I've always been a sucker for Collector's Edition, even if the game was excrushiatingly boring or incredibly stupid. (Hell, I even own a copy of Age of Conan CE, and that says a lot). Sacred 2 may not have been the best game to be released this year, but it certainly is an ok-ish hack & slash, with lots of places to go, thousands of little monsters to eviscerate and, last but not least, the crème a la crème of new generations, impressive graphics.

So of course I went a bit mad when I found out that Sacred's Collector's Edition will (or is) only available in North America, via online shopping monsters such as Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Future Shop or EB Games Canada. Because I want a copy too. For those interested, here's a quick summary of what this baby has to offer:

- An extra DVD containing the "Elite Texture Pack," a set of ultra-high resolution textures for users of high-end computers
- A code to unlock the Carrier Imp, a special "pet" that transports the player's treasure and additional inventory to its owner whenever summoned. A video of the Carrier Imp in action is available at the link below.
- A four-song music sampler from Nuclear Blast records, whose artist, Blind Guardian, is showcased in the game's soundtrack, and an exclusive audio interview with the band and the game’s developer, discussing their collaboration to feature the band in-game.
- A printed map of the world of Ancaria that doubles as poster
- An electronic version of the Sacred 2 "Art and Vision" booklet

THQ is a big publisher. One of the bigger ones, actually. Yet, it is no wonder their financial income si starting to drop fast, in the light of the recent global economic events. Hell, even EA dropped around 19% at the stock market, from what I recall. Alongside the decline in sales, THQ sadly announces that two of its future projects will be postponed until further notice. Uh, oh.

The first one is Darksiders: Wrath of War, a game intended for the next-gen consoles, which is developed by Vigil Games, while the second one, more important to use due to... different reasons involving massive multiplayer maches (in which I won all the time, obviously), is Red Faction: Guerrilla (Volition, PC, PS3, X360).

Both games where pushed back in THQ's next fiscal year (ending March 2010), and were scheduled to show their face in public until March 2009. Too bad.

You know how we, human beings, love to estimate stuff? It's natural. Most of us will try to assume just how many Laetitia Castas we will have sex with until the end of the year, other will estimate the time it takes them to rule the world and make this shitty planet a better place. Yeah, right.

Capcom does not aim that high (neither when it comes to fucking Laetitia Casta, nor when it comes to take over the world), they just like to think in advance and bask in the glory of what their future titles might be. Or better yet, how they will sell.

So, let's see... Their very own Nostradamus thinks that, for starters, Resident Evil 5 will total a 3.2 million copies sold when the game finally reaches the open market (March, 2009), while Street Fighter 4, a game which we await with extreme and dedicated interest, will sell about 1.7 million units. Bionic Commando is last in place, with only 1.5 million units sold.

Nice estimations. I personally hope they come true, since I am a Capcom fan myself. Ooops, I said it.

Source.

We will not tell you if this game is worth it or not as a game, but we WILL tell you that it sucks as a Fallout game. But hey, if money-hungry Bethesda wouldn't have stamped that “Fallout” thing in the title, it wouldn't have sold so much, that's for sure. A recent press release from the company reveals that this Action/FPS title, that some people wrongfully call a “RPG”, has so far been doing pretty good on the market (as expected), with over 4.7 million units shipped worldwide.



That is, for all platforms it has been released for. PC, X360 and PS3. Not bad, actually. But, as I said, expected. Ah well, blame the new “casual” generation, I'm pretty sure that most hardcore Fallout fans are now extremely pissed off. I know I am. Not at the game itself, because it looks good, moves good, it IS a good action game, but just seeing it being called Fallout for absolutely no reason makes me sad.

Source.

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.