StarCraft II: The Response Dan, Steve, and Charles chat it up about the recent StarCraft II announcement. Straight from the mailbox to the website. Half-Life 2: Opening Up the Orange Box Video Preview, hands-on, and in-depth features on the best deal of the year.

20th Century Fox has acquired feature rights to the life simulation computer game "The SIMS" from Electronic Arts, and has set project up with Fox-based John Davis.

The five-year-old franchise is the best selling PC game in history, with worldwide sales topping 85 million, bringing in over $1.6 billion. Pic will be a live-action version.

Steve Asbell is overseeing the project for Fox with SIMS Studio head Rod Humble managing the creative property for Electronic Arts. Brian Lynch will script; story is under wraps with talent yet to be named.

"'The SIMS has done an interactive version of an old story, which is what it's like to have infinite power and how do you deal with it," said Humble. "Given that that's an old story, you can imagine how easily that would translate to traditional story telling."

In Other News... 06:25 pm - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - In-House: In Other News... (37 comments)
I have a little good/bad news to share with you this evening. The good news, is that I got invited to the Playboy Mansion. The bad news, is that I have a previous engagement in Washington DC on the same day. What are the odds?! I can't talk about Washington trip other than to say it's work related, but it's not something I can skip out on. Don't get me wrong - I'd love to do both - it just sucks that they're the same day on opposite Coasts. Turning down a trip to the Playboy Mansion is going to hurt me a lot more than it hurts you. Specifically, in the crotchal region.

Anyhoo, the new site is coming along nicely. Launch date is set for June 15th. We should have a public beta preview of it a little sooner to help work out the kinks. It's very clean, easy to read, and should offer a ton more functionality than what we have now. If I had to compare it to anything, it would be TeamXbox, except we have more front page space (i.e. width/girth) to work with for news. Don't worry, we're not changing the page name to TeamGamesForWindows or anything, but that should give you a basic idea of what sorts of goodies we'll have in it.

Other than that, it's Memorial Day weekend. Monday is a National holiday, so news might be on the slow side. A big high-five to everyone in the Military (past or present); don't drive drunk; stay off the roads; and watch plenty of John Wayne movies, pilgrim.

This year NamcoBandai has Hellgate: London, a PC RPG cum, shooter that it is co-publishing that with EA. Given the company's newfound penchant for cross-platform development, I ask if an Xbox 360 version is likely. Karlsson won't confirm it, but he admits that it's highly unlikely that such a notion is far from the company's planning calendar.

Top 10 Xbox 360 Live Games 05:19 pm - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Consoles: Xbox 360 (12 comments)
Major Nelson posted up the top-10 played Xbox 360 Top Live Titles for the week of 5/21. Despite all of the hoopla, the Halo 3 beta only managed to take the third spot on the list.

Xbox 360 Top Live Titles (UU's)
1 Gears of War
2 Crackdown
3 Halo 3 Beta
4 Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas
5 Forza Motorsport 2 Demo
6 Guitar Hero II
7 Aegis Wing
8 Call Of Duty 3
9 GRAW 2
10 Oblivion

New Achievements for Gears of War 05:17 pm - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Consoles: Xbox 360 (3 comments)
Epic's Mark Rein posted on the official boards that it will be adding new achievements in an upcoming Gears of War update:

The next Gears of War update is coming along nicely. We don't have a release timeframe for it yet but I just wanted to let you know we're making significant progress. In addition to the previously mentioned plan to improve roadie run we're also going to have new achievements relating to Annex and the Hidden Fronts DLC. Of course no title update would be complete without more exploit squashing and the ever-popular "general housekeeping".

Halo 3 Weekly Update 05:12 pm - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Consoles: Xbox 360 (0 comments)
As you might've guessed, this week's Bungie update deals with the Halo 3 beta in Q&A; fashion.

A Pleasant Dude Who's Name We Lost: Just started playing the beta on my system (loving it so far, thanks guys for the amazing preview), this bug is nothing major but I run my system through a VGA cable and all menus appear to have a line at the top of the screen that generally shows random colours (possibly corrupt graphics?). As said nothing major just want to report anything that may help.

A: It's a bug! VGA resolutions are notoriously difficult to plan for, since every kind of display has a different overscan and safe area. VGA bugs are well-known and being dealt with all the time. On Halo, we had to worry about two different display types. On Halo 3, 15 trillion. We're on it. Some displays will never successfully take a signal without some manual adjustment either.

Age of Conan Dark Templar Preview 05:08 pm - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Games: MMOG (0 comments)
This week's Age of Conan update takes a peek at the Dark Templar class:

In essence, the Dark Templar is an evil fighter. By drawing upon these powers rooted in death and darkness, they are able to stand at the forefront of battles and take punishment that may have crippled a fighter of more ordinary skill. You see, whereas other members of the soldier class usually believes more in the importance of tactical fighting styles and the mastery of weapons in order to survive a fight, the Dark Templar has no qualms about tapping into dark, supernatural powers in order to secure victory for him and his team.

Taking punishment is a big part of the Dark Templar's job and mastering light, medium and heavy armor is crucial to his success. By being able to equip some of the most protective armor available, he is able to fulfill his role as one of the members of the group most likely to be put in the front where the enemy's damage can be directed at him.

World in Conflict Beta Next Month 04:59 pm - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Games: Real-Time Strategy (0 comments)
Sierra Entertainment fired over a note with news that Massive's World War 3 strategy game, World in Conflict, will enter a closed beta starting June 1st.

Sierra Entertainment is pleased to announce the World in Conflict Closed Beta Test -- an exclusive opportunity for PC gamers around the world to be among the first to experience the intense multiplayer combat in World in Conflict, the highly anticipated action-strategy game developed by Massive Entertainment due for release this Fall.

Beginning June 1, potential field commanders will be able to join a global community of thousands of other strategy and action game players in a Closed Beta Test of World in Conflict's explosive multiplayer maps and game modes. The Beta test will run for approximately three weeks and will not only give gamers the chance to play a portion of the upcoming game, but their play-testing will also help the development team tweak, polish and tune World in Conflict to the best possible quality for its projected ship date this Fall.

Those wishing to participate in the World in Conflict Closed Beta Test should visit www.worldinconflict.com for complete details. More information on the sign-up process will be posted in the coming days. Access to the World in Conflict Closed Beta Test is on a first-come, first-serve basis.

** In order to participate in the World in Conflict Closed Beta Test, players must meet the minimum specifications and agree to the World in Conflict Closed Beta agreement. The Closed Beta Agreement includes a non-disclosure clause which prohibits the posting of screens or images from the test.

Half-Life 2: Episode 2 Video Preview 01:52 am - Andrew Burnes - Games: Action (32 comments)
As a week of IGN Episode 2 coverage ends they've posted a 13-minute video preview that includes plenty of new footage, plus a fair bit of chat:

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Developer Diary Movie 01:45 am - Andrew Burnes - Consoles: General News (11 comments)
An exceedingly good developer diary vid talking about the origins of this upcoming title, including George Lucas' input on the concept and storyline:

The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena Movie 01:43 am - Andrew Burnes - Consoles: General News (13 comments)
I believe this is the first authorised online footage of the Riddick revamp:

Check out IGN's Riddick interview for further info.

Medal of Honor: Airborne Video Interview 01:41 am - Andrew Burnes - Games: Action (5 comments)

Tom Clancy's EndWar Video Interview 01:40 am - Andrew Burnes - Consoles: Xbox 360 (0 comments)
No nymphets today :(

Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights Trailer 01:36 am - Andrew Burnes - Consoles: General News (10 comments)
Can you guess which demographic they're targeting?

Shadowrun Movie 01:17 am - Andrew Burnes - Games: Action (24 comments)
GameSpy got the scoop on two of the maps in Shadowrun, so I pinched their videos:

Check out the article for more info.

In Other News... 01:15 am - Andrew Burnes - In-House: In Other News... (57 comments)
OK people, we need to talk. VE is not a site for children or the easily offended. Why do I say this? Because a person who recently joined the site wrote me an email complaining about the man's backside in the Halo 2: Vista Boobies thread.

As you can see, the story was originally about boobs that we presumed had somehow slipped into H2: V, but as we later discovered via a board member, it was actually a bloke's ass that appears when you cause an error in the game's editor. The image posted by bcrt2000 and later reported on by Rob is real. It's evidence. It's factual. It isn't there just for the hell of it. Sites your kids can read probably won't reveal why the game got slapped with a 'partial nudity' ESRB tag, but we will.

Therefore, I refer you to our Terms of Service, and in particular, the last line:

VE is not a kid's site, so don't go bitching to us if you're offended easily.

Quite how a backside is offensive I do not know. The aforementioned complaint came from a guy who had a kid who sometimes reads the site. Presumably his child had a bare backside when he was born, and maybe he has a backside too, though I'm really not sure anymore after reading some of the asinine complaints I've received recently.

Yes, it's great the site is growing, and I'm happy to welcome anyone who comes here, but please understand what we're about before sending letters of complaint concerning the tiniest of things.