More movement on the massive scale. WoW Players should be aware that Patch 1.7 was released today. It's a big one, with a new raid instance, Hunter changes, and the inclusion of a new type of server (Roleplaying PVP) available. Get downloading. City of Heroes has seen Issue 5's Release, with a new zone, new power sets, and a big tweak to the Blaster archetype. Late last week a whole bunch of new City of Villains Beta invites went out, and Gamespot has a rundown on the upcoming stand-alone sequel. Major changes are afoot in Everquest II's Producer Letter, with changes to combat, classes, items, NPCs, buffs, crafting, and grouping. Is it even the same game? On a final non-commercial note, CNet has news that the Second Life virtual world is now free to enter, with the Linden Dollars economy expected to prop up the costs associated with running it. Interesting. From that article: "Currently, Rosedale said, "Second Life" has 45,000 members and is growing at about 10 percent a month. There are now more than 16,000 acres of owned land in the virtual world, and new land sells for about $129. Users must pay a fee of about $25 a month to maintain their land. Thus, Linden Lab is earning about $400,000 a month without ever factoring in membership fees." Update: 09/14 05:50 GMT by Z : Cutriss rightly points out that I overlooked the interesting Ballista Royale update to FFXI. Additionally, a new patch for Dark Age of Camelot was released today, and the main site revamped for the upcoming expansion.

Joystiq has commentary on a Gamespot article which goes into detail on the Korean Government's response to the country's growing online addiction problem. From the Gamespot article: "When asked why South Korean society has had a more prevalent occurrence of online gaming addiction, Grace offered her own observation, 'There is a lot of stress in Korean society. Going to PC bangs is one way to relieve stress and disconnect themselves from the real world. It's mainly the stress-relieving factor.'"

Many reactions to last week's violent games bill. Primotech writes "I first heard of California's AB1179 late Friday night. Like most others, who simply shrugged the bill off as inconsequential, my first thought was strikingly indifferent. Beyond the perfunctory glance, however, it becomes evident that this bill brings into focus and, more importantly, actually probes some of the more serious issues facing the industry. Above all else, examining and dissecting the proposal reveals some truly frightening facts." Relatedly, Shodan writes "Hal Halpin, the President of IEMA, today issued a statement in response to California Assembly Bill 1179, which is on the floor to address the issue of violent videogames." Other states are taking their lead from Illinois and California. KymBuchanan writes "I'm sad to say my state is on the bandwagon, and the charge is being lead by Democrats. From the article: 'Michigan Governor Jennifer M. Granholm has announced that she will sign legislation later this week that will make the sale or rental of mature or adult-rated video games to children illegal ... The fine for anyone caught selling a "violent title" ( apparently defined by the bill as real or simulated graphic depictions of physical injuries or physical violence against parties who realistically appear to be human beings) to minors will initially be $5,000, and can go as high as $40,000 ...'"

Next Generation Magazine has a profile (done by IDG) looking at the habits for next-generation gamers. From the article: "Social gamers represent 35% of spending while casual gamers represent 28% of the gaming audience but only 13% of dollars spent. The report says devoted gamers will drive sales of new systems in 2005 and 2006 with more than half of them likely to buy a PlayStation 3 and over 45% planning to buy Xbox 360 within the first year of release for each system. "

Nintendo's official birthday for the stout plumber is September 13th, and today marks his 20th Anniversary. Via Kotaku, an Edge Online article celebrating the man's greatness. From the article: "Undoubtedly, you will have played at least one of those games - so let's talk about how far he's come, and why he's so great. In terms of his history, it's one filled with successes, and a few mysteries to boot. The working class hero has spent more time beating a fantasy tyrant to save royalty than he has on his serviceman job" Nintendo.jp also has a bunch of congratulatory messages from Japanese groups, all for the man in red. Update: 09/14 05:48 GMT by Z : Push the Buttons has a really great tribute to Nintendo's finest that I felt should be added to this post.

nevergleam writes "Sony is recalling over 3.5 million power adapters upon reports that they are overheating. According to The Times Online, there has been one incident of minor shock, and four incidences of property damage. There is a web site available to see if the recall applies to your unit." From the article: "The adaptors were made between August and December last year for the slimline PlayStation 2. About 2.3 million of the affected machines were sold in Europe, with the remaining 1.2 million sold in Asia, Australia and North America."

Gamespot is reporting that, for the first time, Sony is selling a combo UMD movie/game disc. For about $40 you get three levels of Wipeout: Pure and the craptacular film "Stealth", which didn't even manage a 30% recoup on the film's budget. From the article: "On November 15, Sony will release the military sci-fi film Stealth, which slipped under most summer moviegoers' radar, on UMD. The portable version of the $130-million-budget, $31-million-grossing film will come with the first three levels of the best-selling PSP racing game Wipeout Pure. It will also feature a "Stealth" track not found in the regular version of the game, which will let players race as the advanced fighter jet from Stealth."

1up.com has a few precious details on the combat system to be used in Final Fantasy XII. From the article: "The semi-realtime, semi-ATB battle system of FFXII is finally sounding like it's got some real depth now as these new features are coming to light. First of all, a "Chain" system has been revealed. Basically when you keep attacking enemies of the same race without killing enemies of a different race in between, your Chain counter increase. Increasing the counter will lead to getting better and even rare items from the enemies as they fall."

Next Generation is reporting on the World Cyber games, which enter their final leg between the 16th and 20th of September. The U.S. teams have been finalized after the last round of national competitions in New York over the weekend. From the article: "The spectator excitement combined with a high level of competition this past weekend here in New York signals that the era of e-Sports is beginning to mature here in the US, as it already has elsewhere in the world. We have always been the biggest tournament in the world, and it is here that pro-gamers get their start. We are now seeing the kinds of corporate sponsorships necessary to back these players so they can train and compete at the highest level worldwide." Five bucks OGRE 1 and OGRE 2 for the Halo 2 win.

The Guardian and Wired are taking a look at the connections between books and games this week. The Guardian's Games Blog has a look at games in literature. Wired, on the other side of the coin, has a look at books written in gaming worlds. From the Wired article: "Sam Fisher is, of course, the hero of the Splinter Cell video game. I've spent countless hours using my Xbox controller to sneak him past armed guards, scale walls and club enemies unconscious. But I didn't know much about his personal life until I wandered into an airport bookstore recently and encountered Splinter Cell -- the novel. That's right: the novel. In the last few years, publishers have taken a cue from the booming world of fan fiction and have begun commissioning novels based on famous games. It's now such a successful cottage industry that when you wander into any Barnes & Noble, there are shelves groaning under the weight of books written from Resident Evil, Halo, Tomb Raider and MechWarrior."

Gamasutra is reporting that the ESRB is now mandating an audit of hidden game content. The audit is retroactive to the 1st of this month. From the article: "Fully disclosing hidden content accessible as Easter eggs and via cheat codes has always been part of ESRB's explicitly stated requirements when submitting games to be rated. In the July 20 public announcement, which focused on the revocation of a specific game's rating assignment, we formally stated that any pertinent content shipped on the game disc that may be relevant to a rating must be disclosed to ESRB, even if it is not intended to ever be accessed during game play."

fistfullast33l writes "Dystopia, a Matrix meets TRON mod for Half Life 2, has finally been released to the public today. This has been one of the more beautiful and original mods under development for HL2 so far. Files are available all over the place but check out their homepage for more details." From the article: "After 9 long months of heavy development and another year of planning and designing before that, it has been a long and challenging road to this point. We're extremely excited to let the public see what we've been so busy working on all this time and hope that you enjoy it as much as we do. This demo version is limited to only 1 map; Vaccine, but features all of our high powered weapons and extensive range of implants."

JorgeDeLaCancha writes "The US Skill Games Championship, heading by SkillJam, will be featuring two PopCap games, Bejeweled 2 and Zuma . Paul Jensen, President of SkillJam, claims that both these games while simple in their concept offer a more challenging level of play to the expert gamers. The grand prize in this championship is one million dollars. Will we soon be seeing more similar tournaments with large prizes based on simple puzzle games?"

404Ender writes "In a move similar to the passage of a law designed to restrict the sale of violent video games to children in Illinois, California is now awaiting only the signature of Governor Schwarzenegger before a similar bill becomes a law. Does this action signal the start of a disturbing trend of the restriction of First Amendment rights? How can we as gamers fight back against this type of government action?"

End-of-week lists are always fun. From CNet, we have a list of the top ten games of the last ten years, and from 1up.com the definitive dozen titles from the PS1's lifetime. From the 1up article: "Resident Evil Capcom, 1996 Admittedly a straight-up rip-off of the PC adventure series Alone in the Dark (all the way down to the polygonal characters in static environments), Resident Evil was the first great example of Sony's commitment to quality, adult-oriented entertainment. Sure, the controls sucked, and the voice acting was worse. But for all intents and purposes, this was the game that helped the PS1 grab gamers by the throat, chew on their jugulars, and gnaw on their brains."

John Callaham wrote to mention a piece on Gamecloud discussing the emphasis on 'special' editions of new game titles. From the article: "Games that have some extras in limited releases have been a part of the industry for a few years now. Just last year limited collector's versions of the MMORPGs Everquest 2 and World of Warcraft were released that were packed with extra stuff, from art books to extra DVDs and more. Electronic Arts released a special edition of Medal of Honor Pacific Assault last fall with lots of behind-the-scenes material and an extra weapon not in the regular edition. Midway released a special edition of Mortal Kombat: Deception last fall with extra content as well as the full version of the first Mortal Kombat game. This fall, however, game publishers are releasing more special editions of games than ever before alongside the 'regular' versions of games and they typically cost at least $10 more and in a couple of cases even more than that."

As the 360 launch approaches and more developers get on-board the PS3 wagon, more titles are coming to light. Sega has announced the first next-generation Sonic the Hedgehog title, which will see publishing on both Microsoft and Sony's platforms. Additionally, while it's not a next-gen sequel, the announcement of a Seaman 2 title for the PlayStation 2 certainly is surprising. Word is that the microphone that came with the PS2 version of the original fish-man sim will work with the upcoming sequel as well. From the Sonic article: "We are proud to re-create our famous friend, Sonic, for a new generation of gamers on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360...With Sonic the Hedgehog, we have gone back to our starting point, more than 15 years ago, to reinvent the attitude and speed that made our hero a legend. The 'rebirth of Sonic' will offer an unparalleled sense of speed that is only possible using the processing power afforded by the new systems."

MCV has an article up discussing a new intitiative that Microsoft will be launching soon to re-establish the Windows PC as a gaming platform, ahead of the launch of Vista. From the article: "Microsoft has pledged to 'put the game back into Windows', admitting that its lack of investment in PC has been 'killing' the platform. The firm has outlined to MCV details of an 18-month drive to establish Games For Windows as a platform with the credibility of PlayStation and Xbox, ahead of the launch of the Vista operating system."

By default, a game based on a movie has to suck. It's one of the unwritten rules of the industry that movie games are pure profit: Stamp it out quick, screw the gameplay, and we'll make it up to the players with our next genre-buster. Treyarch's "Spider-Man 2" proved that this wasn't the way things needed to be, and Radical Entertainment has carried the torch of playable movie game tie-ins admirably with "The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction." Using the same sort of framework as Treyarch's freeswinging action title, Hulk manages to combine mindless violence and interesting gameplay in a fun-to-play package. Long-term entertainment may be out of reach of this angry goliath, but it's well worth a look if you like action smashups. Read on for my impressions of what it's like to step into Hulk's very big shoes.

Gamasutra has another GDCE postmortem, this time for the sequel to the god-in-a-box sim Black and White. From the article: "The design philosophy that Lionhead Studios adopted for the sequel to Black and White was to enhance the player's feeling of being a god in the game world by immersing them as fully as possible in that world. What this meant in practice was to largely reject the standard model of game menus and data-panels for an interface that forms part of the game world itself. This presented the design team with all kinds of challenges which were made even harder by the decision to expand the scope of B&W 2 beyond its god game heritage to include elements such as real-time strategy, simulation, city building and a physics engine. "