bippy writes "An internal memo leaked from EA to its employees says that the company plans to make more employees elgible for overtime. Rusty Rueff, senior vice president of human resources, bemoans the bad press and begs forgiveness: "As much as I don't like what's been said about our company and our industry, I recognize that at the heart of the matter is a core truth." GamesIndustry.biz has commentary on the story as well.

Ant writes "Blue's News mentions a Far Cry Tech Demo/ATI & Crytek Tech Demo. I just watched it on my Athlon 64 3200+ system with 1 GB of RAM and an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro AIW (128 MB) video card. Wow. I had to disable FSAA to keep the FPS up at 1152x864 screen resolution. There is also a video file format available for those who don't have a powerful system and/or video card."

Star Wars Galaxies has been out for over a year now, and Sony Online will be attempting one of the most ambitious moves in a MMOG to date. They're completely overhauling the combat and loot systems for their game. Now that Jump to Lightspeed is finally out, they've made available high level concepts for the combat revamp, concepts for the loot revamp, and actual data on the first loot revamp pass. From the combat revamp: "Star Wars Galaxies is making bold changes to its extensive in-game combat system. The goal of this all-encompassing set of changes is to make game play more strategic, more interactive and ultimately more engaging and fun for players of all levels."

Many readers have written in to mention the astonishingly fast rate of sales for World of Warcraft. From the article: "...sold through to over 240,000 customers at retailers in North America on Tuesday, November 23, selling more in its first 24 hours than any other PC game in history. ... Within the first day, over 200,000 players created World of Warcraft accounts. By 5:00 p.m. PST, over 100,000 were playing the game concurrently. These two record-breaking numbers made World of Warcraft the fastest-growing MMORPG in history." The official site also has information on an extension of the trial period for users who have experienced lag and queues.

Ant writes "Ryan Cullen, of Access Gamer, writes: "This is the beginning of a recent fad that I have noticed the past couple years. Lately it seems that the mascot video game character has declined in popularity. Names like Mario and Sonic, characters who were once able to make the video game world suddenly stop and pay attention, are now either shells of their former glory, or they are just not as huge as they once were. Why is this?""

blueZhift writes "Missouri's most violent criminals will no longer be permitted to play violent video games that simulate the kind of offenses that resulted in their incarceration in the first place. Prison officials pulled the games, which included such killfests as Hitman: Contracts, once they were informed of their violent content. Science fiction and sports games were not pulled as part of the sweep, so more nerdy prisoners will not be affected by the changes."

EvilAvatar has word via a forum of a Trailer for an Xbox 2 video game called War-Devil. Our first look at what Microsoft's next-next generation console can do looks pretty good.

techstar25 writes "Coming soon reports that video game giant Nintendo is going to Hollywood by creating an in-house unit to develop animated features based on the numerous properties owned by the company. The plan calls for Nintendo to create a movie based on one of its own franchises for theatrical release in 2006. The original story is from Variety (reg. required)." It doesn't really say what properties to expect, but obviously it's Excite Bike.

unclethursday writes "GamesAreFun.com has a new editorial about what the Editor in Chief feels is wrong with video game reviews, GamesAreFun's included. The editorial touches on the importance of scores to people, the importance of getting the first review out there, the problem with trying to review online parts of a game before the game is released into the wild, reviewing games in a series, the expectations from reviews about overly hyped games, and review length."

blue.26 writes "Finally, a Metal Gear Movie?" From the article: "Speaking to Hollywood bible Variety, Kojima said, "Things one can express in a game are different of those in a movie. It would have to be a very different script, almost a different story."

senocular writes "Maxis has recently released an update for The Sims 2 (both CD and DVD versions). One of the major issues resolved in the update is the incessant jump bug which caused Sims to erratically "jump" out of social situations making the game unplayable for many players." Another nasty bug (fixed in this patch) that I've encountered is one where stranger Sims walk off the lot with a baby!

An anonymous reader writes "Kotaku points to the official auction site for Acclaim, the game publisher that was. The Auction includes the building and everything that was in it, including arcade games, boardroom tables, an odd collection of football helmets and 43,000 copies of video games." Our previous story of their bankruptcy.

Duality writes "ATI has announced a new line of PCI Express 3D graphics boards dubbed the X850 Series. There are three new X850 cards being announced today, along with two new X800 cards. The X800 XL (16-pipelines) and X800 (12-pipelines) get a new core built on TSMC's .11 micron manufacturing process and don't require supplemental power. The flagship Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition has been reviewed at HotHardware, and they've got more information on all of the other new Radeons as well. Prices for these new boards range from $249 all the way up to $549. (Other X850 Reviews: TR, Beyond3D, [H])"

Drakken writes "GamesAreFun.com is reporting on a new PSP and PS2 game being developed by Coong Entertainment called Beatbox Studio. Apparently, players will have to beatbox (make drumming sounds using their voice) to the rhythm of songs. The game will utilize the PS2 mic and upcoming PSP mic accessories. It looks like it will be similar to Dance Dance Revolution and other bemani titles, except for the fact that none of those titles involve beatboxing. I don't think there have been any beatboxing games in the past; it's a truly interesting and unique idea."

mandrake*rpgdx writes "Freya, a game programming environment for the Lua programming language, reaches 2.0 beta this week. Freya allows you to program cross platform games in the programming language Lua. It sports speeds 2x-10x faster than PyGame, and contains a built in map engine, pixel perfect collision detection, support for many graphics and sound formats including Ogg Vorbis and different MOD formats. Right now the beta release is looking for people to test the Linux version."

wrinkledshirt asks: "So, as an English teacher stranded in the middle of South Korea, I've learned that Go (or Baduk, as it's called here) is a really popular game with the locals. Unfortunately, it's really difficult to learn how to play it when most people who are good at it don't speak English very well. So, I've turned to the web. There are some okay teaching sites, but often the learning curve beyond simple rules explanation is pretty steep... 'This is a white stone. This is a black stone. They take turns. These are eyes. Ready? Okay, now observe how abandoning the joseki here leads to a gote which needlessly gives white sente...' (Me: 'WTF?!?'). What are the best Go resources for a beginner?"

SirBruce writes "Okay, this time I'm tooting my own horn before someone else does. I've released version 12.0 of my venerable work An Analysis of MMOG Subscription Growth. I've added several new charts along with new analysis, including initial subscription figures for EverQuest II and World of Warcraft. However, and perhaps most importantly, with the help of generous donations from viewers like you I have moved the report to a new web page, with a new URL (http://www.mmogchart.com/), a new design, and a new server that should be able to handle my frequent slashdotting. So, enjoy!" Boy, that was quick. Go Bruce.

An Anonymous reader writes "An owner of Nintendo's Shiny New Portable, has noticed his DS is emitting a signal that is projecting a ghostly image of his screen onto his TV- and he's not even multiplayer gaming. He and several others have uploaded photos of their DSs interfering with their TV's reception. As one forum-goer points out, this doesn't seem like the DS is adhering to FCC standards." More news from a forum, so enjoy some NaCl with this.

Satertek writes "Following up a previous post, a teaser was posted on the Steam website with the image HL2DM.jpg entitled 'Soon', confirming rumors of a Half-Life 2 Multiplayer Deathmatch game. It was also brought up on the forums by Valve. It will be released alongside the SDK sometime this week." Update: 12/01 13:49 GMT by T : Since this was written, "this week" has turned into "now"; the update was released last night.

An anonymous reader writes "Raphael Assénat successfully turned the SNES' audio processing unit into a stand alone unit which can be controlled through a parallel port, allowing people to play SNES music separate from games and the SNES' main unit. Elsewhere there is also a tutorial about adding S/PDIF digital sound output to the SNES."