Universal and Gore Verbinski are going into "Bioshock."

Studio has signed a deal to turn last year's hit videogame, which won numerous awards and sold more than 2 million units worldwide, into a film.

The "Pirates of the Caribbean" helmer is attached to direct and produce. "Aviator" scribe John Logan is in talks to pen the screenplay.

"Bioshock" publisher Take-Two Interactive is getting a multimillion-dollar advance against gross points on the pic. It's believed to be the biggest videogame-to-movie deal since 2005, when U and Fox signed onto the since aborted "Halo" pic, for which Microsoft got $5 million against 10%.

Hoist the anchor and hold onto the rail… There be pirates aboard the podcast! Dave, left defenseless at the helm, is unable to stop Skunkeen’s mutiny… so he joins in… will the podcast ever be the same?

Bob aka FFBJ is subjected to Dave’s rambling interviewing techniques which have been deemed torture by numberous human-rights organizations. Rest assured Bob weathers the storm and delivers an intimate look into making a world come alive.

GamePro: Sacred II is another game with influences dating back to Diablo. First off, how will Sacred II appeal to Diablo fans? Second, how does it improve upon that time-tested formula?

AE: Sacred 2 will appeal to all people who are interested in fantasy RPGs with unique designs and strong stories. The influence of Diablo is just part of the backbones, but isn't the only influence. Sacred 2 offers so much more.

So, what's the creative process like for you? How did you manage to come up with all of this?

I start somewhere (could be any point of the game, even the endings) and then sort through the possibilities that could either lead to this event or could be created by it. Then I pick what fits the most and creates the most interesting scenarios. Sometimes it comes easy, sometimes I have to play with concepts for weeks until something really good comes to mind.

How frakking cool is the Fallout 3 Collector’s Edition?
Personally, I only get a Collector’s Edition of a game if it comes with something substantial. The lockbox and duffel bag for GTA IV, for example.

So I was really psyched when I learned we were doing the bobblehead and lunchbox, similar the ones we included in the press kit for our big announcement event several months ago. That’s some really sweet Fallout swag, yeah.

"The Temptation" Business

I know by now you think are an expert when it comes to monster insects, such as the Tranchidis, in Antaloor and nothing will surprise you, but "The Temptation" will render you speechless. In "The Temptation", the Trachidis species has continued to evolve and the latest member of the family is a combination of the ant and the fly. Naturally, this one's an awful lot bigger than our tiny insect friends from which it originates. The highly developed wings of the Trachidis give it amazing maneuverability. However, since its eyes are relatively useless, it has to rely almost 100% on its remaining senses. This weakness could be all an opponent needs to take the advantage.

Fallout 3 lead designer Emil Pagliarulo from Bethesda Softworks joins Gary, Colin and producer Kris to talk about storytelling in open-ended games, bringing a hardcore PC franchise to the mass console market and other topics related to what might be the most anticipated RPG of '08. Also, we talk about the integrity (or lack thereof?) of exclusive game reviews, the dwindling purpose behind E3 and potential hardware price cuts later this year.

It's tough work. It has been a real challenge to find a way to end the series in a plausible and satisfying way and to give the player a real role in it. It is really important to me for the game to reflect that this is a large world, full of a lot of powerful people. The player gets to have a small but pivotal role in ending the war. There are heroes and generals running around. You are the agent acting behind to scenes to help one faction be triumphant. I really like this aspect of it. It feels like the right balance between making the player significant and part of a larger world.

As I said before, there are five game-winning factions. You can play through much of the game, meeting people and finding out who the factions are, and then decide which one to join. Some are reasonable. Some are pretty crazy. All provide satisfying endings to the saga.

I have done a lot of work on the interface. Geneforge 5 now supports OpenGL and will tap some of the power of your graphics card.

In Geneforge 5, you can play the game on any size of monitor and you can play the game in a window. If you have a huge monitor, you can see a huge chunk of the terrain around you. It really makes a big difference.

I also came into work on Monday (yesterday, which was a bank holiday) with about 70 other people and today is just a normal working day. A lot is happening, if you are anxious to find out something new about Fable 2, I suggest you make sure you've got access to the internet, next week! Yes we are planning something (quite) big-ish.

What are your thoughts on "Jack Bauer in space" syndrome (i.e. the growing trend to remove the choice between good and evil from RPGs)?

I haven't played Mass Effect, so I can't comment on the qualities of the game or the "Bauer in space" syndrome, but here is what I think about good and evil choices:

Good and evil are subjective concepts and I think that developers should never present the player with clearly marked "good" and "evil" options. Since [this is] a Star Wars site, let's use the Anakin's fall in Ep. 3. From his perspective the mistrustful and arrogant Jedi Council plotted against and tried to assassinate the chancellor chosen by everyone, the chancellor who supported and trusted him. Was siding with the chancellor and turning against the Jedi an evil act? Not at all. Anakin was given reasons to act the way he did, and that's how RPGs should be designed.

Is there any truth to some peoples' opinion--and this is a lot of the hardcore Fallout fans that are saying this--that games like Oblivion and Fallout 3 that are targeted towards a very large console audience have been, put most cynically, "dumbed down," or more positively, "made more accessible"? Is there any truth to that? Have you made concessions for the mass market?

It's funny. I look at Fallout when I play it every day, and I sometimes think that there's a lot of old-school hardcore PC stuff in there too, and part of me thinks, "God, is this too inaccessible for console players?" There's a lot of dialogue to read, a lot of just hacking computers and looking through things like "VAT." I don't know. Sometimes I think it's just the opposite. So I don't feel like we're dumbing down the franchise.

...I think we're starting to find that there is a market for [hardcore "PC RPGs" on consoles]. People like myself and some people that work here actually grew up as hardcore PC guys, and now we're older, we have kids, we don't have that much time, so we've transitioned. We're console players now.

But we still have those PC game sensibilities. Those are the games we like. So I think BioShock has a little bit of that too. You can definitely feel the old System Shock roots in that game. So hopefully there's a trend there.

What influences have you drawn upon, games? Myths? Literature?

When we populated the world of Numen with monsters we certainly used a lot of reference. There are numerous books and other resources on mythical beasts, heroes and gods. But we also did want to bring something new and fresh to the game. What’s the point of exploring if you already know all the monsters you are likely to face? So we decided to introduce, along with the things you’d expect from a game set in this era, also some unique monsters, spells and features.

The PC version of Mass Effect is going to include some fairly serious security measures that may prove to be more of a threat to the game's popularity than they are to piracy.

According to Derek French, Mass Effect's technical producer at BioWare, the game's security begins with the same SecuROM online activation that aggravated so many owners of BioShock for PC. The system allows the user to activate the game three times before being required to contact a customer service rep to have it reactivated.

Mass Effect's security goes one step further, however, by dialing in every five to ten days to double check that your current CD Key and computer info matches the data that was submitted when you first activated the game.

In countless interviews and forum posts you've spoken about "choice and consequence." Would you like to explain to our readers what that means, exactly? From here it sounds little more than a buzz word -- like "extreme" or "epic".

Buzzwords like extreme, epic, next-generation, etc. describe nothing and mean nothing. Reading that game X is epic tells you nothing. These concepts are subjective and since gaming journalism tends to attract the dumbest, you can read deep thoughts like KotOR is the pinnacle of greatness in TB RPGs or KotOR's story in fact is one of the best stories told this century.

"Choices & consequences", like "turn-based" or "isometric", refers to a very specific design that can't be interpreted in different ways. A game is either turn-based or not; it either has choices or not; the gameworld either reacts to those choices or not.

Choices are the core of role-playing. That's what separates RPGs from adventure games; instead of following a predetermined path and solving problems in very specific ways, you decide what to do (within the frame of a story and setting), when to do it, and how to do it.

We are most assuredly in the month of May and eager Hellgaters everywhere are itching to hear the latest lowdown on Patch 2, estimated to reach the live servers later this month and Test Center before that time. Titled the "Abyss Chronicles", Patch 2 introduces a laundry list of succulent features. Some of the most enticing offerings include new bosses to test your mettle against, new skills for all classes, new monster types, new weapons for all factions to use on those new monster types, a consignment house, the ability to switch station instances, and lots more. A more thorough detailing of what the Abyss Chronicles will bring is not far off and will be posted along with plans for subsequent patches.

Duelmail’s premiere planned for this Friday had to be slightly rescheduled. The team responsible for the final version of the game (one2tribe and CD Projekt RED), guided by the remarks given by the players, decided to dedicate some more time to polish elements connected with balance, items and animation.


We reassure you that the delay in Duelmail’s premiere will not be long. This time it’s the case of a few days of adding some finishing touches and perfecting elements, which were asked for by the players.

Oh, and those quests? They’re generated by the world too, and the Covenants’ successes and failures feed back into them. A monstrous hero arises in the wasteland. There’s a quest to kill him. If no one does, he may gather a band of monsters to him. And then he leads to an uprising, leading to more baddies in the area. If left untouched for long enough, they’re going to storm the village. NPCs can be captured and kidnapped - generating more quests and... well, it’s Diablo meets STALKER - and that’s a STALKER that’s far more alive than GSC’s world ended up being. If you win, you can generate a whole new world for your tougher party to have a crack at.

Gas Powered Games made a big appearance onto the gaming world with their dungeon crawler, Dungeon Siege, and with the success of that title, Chris Taylor hopes that this title will be just as good… but better, of course. Multiplayer also seems to be present in Space Siege to quell any desires of wanting to play more. The game is said to be fairly short, 12-15 hour, but replayability is present. Some games that let gamers take choices all seem to be lacking in the way of making you wanting to play through a second time.

Propaganda Games' forthcoming PCS360 action-RPG is due out in 2010, "an original open world title" and I hear Oblivion is the game to beat/ inspiration/ reference/ party hat supplier.

This may be called Dungeon Hero “but it could more accurately be called Dungeon Psychopath,” says Firefly’s lead designer Simon Bradbury.

Image“After all, anyone who goes into a cold dungeon with a sword to kill things has something wrong.” That makes complete sense, of course, and is Dungeon Hero all over: applying logic to the ludicrous.

Toolset

* The toolset and game now load hak files in the same order.
* Fixed an issue where you could not tint multi-selected tiles.
* Light spheres shall now display properly.
* Sound spheres shall now display properly.
* The creature cache in Area Properties shall now work as intended.

On Sunday, I loaded up the game and headed to my final task. What amazes me about Fallout (and what I hope to find in the second and third games) is how you can find a diplomatic solution to everything. Also, that you steal everything from everyone that isn't nailed down. My "steal" skill was up so high that I didn't have to fight anyone who had an item I needed. I just had to sneak up behind them and take it. With my low fighting skills, I found this method to be the best. Of course, all good things must come to an end.

GameSpot UK: How did Blind Guardian get involved with Sacred 2?

Hansi Kursch: That's quite an interesting story. Having three very active fantasy computer game nerds in the band, it's easy to imagine the big impact Sacred 1 has had on us. Because of their passion for Blind Guardian, some of the people at Ascaron in charge of Sacred 2 saw it as an opportunity to have us in the game musically. Coincidence or predestination? We'll never know. Fact is, when we were finally contacted by Ascaron, asking if we were interested in doing a song for the game, we immediately agreed to do so. So far the whole thing has been great fun for us. The reason for that is quite simple: Blind Guardian's music and the world of Ancaria perfectly blend together.