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The news took the Internet by storm this week-end when Blizzard announced that Diablo 3 is in developpment. Many had speculated that it was about time they gave sign of life to this franchise and I can say I’m genuinely looking forward to it. The original Diablo was my first Mature rated game and I clearly remember how under aged I was back then. It’s a good old hack and slash RPG, played mostly with the mouse (point and click). If you visit their official website you can see a theatrical teaser that announces the new game, along a 22 minutes video that demonstrates the gameplay with two different character classes. You can get up to speed with the franchise by reading or listening to Cain’s journal that summerises events from the original Diablo, Diablo II, and the expansion set called Lord of Destruction. I just hope this will be released this year! Who needs Starcraft II or Warth of the Lich King when a new Diablo game is coming.

This is a wallpaper taken from the website but optimised for widescreen displays. It sports 1440×900 pixels. Enjoy… AND THE HEAVENS… SHALL TREMBLE.

For some stupid reason I’ve dedicated myself to Valve games and enjoyed playing Half-Life 2 and Half-Life 2: Episode One, since then I knew there would be three episodes and I would have to buy these games down the line to enjoy the complete story. Fair enough, the next chapter has been delayed for quite some time now and is set to be released next week on October 10th.

I was extremely pissed off when Valve cancelled the release of The Black Box that would of included Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Portal and Team Fortress 2. The games I don’t already own and would gladly purchase. However now there is only The Orange Box that includes these three games and the two I already own. Every game site seems to tout it as a great deal, and price wise it’s really good. I’m sure if you’re out there and never played those games you’ll have your money’s worth of playtime. Valve has an other clever idea for their marketing, since you don’t need these games twice you should/could give them to a friend that hasn’t played these games 2 years ago. Upon release I’ll be able to send a code to a friend so he can get these two games. The thing is if he really likes it, he’ll probably end up buying The Orange Box and get stock with two copies of those games too. I would of like better respect from Valve and at some point I wanted to vote with my dollar, make them understand how wrong it is. I just wonder what will happen when they reach the end cycle for Episode Three… will they create a new bundle to rip off their loyal contributors? I believe they had the right method at first with The Black Box, but were corrupted by evil and let money get to their heads.

I’ll finish off with my appreciation of the purchase of the game via Steam, since you need the thing running anyway to play their boxed games why not get it online. It was a few clicks and hop they got money through PayPal. The games are associated with my Steam account and through a nice pre-order discount I saved a total of 16$ compared to what my local Canadian retailer would of charged me. I consider this my first digital purchase and I think it might grow on me…

Expect a review soon, if you never played those games before look-out for massive give aways in the coming weeks, not from me – but from all the ones buying this bundle across the globe. Half-Life 2 made a kind of revolution in my gaming life with a solid story line and cinematic value action adventure.

Can’t get enough of Kratos action? You’ve already played God of War and God of War II? How about test your skills on the go? The official announcement was given via an ad with GoW II. The game is called God of War: Chains of Olympus and should come to the PlayStation Portable sometime this year. The first teaser trailer has hit the web and can be viewed at the end of the post. The official site is not fully operational yet… but there is a sign up to get a demo disk. I’m not sure if the story line is a sequel. It gave me the impression that it circles around adventures during or before the original God of War. Will have to wait a little more in order to get more information. But the graphics look sick! I mean it’s on a portable device… take that Nintendo DS!

Just a word of caution on the intense use of acronyms. They can be quite handy to use in order to communicate an information that would other wise be pretty long. Finally some good news for the Sony camp as they will soon release a sequel to their Greatest Hits God of War. Back in 2005 I had no idea that despite the arrival of all three next generation game consoles a PS2 title would still make the masses go crazy. I discovered the series last year and became an instant fan, the game play experience is simply formidable and all the friends I showed it to where amazed by it. You can read my first impressions on it in a previous post. If you are a Xbox fan when you read GoW you saw Gears of Wars, yeah that looks like a pretty good game from Epic, but I’ll wait for Unreal Tournament III to get a real taste of the action. So until that release of the day those games come to PC. I’ll look to God of War II to get off some steam once in a while. It’s release date is around the end of Febuary or middle of March, official scheduel says March but according to the editors’ blog he’s completed his work.

Previews tell that this sequel takes off right were the first installment left us. Kratos returns to complete his vengeance and still tries to struggle with his past. He is betrayed and left in some extreme situations that you have to play through and survive, slashing enemies! GoW II will come in a 2-disc set loaded with bonus features, that add-on was really appreciated on the first one and this one is a guaranteed Greatest Hits before the end of 2007. This is one exemple why the PS2 is still the platform that sells the most unit, even with the Wii, Xbox 360 and Sony’s own PS3 in the mix. It’s extra cheap and the games are still coming! You can look forward more information about God of War II when I get my hands on it.