EA's Pogo division has opened a new studio in Austin, Texas, to work on the company's Hasbro licensed properties. In an interview with GameDaily, the company announced its first title will be based on visual acuity board game, Pictureka!, which the studio expects to be spotted in November for $20 on PC.

Pogo Austin's Studio Director Sean Clark says he "can imagine" the company's stable of Hasbro games (Monopoly, Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit) coming to XBLA, PSN and WiiWare, but no announcement has been made. It's actually quite surprising that Pogo hasn't made such popular franchises available for download on consoles yet.

As you long-time readers know, Joystiq loves the zombie-battling action from The Last Stand and The Last Stand 2. Now, developer Con-Artists has moved on to a new project, Warfare 1917, and though it lacks a horde of brain-hungry degenerates, its take on World War I is no less addictive.

You'll lead either the British or German forces as you try to overcome the steadily approaching opposition. It's both a battle for land and morale as you can win by either moving to the far right of the board or just beating up on your foes until they can't take it any more.

You'll decide which unit types you want to send out when, as well as the best time for them to move from trench to trench. Also at your disposal is a wide array of different big weapons like mortars and artillery, which you can rarely deploy without making sure your forces are far, far away from the target area.

We haven't completeld Warfare 1917, so we can't quite put it on the level with Last Stand yet. But if the early bits we've played are any indication, you might want to free up a couple of hours before deciding to give Warfare a try.

While Flagship's maiden voyage may have ended up as splintered wreckage at the bottom of the massively multiplayer ocean, a pair of its former crew have found safe harbor at fellow MMO studio, Turbine. The Lord of the Rings Online developer announced that former Flagship execs Dave Brevik and Jeff Lind have joined the company, and will help spearhead a newly opened studio in Redwood City, CA.

The pair is joined by industry vet and former Sniper Studios president and CEO, Matt McKnight, who will serve as the new studio's Director, while Brevik and Lind will take on roles as creative director and engineering director respectively. We offer congratulations and best of luck to all three gentlemen, though we're particularly interested in seeing what Brevik does with his new position. Creative director marks a change from his previous role as Flagship's chief visionary officer, a wise course correction given that his foresight apparently stopped just short of predicting his former employer's impending doom.

Two months ago Capcom's Christian Svensson announced that the XBLA, PSN and PC versions of Talisman had been canceled. Well, why are we bringing this up now? Curiously, it took about two months for anyone to notice, so take from that what you will.

The last time Talisman really popped up on radar was last year when it was stated the game would be out by April of 2008. Svensson notes on the Capcom site that it was no longer cost effective to continue with the project after a "misfire" at the start and the rights have reverted back to Games Workshop.

[Via GameStooge]

Infogrames has completed its $11 million stock purchase of Atari, making it a wholly owned subsidiary of the French publisher now. Infogrames CEO David Gardner stated the full buyout (it previously owned 51.4%) was another key part of the company's extreme makeover, which has seen the shocking revelation of profits show up in the publisher's coffers.

We wonder if this is the key step needed for us to bid adieu to Infogrames and see its name changed to Atari?

Tokyo Game Show organizer CESA announced (via IGN) that the show had 194,288 visitors this year, up about a thousand attendees from last year. The increase in visitors on the public days made up for the significant drop during the two "business only" days of the show.

• Thursday (Business): 27,305 ('07 - 29,783)
• Friday (Business): 24,178 ('07 - 32,390)
• Saturday (Public): 71,639 ('07 - 64,795)
• Sunday (Public): 71,166 ('07 - 66,072)

Good thing TGS is open to the public because those figures really help distract from asking: where have all the business folks gone?

We finally have some news on the long-awaited patch for Castle Crashers. According to a post on developer Behemoth's site, the problems (including connectivity issues) have been "knocked out" and the team is currently verifying the updates before sending it off to Microsoft for certification.

In perhaps one of the biggest understatements, the post states, "we are aware that many of you are unhappy about the wait" but explains that they had to fix all known issues at once, as opposed to release incremental updates. Certification can take a few weeks, so don't hold out hope for seeing the patch before Halloween. There should be more than enough titles to keep your attention in the interim.

The Age of Booty begins this Wednesday as the plundering pirates RTS game joins XBLA for 800 ($10). The release date is in line with what Capcom had previously announced, which means the title should be available on PSN this Thursday and "shortly after" for PC.

Taking a lesson from last week, this doesn't mean Age of Booty is the only release for XBLA this Wednesday. After Tenchu snuck in like a ninja at the eleventh hour, we're keeping an eye out whether any other games jump out of the shadows. En garde!

Shockingly, the Brash formula of churning out abysmal movie-based games with little (read: no) redeeming qualities apparently hasn't panned out so well. Now, another of the company's co-founders, Legendary Pictures' Thomas Tull, has followed the lead of former boss Nicholas Longano and vertically disembarked from Brash: The Boat Made of Holes by leaving the company's board.

Proving that the rich and the proletariat do share some common ground, Variety reports "Tull is believed to have been disappointed with the quality of Brash's games." Welcome to the clubhouse, Tom. Sorry it's so packed in here.

A NeoGAF member who hobbies as ESRB archive scavenger has stumbled upon an update for Marvel vs. Capcom 2 that lists the game for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The game, a frenetic 3-on-3 arcade bralwer from 2000 (and probably one of the main reasons you keep a Sega Dreamcast around, assuming you didn't pick up the PS2 or Xbox One version), seems like a perfect fit for Xbox Live Arcade or PS Network. We've reached out to Capcom for more information.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]

No one does it like Japan. No one takes cosplay more seriously than them. To the Japanese it's an art form or even a form of sport, if you will. Cosplay takes massive dedication – there's getting into shape to look the part, and then talk about those hours upon hours applying wax in one's hair to get that exact patented look down right to the point of copyright infringement.

It's all about going the extra mile, and Japan has perfected the Zen-like disciplined lifestyle of the cosplayer. Of course, we're not knocking down other countries and their costume mimicry attempts; Americans are getting there, we're sure you can agree, but it still pales in comparison. This is still very much Japan's homecourt. See for yourselves ... our gallery awaits.

Here's a great object lesson in why PR people get so nervous about letting the talent do interviews: While speaking with AusGamers, Prince of Persia animation director David Wilkinson was heaping praise on Alex Drouin, who worked on animations for Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, as well as mega-hit Assassin's Creed. When asked what Drouin is up to now at about 14:28 in, Wilkinson said "He's busy making Altair even more beautiful. Last thing I saw him do was getting Altair to swim."

This off-handed comment seems to suggest (1) New Assassin's Creed game is in the works (shock). (2) It will at least be partially focused on Altair. (3) He will swim, which, considering his bulky cloth duds, could be the most surprising part of all.

[Via TVB]

Wow, see now this is a game release week. We're featuring Dead Space, because it looks incredible and we're dying to get our hands on it, but we could just have easily gone with PS3's new SOCOM game, Saint's Row 2 or Bratz: Girls Really Rock.

See the full list right after the break, just be sure to shield your wallet's eyes first. You don't want to scare the little guy.

Australia's high-strung ratings board, the OFLC, notes that 50 Cent: Blood in the Sand will be published by THQ -- at least in that region. The game received an "MA 15+" rating last Friday. Holla atcha boy if you happy it ain't banned.

The 50 Cent sequel had previously been dropped by Activision during its merger with Vivendi, which caused rumors to spring up that the game had died. But much lite Fitty getting shot, Developer Swordfish Studios got back up and announced that the game was still in development and trying to make a holiday release. THQ was previously speculated to be a publisher for the game, but the OFLC rating is the first piece of evidence of that claim's validity.

Source - THQ picks up 50 Cent game (GI.biz)
Source - 50 Cent: Blood in the Sand is Dead, Dead, Dead [update] (Kotaku)

You have to feel a little bad for WiiWare. Just when it manages to mount a decent effort with the completely solid-looking World of Goo, here's what the Virtual Console answers back with:

Secret of Mana (Super NES, 1-3 players, 800 Wii Points) -- Oh, you remember Secret of Mana, it's only one of the very best role-playing games ever, with two million copies shipped worldwide. It's also got one of the best pieces of box art in history, not that you'll get to enjoy that.

Oh, and...

Street Fighter II: Special Championship Editon (Sega Genesis, 1-2 players, 800 Wii Points) -- In case you have as hard a time keeping SFII games straight at we do, allow us to remind you that this is the one that blends Turbo, Hyper and Champion editions and adds the Group Battle mode. (P.S. Do yourself a favor and check out that video we linked to, it's a treat.)

Wow, WiiWare, that's gotta hurt. At least Art Style: Cubello is there to soften the blow.