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.

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'...

Star Ocean 4 - the RPG sequel surprisingly previewed by Square Enix last Christmas - will be released (exclusively?) for the Xbox 360 console in 2009. According to Famitsu, the announcement was made at a recent Microsoft event in Japan, although some speculate that a delayed and enhanced PS3 version is all but inevitable - much like with Tales of Vesperia, another awesome looking Xbox 360 RPG confirmed for the PS3.

Following the event, Square Enix producer Yoshinori Yamagishi did make a comment regarding the game's exclusivity, but a clear conclusion is nowhere to be found at this time:

"We cannot announce anything on that. We can say that it will be released first [on the Xbox 360]. Whether we'll release it on the PS3 is undecided. We may release it, we may not."

The complete title of the game will be Star Ocean 4: The Last Hope, and the story will take place a few hundred years before the first Star Ocean. Below we posted some new high-res screenshots, and of course we couldn't miss this cool new trailer. Make sure you don't, either!

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'...

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.

As we like to say, when we are actually sober and NOT disregarding other people’s opinions, “tastes may vary”. And they may vary a lot. Styles vary, also. Big time. So I tend to find it a bit strange when two big bad ass producers, like Bethesda Softworks, and the younger, much fresher, not yet infested with the “my idea is better than yours” syndrome, Splash Damage, decide to join forces, in an attempt to… well, to do some stuff. What stuff, we have yet to discover. They probably don’t have a clue about it, either.

It’s useless to mention what Bethesda is famous for, but I will restate what it will be Infamous for. Fallout 3. The game that, according to my awesome Nostradamic predictions, will suck so much ass that even the greatest ass sucker in the world will have to bow down and let others do his job. As for Splash Splashidy Splashie, their recent title, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, along side with their very deep friendship with id Studios, says it all.

They obviously intend to do some serious business regarding the gaming industry, but the actual details regarding their future project will not be revealed as soon as it may seem. Let’s just hope for something big, something nasty, and for the love of God, please, no more Oblivion crap. Fallout 3: Oblivion Copycat is enough to fail for ten years to come, already.

Arigatou, 1UP.

As Age of Conan launches today for all North American players (not just those with a 3-day early access), it does so with another decidedly positive PR news. The game's Collector's Edition, totalling 111,000 units in its initial prints, has "completely sold out in all markets". If you've been meaning to get your bloody hands on one, the only advice Funcom can give you is to look on retail shelves, cause there sure aren't any re-orders available.

All in all, Funcom is shipping around 700,000 copies of Age of Conan on day one. This may not seem like a record-breaking figure - considering that World of Warcraft's expansion, The Burning Crusade set a record of nearly 2.4 million copies sold in the first 24 hours of availability last year. Nevertheless, Funcom's Morten Larssen is confident that their pre-order numbers for Age of Conan "represent the highest pre-order number for any global launch of an original PC game, ever, including the original World of Warcraft launch".

So, shipping and sales figures are looking good, the servers held up "exceptionally well" during the early access period, the first Age of Conan review rated it at 9 out of 10 (in the Nordic magazine Game Reactor)... looks almost perfect. Almost, because there was some bad news after all: the DirectX 10 version of Age of Conan is not shipping with the initial launch. They're still working on it, apparently, and they plan to premiere it at the Leipzig Games Convention (August 20-24). Also, a special preview showing off the advanced graphics made possible by the DX10 technology will be unveiled this summer at nVidia’s NVISION event in San Jose, California, August 25-27.

And finally, fellow Europeans, rest assured you're not forgotten: Age of Conan will launch in Europe in just a few days, on May 23.

Not that there was any doubt about it, but the Naruto gaming franchise drags on, with the announcement of Naruto: Path of the Ninja 2 for the Nintendo DS (based on the second game in the franchise, Naruto RPG 2: Chidori vs. Rasengan). Like its predecessor, the sequel will be a role-playing game developed by Tomy Corporation and published stateside by D3 Publishing, promising to feature "an all-new original storyline, a huge roster of playable characters, an improved combat system and for the first time, exciting Wi-Fi battles".

The release date is currently set for September 2008, and below are some more details about it, complemented by the first batch of screenshots.

"Naruto: Path of the Ninja 2 is set to give players a portable outlet for their inner ninja this fall. A deep, original storyline will allow players to access 30 major characters from the series, from standards such as Naruto and Sakura to unlikely allies like the weapons-based Tenten. The improved and intuitive battle system will make it easy for even the newest fighters to get into the combat, using the DS Touch Screen to unleash devastating melee and jutsu attacks on any opponent foolish enough to get in their way. The new Squad Leader and Ninja Tag systems provide even more squad-building options, while the Wi-Fi multiplayer feature offers aspiring ninja the chance to take on challengers from around the world."