Well, at least someone is concerned about the fate of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. Stephen from Bluesnews (also known as Blue, due to the fact that he doesn’t go out much, and the ultra-violet lamps he uses to grow up weed in the basement have taken their toll on his skin), followed some earlier rumors, according to which EA’s anticipated MMORPG has been pushed by its pregnant publisher to some indefinite release date. GamesIndustry.biz were the ones who provided the said rumor.

Well, Bluesnews contacted EA and thoroughly questioned them about the presumptive delay, only to find out that Warhammer Online is still on track, and that will hit the store shelves somewhere in Q2 2008. Thank God.

Hopefully, at least this one will show up before WotLK.

"Champions Online is going to be unlike anything MMO fans have seen before"... You must be thinking - who could possibly be so self-centered, so out of touch with reality and with common sense, to make such an idiotic statement? I'll tell you who: Cryptic Studios. Since their previous project, that Marvel MMO was clearly too fucking awesome to be released (which would perfectly explain why it was cancelled), they decided they don't need Microsoft or any other publisher to tell them how much they pwn. So they took matters into their own hands, and are now planning to self-publish their next game, Champions Online.

Well, that much we knew already, but now we have some new details announced for this superhero MMO, along with some early screenshots.

"Champions Online, based on the popular pen-and-paper Champions RPG, will give players the power of total customization of their hero experience while they explore a vast universe of richly detailed 3D environments. (...) Champions Online is all about total customization - it will offer a near infinite amount of character customization so that all players will have a unique game experience. Gamers will be able to create their hero's name, back story, costume, powers and abilities as well as design their own personal arch-enemy and his or her back story, which will guarantee a truly unique experience."

If this sounds like your kind of game, then by all means, feel free to read more about it on its website. For the rest of us, the only other thing worth mentioning is that Champions Online should be released on the PC and Xbox 360 in spring 2009. Not that it will make any difference.

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 Continue reading 'Champions Online Details, Screenshots'...

- The PSP version of Need for Speed ProStreet is finally shifting into retail gear this week, on February 22. Time for another NFS soon, eh?... *sigh*... What a drag racing.

- Also on February 22, the PS3 version of Unreal Tournament 3 will be released in Europe. Other releases this week include Dragon Quest Swords (Wii), The Club, Dynasty Warriors 6, and Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney (DS).

- The Witcher Enhanced Edition was announced for May 2008, bringing changes in the game's mechanics, better graphics, a MOD editor, and two new adventures (comprising 8 new quests). In other words, they're trying to sell us a fucking patch.

- Second Life goes mobile, by "[reformatting] the online world to fit on mobile phone screens while mapping the keys on handsets to commands in-world". World of Warcraft should take a cue, instead of experimenting with shitty mobile chat features.

- JoWooD and World Forge (Sparta: Ancient Wars) announced a new strategy game called The Golden Horde, which "takes you back to a place in time where the heirs of Dschingis Khan were ready to fight for their honor and glory". Dschingis Khan?! What the fuck! Somebody fire that PR idiot who can't even spell Genghis Khan right. FAIL.

- THQ and Blue Fang Games (Zoo Tycoon) are banding for a new game, in development for the Wii, DS and PC. More zoophilia?

Ah, the distinguished Game Developers Conference... now there's an event we won't be attending (although we might hold a prolongued "editorial" meeting at the local pub tonight). But no worries, that's why we have the internets, to bring us various stuff from this week's GDC 2008 in San Francisco. Such is this new pack of screenshots from Age of Conan issued by Funcom. I'd rather not comment on them, though - we might lose our last two Conan-fans readers who drive our earnings through the roof.

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 Continue reading 'GDC 2008 - Age of Conan Screenshots'...

- The world of Fallout 3 will be much smaller than Oblivion, Bethesda's Pete Hines told some aussies, "but packed with stuff to do". Stuff to do is good, mkay.

- "For Sims 3 there will be new information soon", Sims Studio head Rod Humble let slip in a forum posting. And guess what: they are "actually launching less [Sims games] this year than last". Oh, and "the Sims Label was created to innovate, make original games and take creative risks". I loled.

- Aion: The Tower of Eternity is coming in 2008. How exactly is that a novelty, beats me!

- Naruto: Ninja Destiny went gold, and is now destined to launch on February 26 for the Nintendo DS. Naruto sucks dragon balls.

- April 22 was announced as the day Square Enix will release its new DS action-RPG set in modern-day Tokyo, The World Ends With You. No U.

- Unreal Engine 3 got licensed by yet another Korean developer - Dragonfly (Karma Online, Special Force), who will be using it to make a new... something, whatever.

Common cooking recipe no. 264: you take one spoon of rapable female angels, with wings that commonly refer to clothes begging to be teared off; then add a pinch of oversized, red devilish creatures, bent on destroying the world, using the utmost common sense; mix it all with some overused story concerning heroes, PvP, multiplayer only, and of course, so many genders one cannot possibly count. There you go, the perfect product for today’s trembling gaming industry.

British developer Brain Seal (if the seal is on their brain, or if the brain is a seal itself, I cannot possibly comprehend), launched the Masters of Belial official website, proudly announcing their intent to hit the market with this... action/strategy/RPG online game, set for release somewhere this year. It should be free, for starters, letting us enjoy some casual moments of ganking, griefing and other important parts of every PvP community, while future add-ons will be priced between 4.99 USD - 14.99 USD, depending on how crap the provided content will be. A beta is supposed to start next month.

I bet this will be better than Age of Conan.

- Red Faction 3 is no more... But relax, nothing is fu... cancelled, dude. They just renamed it to Red Faction: Guerilla, apparently.

- Likewise, the Aliens FPS announced by SEGA at the end of 2006 finally has a title - Aliens: Colonial Marines, "invading consoles and PCs in 2009". The devs from Gearbox had better make aliens playable as well, at the very least in an expansion. Or else!

- NCsoft has "something to announce - not only announce but to show - by the second half of this year"... their very first console (PS3?) MMO game. They're "pretty psyched" about it. I'm not. Not yet, anyway.

- Epic's CliffyB loses faith in PC games, thiking that "the PC is just in disarray". So right now they're focusing on making Gears of War 2 console games. Can't say I blame them.

- Speaking of Epic, their Unreal Engine 3 also got licensed by Korean MMO maker Devroot Studio, for a new game codenamed "BK Project". They're a division of SONOV Corporation, who made that MMO with hot chicks, Shaiya: Light and Darkness.

- The Xbox 360 fails at a rate of 16.4% (give or take), while only 3% of the PlayStation 3 and Wii consoles fail. Should be interesting to see some sales figures for Microsoft and Sony's consoles in actual working condition!

- Wii hacked once again (and once again without much use), this time through an exploit in The Legend of Zelda. Great, wake me up when there's something worth seeing.

- Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings for the DS is being released tomorrow in the UK (and presumably the rest of Europe). We got the latest trailer here, in case you missed it.

- The Witcher, CD Projekt's debut RPG, has sold over 600,000 copies in 3 months. They're still aiming for 1 million in the first year, and at this rate they're going to shatter it. Grats!

The folks from Cryptic Studios will just have to pardon (or ignore) me if I'm wrong, but this sounds an awful lot like the Marvel MMO that was confirmed as cancelled just a couple of days ago. They may have lost Microsoft's support, but the makers of City of Heroes / City of Villains are still determined to waste our time with another superhero MMO game of super-dubious quality - renamed called Champions Online. Game Informer will have the first look at the game in their March issue, and they say it's coming on PC and consoles. That doesn't really fill you with hardcorish feelings, now does it?

Well, gank me silly and call me a gnome! Plans for some kind of World of Warcraft mobile functionality really are underway over at Blizzard. Mind you, the idea of an actual WoW MMO on cell phones still sounds just as ludicrous as before, but that's not what they're aiming for at all. In fact, they don't seem to be aiming for anything in particular right now, just idly fiddling with a small team of mobile developers, to see what they can come up with. That, according to Blizzard co-founder Frank Pearce, quoted in an MTV article yesterday:

"We want to look at the mobile devices as something we can use to enhance the experience of our existing games. So we're going to have to look at ways to use the mobile device to enhance their 'World of Warcraft' experience. We'll see what kind of applications we can come up with.

(...) So as an example, one thing I think would be really cool - and whether we're going to be able to do this, I don't know, but it would be really cool - is if we could have a client on your mobile device like [Google Chat] that hooks you into your guild chat in the game. That would be really cool. Or the ability to view your in-game mail or view your in-game auctions. We probably wouldn't allow you to actually buy or sell via the mobile device, but you could certainly monitor."

If there's no hope for buying / selling at the Auction House, then seriously, what's the point?

- 4 years later... Final Fantasy XI product site launched. I bet you didn't see that one coming!

- Jack Keane demo unveils the first four levels of this allegedly funny adventure game by Ankh developer Deck13.

- PlayStation 3 sells 1 million units in UK, after 41 weeks on the market. That's 3 weeks longer that it took the Wii to reach the same figure there, and 9 weeks faster than the Xbox 360. Above average.

- Moroes' Lucky Pocket Watch just dropped for me in Kara. Upon closer inspection, I noticed it's time to call it a night.