I don't want to sound like, well, one those guys. You know, the guy that always claims that sequels suck and everything old is good and everything new is crap. They constantly lament about how the "old stuff" from [fill in the blank with any rock band] is much better than the "new stuff." They whine and pine for the glory days of movie-making, for example, while arguing that today's video games are weaker despite the more intense and realistic visuals.

But here's the thing. Sometimes they're right. And for the small number people
out there that indirectly warned me that Call of Duty 2 was just okay and didn't
measure up to the original, well, I'm sorry I didn't listen.

I had been dying to play Call of Duty 2. The original Call of Duty blew me away
and easily ranks on my top 5 best first person shooters ever. It was visceral,
it was grand, and it was bloody brilliant. So when Call of Duty 2 came out, I
figured it couldn't miss. Word of mouth as well as many reviews were very kind
to the sequel, especially the Xbox 360. Well, I can't say I've tried the 360
version yet, but I have played the PC and Mac version of the title (which I own)
and here's basically what I got for my $50.

Same graphics.
"New" missions that seemed eerily similar to previous CoD games.
Smoke grenades.
A "grenade indicator."
No health meter (instead, you get a red, blurry screen and panting/gasping that
sounds as if it's been lifted from a porno).

Here's the thing. If I had never played CoD 1 or the United Offensive expansion
pack, well, I probably would have rated CoD 2 as a pretty rockin' game. But to
play a game that takes the same formula/graphics/outline of the original and
adds very little -- well, it just feels more like a glorified expansion pack
than an all new sequel. All in all, it was a short and uninspired game that
immediately made my top 10 list of most disappointing sequels. The multiplayer
functions on CoD2 are good, but I've never judged a game's merit on its
mutliplayer death matches first. One thing I had hoped to see changed was the
NPC functions (seriously, tons of allied soldiers get chewed up on some of the
campaigns yet somehow replacements soldiers materialize out of thin air and you
never seem worse for the wear); it would be great to be able to give orders,
make critical decisions during battle, and see the missions depend more on
protecting your troops, for example.

It'a hard to fault Activision or Infinity Ward; they're raking in the dollars
from CoD2, especially on Xbox Live for the 360 [see Aaron's post below]. But
unless they come up with some new developments for Call of Duty 3 -- how about
more detailed NPC interaction? Maybe a little more strategy? -- then I won't be
making a third tour of duty with this one.

The MMORPG Second Life has been living up to its namesake for many, with various groups even hosting concerts there; and now one of the worlds more prodigious PR firms, Text 100, is setting up a virtual office within the game world.

Second life allows users to create their own objects and world, being a very free-form game in which real currency can change hands for everything from real estate to BDSM kit. Now Text 100 have moved a business arm into the world in order to "work with clients on how Second Life may benefit their businesses by facilitating virtual press conferences or new ways of demonstrating products to employees or customers." The firm is also hoping to conduct staff training in the complex which features a welcome centre, an amphitheatre, and information centre.

"We view virtual worlds as the next stage in the evolution of peer-to-peer media like blogs, wikis, social networks and other online forums," said Georg Kolb, EVP, and leader of the peer media practice at Text 100. "Having a presence in Second Life will enable us to explore, innovate, educate and collaborate on a next generation communications platform."

Can't say I wouldn't mind a job at said virtual office...

Dammit, what is it with this industry? It would seem that the gaming business fraternity is so afraid that it won't have enough time (a year? Two?) to hype up a game that we get the announcements severely prematurely and then have to undergo a long spate of delays and disappointments. The great hope for many high-brow gamers at the moment is Will Wright's upcoming Spore - first announced in 2005 at the GDC, slated for a late 2006 release, shunted to the "TBD" land of ether and now finally into the second half of 2007.

That is to say, the game has been delayed by anywhere up to a year of what we had originally expected. I say delayed in the loosest sense of PR wording, as any developer on the team probably might have been able to tell you that the game wouldn't hit the late 2006 release date - at least not in any genre defining form.

Stop prematurely announcing games! The entire games press will be there to fondle over it in a years time, and if you're someone like Will Wright then your GDC keynote is pre- booked every year, five years in advance. The correct announcement time for Spore would have at least been at this years GDC - is there not something slightly wrong when we have games scheduled to be released over a year from when they've been announced, only to have that delayed so that in reality it will come out two years after the announcement? Sheesh kebab lads.

Microsoft XNA (no, that's not an acronym, it's a load of crap) is the toolset which Microsoft is pushing for development of Windows and Xbox 360 games, providing game developers with a common standard to allow them to not have to worry about the "nuts and bolts boilerplate coding."

As well as giving this platform to developers, Microsoft has recently flung open the doors to homebrew developers on the PC and - critically - the Xbox 360. This will allow the bedroom coder crowd to develop on XNA.

But will they? I don't think so. The mod community which has been around since the days of Quake, and which exploded after the release of Half-Life in 1998, is much better at taking a complex developed game (we'll call it a platform) and reshaping it, rather than designing something from the ground up.

Generally speaking the amateur game developers who have designed their products from the ground up have suffered greatly in terms of what they finally manage to produce. Having to worry about everything from the game engine up costs mainstream developers a lot of time and money, and for amateur developers it can be a prolonged nightmare.

This is even so for mainstream developers - most developers simply buy a third party engine to run their games, essentially making them more professional mod squads. The Doom and Unreal engines are the current big wigs, and before that you couldn't fire up a World War II shooter that wasn't made in the Quake III engine.

Microsoft is throwing open its platform to allow for development, but in reality I think that it will be developers who will be messing around with XNA, not modders. Mod squads are at their most successful taking a game like Half-Life 2 and twisting it around to their ends.

Hewlett-Packard appears to be following the strategy of its archrival Dell. Following Dell's acquisition of high-end PC maker Alienware earlier this year, HP announced later today that it has acquired VoodooPC, another high-end PC manufacturer and Alienware competitor. Terms of the agreement haven't been disclosed because the Calgary-based computer company is privately held. Rahul Sood, founder and co-owner of VoodooPC, will become the chief technologist of HP's gaming division while Ravi Sood, Rahul's brother and co-owner, will become the division's director of strategy.

Rahul Sood announced the acquisition on his href="http://voodoopc.blogspot.com/2006/09/project-vampire-is-about-to-
fly_28.html">blog. Sood had made news back in March when he suggested in his
blog that Dell would buy Alienware - before the Alienware
acquisition was announced - and then followed up by disclosing in his blog last
month that he and Michael Dell had discussions in 2005 about the possibility
earlier of Dell buying VoodooPC. According to Sood's href="http://voodoopc.blogspot.com/2006/08/where-theres-smoke-theres-
fire.html">blog entry on those discussions, he felt direct computer maker
wasn't a good fit for VoodooPC because Dell lacked innovation and it "lost its
way a long time ago."
Instead, VoodooPC will become part of HP. Sood wrote in his blog that he feels
HP, with its history of innovation and current management leadership, is a
better fit for his company. Sood continues:
"HP is hungry for new innovations, and if you can imagine what plugging our
corporate DNA into their labs would do - well, you get the picture. We are now
in the position to create absolutely fantastic products in all categories.
Voodoo and HP are complimentary opposites. This deadly combination of Voodoo's
gaming/luxury PC expertise and our brand DNA and influence, with HP's
innovations, scale, and leverage is going to lead to some of the most compelling
machines money can buy."

This is an interesting development for several reasons. First and foremost, I'm
surprised but glad that both Dell and HP, the top two PC makers in the world,
are taking gaming seriously. Second, I have to wonder if this will begin a trend
that will lead to fewer and fewer independent boutique computer makers that
create truly awesome gaming machines. Third, it will be interesting to see how
being part of huge multibillion dollar technology corporations will change
VoodooPC and Alienware. Will innovation be stifled or will having access to
great technical minds and lots of R&D (well, at least in HP's case) propel
the computer makers to new heights?
Whatever the case, I suppose the bottom line may be that the death of the PC was
greatly exaggerated. At my previous gig covering business IT, all we heard about
after 2001 was that PCs were a dead end business, especially after IBM sold its
PC business to Lenovo. But it's shaping up to be a fascinating time for PCs once
again and we may indeed start to see some true innovation real soon.

Electronic Arts has published a number of great games, but the company doesn't exactly have the greatest track record when it comes to acquiring game developers. For example, EA acquired Origin, Westwood Studios, and Bullfrog only to lay off the developers' employees or watch them leave EA because of creative disagreements and quality issues. As a result, EA has been blamed for producing a number of half-baked games that were rushed to completion. In addition, a number of highly anticipated games like the MMOs Ultima Online 2, Ultima X: Odyssey and BattleTech 3025 have been cancelled under EA's watch.

So it's easy to understand why fans of the Battlefield series are a little
ticked off these days, since EA finally completed its contested acquisition of
Swedish developer Digital Illusions Creative Entertainment (DICE). Originally EA
proposed the buyout in 2004, but two DICE shareholder groups controlling 28
percent of the stock opposed the deal. Nevertheless, DICE's board of directors
recommended that its shareholders accept the deal. After buying the majority
stake in DICE last year, EA sealed the deal this week. Thus, DICE became an EA
subsidiary studio.
Of course, EA announced today that it has closed down DICE's Canada operation,
Digital Illusions Canada in Ontario. So those Canadian developers didn't last
too long. EA has tried to put a nice face on this by saying that many Digital
Illusions Canada employees are being interview for other employee opportunities
in EA's Canadian locations. The only problem is, those locations are Burnaby,
Montreal and Vancouver, not Ontario.

The perception is that once EA buys a game developer the games will never be the
same because the publisher keeps the intellectual property but guts the studio
and dumps the employees. The scuttling of Digital Illusions Canada does little
to dispel that notion. I have a feeling that Battlefield 2142, due out this
month, may be the last Battlefield title many fans buy now that there's been a
changing - and dumping - of the guard.

Bohemia Interactive, the developers of "Operation Flashpoint", have signed a deal with UK-based publisher 505 Games to release their latest soldier sim, "Armed Assault", in Q1 2007.

Though Codemasters officially owns the "Operation Flashpoint" brand, "Armed
Assault" is a follow-up to that game in all but name. Bohemia had been
struggling to find a publisher until recently, but it would seem that 505 will
be publishing the game in Europe, excluding Eastern Europe and Germany for some
reason. No word yet on a US publication date, but with a European release
secured, a US release becomes an inevitability sooner or later.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go and do backflips around the town.
"Operation Flashpoint", though buggy on release, is the best soldier sim out
there, and one of the most gripping games I've ever played. "Armed Assault" will
hopefully live up to the high standards set by its predecessor.

Armed
Assault image preview.

You know, I'm seriously beginning to doubt the abilities of many in the games industry to successfully organise a piss up in a brewery. At the very least everyone seems to be getting alcohol poisoning these days. EA, ever happy to be a popular target of gamers ire so long as they continue to spend millions on rehashed Sports Title 2007, has done it again by including spyware in Battlefield 2142.

Apparently the monitoring software traces your internet habits and reports back to base for the purpose, we would suppose, of aiding in-game advertisers to target their wares. No personal information will be divulged about you, except of course your entire digitally connected life and, if the coppers come knocking, your traceable IP address. Is there nothing sacred anymore?

The Greater Good of in-game advertising will no doubt rule the day, and I daresay Battlefield 2142 will not be the last AAA title to carry monitoring software as we realise Massive's vision of a digital world filled with the same crap we see in our real one.

I'm beginning to seriously wonder if EA bosses do in fact let out an evil "Mmmmuuuuuaaaaahhhhhhaaaaaa" whenever this sort of thing is revealed; or whether or not they honestly say to themselves "What's all the fuss about?" Malicious or just idiots, you decide.

I pose a question to you: If I create and release an innocuous game which is modifiable by anyone, and somebody creates a sexually explicit add-on for the game, am I responsible for this user generated content? At first many gamers might say "No, because you didn't create the content yourself." But, I did create the platform and give the modder the means to turn my innocuous game into anything he or she likes.

It's a very pertinent argument doing the rounds at the moment as the likes of Jack Thompson and Co use third party mods as pretext to launch legal action against publishers and developers.

Mods have, since days gone by, been an integral part of any video game. They extend the shelf life and freshen titles which should have long since died off. Half-Life is, of course, the penultimate example of our age: Without Counter-Strike do you think that it would have lived such a long shelf life of prosperity; no matter how good the original game was itself.

Whether a game had good mod support or not could decide where entire online communities of amateur developers would devote their creative time and efforts. I recall Return to Castle Wolfenstein was trashed by Medal of Honor: Allied Assault in terms of sheer fun; but RTCW lived a longer life because all Allied Assault ever really got a crappy map editor for modders to play with.

The problems really cropped up around the time of Hot Coffeegate. Despite the fact that the Hot Coffee mod only really unlocked what was already in the game, hidden from view; soon Jack T & Co were hot on the trail of naked Sims and other such moral turpitude.

Developers and publishers who had relied on modders to make them more money over time, without having to pay a cent beyond releasing mod tools, were very quick to slit the throats of many modders in the face of legal wrangling and threats.

The ultimate question is, who is responsible for the mods - the people who make the mods, or the people who give the modders the tools they need to create the mods? It's an interesting question with many parallels - for example, would you sue a gun maker for a murder committed with their weapon? If it were that clear-cut we wouldn't be having this argument, but the fact is that there is no legal precedence on this issue, and so you never do know what could happen.

One thing is for sure: You won't get as much kudos for creating the next Counter-Strike as you would have two years ago.

Give this a read from Gamasutra if you're interested in this topic.

So, the long-awaited follow up to "Operation Flashpoint" has been released in developers Bohemia Interactive's native Czech Republic and, according to the official website, the game has gone to No. 1 in some of the best sellers charts. Hurray for the Czech's and their recognition of a good soldier sim when they see one.

Meanwhile, as anticipated, we in the rest of the world shall have to wait until Q1 2007 unless you can speak either Czech or German. I'm tempted to get out the old dictionary and just give it a lash...

Armed Assault Image Preview

The Company of Heroes v1.3 patch is out. That's the good news. The bad news is that it contains a major gameplay flaw in which tanks can sail on through tank traps... obviously Not A Good Thing, both for gameplay and Relic's QA process through which, apparently, bugs can sail on through.

Patching has always had a bit of an arduous history in PC gaming; particularly in recent times with the widespread use of broadband leading to many game publishers essentially saying "Release now, earn money, turn it into a playable product in six months time." In the case of games which get relatively stable releases, as we see here, sometimes things can go horribly wrong with patches. I recall DICE, developers of the Battlefield franchise, to be particularly distinguished in this field.

Ohh well, Relic promise that the 1.4 patch for Company of Heroes, containing a fix for the 1.3 patch, will be released "soon", having been in development for some weeks (minus the new bug hotfix.) The 1.3 patch comes with all kinds of lovely additions which I will allow you to read about at your leisure while you wait for it to download (either when you log into Relic Online in-game or via third party download services.)

It's officially Day 2 of the Cyberathlete Professional League Championship Finals in Dallas, and there's quite bit going on. After the preliminary rounds on Sunday, the action ramped up today as some of the top teams and players faced off in the pro tournaments for Quake 3 and Counter-Strike. One of the bigger matches of the day involved a major upset, as U.S. team Turmoil scored a huge comeback victory over the heavily favored Team 3D this morning. Gotfrag.com has more coverage on the match here, as well as live coverage of Quake and Counter-Strike matches on GotFrag.com.

Turmoil was later defeated by another U.S. team, Revolution Sports, which scored a remarkable comeback victory in one of the best matches of the day. "We were losing really badly but we had a big comeback," said Joshua Springer, a player on Revolution Sports. Springer's teammate Ted Weinrich said the Turmoil contest "was a really intense match." In other matches this afternoon, top Swedish team SK Gaming dominated by handily defeating several teams.

Some of the top teams in Counter-Strike will face off tonight. Team 3D, Swedish powerhouse Fnatic, and Team 3D's American rival Complexity will battle for supremacy tonight in late round action.

In other news, I'm really getting into this whole professional gaming thing.

I now know what a classic e-sports match is all about, thanks to Counter-Strike teams Complexity and 3D. Arguably the two best pro teams in America, Complexity and 3D have a unique rivalry in professional gaming. According to GotFrag.com, 3D has more career victories but Complexity owns the edge in head-to-head matches, 28-15.

Monday night's match had a considerable amount of hype around it, not only because it was the 44th time these two rivals would face each other but also because the match was a must-win contest for each team to move on. The match began and it was neck and neck for while, but eventually 3D pulled out to a small lead. However, Complexity battled back to tie the score. The game remained deadlocked late in the second half until regulation play ended with both teams tied at 15 (each Counter-Strike match is one 15-round map split into halves).

That led to one of the greatest things in sports: overtime. I thought the competition was intense during regulation, but that was nothing compared to the pressure and fast-paced action of OT (which is two three-round halves). At first, 3D was trailing but the team stormed back, led by its best player Mikey "Method" So, to tie the match and force a second overtime. Then 3D had Complexity on its heels, but the team made a number of cunning moves to even the odds and force yet another overtime.

And that was the essence of this classic duel: just when you thought the match was about to end, some unexpected happened. Players made brilliant, improbable plays that no one saw coming, whether it was a ridiculously long range AWP shot, a heart-pounding rush against superior manpower, or an ingenious ambush. Somehow, the tables always seemed to turn back and forth between Complexity and 3D.

I've seen Counter-Strike played before, but not like this. I was lucky enough to watch overtime with Lee Chen, president of GotFrag.com, who's seen his share of professional gaming matches, and even he was blown away by this epic battle. If there was any doubt in my mind that pro gamers were real athletes, it was all but erased by the virtuoso performances by all 10 players involved in the match.

The only bad thing about the Complexity-3D match was that it had to end eventually. And sadly, it did after three hard-fought overtimes. The final OT was neck and neck until Complexity was able to eek out a narrow margin of victory. But the match won't soon be forgotten by those who saw it, and all who participated in the match should be proud of it. The Complexity-3D match was an instant classic. And it sure beat the hell out of Monday Night Football.

Uh-oh. I can hear the grumbles and moans already.

Valve and IGA Worldwide announced a deal this week that will place in-game advertising within Valve's Counter-Strike. The deal gives IGA exclusive access to Counter-Strike, which has millions of users and generates more than five billion player minutes a month, according to IGA. As for Valve, the IGA agreement will give the developer another revenue stream coming off the plentiful river that is Counter-Strike.

"As the world's premier online action game, Counter-Strike's player minutes exceed its closest competitor by more than 100 percent," said Doug Lombardi, Director of Marketing for Valve, in the press statement. "Additionally, Counter- Strike rivals many of the current top ten watched shows on American televisions. For instance, a top ranked, one hour, weekly program garners 20 million viewers and results in approximately 4.8 billion viewer minutes per month. Conversely, Counter-Strike generates over 5 billion player minutes in the same period of time. And, nobody fast-forwards through any part of Counter-Strike."

That is true - nobody fast-forwards through a game. But will gamers be turned off when they dive for cover behind some crates and see "Pottery Barn" or "Pepsi" pasted on the boxes? Will Counter-Strike be the same with huge billboards looming in the mountains? There's no word on where the ads will go or what brands will seek to subliminally dominate online gamers, but Valve can certainly expect that some gamers will accuse them of selling out.

As for IGA and in-game advertising, this is huge (for more in IGA, go here). First, snagging Counter-Strike gives the company the golden goose of non-MMORGP gaming. Second, it helps IGA raise its profile among other in-game advertising firm's such as Microsoft's Massive, Inc. And third, Counter-Strike represents arguably the biggest accomplishment yet for the growing in-game ad business. If it works on Counter-Strike, then will we see advertising in - gulp - Half-Life?

Ugh. I just choked on my on vomit...

The CPL Championship Finals match for Counter-Strike came down to Sweden versus Norway. Swedish powerhouse team Fnatic and Meet Your Makers, a rising star from Norway, faced off this afternoon in Dallas, with Fnatic scoring a decisive victory for the championship title. Both teams stormed through semifinal competition on Tuesday, beating other contenders such as France's Against All Authority and Pentagram G-Shock from Poland. But Fnatic, which had emerged as an early favorite for the Counter-Strike title with superior play throughout the tournament, swept MYM in two rounds, led by Patrik "F0rest" Lindberg in the first half and Harley "dsn" ﾖrwall in the second half.

The match didn't quite live up to early contests, such as the classic duel between Complexity and 3D, and didn't appear to draw as big a crowd at the CPL event. However, I'm pretty sure Fnatic didn't care; they won the title and walked away with $30,000. Plus, Fnatic team member Kristoffer "Tentpole" Nordlund announced he was retiring after the CPL Championship, so he gets to go out on top.

In other CPL Championship news, Paul "CZM" Nelson won the Quake 3 tournament and the $15,000 prize, defeating Fan "Jibo" Zhibo. But the best game of the Quake 3 tournament came earlier when Nelson faced off against top-ranked Quake player Anton "Cooller" Singov of Russia. Singov had beaten Nelson at an international Quake competition at the Electronic Sports World Cup last year. Nelson was trailing 13-2 in the third map of the contest but staged an improbable comeback, winning the map and the title. There's been some controversy at the CPL over the "group play" double-elimination tournament format, which has apparently favored upsets and put certain teams such as Complexity at a disadvantage.

To me, the group play tournament style is much like the NCAA college basketball tournament, which I have no problem with because it encourages upsets and unpredictable matches. Some teams will have an easier road than others, just like March Madness, but almost always the two best teams will rise to the top. To me, that's what has happened with the Counter-Strike finals. Fnatic and MyM are two of the best teams around, and they played at a superior level during this tournament. It was disappointing to see both 3D and Complexity go out early after such a memorable match on Monday, but those are the breaks of the game. All in all, the Counter-Strike competition featured some great competition and plenty of thrills. I supposed I couldn't ask for anything more for my first pro gaming experience.

For more on the CPL Finals, check out GotFrag.com's coverage, including video replays of the matches.

The great pilgrammage to Las Vegas has begun. We're sweating, running and damn well nearly dying (in the case of the food poisened Humphrey Cheung) for your benefit. This year looks already to be dominated by the high-def agenda; HD-DVD, Blu-ray, HD displays and the kit it'll take to power them.

High-def has, up until this point, been dominated by the TV sector. What I'm going to be particularly interested to find out is how it is shaping up for gaming - one, is HD gaming actually any good; andtwo, how much will it cost in '07 - and will it be worth the money.

Watch this space. We're off to CES Unveiled, the kickoff event. More running around...

Being part of Hewlett-Pack hasn't made VoodooPC lose its flair for the dramatic. The enthusiast computer maker plans to unveil its eagerly awaited systems featuring AMD's new Quad FX processors at CES 2007 this week. Three of VoodooPC's high-powered Omen desktops will be running on Quad FX chips with enormous 18-foot displays. In fact, the three Omen systems will be networked together with a sit-down module for actual gameplay.

The Omen desktop is VoodooPC's flagship; last summer the computer maker introduced the Omen i:121 Extreme model, with features the Intel Core 2 Duo processor and ATI Radeon X1900 Crossfire graphics cards. VoodooPC has supported AMD's Quad FX since the technology was introduced last November, and the new Omen systems are a welcome development for gaming enthusiasts who want to see what VoodooPC can do with the newest platform from AMD. VoodooPC rival Alienware, which was acquired by Dell last year, has also thrown its support behind the Quad FX platform and is expected to unveil new systems using the processors.

In addition, VoodooPC will introduce a new gaming notebook at CES this week. No details have been released about the specifics of the new model, but VoodooPC says it will be one of the biggest and fastest notebooks on the market.

Don't pre-orders just suck?

Aaron griped about the lack of honor for pre-orders in the game industry a while back, considering all the angry gamers that have vented to us about their PlayStation 3 and Wii orders not showing up. And I've complained about fulfillment myself, as my Wii bundle got all screwed up by Walmart.com. Well, the vicious cycle of broken promises continues for World of WarCraft addicts, er, I mean fans. Word is a number of folks that had pre-ordered the Burning Crusade have received e-mails informing them that, woops, the store is out of stock. What a bummer. And if you think console fan boys were upset when they missed out on their PS3 or Wii pre- orders, you have no idea how bad some WoW fanatics are wigging out today after getting e-mails like the one below (special thanks to Neil for forwarding us the e-mail).

"Dear NEIL As you may have heard, stock of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Collector's Edition is extremely limited, with Vivendi only shipping a very small amount of stock for the UK market. We're really sorry, but this means that we have not been able to fulfill your order.

We've only just been informed of this stock shortage from Vivendi, and sincerely apologize for the short notice. Though you're no doubt disappointed, the Standard Edition is still available to order from HMV.co.uk for just ｣17.99, and if you order before the weekend, you should receive your copy of the game from day of release (Tuesday 16th January).

You can cancel your order for the Collectors Edition via your online account, though we will be automatically canceling your order within the next 7 days. Once again, we're sorry for any disappointment caused.

Regards (A very large British retailer with a three-letter acronym for a name)"

And by the way, copies of the Collector's Edition are currently going for more than $500 on eBay. For more on the Burning Crusade event, check out TG Daily.

Delays are pretty much standard practice in the game development world. But that doesn't mean I have to like it.

Word just broke that Valve has pushed back the release date for Half-Life 2: Episode 2 from its intended summer release to "fall 2007" or autumn, if you prefer. This isn't good news for a couple reasons. First, I like Episode 1 quite a bit and it had a killer cliff-hanger. Two, with Ritual Entertainment being bought by casual game maker MumboJumbo, it's possible that the SiN Episodes may be discontinued, which would leave Valve and the HL2 franchise carrying the torch for episodic gaming.

And third, the game has already been delayed from its initial release date of Q1 2007 to the summer. Now it's been pushed back again. If Valve hits the new release date -- and there's guarantee it will -- then Episode 2 will be out more than a year after Episode 1 was released (June 1 last year). That's not good news for episodic gaming. After all, part of the reason developers are in favor of episodic gaming is because it allows them to churn out smaller amounts of content in less time. Thus, gamers would only have to wait months, not years, for sequels to their favorite games. And game developers themselves could relax a bit more a and enjoy a higher quality of life instead of being swamped for 2-3 years under a mammoth blockbuster project.

That doesn't appear to be the case now, and it worries me. And what's even worse is that I have to wait another 8-10 months to find out what happens to Alyx Vance. Aaaarrrggghhh!!!!!!