OK, stop trying to play your EA games online with the PSP. They simply don't support it. Surely it was an "accident", but it is convenient for EA that their PSP launch titles all mention Wi-fi Infrastructure support. Dan over at the Sports Gamer Blog has dug up dirty details on EA's support site where they claim it was a misprint on their boxes. Unfortunately, for PSP owners buying launch titles, that was one hell of a misleading misprint. Titles with the mislabeled boxes are Need For Speed Underground Rivals, NBA Street Showdown, FIFA Soccer, NFL Street 2 Unleashed, and Tiger Woods PGA Tour.
[via Portagame]

Today gamers who were prepared to start grinding in World of Warcraft were greeted with queues of over 600 people just to log in. Gamers are reportedly waiting hours for a taste of the game. The problem has much to do with the popularity of the PvP servers on the first day of the launch. Other problems such as disconnects and game crashes have added to their wounds. This brings back painful memories of the Ultima Online launch… 7 years ago.

Game awards are kind of like our next door neighbor; sometimes they are in touch reality and sometimes they aren't. Billboard's attempt didn't draw our ire, although giving the "Best Use of Sound" award to True Crime: Streets of LA was questionable during a year we learned to command squads by voice.  The well executed City of Heroes took top honors as well as the multiplayer award. Developer of the Year went to BioWare Corp largely for their efforts with KOTOR and expansions on the Neverwinter Nights franchise.

We took advantage of the Guild Wars preview event last weekend to take a look around at the state of the game. Apparently, over 400,000 other players were on during the weekend, which makes the performance we experienced that much more remarkable. The game itself is like an MMO hack-n-slash RPG with many quests designed for teams of players. In a game like WoW, quests frequently will find multiple parties camping spawn points in order to complete the quest. Guild Wars solves the issue by spawning an isolated instance of quests for each group producing a consistent experience. Grouping for a quest takes place in a holding area that notes the recommended group size. This prevents lone players from rushing into an area designed for large groups of players and getting killed, which seems to happen a lot to a certain friendless Joystiq blogger. More details about the upcoming beta weekends at the game's site.

Blizzard has announced World of Warcraft will hit stores on Nov. 23 in North America, Australia, and New Zealand.  Gamers can choose between the regular version and a special Collector's Edition which among other things will give you an exclusive in-game pet. Both versions will include the first month free and subscriptions will vary in price between $12.99 and $14.99 depending on the payment plan chosen. While we think this is a little expensive, we really find the quest driven nature of advancement they have chosen extremely addictive and enjoyable. The Collector's Edition will also include a 10-day guest pass so you can get someone else hooked on the drug.

Aspyr Media and id Software now have a Mac version of Doom 3 available for pre-order. Yes, we know none of you use Apple computers, but this would be a good gift for your fruity Mac-loving friend. Doom 3 just gets everyone into the holiday spirit with a nice "Welcome to HELL!"

We know you like heart stopping food and video games so we consider this more of a public service announcement than anything else.  Check in at your local Big Mac vendor for their Monopoly game pieces and enter online to try to get a one year subscription to GameFly. We think a year of game rentals is worth whatever damage those burgers would cause.

Accessory manufacturer Mad Catz Interactive has decided to create a dance game to go along with their dance pads. MC Groovz Dance Craze will be the first dance game Nintendo GameCube and should hit stores in time for the holiday season. If you insist on some exercise with your gaming, this game might be for you. MC Groovz Dance Craze will go for about $50 (dance pad included) and will feature music from Jewel, Jessica Simpson, and various club tracks.

We don't think there is anything wrong with exercising; it's something for people who can't play games very well. Now there is a product for crazies that want to get exercise while they play shooters. We are quite sure that the designers of the product are well intentioned, but this is just ridiculous, one could even say it's stupid. The FP Gamerunner looks like a treadmill with a scooter's handle bar attached to it and can be used to play any FPS. Apparently, you twist the handle bar to aim vertically and to strafe you continue walking forward while pushing a button. Just thinking about walking forward to go sideways is making us nauseous.

We've come to expect nothing from games tied to movie franchises so we feel a little out of sorts to be excited about Lord of the Rings: The Third Age. The game is a full featured RPG that allows free roaming play, the ability to complete quests for either side of the war, and renders all items on your character. We are also pleased that we won't be playing as any member of the Fellowship. Hobbits are great, but playing a game as a three foot tall, peace loving character with no fighting abilities just isn't our idea of fantasy. EA has promised a lot with this game, if they fail to deliver, we'll be forced to never buy another movie tie-in again.

For our RTS fans, Atari is still taking a few more registrations for beta testing Act of War: Direct Action. The beta for this near future RTS should feature a full tech tree as they attempt to balance out the sides. If getting to play multiplayer games about war for free is your thing, then you'll want to head over to the registration site and use the code "AOW-PRE". Also you should make sure you have at least a P4 2.2GHz, 512Mb RAM, and a pretty solid video card (128Mb) so that you can zoom around the battlefield smoothly. The beta test starts this week, so get your registration in immediately.
Thanks Ken

The 'Extreme' speed platform was announced today by Intel which includes the new 925XE Express chipset capable of an astounding 1066MHz system bus speed. An Extreme Edition of the Pentium 4 running at 3.46 GHz is also being released to go along with it. Both of these are allegedly targeted at us, the hardcore gamers. Someone seems to have forgotten to mention to Intel that the only gamers that can afford a $999 processor are the inept rich guys down the street who we repeatedly frag.

Nintendo has scored a temporary restraining order against companies importing and selling devices with bootleg copies of classic NES games. The devices sold as "Superjoy", "Powerjoy", and "Power Player" come preloaded with approximately 85 games some of which are original 8-bit NES games. These plug-n-play devices which are manufactured in China were being peddled from kiosks in malls and online. Many of the games featured are currently enjoying a revival on the GBA SP.

We're big fans of machinima and unconventional behavior in MMOs, so when we saw the winner of this year's Star Wars Galaxies Fan Film Fest, something just resonated with us. Anything that involves gamers deciding to pass on living their 'real' lives to spend hours in a game not even playing is just something that we can't help but encourage. Go forth good gamer, watch it then make more movies for us to enjoy…

[via Boing Boing]

When we saw these screenshots we just had to everyone go check them out. Click through and take a look at what could be the best looking MMO. These were taken in game from the preview we mentioned ealier.
[thanks Kamalot]