Developers TimeGate Studios have brought gamers some of the most enjoyable first-person shooters over the last couple years. Though they’re perhaps best known for their award winning RTS series Kohan, they’re also renowned for their work on the expansion packs for the first-person horror shooter F.E.A.R.

However, for their latest title, Section 8, TimeGate Studios, has departed from their established roots in strategy and the paranormal to embrace the more mainstream genre of sci-fi first-person shooters

Section 8 has you playing as Alex Corde, the newest recruit in a division of elite, hardcore and battle armor clad soldiers known as the 8th Armored Infantry.

The plot is as follows: A renegade faction called the Arm of Orion has seized control over a number of planets and are generally being in a pain in the butt. Of course, it’s your job to drop in mess up all sorts of faces and save the day.

The campaign is fairly straightforward and consist primarily of grabbing control points and accomplishing a series of objectives while shooting computer controlled players.

Section 8 is far from being anything exceptional in terms of narrative prowess or engrossing gameplay, but gamers can expect to put in a decent amount of time in playing the game, which will take couple hours to complete.

Additionally, Section 8’s single player mode serves as an effective gameplay tutorial to prepare you for its multiplayer mode.

Like most first person shooters, Section 8’s robust online–or system link–multiplayer is where you’ll end up spending most of your time. There’s a number of huge maps where up to 32 players can wage war on, allowing the possibility of some pretty epic and chaotic battles.

But let’s face it: Large scale battles between space marines isn’t anything we haven’t seen before in games like Halo or Killzone 2.

But lest you think that Section 8 is derivative, the game comes well-prepared with a plethora of fun, innovative touches that helps define itself in amongst the competition.

One original aspect about Section 8 is customizable battle armor. Sure, there’s the usual number of pre-determined class setups like Sniper or Assault, but you can also go ahead and modify what weapons your character uses and what passive perks they’re equipped with to suit your play style.

For instance, if you’re more into stealth and sniping, you can choose lighter armor that allows you to move faster, use your jet pack longer and turn invisible for periods of time using a cloaking device.

Fans of casually waltzing into the fray with a huge gun, however, will probably choose to take a machine gun or rocket launcher and then upgrade their shield strength and damage output. You’ll be a slow and an easy target for snipers, but you’ll completely demolish anyone foolish to take you on toe-to-toe.

The battles are a little different than the typical Deathmatch or Capture the Flag modes gamers are used to. Instead, they take a host of classic first-person shooter gameplay types and integrate it into one game.

While you’re busy running around killing your enemies and helping control choke points throughout the map, random, new objectives will flash on your screen.

Sometimes you’ll be tasked with escorting a VIP off the battlefield while your opponents are charged with assassinating them. Other times you’ll need to destroy a convoy that the enemy is supposed to protect, assault a base or steal the enemy’s intelligence.

The dynamic objectives add a nice spice of variety and immediacy to Section 8’s multiplayer and ensures that no two battles play out exactly the same.

Gun turrets are particularly lethal because of the creative way Section 8 handles re-spawns. Instead of inserting you back in the game at a designated location, Section 8 drops you from several miles in the sky and lets you plummet to the ground.

While dropping, you can decide to either glide to a smooth, controlled landing, or you can smash right into the ground. The latter allows you to drop in ready to fight, while the latter causes damage to nearby opponents, but leaves you stunned and dazed for a few seconds.

However, while dropping, you’re more or less helpless. If you make the mistake of dropping into enemy controlled territory where gun turrets are deployed, they’ll pick you out of the sky. Tanks are equally deadly.

They’re slow, but they’re incredibly powerful. If a team doesn’t swarm on them immediately with heavy explosives to knock it out of commission, a tank in the hands of a skilled gamer can become a nightmare for the other team.

Graphically, Section 8 is adequate. It looks like a next-gen title with some good textures, special effects (the drop sequence in particular is very impressive) and colorful maps, but it isn’t jaw dropping by any means.

Still, Section 8’s frame rate is fluid and consistent, which is no small feat when dozens of enemies are on screen shooting rockets at you simultaneously.

It’s also worth noting that Section 8 utilizes X-Server, a new technology that allows you to host servers on your PC.

One large complaint about Xbox Live is that it doesn’t use dedicated servers, meaning matches are sometimes laggy or end abruptly when the host disconnects. With X-Server, however, these problems should be rectified as long as the host’s PC doesn’t reset or shut off. Though still untested, if X-Server performs the way promised, it could become a popular way of playing on XBox Live in the near future.

Final Verdict

Dismissing Section 8 as an uninspired Halo rip-off would be huge mistake. An understandable one, perhaps, what with Section 8’s insistence in recycling the ho-hum space-marine cliche, but a gross lapse in judgment all the same.

Though the game’s premise may appear generic, Section 8 brings enough innovation to the genre to distinguish itself as a worthy contender. It doesn’t offer a whole lot in the single-player department, but if you’re ready to hop online and go to war, Section 8 is well-worth checking out.

Final Score: B

Enclosed below is the trailer for TimeGate Studios’ Section 8. It is available for Xbox 360 and PC now.

Blizzard and Activision announced in an earnings report on Wednesday that they have decided to push back Blizzard’s highly anticipated StarCraft II until at least spring 2010. Additionally, they also said that Activision’s first-person shooter Singularity is also being delayed and probably won’t hit store shelves for another couple months.

Both Singularity and StarCraft II were initially slated for a release in late 2009.

In May, Blizzard announced that beta testing for StarCraft II was open for registration, leading gamers to speculate that the long awaited sequel to the hit real-time strategy classic StarCraft was finally nearing completion. StarCraft II was originally announced in May 2007.

According to Blizzard, the StarCraft II that goes on sale in 2010 will be the base game and the first campaign. Entitled Wings of Liberty, the first campaign will follow the Terran race and includes 26-30 missions. The campaigns for the Zerg and Protoss will ship in two separate expansion packs called Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void respectively. No time table for the expansion packs have been announced yet.

Even though a campaign for all three of StarCraft’s playable races will not be immediately available to play, gamers will be able to command the three factions in StarCraft II’s fully functional multiplayer. The game’s multiplayer will utilize Blizzard’s revamped Battle.net service which, according to Activision, is slated to launch simultaneously with StarCraft II.

StarCraft II and Singularity are not the only games that have fallen victim to delays. A number of high profiles titles like 2K’s Bioshock 2 and Ubisoft’s Splinter Cell: Conviction were originally scheduled to be released in the last quarter of 2009, but are now set to ship sometime in early 2010.

The primary reason for many of these delays is that developers and publishers more than likely do not want to square off against the inevitably fierce competition during the holiday season. Not only is Microsoft coming up with a new Halo title with Halo 3: ODST, but Activision is also releasing Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 2.

Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4 are famous for being one of the most popular gaming franchises for current generation consoles. Halo 3 broke records by making $170 million in its first day on sale. Additionally, sales figures for Modern Warfare 2 are expected to be high, particularly because Activision announced yesterday that its garnered more pre-orders than any other game in the company’s history.

Before the advent of cable high-speed internet, getting a bunch of friends together and hooking up your computers together in a local area network (LAN) to play games like Counter-Strike or Red Alert was easily one of the most popular way for PC gamers to compete against one another.

In fact, even with Internet connections as fast and prevalent as they are today, most gaming conventions and tournaments still prefer to host events via a wired, LAN setup, instead of online servers to avoid unnecessary bandwidth and latency issues.

However, the days of hanging out in your friends basement and playing LAN PC games could begin coming to an end. Game developer Blizzard announced in an interview with IncGamers that the highly-anticipated StarCraft 2 will not support LAN multiplayer when it ships sometime later this year.

“We don’t have any plans to support LAN,” said Blizzard’s VP of Game Design, Rob Pardo

Later, according to Joystiq, the development company behind smash hits, including World of Warcraft and Diablo, elaborated on Pardo’s statement.

“We don’t currently plan to support LAN play with StarCraft II, as we are building Battle.net to be the ideal destination for multiplayer gaming with StarCraft 2 and future Blizzard Entertainment games,” said Bob Colayco, a member of Blizzard’s Public Relations.

Colayco: “While this was a difficult decision for us, we felt that moving away from LAN play and directing players to our upgraded Battle.net service was the best option to ensure a quality multiplayer experience with StarCraft 2 and safeguard against piracy.”

Colayco further continued by saying that “[s]everal Battle.net features like advanced communication options, achievements, stat-tracking, and more, require players to be connected to the service, so we’re encouraging everyone to use Battle.net as much as possible to get the most out of StarCraft II. We’re looking forward to sharing more details about Battle.net and online functionality for StarCraft II in the near future.”

Battle.net is Blizzard’s private online multiplayer service that launched in 1997 to accommodate the game Diablo. Though absolutely free to use, Battle.net requires gamers to register a unique registration key in order to take advantage of that game’s multi-player function.

For instance, gamers can still play the original StarCraft offline, but they would have to enter in the game’s authentic serial number with Blizzard if they wanted to play online and compete against gamers from around the world.

However, because playing games through a LAN connection does not require any sort of CD-Key registration, it is possible that Blizzard is not supporting LAN multiplayer in StarCraft 2 in an attempt to combat illegal piracy of the game. Though anyone who either makes a copy of the disc, or downloads a disc image through torrents would still potentially be able to play StarCraft 2’s offline campaign mode, they would be unable to play with others unless a workaround, or a hack, is created.

Though killing LAN support in StarCraft 2 might prevent it from being as widely pirated, such a move definitely has its share of drawbacks, and could hurt overall sales.

The original StarCraft is a favorite in professional gaming circuits, particularly in South Korea, and it is unknown how Blizzard’s decision will impact the chances of StarCraft 2 achieving the same degree of success.

Additionally, while high-speed Internet is becoming more affordable and available, not everyone has it yet. By choosing to not feature any form of offline multiplayer, Blizzard could be effectively isolating a part of their fan base.

It’s that time of year again, a time when game developers, publishers and gaming press come from all corners of the world to get together at the L.A Convention center in Los Angeles, California for one of the largest video gaming conventions on the planet -the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). Once a mecca journalists, developers and fans alike, over the years E3 has transformed into a pale shadow of its former self. Now a trade-only event closed to the public, E3 has endured it share of ridicule for being incredibly bland and boring in comparison to other trade shows like PAX or the tokyo Game Show.

However, this year, E3 is looking to change things, albeit only slightly. While the public is still barred from the event (journalists and media only), E3 is now being held in one centralized spot as opposed to each video game publisher getting their own location on opposite sides of town. Additionally, for better or worst, E3 has lifted the ban on booth models, so attendees get to enjoy scantily clad, attractive men, women and (evidently) midgets dressed up awkwardly as video game characters.

But E3 has never been exclusively about congregating or ogling booth babes -it’s supposed to be about the games. And in that regard, E3 2009 certainly looks like it will not disappoint.

Pretty much every single big name video game publisher and developer will be attending. From Atlus to Bethesda Softworks to Capcom to Ubisoft, the boys and girls of the video game industry will be there showing off the hit titles gamers will be enjoying over the next several months.

Here is a quick run down of all the announcements and some of the preview footage that has been shown in the few days prior to E3.

Announced
Crytek has announced Crysis 2 for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC.
Square-Enix has announced a new Front Mission game (Front Mission Evolved) and an action-RPG Nier.
Sega has announced a new Sonic title, Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing.

Previewed
Activision has released the first official trailer for its upcoming Modern Warfare 2 and DJ Hero and Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2.
BioWare is showing off footage for Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age
Capcom is showcasing a new trailer for Lost Planet 2 and a trailer for the company’s now-show title, Dead Rising 2 was also leaked on the internet.
Obsidian Entertainment put up a teaser for its upcoming spy action-RPG Alpha Protocol.
Avalanche and Eidos Interactive released their debut trailer for Just Cause 2.
Electronic Arts and DICE are showing off their latest, multiplayer trailer for Battlefield Bad Company 2.
Lastly, but certainly not least, Gearbox Software has debuted their new, cel-shaded trailer for Borderlands.

With E3 right around the corner and the holiday season fast approaching, it only makes sense that Sony might have something in mind to help boost their already respectable sales of the Playstation 3.

Via Gamasutra, Lazard Capital Markets analyst Colin Sebastian predicts that Sony’s plan is to slash the price tag of their next-generation video game console from its current retail price of $399 to an even more affordable $299 sometime in between June and this coming fall.

According to Sebastian, Sony is planning on increasing their sales number by thirty percent, a feat that could prove difficult with the Playstation 3’s current price tag.

Sony’s ability to cut back on manufacturing and production costs of the gaming console could allow for a potential price drop. Subsequently, a lower price tag would make it a more viable purchase for consumers and “provide the PS3 with a needed shot in the arm.”

Why exactly a $100 price drop though? Sebastian says a video game console’s “sweet spot” is to sell for less than $300. Additionally, he also expresses that anything less than a $100 price cut “would likely be perceived negatively by the market.”

A price drop would satisfy a number of parties. Not only would Sony be able to move more consoles (on hich they are currently losing $40 per unit sold), but third-party developers and publishers will be more inclined to create games for the Playstation 3.

In the past, companies like THQ and Activision had petitioned Sony to reduce the price of the Playstation 3, claiming that its price tag was negatively effecting software sales.

Sebastian’s speculation is nothing new, really, but it does reinforce the growing idea that the Playstation 3’s price tag is too expensive for most consumers, particularly in a such a turbulent economy.

While the Playstation 3 may boast the fastest and latest in technology (including its heavily touted Blu-Ray player) current sales numbers suggest that customers are gravitating more towards cheaper alternatives such as Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Nintendo’s Wii.

It is worth noting, however, that analysts have in the past incorrectly predicted a price drop for the Playstation 3. In February, Mike Hickey of Janco Partners said, “We believe the market is expecting a PS3 price cut in April or by June at the latest.”

April has come and gone, and as of today, no price cut is looking likely in June either.

In response to a wave of public criticism, yesterday, Bioware decided to lift the restriction in their community forums that previously prevented users from using words that referenced homosexuality. According to Eurogamer, Sean Dahlberg, Community Manager at BioWare, apologized on BioWare’s forums to gamers that might have been offended.

Earlier this week, Dahlberg publicly stated on the forums for BioWare’s upcoming MMORPG, Star Wars: The Old Republic, that the words like “gay” and “lesbian” were automatically filtered and censored. Additionally, any conversations about homosexuality would be automatically closed down by forum moderators because homosexuality and terms like lesbian and gay did not exist in the Star Wars universe.

Strangely enough, though not canonically apart of Star Wars lore, in Bioware’s Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, the Cathar Jedi Knight Juhani can be a lesbian if your character’s gender is female. Additionally, in the extended Star Wars universe, there are numerous inferences to the questionable sexual preferences of some of its characters.

“My intention was not to demean anyone but simply to help promote a community that could discuss topics in a mature fashion,” said Dahlberg. “When I first built the word filter list, I added a variety of terms to the word filter that have been used numerous times in derogatory messaging. There were some words added to the filter that should not have been.”

“I have overstepped my boundaries in my original statement and I sincerely apologize for doing so.”

Several years ago, Blizzard ran into a similar problem when a moderator for World of Warcraft threatened to ban a gamer who was actively recruiting members for her gay-and-lesbian guild. Microsoft was also accused of discrimination earlier this year when they suspended a gamer who listed herself as a lesbian on her gamer profile.

According to Variety, Universal Pictures has decided to stop production on a live-action film of Bioshock due to budget reasons. The Bioshock movie, which is being directed by Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski, was set to begin filming in Los Angeles, California, but Universal selected to temporarily put things on hold until its estimated budget of $160 million can be reevaluated.

Despite the set back, Verbinski and Variety’s sources inside Universal Pictures have said that they still fully intend on finishing the movie. The obstacles are purely financial, and Verbinski and Universal are already planning to film in London instead of Los Angeles to cut back on expenses.

“We were asked by Universal to move the film outside the U.S. to take advantage of a tax credit,” Verbinski said. “We are evaluating whether this is something we want to do. In the meantime, the film is in a holding pattern.”

In 2006, Universal Pictures and Fox pulled the plug on a live-action adaptation of the Halo series when it was rumored that production costs were projected to far exceed the film’s budget of $135 million. Neil Blomkamp was set to direct the film, and Peter Jackson was also attached to the movie as producer.

To date, film adaptations of video games have enjoyed varied success. The Hitman film (starring Timothy Olyphant and produced by Luc Besson) turned a profit by grossing $100 million on its budget of $70 million. However, the doomed CGI film Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within bombed in the box-office, losing approximately $94 million and almost bankrupting Squaresoft. Other video game films like BloodRayne and Alone in the Dark (both directed by German filmmaker Uwe Boll) have been blasted by critics and proclaimed as some of the worst movies ever made.

Bioshock was originally slated for a release in 2010. No announcement of a new release date has yet to be issued by Universal Pictures.

Earlier this month, it was rumored that Harmonix was planning on giving Rock Band the LEGO treatment after one of their senior designers accidentally let the news slip during the Game Developers Conference. However, according to Business Wire, today they came out and officially announced that LEGO: Rock Band is in the works and will be coming to home consoles (including the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Nintendo Wii, and Nintendo DS) in time for the holiday season.

LEGO Rock Band will be compatible with “Rock Band instruments, as well as other music game controllers.”

“We’re thrilled to offer another LEGO branded gaming experience that will deliver humorous and social play for families and friends,” said Henrik Taudorf Lorensen, VP of the LEGO Group. “LEGO Rock Band is built around the same values of imagination and family-friendly creative role play that is present in other LEGO videogames. It will deliver innovative new elements of game play that complement the fun of the Rock Band experience.”

Harmonix is working in cooperation with TT Games to create a new Rock Band experience that revolves around the theme of “Build a Band and Rock the Universe.” It will be full of “fun, customization and humor of the LEGO videogame franchise” and its track list is comprised of chart-topping hits and other popular songs that will appeal to a younger and more family friendly audience.

So far, some of the songs that Harmonix have confirmed will be in LEGO: Rock Band are Carl Douglas’ “Kung Fu Fighting”, Europe’s “The Final Countdown”, and Good Charlotte’s “Boys and Girls.”

TT Games are the developers responsible for other LEGO titles, including LEGO Star Wars, LEGO Batman, and LEGO Indiana Jones:The Original Adventures. Harmonix and MTV Games are behind the hit sensation, Rock Band, which has generated over $1 billion dollars of revenue in sales.

Via The Game Review

Activision Blizzard has elected to leave the ranks of the PC Gaming Alliance, a coalition of PC developers and hardware manufactures devoted promoting PC gaming, and SecuROM has stepped up to take its place as the PCGA’s newest member.

No official explanation for Acitivion Blizzard’s abrupt departure has been officially announced.

The news has caused many gamers to stop and scratch their heads in befuddlement. The Blizzard portion of Activision Blizzard has been a long time supporter of the PC, developing some of the most popular titles to ever grace the platform. Blizzard’s Starcraft is still played regularly as a professional sport internationally, and its MMORPG, World of Warcraft, has a large subscriber base of over 10 million users.

SecuROM, on the other hand, is responsible for the anti-piracy DRM that companies like Electronic Arts implement to prevent users from making illegal copies of their games. However, many gamers have accused the methods used by SecuROM (which include limiting the number of times a game can be installed) as being invasive and unfair. Game developers, however, defend using using anti-piracy software to protect their games, citing examples like Electronic Art’s Spore which has been illegally downloaded an estimate 1.7 million times through BitTorrent clients.

Ironically, many gamers who pirated Spore claim that they only did so because Spore had SecuROM on it to begin with.

Though SecuROM may seem like an unlikely member to join the PCGA (which includes companies like Nvidia, AMD, Epic Games, and Capcom), the PCGA has explained that they do not discriminate against applicants. If the company is a member of the PC gaming world and willing to pay their membership fees, then they are free to join.

From: The Game Reviews

Ever go to sleep wishing you could snuggle up to a fuzzy replica of your Blood Elf Paladin geared out in their T6 tanking set? Or is your gaming center just not complete without a plushie version of old Solid Snake’s cycloptic gaze glaring down at you? If so, you are in luck because an artist named Debbie has set up shop creating custom made plushies from a variety of games, animes and movies, including World of Warcraft, Megaman, Naruto and more!

WowInsider reports that in addition to tailoring a very huggable looking female Troll Shaman (complete with totems), Debbie’s talented hands are also responsible for a Raika and Chaud plushie (Megaman NT Warriors) and a female Troll Priestess plushie. A gallery of her past commission works, including Twilight’s Edward if you are into that sort of thing, are viewable on her website.

She generally charges $60 for a custom made plushie and $10 for shipping. The plushies stand anywhere between ten to fifteen inches tall, are dressed in the character’s appropriate outfit, and come with whatever accessories (swords, guns, etc.) that you desire.

$60 may seem like a lot of money for a stuffed animal, but take into consideration that each one of them are hand tailored and probably require at least five or six hours in order to make. And that is not even taking into consideration the materials that go into the crafting process. It is also worth noting that her rates are, at the very least, comparable to getting a drawing or painting of your favorite video game character commissioned.

FigurePrints offers a similar service, allowing gamers to purchase a miniature replica of their World of Warcraft character for $130 plus shipping.

Here’s linkage to her store.