King's Bounty: The Legend Interview - Part 1
Katauri's combination of role-playing, strategy and adventure elements within the revival of a venerable property - Includes three exclusive 1280x960 screenshots

Fury Peek #3
A detailed look at ladder calculations plus related thoughts on cheating, griefing and fun in Auran's upcoming game

Jonric's Blog
Sept 24 - Three developers on lessons learned from World of Warcraft

You'd figure that for $70-130, they could've afforded to add a sleeve for the disc.

From a certain point of view, Halo 3 is without a doubt the biggest game of the year. The combination of fan anticipation, marketing, and the skill of Bungie's design combine to create a game that's larger than life; if gaming has a blockbuster franchise to match the movie industry's punch, it's the tale of Master Chief. The importance of the Halo franchise to gaming is a very big issue, though, and one worth it's own article. Having played through the game, there's really only one question I'm here to answer today. Does it meet expectations? In a word: yes. It's not the best game ever made, and it may not even be the best game this year.

In a company update on Microsoft today, Goldman Sachs analysts Sarah Friar and Frederick Grieb predicted that Microsoft will have shipped a mighty 4.2 million copies of Halo 3 into the retail channel by the end of the month. That's a big-enough launch shipment for more than a third of the Xbox 360's 11.6 million global user base to pick up a copy.

Those raw numbers don't measure up to those posted by the launch of Halo 2, the analysts said, but there were a number of reasons for the prior game to have a stronger launch. For one thing, the original Xbox had a larger installed user base of almost 20 million when Halo 2 came out in November of 2004. Halo 2 sold nearly 2.4 million copies on its first day on the market, and Friar and Grieb estimate that Microsoft had shipped 7.5 million copies by the end of the year, which would have accounted for 38 percent of the installed user base.

1) The Sims 2 Bon Voyage Expansion Pack
2) Medal Of Honor: Airborne
3) Bioshock
4) World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack
5) World Of Warcraft
6) The Sims 2 Deluxe
7) Medieval II: Total War Kingdoms Expansion Pack
8) Microsoft Flight Simulator X Deluxe
9) Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars
10) Civilization IV: Beyond The Sword Expansion Pack

Valve and GameStop today announced that those who pre-purchase the PC edition of The Orange Box at GameStop, the world's largest video game and entertainment software retailer, before October 10th will save 10% off the regular price and gain access to the beta version of Team Fortress 2 for the PC.

The Orange Box, penned by IGN as ".the package which could legitimately be called the deal of the century," features three highly-awaited new games by Valve: Half-Life� 2: Episode Two, the second installment in the Half-Life 2 episodic trilogy; Team Fortress� 2, the sequel to the game that put class-based, multiplayer team warfare on the map; and Portal, the game that blends puzzles, first person action, and adventure gaming to produce an experience like no other.

To bring gamers up to date with the Half-Life 2 universe, The Orange Box also includes Half-Life 2, the best-selling and highest-rated action game series of all time, and the episodic debut Half-Life� 2: Episode One-together, more than 30 hours of award-winning gameplay. Customers who already own these titles will have the ability to conveniently "gift" them to a friend upon official release of The Orange Box.

Starting immediately, those who pre-purchase The Orange Box for PC at any GameStop retail store in the US will receive a key-code and instructions to download and activate the beta release of Team Fortress 2 from Steam. The beta will conclude with the release of The Orange Box on October 10th. This year's most anticipated online action game, Team Fortress 2 delivers new game types, a signature art style powered by Valve's next generation animation technology, persistent player statistics, and more.

The Orange Box will have a suggested retail price of $49.95 on the PC and $59.95 on the Xbox� 360 and Playstation 3 console systems. The 10% pre-purchase discount also applies to all three versions at GameStop and participating retail outlets.

Electronic Arts Inc. today announced that the award-winning EA Redwood Shores Studio has been developing an original intellectual property that will introduce a new experience to the sci-fi horror genre. In the brilliant, bold and often-bloody Dead Space gamers will step into a third-person sci-fi survival horror experience that promises to deliver the ultimate in psychological thrills and gruesome action.

Set in the cold blackness of deep space, the atmosphere is soaked with a feeling of tension, dread and sheer terror. In Dead Space, players step into the role of engineer Isaac Clarke � an ordinary man on a seemingly routine mission to fix the communications systems aboard a deep space mining ship. It is not long before Isaac awakes to a living nightmare when he learns that the ship�s crew has been ravaged by a vicious alien infestation. He must fight through the dead silence and darkness of deep space to stay alive.

Executive Producer Glen Schofield commented, �This team has worked on some tremendous properties but we have always wanted to work on something that was darker and creepier. We are all such huge fans of the horror and sci-fi genres; we wanted to create the most terrifying game we could, and keep the player on the edge of his seat the entire time.�

Under development at EA Redwood Shores, Dead Space is expected to ship in Fall 2008 for the PLAYSTATION 3 computer entertainment system and Xbox 360 videogame and entertainment system.

Boards

• abit IP35 Pro - [H]
• ASUS� Blitz Formula P35 motherboard - BootDaily

  Cases
  

• Apevia X-QPack 2 - XS Reviews
• NZXT Apollo case - XS Reviews

  Cooling
  

• Antazone AS-C1000 INTEL/AMD Heatpipe CPU Cooler - Tweaknews
• ZEROtherm ZT-100 Thermal Grease - Virtual-Hideout

  CPU
  

• Intel E6850 Dual Core Processor - Hardware Logic

  Guides
  

• High-end Gaming PC Buyer's Guide for September - Sharky Extreme

  Mice
  

• Logitech's G9 Laser Gaming Mouse - Metku Mods

  Pads
  

• XtracPads Ripper - Overclockers Online

  Power Supply
  

• OCZ ProXstream 1000W PSU - OCModShop
• Tagan ITZ Series 1300W Power Supply - ThinkComputers.org

  Storage
  

• Western Digital's RE2 750GB hard drive - Tech Report

  Video
  

• VisionTek Radeon HD 2400 Pro - Bjorn3D

Today's question:

Should high profile games (or any, for that matter) get a free pass on crappy single player content if the multiplayer shines? Or Vice versa...