In a bit of a contradiction to this week's press release announcing the PC version of Mass Effect - which credits no other studio except BioWare - it appears that indie developer Demiurge Studios is actually the one doing the dirty work of porting this Xbox 360 RPG to PCs. As spotted on FiringSquad, the Massachusetts-based developer has revealed on its blog that it "began working with BioWare during the final stretch of development for the Xbox 360 version", adding gameplay and performance enhancements for the PC version. And they also let slip a few specific details.

"Mass Effect for the PC features a third command wheel so players can access squad members separately, a new inventory system, customized key mapping and a brand new minigame. Extra attention was focused on visuals, offering higher resolution graphics for an enhanced gaming experience for the PC."

Don't forget to check out the first screenshots from Mass Effect PC, if you haven't yet.

One thing that keeps me from hyperventilating at the sight of this new adventure game called Goin' Downtown (other than my WoW addiction), is the discouraging fact that it's being developed by the makers of Simon the Failure Sorcerer 4, Everlight (likewise a sub-par adventure), and that buggy (but otherwise ok) post-apocalyptic RPG, The Fall. Yep, it's ze Germans from Silver Style Entertainment, backed up by their compatriots from TGC - The Games Company.

One thing that would otherwise fill me with hype hope is this first batch of screenshots from Goin' Downtown, that you'll find by goin' a bit down. The mildly cel-shaded graphics look pretty cool, and the game also promises to have a "thrilling story with black humour and fascinating characters" - over 30 of them, throughout more than 40 locations. A "revolutionary puzzle system for newbies and pros" is also listed among its generic features, and if you want to know more about the story, you'll find that, too, by goin' even furhter down. The game should be released this spring in Germany, but I have no idea about the rest of the English-speaking world.

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 Continue reading 'Goin' Downtown Adventure Comin''...

- 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.

Black Rock Studios, formerly known as Climax Racing and developers of several ATV Offroad Racing and MotoGP games, are staying true to their genre of choice. As announced by their big brothers from Disney, their new project is simply called Pure - a pretty cool looking squad quad racing game planned for release on the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 this autumn. For now, some self-explanatory screenshots.



Update: The first cinematic trailer is here.

We won't have to dig like madmen for any scans of some Hungarian preview, after all, because Electronic Arts have just announced Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 in a nice big press release, complete with screenshots and a trailer. The first surprise we get is that EA's Los Angeles studio is developing this RTS sequel not only for the PC and Xbox 360, but also for the PlayStation 3. Next up, Red Alert 3 boasts a fully co-operative campaign set in "a breathtaking alternate future spawned by time travel run amok", while adding "an astounding new faction that will shake-up the Red Alert universe as we know it", and "bringing naval combat into the heart of the game design". Not to mention they're already hinting at the beta! But let's take them one at a time, right after these pics.


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 Continue reading 'Red Alert 3 Details, Screenshots And Trailer'...

- 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.