All my bets are lost. I was dead-sure that WotLK would only be released in 2009, but fortunately, it seems that me and my fellow horde of skeptics (no pun intended) were wrong. If you visit the WoW website right now, odds are you'll be greeted with a page announcing the release date for the World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King expansion - "In Stores 11.13.08". That's like... really bloody soon! Better get your pre-orders sorted out, fast.


The same thing is also beeing announced by Blizzard in a full-fledged press release, which also sheds some light on when the expansion will land in different territories: November 13 in North America, Europe, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and Russia. November 14 in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand. And finally November 18 in Korea and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau.

The Lich King's wrath will be sealed in a DVD box inscriptioned with a $39.99 price tag, and a special Collector's Edition priced at $69.99 will also be available "in select regions".

Long before there was Heroes of Might and Magic, there was a little game called King's Bounty - a strikingly similar turn-based strategy, that had also been created by the late New World Computing five years earlier, in 1990. Fast forward 18 years, and today we finally have the chance to see first-hand how the sequel King's Bounty: The Legend turned out, thanks to the demo version released by publisher 1C Company, hot off Katauri Interactive's work benches.


The FTP link that came with the press release is pretty useless right now, as it's being hammered down to a crawl, so you might want to try your regular download website of choice. Like WorthPlaying or something. The 700ish MB demo includes the first city in the game, all three character types, multiple quests and dozens of spells. Now if you'll pardon me... let's see what we have here.

Update: After 8 hours of playing the demo, all I can say is... win. Pure win!

Warner Bros. has finally slapped the F.E.A.R. brand - previously owned by Vivendi / Sierra, before being taken over by Activision - on its upcoming shooter Project Origin. Which, after all, was supposed to be a "spiritual sequel" of sorts to F.E.A.R. all along. As such, today they are announcing that the sequel is now properly named F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin. Pix, cause it happened.


The other news to come out of Warner's press release is the new release date: February 10, 2009 in North America, and February 13, 2009 in Europe. This should hold true for the all three platforms the game is being developed on - PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

"F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin, the highly anticipated sequel to the 2005 smash hit game, F.E.A.R., is a blend of advanced visceral combat mixed with seamless game pacing set inside a sinister and paranormal universe that begins shortly before the ending of F.E.A.R. A Special Forces squad is on a routine mission when the city of Auburn is rocked by a supernatural explosion. Alma, a girl with immense power and a thirst for revenge, has unleashed her wrath upon the city and thrown it into chaos. The squad must combat enemy forces and the supernatural as they struggle to find a way to stop Alma and uncover the mysterious forces arrayed against them before it’s too late."

To complement our previous story bringing the announcement of Diablo III, here is a selection of screenshots we handpicked from the debut collection posted by Blizzard on the game's website today.

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 Continue reading 'Diablo 3 Screenshots'...

Twenty years after the cataclysmic events of Diablo II - and eight years after its release in the real world back in 2000 - the long-speculated, and even longer-awaited sequel Diablo III has finally been unveiled today, at Blizzard's 2008 Worldwide Invitational event. Aside from the announcement itself, fans are already treated with dozens of screenshots, a few wallpapers, artworks and, best of all, the first three Diablo III trailers covering all of the above, and a whole lot more! Need I say they're a must-see?

We've already added the HD trailers locally, and we'll return in a bit with a selection of screenshots as well, but in the meantime all there is to know about the game can be found on the newly-opened Diablo III website. No release date yet, obviously, just some stuff about the game's story, locations, characters, monsters, and adventures awaiting you upon your return to the world of Sanctuary. Dig in!


Below we're including the gist of today's press release: (...)

 Continue reading 'Diablo 3 Announced, With Pics And Trailers'...

Today, developer Funcom and publisher Eidos have made a joint mediatic effort to lift the veil on what they call Age of Conan's "promising future", revealing selected new features which are now in production - including a massive new PvP update called "To the death" (going live near the end of June), followed later this year by a MASSIVE (ed. - notice the CAPS) free update called "Kingship!". Which will basically be a guild alliance warfare system.

Age of Conan is a fantasy-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed for PC-gaming. Like poker many other Internet-based games, players of Age of Conan interact with one another in the virtual world and is probably one of the reasons why it has become successful around the world.

During autumn, a reward and character evolution system called "Powerpoints" will also be introduced, along with the mandatory new areas and dungeons in the months ahead, improved player-made villages and Battlekeep systems, social updates, and the generic "more adventures". You'll find all of these detailed below. (...)

 Continue reading 'The Future of Age of Conan'...

We've been making a conscious effort to avoid any news related to Limbo of the Lost, the newly controversial adventure game developed by Majestic Studios (a.k.a. a group of old farts from Kent), and particularly to keep a safe distance from its appalling trailers. Up until now, that is. Because GamePlasma made a tragi-comical observation this week, by pointing out an undeniable resemblance copy-pasting between Limbo of the Lost, and the slightly better known RPG The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.


But it's not just Oblivion - as the above mock-up boxshot suggests. By now, thanks to the NeoGAF forumers and other perceptive gamers, more popular games and movies have been found to be the source of "inspiration" for Limbo of the Lost, which now stands accused of also stealing assets (or just strikingly similar ideas) from the likes of Thief 3, Diablo 2 (the UI as well), Unreal Tournament 2004, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Painkiller, the movie Pirates of the Caribbean (cinematics), the movie Spawn (cinematics)... and the list could probably go on and on, after a thorough inspection of the game's full version. Which may not bee too easy, considering this press release we received today from publisher Tri Synergy: (...)

 Continue reading 'Limbo of the Lost, The Rip-off Thickens'...

The self-professed, made-in-Taiwan future of free-to-play MMOs, to be more precise. This is how the German publisher Frogster announced its latest acquisition, Runes of Magic - a fantasy MMORPG originally developed by the Taiwanese studio Runewaker Entertainment under the title Radiant Arcana, which is already completed and currently in open-beta phase in China.


This definitely lends credence to Frogster's plans of releasing it before Christmas 2008 in Germany, and "soon afterwards" in English-speaking territories. But the rest of their communique isn't too convincing in regard to their earlier claim, about Runes of Magic being "the future". Just the usual set of features, topped by the promise of a "free2play, no monthly fees, free download" MMO. You can find them all listed on the Runes of Magic website, along with the game's story, various artworks, and a "beta infoletter". The first screenshots are just below this abstract from Frogster's announcement: (...)

 Continue reading 'Runes of Magic, The Future Of Free MMOs'...

As I have stated before, along side good ol’ Uwe Boll, Jack Thompson is one of my favorite characters related to the gaming industry. He is a fascinating man, with strong, yet terribly unnatural beliefs, who still thinks, after years of practice, that all the world spins around his misconceptions. Well, too bad for him, it seems.

Game Politics, a website that also loves Jack Thompson almost as much as we do, tells us the story of a Florida Judge who decided to… recommend Mr. Thompson as guilty for no less than 27 counts of misconduct. In other words, if the Florida Supreme Court is sane enough to say yes, Jack is screwed. Initially, there were 31 such counts, most of them (21, to be more precise) are related to his infamous epic-fail crusade against Rockstar and Grand Theft Auto, while others hint at his (again failed) attempt to “convict” Bully of being a major suck-ass game.

I guess it all started with that kid who went rampage and Starfire-critted two police officers and one dispacher, an indeed sad event followed by a lawsuit, in which Thompson represented the victims’ families. The kid was playing, amongst other games, GTA, and Jack quickly assumed that this here title, and only this, is the sole unquestionable reason for the murders.

We are passionately awaiting to see the results of such great events. Hell, we should probably start to write a script for a Jack Thompson-inspired soap opera - until then, we’ll leave him in his medicine’s care.

One must, with the power of mighty Thor, love Internet rumors. They are just fabulous. Recently, the dudes and dudettes (and all their little sisters combined) from Blizz Planet gave the fanboys some new wanking material, stating that the more-than-purple, legendary gaming guru magazine, PC Gamer, will feature a full fledged Diablo 3 announcement, from the golden mouth of Blizzard itself.

You have to realize the insanity this little thing spawned on the web. I bet if those people reading the said “news” had guns, they would have gone to some country in South Africa and start a revolution, proclaiming the Everlasting Empire of Diablo’s Left Kidney. Ah well, sadly, things are not so bright beyond the Looking Glass, since the ladies at Voodoo Extreme just received word from PC Gamer itself that the whole thing whas just a big, smelly fuss. More exactly, We're officially squelching the Diablo rumor. We've got two big announcements coming in our August issue, but neither is from Blizzard.

Rumors come and go, and folks should be accustomed by now that no rumor regarding Blizzard is true until they say so. As for the said two big announcements, who gives a crap.