sadly, things are not so bright beyond the Looking Glass, since the ladies at Voodoo Extreme just received word from PC Gamer itself that the whole thing whas just a big, smelly fuss. More exactly, We're officially squelching the Diablo rumor. We've got two big announcements coming in our August issue, but neither is from Blizzard.

Rumors come and go, and folks should be accustomed by now that no rumor regarding Blizzard is true until they say so. As for the said two big announcements, who gives a crap.

As we like to say, when we are actually sober and NOT disregarding other people’s opinions, “tastes may vary”. And they may vary a lot. Styles vary, also. Big time. So I tend to find it a bit strange when two big bad ass producers, like Bethesda Softworks, and the younger, much fresher, not yet infested with the “my idea is better than yours” syndrome, Splash Damage, decide to join forces, in an attempt to… well, to do some stuff. What stuff, we have yet to discover. They probably don’t have a clue about it, either.

It’s useless to mention what Bethesda is famous for, but I will restate what it will be Infamous for. Fallout 3. The game that, according to my awesome Nostradamic predictions, will suck so much ass that even the greatest ass sucker in the world will have to bow down and let others do his job. As for Splash Splashidy Splashie, their recent title, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, along side with their very deep friendship with id Studios, says it all.

They obviously intend to do some serious business regarding the gaming industry, but the actual details regarding their future project will not be revealed as soon as it may seem. Let’s just hope for something big, something nasty, and for the love of God, please, no more Oblivion crap. Fallout 3: Oblivion Copycat is enough to fail for ten years to come, already.

Arigatou, 1UP.