World of Warcraft’s second expansion - Wrath of the Lich King - is out!

The servers are trembling with fear as legions of Death Knights start tromping around the Eastern Plaguelands and boats from Stormwind and Menethil groan under the weight of thousands of adventurers heading out to the new continent, Northrend. The Horde’s zeppelins are loading up, too, though not quite so heavily here on Terenas-EU.

Yes, I’ll admit, I’m one of them…

Next stop - Northrend! Stormwind disappears into the distance as the Kraken leaves dock for the icy north

Good grief, it sure is chocka out there! There’s nothing quite like the first day of a major new MMO episode. The “buzz” is palpable - everyone’s excited about doing new stuff, finding new shiny loot and exploring cool new places. Literally. It gets cold in Northrend… damn cold

There are a few who are frustrated, or who just downright enjoy making trollish comments, but that’s to be expected. And truth be told the atmosphere just wouldn’t be the same without them. Getting to level 80 is going to be a fun ride, I think

‘Nuff said, really… 59 days to go!

Yep, one of the most hyped games of the past couple of years is now available - Spore is upon us!

Say hello to the Skwawker. Wizard hats for the win!

I’ve been having wagonloads of fun with it, even though I should actually be doing something constructive… so much fun that I was utterly sucked in to the experience and was entirely unable to post about it yesterday as I should have! Oh well  Having reached the space stage today, some of the other evolutionary phases don’t give you all that much to do, but even then, it’s still enjoyable to just look around and explore what Maxis - and all the other Spore players around the world - have created to fill up this tremendous artificial universe.

On my first trip through the creature stage, it was quite comical to stumble upon an epic (i.e. big, stompy, kill-you-in-one-bite) version of a creature that I’d made up with the Creature Creator over six weeks ago - especially considering that I’d only bothered to make 3 different critters back then Probably part of the game’s design, but still, very cool.

In any case, here’s a few screenshots of my first alien and some of their vehicles and buildings. If you want to look at my full catalog, that’s easy too - search for user Zolyx in the Sporepedia. Fwee!

This wasn’t how I especially planned for it to work…

The "bug" here, obviously, is that there weren't enough missiles to wipe out the left half of the screen...

Poor ol’ millenipedes, eh? Serves ‘em right for making bugs in mah program! Told you not to touch that darn thing…

Oh yes, which reminds me, apparently Team Fortress 2 has gotten a new achievement pack - if it’s not live by now then it should be very soon. What with my PC being a mass of largely disconnected cables and limited software at the minute, I haven’t been able to check on Steam to be sure. Heavies are the ones to benefit - read the official Steam blurb then be sure to use your Sandvich for the win!

As if one watched game update wasn’t enough, here’s another!

Blizzard have unveiled the cinematic trailer for the upcoming expansion to World of Warcraft. And, as usual, it’s got all their trademark flair…

Go watch it now!

I try not to take too much notice of reviews, but it does appear that Chris Taylor and his mates at Gas Powered Games haven’t really hit the mark with their foray into sci-fi. Space Siege, the newest addition to the Siege series, has garnered a mixed reception amongst the gaming press after being released, and personally I’m distinctly underwhelmed with the final feature list.

Sure, the graphics are kinda shiny, but that alone isn't enough for an action RPG to make the grade

Until I play the demo over the weekend I won’t say much more; I really do want to like this game because the potential of a Dungeon Siege in space is massive.

Somehow I managed to miss this on my daily RSS trawl, but I’m happy to report that the much-vaunted timewarping platformer Braid by Jonathan Blow was released to the masses on XBox Live Arcade yesterday and has already racked up some quite impressive reviews, including a 10/10 from Eurogamer and an 8.8 / 10 from IGN. Spiffy stuff!

I’m looking forward to the PC release; the graphics remind me a little bit of Aquaria’s style, although with a more obviously hand-drawn feel. Having watched some of the videos I’ll definitely be checking the demo out whenever it’s available.

9/8/08 update: There’s still more rave reviews coming in, giving Braid a pretty respectable Metacritic score of 92. Is this the best indie game of all time?

This would be a great shame if it were true.

Speculation and confusion is running riot through the forums for Hellgate London and Mythos at the moment, as you can see here and here. Many sites are reporting that software house Flagship Studios has seen major job losses and that the company no longer holds the rights to Hellgate (sources: HellgateGuru, Gamasutra).

Ping0, a subsidiary who is involved with the Mythos side of Flagship’s work, are also said to have suffered layoffs.

At this stage it’s just a rumour as there hasn’t been any official word from the people who matter. Still, a site like Gamasutra is fairly reliable and, sadly, I doubt they’d post this news without checking it out thoroughly. It will probably be a couple of days before we hear what Flagship have to say about the story, and until then, nothing is set in stone.

YES! The world celebrates as Diablo III is confirmed!

Update: you can now visit www.diablo3.com for the full lowdown.

Yes, I know there seems to be an unending amount of Blizzard coverage going on lately, but as a fan of several of their titles I’m quite excited to see what happens this weekend. They’ve got a fairly packed schedule of events - but no mention of announcing a new title, which is what everyone seems to think they’ll be doing Stay tuned!