Some people like to betatest games, while others don't. Prior to the European Wrath of the Lich King Beta, I was proudly a member of the first half, but after that rentless mass murder of common sense, patience and last bits of humanity, I decided to take a break, keep my sweat inside and let it loose only when the actual game comes out.



But things are about to change. And not because it's yet another Blizzard game, but because Starcraft is one of those little jewels that made college life (ignoring retarded individuals, skipping exams and such) much more easy to bare. It seems that, according to Blizz's Paul Sams (chief operating officer), we'll be getting our Starcraft 2 Beta “in the coming months”, so stay tuned for that extremely lucky invite. Because I bet it won't gonna be easy to get it.

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What do we know about 2K Boston? Ah, well, nothing “much”. They are just the bunch of insane (and let me add, extremely talented) people who brought us Bioshock. You know, the game that rocked your socks (be it clean, smelling like Mr. Hanky, the Christmas Poo, or still stuck on your sealing) in 2007. Hell, that was a great game. I actually finished it, too.

So, what does one expect from such a company? Nothing bad, I guess. Maybe even something good (and that's the sad part). New job listings were recently posted for their oh-so-demanding team, listings that may speak – or may not speak – for themselves. Do you think you meet the qualifications? Let's take a look, see:

This position requires a high degree of creativity. You will be required to work with the single-player team to form a "vision" of the multiplayer experience and use that vision to inform your design decisions. From there, you will help build a multiplayer design team and be responsible to guide your team through the entire production cycle.
Prior experience designing first-person shooter games is an absolute must. Understanding of online persistence is preferred but not required. MMO design or production experience also preferred.
Extending and enhancing Unreal Engine 3 with proprietary networking tech to address gameplay, performance, platform, production, tools, and QA needs.
Interfacing with Microsoft, Sony, and other providers for matching-making and other services.

Multiplayer – seems that we have a new “word of the century” win here. Every game tends to involve a decent bit of one on one, three to three or one on over nine thousand lolis action – just for self preservation. OK, I will bite this. And I will swallow it too, if it turns out to be as good as any normal human being would expect.

Three new Need for Speed games were announced today by Electronic Arts, leaving the gaming world - or at least the part of it that still has some common sense - in a blissful indifference, at best. While some might find the idea of a NFS threesome quite exciting, we dare question how EA will be able to churn out three quality titles in less than a year, after years of pushing the franchise down a steady slope.



Well, no use trolling over spilt booze, so let's get on with the news. As they say in the announcement, "we listened to the gamers when they told us they wanted a wider range of experiences" (big mistake!), so they're now ready to pop the cork off their new NFS games: Need for Speed Shift, Need for Speed Nitro and Need for Speed World Online.

NFS Shift sounds like your run-of-the-mill racing game (think Race Driver: GRID for instance), and this first screenshot shows nothing spectacular, either. "A racing game built by racers for racers", "a level of realism never before seen in a Need for Speed title", "an incredible authentic and immersive driving experience", "a stunningly realistic first-person cockpit viewpoint", "an unrivaled sensation of racing at high speed" - the usual PR talk. The one true flicker of hope shines from the fact that it's being developed by Slighty Mad Studios, formerly known as Blimey (the guys behind GT Legends and GTR 2). NFS Shift is planned for release on the PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PSP in autumn 2009. (...)

 Continue reading 'Need for Speed Does A Threesome'...

Because you can't have an MMO in this day and age without expanding it during the first few months after release (and bug-fixing it throughout its entire lifetime), Warhammer Online, too, is set to receive its first live expansion soon enough. Titled "Call to Arms", it will be rolled out - for free - in early March, and will be running through the beginning of June. At which point, presumingly, another one of these "live expansions" might follow.



Copy-pasting from GOA's announcement, Call to Arms will introduce an array of new content for WAR players, including two highly anticipated new careers - the Orc Choppa and the Dwarf Slayer - and a new dungeon zone called "Land of the Dead", set in the desert realm of the Tomb Kings. It will also include 3 in-game live events, a new Realm vs. Realm (RvR) Scenario, added functionality to the Realm Wars section of the WAR website, the opening of the official WAR Forums, and a new free trial version of the game.

In the announcement, Mark Jacobs from Mythic refers to this huge new Tomb Kings dungeon as a "spiritual successor to the Dark Age of Camelot dungeon, Darkness Fall", and restates their commitment to keep on delivering a massive amount of free content "now and in the future".

Below you'll find the full schedule of the Call to Arms live expansion, (...)

 Continue reading 'Warhammer Online Expands With Call to Arms'...

Gayspot, the website that fires senior editors for not sucking the small dicks of sponsors (feel the Kane and Linch review, if it is still on), reports on a Q&A regarding Elemental: War of Magic, which we have announced some time ago.

As they say, the game will draw its purpose from several franchises, such as The Lord of the Rings, Master of Magic and Civilization, BUT FAILING hard at getting elements from the only TBS that really matters. I'll let you guess which one that is. It starts with “Heroes”. And it ends with " Might and Magic 3".

As usual, when we talk about Starcraft 2, we all go “WTFFFS WHY??". It is normal, and absolutely decent. Because a game that comes in three fucking parts smells like a milk cow. Even if Blizzard says it does not.

Recently, Speaking with Videogamer, Blizzard's Paul Sams started to spit so many “NOHEZ” words about this issue, that even I tend to call him a bull crap. As I said before, this merger between Activision and Blizzard will eventually lead to serious issues. We have Starcraft 2 in three parts, then Battle.Net on a pay roll, then... who knows, fucking Diablo III monthly fee, mayhap.

The fact of the matter is, it's absolutely, positively untrue about us trying to stretch it out and milk it. People think that it was a monetary driven decision. I can absolutely, positively tell you, with 100 per cent certainty, that that was not part of the conversation. I guarantee it. I give my word. There was never, ever a conversation where we said, 'let's do this because we're going to make more money'. I guarantee it. As a matter of fact the sole reason we did it was because we thought it was going to be a better experience. Anybody that says otherwise is not correct. It is absolutely not what we did it for.

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Since subscriptions are running wild in World of Warcraft, and Battle.Net is still free of charge (for now), Blizzard has decided that it would be a good time to ban some more cheaters from its incredible awesome servers. Very, very good. Cheaters are bad. They do nasty things and smell like polar bears. I wonder if they will ever do something about that gold selling thing, it's really getting nasty.

As part of our continued effort to ensure a fair and fun online experience for all Battle.net players, we have expanded our efforts to remove cheaters from StarCraft and Diablo II. We have identified and closed over 350,000 StarCraft and Diablo II accounts which were found to be using third-party hacks.

The Diablo II CD keys associated with the closed Diablo II accounts are now restricted from playing on Battle.net for approximately 30 days. Repeat offenders will have their accounts closed and their CD keys permanently banned from Battle.net. As a reminder, we reserve the right to close the accounts and ban the CD keys of players who are caught cheating on Battle.net. Cheating ruins the game experience for legitimate players, and we will not tolerate it.

If you didn't like Supreme Commander, it means you didn't like Total Annihilation. And if you didn't like Total Annihilation, and still call yourself a “strategist”, I recommend going back and playing with yourself one more time, because strategists do not need retards like you.

And now, here's the sequel, published by Square Enix and still developed by Gas Powered Games. Details are scarce, as in non-existent, but still, if the game follows in his papa's footsteps, it's gonna be two things: a great game, and an avid resource consumer. Be sure to get that new PC you have always wanted. Click for the press release: (...)

 Continue reading 'Supreme Commander 2 Announced'...

The newest title in the Prince of Persia franchise is supposed to hit the shelves on December 2th, making all the gay Arabian dude's fans pretty happy. For those who are interested in the system requirements, some guys at Ubisoft have posted them on the Official forums.

Note that these are the minimum system requirements, any jet plane with better gear will run the game smoothly. Or so they say. The game will also be available for PS3 and X360, to please the ever growing console community.

* Supported OS: Windows XP/Windows Vista
* Processor: Dual core processor 2.6 GHz Intel Pentium D or AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2 GHz or AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ or better recommended)
* RAM: 1 GB Windows XP/2 GB Windows Vista
* Video Card: 256 MB DirectX 10.0?compliant video card or DirectX 9.0?compliant card with Shader Model 3.0 or higher (see supported list)
* Sound Card: DirectX 9.0 or 10.0?compliant sound card (5.1 sound card recommended)
* DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0 or 10.0 libraries (included on disc)
* DVD-ROM: DVD-ROM dual-layer drive
* Hard Drive Space: 8 GB
* Peripherals Supported: Keyboard, mouse, optional controller (Xbox 360 Controller for Windows recommended)
* Supported Video Cards at Time of Release: ATI RADEON X1600/1650-1950/HD 2000/3000 series NVIDIA GeForce 6800/7/8/9 series

More stuff concerning Fallout 3 and it's soon-to-be Japanese release – and it doesn't look that good for our loli-loving friends out there. Especially not the ones who expected to enjoy he full gore compendium that is Fallout 3.

Several things will be missing, such as certain quests, or certain monsters (Ghouls come to mind), while the name of mobs and weapons have been... modified to respect Japan's rules in this area of expertise. Also, be prepared to experience less blood when you brutally convert an enemy into several little pieces of fresh meat.

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