One of the most exciting bits of news that gamers can hear is that of the release date for highly-anticipated games. Fortunately for gamers in the United Kingdom, Play.com has spilled the beans via a booklet. Release dates for various games such as Fable 2 and Protorype have been announced.

Got a particular game in mind? Why not check the full article for the list of games?

OCZ Technology, the people you'd best know for their highly-prized, branded, enthusiast performance memory modules, are now entering a different product for the extreme PC gamer in most of us. You've seen what the Emotiv EPOC neuroheadset hoped to achieve back in GDC 2008. Okay, so EPOC probably wasn't the spectacular unveiling it was supposed to be, but in essence, it works. And OCZ will be creating something similar, but this time it's optimized for PC play. Head on to the full article for more details.

Gamers who are looking for a unique perspective into their video gaming habits will definitely get a kick out of Emotiv Systems' Emotiv EPOC neuroheadset. This unique gaming accessory allows you to control in-game characters using the neuron signals transmitted by your brain. Other details about this neat gadget can be found in the full article after the jump.

Silicon Knight, the developers of the Xbox 360 exclusive Too Human, has announced that it is working on a new third person action/psychological thriller for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and the PC. Expected to be released by 2010, this new video game will be funded by a project called the Video Game Prototype Initiative. For more information, head on over to the full article.

Ron Carmel and Kyle Gabler, founders of 2D Boy, are the creators of the 2008 Independent Games Festival finalist (IGF), World of Goo. In their interview with Gamasutra, they talk about how they were able to create such a game, their opinions on the state of the independent game developers, and their thoughts on the game itself.

What they had on their minds after the jump!

It's been some time since we last heard about Radical's new game Prototype. It's still a long way off from hitting the market, but it's time we learned more about it so we have something to chew on for the holidays. In a recent Games Radar interview with the game's producer, Max Belanger, we find out more about Alex Mercer, the game's protagonist.

Mercer isn't your typical hero. He is, in fact, described as one of gaming's "darkest anti-heroes." Now, Mercer has a ton of cool powers - super strength, enhanced agility and shape shifting - but what's really interesting is his psychological development in the game. Which Belanger refuses to speak much of. What he does talk about though, is that Mercer is a character who "searches for answers":

Answers about himself, answers about his powers, his abilities. As the story evolves we will learn some of the things that were done to him and some of the things he's done. I think it's self-explanatory when you play through the game - he's going to really feel like an anti-hero.

He sounds a lot like the characters of Logan and Batman. Prototype will be released for the Xbox 360, the PlayStation 3 and the PC in the summer of 2008.

  

We have introduced two modified cars (Peugeot Super 2000 and Citroen C2 Super 1600) from Sega Rally Revo's growing garage in our previous post, now meet the other members in the modified cars list: Grande Punto Rally S2000 and Toyota Celica VVTi.

The Grande Punto Rally is getting good marks on the Intercontinental Rally Challenge, and is quite competent in tackling various kinds of terrain - it's not strange to see a Grande Punto Rally in Sega Rally Revo sporting huge wheels for a road event, the switch to gravel spec wheels for the next safari event. It's that flexible. With its inherent good specs, there's nothing much on the Grande Punto that needs to be improved (it's still a prototype car), since apart from external changes such as roof mounted spoilers and front and rear bumper re-profiling, everything is fairly unchanged.

And then there's the Toyota Celica VVTi, chosen for its excellent tuning and modifications. The coupe features a fast front wheel drive that works well in road settings. As a bonus for this modified car, there is a special unlockable livery that features a certain Sega icon, probably the same as the livery 3 for the Citroen C2 as mentioned in the previous article.

Sega Rally Revo is up for release on PS3, Xbox 360, PC, PSP, and is also slated as a mobile game title. Do check out this space for more updates!

   

 

James Orry of UK gaming news site PRO-G reports that Ubisoft's Blazing Angels 2: Secret Missions, has unfortunately been set for a delay of sorts. It's supposed spring release is now a more specific August 31.

In this iteration of the franchise, you play the leader of Operation Wildcard, an undercover and elite squad of pilots secretly created by the American government. Your mission is to stop the Nazis from creating a weapon of mass destruction. In the game itself, you get access to spy missions using some extremely hush-hush prototype aircraft, so your life as a spy isn't all that bad.

Blazing Angels 2: Secret Missions is to be released for the Xbox 360, PC, and PS3. The US is set to see the game a few days earlier as the North American release date is August 28.

Gamasutra bring us more word from the ongoing Game Developers Conference (GDC), and this time it's all about prototyping as explained by Jonathan Blow.

Blow is a programmer and designer who works primarily on advanced and experimental video games. His game Braid, a meditation on loss and relationships where the player controls time to solve puzzles, the Game Design award at the Independent Games Festival in 2006.

Blow started the 45-minute session by showing what doesn't make for a good prototype. As an example, Blow used a magical gesture-based combat game he had worked on, where he heavily prototyped the gesture system. According to Blow, just testing the thing did not make a good prototype. "Even though it exercised the technical parts of the scheme, it didn't exercise the game play parts," he said.

Blow conceded that while some prototypes won't be much fun, but they can be successful. Speaking of Braid's precursor, Oracle Billiards, Blow said that while it didn't do what he wanted, he "got a feeling out of it that I never got out of any game I ever played before."

Another of Blow's more successful prototypes was one called Raspberry. Again, Blow didn't quite find the Raspberry prototype enjoyable, but what mattered was that it was successful. Raspberry went on to become a big part of what led up to his next project, Eight Dots.

In closing, Blow emphasized that just like in the strategy games he is so fond of, life is a very limited resource. Wasting it on quick games that are just "good enough" is unfortunate.

First, there were videos. Then came the screenshots. This time we're bringing you some much-needed details regarding Time0, Zootfly's upcoming third-person actioner. PlayStation Universe recently had the chance to speak with Zootfly CEO Bostjan Troha about the game, so read on for a few snippets.

The tech demo for Time0 was shown running on Xbox 360, so of course there are still some questions regarding a PS3 or Wii release for the title. Troha said that while the ultimate decision "depends on the publisher to great extent," they would really like to "have Time0 on both the PS3 and the Xbox 360." Wii owners are pretty much out of the loop, though, as according to Troha, the game's engine is "just too complex to port to the Wii at this point."

The PS3 thing seems to be a lock, though, as Troha noted that they are currently in the process of porting the Xubl engine to the PS3. The Xubl engine is what allowed Zootfly to port the engine and the Time0 vertical slice to Xbox 360 in under a month, thanks to its platform-independent architecture. It essentially allows the devs to "prototype and develop very efficiently, not losing precious time debugging an editor."

Time0 currently runs smoothly at 720p on an Xbox360. When asked for their target resolution for the PS3 version, Troha said that they will "have to do some more porting and optimizing" to see what can be achieved. The same is pretty much true for SIXAXIS support, but Troha did give out a few examples of what players can do using the PS3's tilt controls, like kicking in doors by thrusting the controller forward and breaking window bars by pulling swiftly it towards you.

As for the release date, Zootfly is still shopping for a publisher, but Troha is optimistic. "If there won't be major changes," he said, "the game should be out by Christmas 2008."