In what we may call “the smartest move they have made in the recent years”, Ubisoft decided to cancel the production of its video game based on Heroes, NBC Universal's television series featuring several retards with super-powers, running mindlessly and lacking any acting capabilities.



According to the big-time publisher, the rights for the game, which was announced last summer for PC and next gen consoles, are now safely back in the hands of NBC, hopefully never to return to our poor and innocent gaming universe. Ubisoft's ex-big plans regarding this also included Tim Kring, the TV series' creator, and Jesse Alexander, co-executive producer. Sadly for poor ol' Jess, he recently got fired from the show, because he probably sucks big time.

Source.

MMO players can be divided into two categories: the ones who play World of Warcraft and the ones who WILL play World of Warcraft sooner or later. A sad fact it may be, but it seems that the only way to actually quit playing Blizzard's massive milk cow is to quit playing MMOs alltogether. Just like I did.


During a recent earnings report, Blizzard's president Mike Morhaime has shown us a few very uninteresting numbers, also mentioning that, unlike some enthusiasts may have predicted, large numbers of players that have “quit” WoW recently, in the light of would-be competitors like Age of Conan and Worhammer Online, are slowly, but steadily, renewing their WoW subscriptions. Because the other games just plain ol' suck.

So, according to him, 68% of those dumb enough to think Age of Conan will be a big hit are coming back to WoW with their tail between their legs, while 48% of those who listed Warhammer Online as reason for cancellation... are doing the same. See any pattern here? Because there is only one pattern. There is no way in Hell a MMO game can challenge WoW at this moment, and win.

Source.

If you happen to be playing MMOs, then you also live in fear of the constant General spam, Whisper spam, Mail spam and various other kinds of spam regarding in-game money selling. I am (but, hopefully, used to be) a World of Warcraft player myself, and if I were to count all those messages I've got involving “PLX BUY OUR GOLDZ!” or “WWW.GAYSITE.COM SELLZ BEST!”, I would probably be losing (another) 4 years of my life.

And we also know that most gold farmers are “Chinese”. So we gank them. A lot. Well, the Chinese government has actually found a way to gang them in real life also, by collecting a 20% tax on all revenues from the redistribution of online, virtual currency. And why not? The market so far is growing, has still great potential, it it suffers from no taxes (until now) and it is a pain in the large asses of decent players who try to play a game without suffering insane, buffed, AH prices.

The Wall Street Journal has more on this.

The ladies at Capcom are calmly wrapping up their files with this new release schedule, published on MCV, pointing out to some of their most anticipated franchises and their new “dates of birth”. Surprisingly, but not equally that certainly, it seems that Resident Evil 5 has somehow, through mischievous and dark rituals, found a way to the PC platform along side its console little sisters, and will be released in the same day, March, 13, 2009. I personally doubt this, or at least, I hope that they will give the eventual PC release more time for… polish. Remember the disaster called Resident Evil 4 on the PC? I bet you do.

In other news, and from the same press thing, the “next winter” release for Street Fighter 4 (PS3, X360) has magically become 27 February. Oh boy, I can’t wait for this one, really. The full release list is as follows:

Neopets Puzzle Adventure – Wii, DS, PC – January 23rd
Bionic Commando – PS3, 360, PC – February 13th
MotoGP Wii – Wii – February 20th
Street Fighter IV – PS3, 360, PC – February 20th
Dead Rising - Wii – February 27th
Resident Evil 5 – PS3, 360, PC – March 13th

I would like to note that Capcom previously denied rumors about a PC version of Street Fighter 4, although this list… lists it.

We all know that Hellgate: London was an incredible success. As in, it was an incredible success at FAILING in the biggest of ways possible. Flagship Studio went down the drain, and along with it, the rights for this would-be game came into the pockets of HanbitSoft. Well, more exactly, Hanbit owns the IP and the distribution rights outside US and EU (Namco still holds distribution rights in ze States).

Hanbit has been trying too hard to keep this game alive (it's like trying to keep a 120 years old senior alive using medical equipment from WW II), so they announced an expansion, also testing the grounds for a possibility for it to be launched in US. Namco said "go fuck yourselves, take your shit elsewhere".

And, if that was not enough, Namco plans to shut down all Hellgate London servers in the US and EU early next year. For good (and thank God). What a joke way to end this joke of a game. Thanks Shack for the scoop.

And, since we are still lurking like (greater) shadows in the realms of Turn-Based Strategy, it is probably worth to mention Elemental: War of Magic, an incoming game from Stardock. When I say "incoming", I mean "incoming so far away, that we will probably forget about it".



We will most likely get the hands on this fantasy game not earlier than the beginning of 2010, with a public beta to start in June 2009. As usual with Stardock games, players will be able to use impulse for the game download, and beta testers will be able to give feedback, and even do some creative work in-game via the modding tools provided.

Some more screenshots here.

If you were anything like us (which, I hope for your sake, you are not), you would be extremely aroused to hear that the infamous King's Bounty, the TBS/RPG/Adventure/Thing from Katauri is about to receive an expansion.



For starters, let's just say that King's Bounty is the king and queen of awesomeness since Heroes 3 hit the shelves. Second, it is worth to mention (for all you lolicons out there), that this time around, you will spank Princess Amelie in a brand new (and possibly dangerous) land, called Teany, while she will do this, and that, and various other things (to herself, hopefully).

Although the official website is in Russian, I was able to steam up some of the features King's Bounty: Princess will hold (clickie to continue): (...)

 Continue reading 'King's Bounty Expansion INCOMING!'...

Up until several years ago, I would've shit my pants in excitement at the thought of a new Red Alert game. But now? Now here it is, and I couldn't possibly care any less about the way EA fucked up Westwood's legacy (as they did with plenty of other legacies). But hey, I figured there's still a few stubborn C&C fans out there, hanging on to their last shred of hope, as they hide among all those horny teenagers drooling over the hawt chicks pimped for the game's cinematics. So, for whatever it's worth, today marks the release shipping of Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 to retail stores.

This longtime PC-exclusive strategy sub-series is making a bold - if not reckless - attept to conquer two power-platforms, as it launches on the PC and Xbox 360. The actual release will happen on October 30 for the PC in North America and Europe, and on November 11 for the Xbox 360. Originally there were also some suicidal plans for a PS3 version, but... not any more.

The third chapter comes precisely 8 years after Red Alert 2's release in 2000, which was expanded with Yuri's Revenge one year later. As for what Red Alert 3 brings to the table, we'll let EA do the talking. Update: We have the launch trailer as well, by the way. (...)

 Continue reading 'Red Alert 3 Launch Sequence Hits Zero'...

What a time I found for quitting WoW... again! Not only is the Lich King unleashing his Wrath in less than a month, but today the big-bad patch 3.0(.2) is being deployed, giving players a taste of things - and inevitable patch-fixing patches - to come.

As any WoW player and his lolpet knows by now, this latest major update is called "Echoes of Doom" and brings more changes and additions than you can read while downloading it; no matter how bad your connection, or how huge the patch. And it's HUGE, like 1.6 GB worth of porn downloads. Not to mention the patch notes are longer than a Wednesday morning maintenance; and we've all had those... So you might want to start reading those official patch notes for v3.0.2 right away.

You won't be seeing this screen for much longer.

Below I'll only slap the "General" section of said patch notes - should be enough to get you through a pack of cigs. So enjoy the read, and I'll see you in-game. Oh... wait... wasn't I quitting WoW? Again? (...)

 Continue reading 'World of Warcraft Patch 3.0 Deployed'...

Holy Crimson Cow, they're actually, finally releasing this game?! The adventure genre truly is undead then... and so is A Vampyre Story. Having first heard about it some 4 years ago, during which time the devs from Autumn Moon had their fair share of trouble, it's pretty cool to see they eventually got out of the proverbial shit woods, and are now ready to launch their debut project at the end of October / November in Europe.

Autumn Moon's "debut" is only relative, though, since the core team headed by Bill Tiller used to work on LucasArts' legendary quests from the past, such as the Monkey Island series, Sam n Max Hit the Road, Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, Grim Fandango and The Dig. Much like these, A Vampyre Story is an instant-classic adventure game, with a pretty obvious theme given its purposely miss-spelled title. To get a feel for it, check out these latest screenshots we received today, along with the sole trailer we have so far. More about the game, down below.

 (...)

 Continue reading 'A Vampyre Story Pre-Launch Screenshots'...