Joe here with a quick Saturday morning update.

I beat Ghostbusters: The Video Game last night and tried out the multiplayer with Steve.  Confident that I'd seen enough, I wrote up my review.  Have a look.  I suspect Steve will have his take on the game up very shortly.

We're going to see Transformers 2 today, in the IMax.  We'll let you know, in detail, what we thought after we return - assuming our heads don't explode from the 12,000 watt sound system.

In game news, Steam has a 50% off deal on Heroes of Might and Magic games this weekend.  They area also offering the indie first person brawler Zeno Crash for 50% for the weekend, and you can now pre-order Trine and receive Shadowgrounds for free.  I'm personally downloading the Trine demo, because I've heard good things, right at this very moment.

And Rock Paper Shotgun has an interesting article up that talks about some things I've thought about more than once, especially as I was slowly flying across the plains in WoW.

Hey everyone, Steve here,

Seems EA decided it would be fun to be all sneaky like.  I'll keep this short and sweet since... I don't really know too much about this, but EA's answer to Team Fortress 2, Battlefield Heroes, has launched, apparently, to absolutly no fanfare.  Check out the link to get in on the action.  I'll be logging in tonight to get a feel for it, and so I can report more about it other than "Hey all, looky at this!"  However, for now, that's about all I got!  See ya on the battlefield, apparently!

Hey all, Steve here, and this is the second time I'm writing this article.  The first time I was almost done when my computer decided it would be really fun to crash!  Well, computer, I hate you and all your electrony bits...  Anyway, here's what I was going to say before I was so rudely interrupted by a meltdown...

By the way,there are two breaking news updates at the bottom of this article.  Read it again if you've read it already!

First up, I've got a link and a screenshot for Payne fans.

That is a picture of an older, balder, and heftier Max Payne from the upcoming Max Payne 3.  Rock Paper Shotgun has more images for your viewing pleasure right about here.  Max is back, just twelve years older and addicted to pain killers...  Oops...  I guess we, as gamers, can only blame ourselves for his addiction.

In other news, I've got some not so new news in the MMO field.  We all know the MMO market is about to be saturated with pay to play titles such as Champions, Star Wars, Earth Rise, Aion, and many, many more.  Free to play MMO's have been popping up all over the place, to varying success.  These games don't charge a monthly fee, instead, they offer weapons, potions, mounts, and other helpful items in a store, you spend real money on points, use the points to buy whatever you need, and you get it.  So, what are the old MMO's to do, the ones that weren't insanely popular but still had a following?  Well, if you're Dungeons and Dragons Online, here after refered to as DDO, you go free to play.  Don't believe me?  Where's the trust?  Oh well, here's the link.

For those of you not wanting to read what they have to say, here's a short rundown.  It's currently in beta now but, on release, anyone will be able to sign up, download the client, and play for free without even giving a credit card number.  Free players will be able to progress up to level 20, which is max, will have access to 2 character slots, and will be able to play the core game.  You can also choose to spend real money on Turbine Points to be used in the Turbine Store for weapons, items, bags, character slots, henchmen, and more.  They also say that there is a way for free to play customers to win points in game, but no further info on that was given.  There is also a VIP option available, these are people who choose to pay the $14.99 a month and will receive priority in the servers (as in, if the servers are full, VIP members will be put into the front of the waiting list), extra character slots, access to other areas, and a monthly reward of free Turbine Points, among other things not yet mentioned.

I played DDO a long time ago.  It was kind of cool, coming from a Dungeons and Dragons background, but I do believe this will help it immensly.  It is a very boring game to try to play solo so, if you're like me and don't like grouping with just anyone, wait for DDO to go free, invite friends, and tackle some dungeons.  Can't really beat the price!

That's it for now.  Have a happy Wednesday everyone and remember, you've made it this far!

BREAKING NEWS:

Big news in the gaming world today, ZeniMax, parent company of Bethesda softworks, known best for Fallout 3 and Oblivion, among many others, has bought ID Software, makers of such legends as Doom, Wolfenstein, Quake, and more.  All ID games will now be published by Bethesda with the exception of those already promised to other companies.  Check out ID's main page for more information.   Apparently this wont affect ID in terms of personel, they will continue to operate as a development house, but Bethesda will be publishing.  Could this mean we are not too far away from a Doom RPG?  

Also in the big news catagory, check this out.   EA is merging Bioware and Mythic.  Mythic just released Warhammer online not too long ago, and Bioware, as you all know, is developing the new Star Wars MMO.  The merge will focus on RPG's and MMO's, hopefully for the best for both!  I think it would be great if this new merge could improve Warhammer a bit and really help Star Wars out, time will tell!

Joe here with the news following the weekend (an ultimately futile effort to spice up your Monday).

Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds teamed up in The Proposal to knock The Hangover off it's winning streak.  Bullock's romantic comedy grossed $34.1 million - a record for her.  The Hangover made $27 million to take second place in its third weekend out, bumping up its total gross to $150 million in three weeks - pretty darn impressive.  Pixar's Up took third place with $21.3 million, with a total gross of $224 million so far - more than Wall-E made - and putting it at the second highest grossing movie of the year so far.  Year One, opening with $20.4 million, took fourth place, and The Taking of Pelham 123 took fifth with $11.3 million.  See Comingsoon.net for the full roundup.

In other film news:

Check out the story behind that picture (the rose, not the dress) and find many more interesting news tidbits at SlashFilm.

This news may be old hat to many people, but its the first time I've seen personal confirmation that its actually happening.  Remember Band of Brothers, the HBO miniseries about WWII that didn't pull and punches and ended up better than Saving Private Ryan in pretty much every way?  Back when it came out there were strong indications of a Pacific-theatre version.  Then...everything was silent for years.  Now we have proof that the Pacific version exists, has a huge budget, and will be coming to HBO in March of 2010.

Harry Potter haters, skip this next link.  Fans, like me, head here for a good interview with director David Yates about the forthcoming film and the reasoning behind splitting the last book into two films.

Further proof that Tim Burton is scary.

In game news, Raccoon City - of Resident Evil 2 and 3 fame - is coming to a Left 4 Dead zombie apocalypse near you.  This is very cool.  Hopefully we'll see lots more quality campaigns come out from modders now that the full SDK has been released.

And IGN Austrailia had some hands-on time with the new Splinter Cell.  Looking pretty good, I must say...