Last September, Ubisoft and Blue Byte released a detailed strategy fest in the form of The Settlers: Rise of an Empire. The game had all sorts of bells and whistles which made for a deep and engaging strategy experience. Now The Settlers: Rise of an Empire patch 1.3 is out and some dandy new features along with bug fixes are being served. Read the detailed version to see the changelog.

In an interview with GameSpot, Frank DeLise, general manager of KAOS Studios, talks about the various strengths and weaknesses Frontlines: Fuel of War will have on each platform it will appear on. DeLise talks about the PC-exclusive multiplayer map editor, the use of the PS3's SIXAXIS controller, and the Xbox 360's Xbox Live Server Platform. Read all about the platform details for Frontlines: Fuel of War in the full article.

We just reported earlier about the rather belated news of the expulsion of a Chinese student. He was expelled from Clements High School because he was spotted playing a game of Counter-Strike on a map that, according to the police, was based off of his own high school's floor plan.

Unfortunately, because many facts have been hidden from the media, I, for one, am very skeptical about such a claim. I've searched high and low for more information on the story, but all of it revolved around relations to the Virginia Tech shooting and some executive board members soiling their underpants fearful of another incident. The most specific of facts were hidden, but to what aim? Fairness? Speaking of fairness...

Authorities claimed that hallways in the map were reminiscent of the student's high school's hallways. Granted that may be so, is the high school made up of just those hallways?

It's sad that we ended up drawing speculations here, but because the evidence (the map layout coupled with the high school floorplan) was never revealed to the media, can you blame us for doing so?

But let's take this into another point of view. There are many issues that gamers and some third-party onlookers have raised with this development, just about equally for and against the rash decision of the district board. First is the issue of maps depicting real-life locations and understanding what map making entails.

The second issue that people have had, which includes the 17-year-old senior's supporters, involves blowing the Virginia Tech shooting to proportions way off the "common sense Richter scale." In fact, it either began to look like the budding of another racial stereotype or, as one district board member claimed, the first of probably many overreactions, thanks to the VA Tech shooting and anti-video game activists. But let's tackle these one by one.

Click on Full Article to read more on this opinion piece.

Always been curious as to what goes on behind the glamour and fame of rock stars' lives? Now, you don't have to settle for front row tickets no more 'coz Gilligames will take you right to the back AND front stage with Shady O'Grady's Rising Star!

The genre-bending music career RPSim game for the PC will allow you to take on the role of a struggling musician and follow your career as you get into the industry and fill up stadiums of screaming fans. To have that realistic feel to it, the game will also have you working odd jobs while you struggle to make your band known.

And when you're finally rockin' stages and getting mobbed by fans and groupies, you can also adopt that rockstar attitude of getting dead drunk and trashing hotels and motels. (We're not sure about the sex and the drugs though, we suggest you don't get your hopes up.) Here are some more features you can expect from the game:

• RPG-style experience/leveling system, with six assignable skills: Songwriting, Playing, Stage Presence, Production, Repair, and Business.
• Make band decisions based on your musicians' Inspiration, Health, Happiness, and Ego levels.
• Over 800 different types of customizable equipment (via the Equipment Editor), over 120 cities to roam and conquer, 50+ paint jobs to customize your van
• Customize your band's appearance with thousands of combinations of hairstyles, hats, glasses, shirts, pants, pants, and wrist/hand wear.
• Built-in tutorial to help beginners understand the wealth of information and options.
• Soundtrack of original music from real independent bands.
• Map editor, allowing you to add, delete, or modify existing cities.

Shady O'Grady's Rising Star is developed by Gilligames and is now available for purchase (digital download and/or boxed) at the game's official site which you can access via the read link below.

   

After their game creation contest with Nvidia, The Game Creators started to move into the next level of game development tools. Their newest developer title, FPS Creator X10, currently fixed on game development on the latest DirectX and Windows platforms, will inspire game developers to touch the next-generation level of games.

The full developer suite is designed to be developed and played on Windows Vista, coupled with Microsoft's latest API, DirectX 10, and Nvidia's 8800 DX10 cards.

Known for their other popular developer's tools Dark Basic, The 3D Gamemaker and the first FPS Creator, The Game Creators next-gen tool will allow developers to design complete, feature-rich, next-gen-rendered games, even without any programming knowledge. It's a drag and drop, click-here-click-there tool that can make an easy-go-lucky newbie developer look like a pro.

FPS Creator X10 includes:

• GPU instancing: enables a game to feature many more characters whose appearance and behavior can be varied using powerful texture array techniques
• Volumetric soft particle system: smoke and fire are modeled more realistically
• New soft shadowing technology: objects in-game look much more realistic
• Bloom effects, Fresnel water, realistic reflections: all new shader features that come hand-in-hand with DirectX 10

The tool also integrates a visual editor, a physics system and modeler, and a map editor. It also comes with 800 3D objects including 62 different enemy models and meshes and 18 weapons, not counting those you can import from your own. And that even includes sounds and music. And FPS Creator X10 isn't even limited to the FPS genre: with add-on model packs, you can expand the tool's genre horizon.

Multiplayer also comes with the package, ranging from LAN to Internet host-client connections. There's support for quad and dual core systems, including single core systems. And games created with the engine and the included content can be released for free or sold 100% royalty-free. All you need is your creativity and FPS Creator X10 will handle the rest (with a decent enough machine).

Click on Full Article to view screenshots of FPS Creator X10's features.