The rumors of Pandemic working on a newLord of the Ringstitle have been confirmed today, and it’s definitelynotthe dead-on-arrival role-playing title,The White Council. Sticking with what they know best, Pandemic will deliver a large-scale battle title,Lord of the Rings: Conquestto Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC later this year. Think their popularBattlefrontgames, just with trolls, elves, and orcs, because that’s the direction they seem to be taking withConquest. The game will span a number of the epic battlefields from the franchise, with raging battles that will feature up to 150 characters on-screen at once....

Some offlineGears of War 2enthusiasts aren’t happy with Title Update 4. In addition to adding XP to Horde mode, Epic Games added oomph to the smoke grenade. The sissy projectile now causes a momentary cringe effect on players during animations. While people seemsomewhatfine with the change, they aren’t in love with the update. According to a few rabble-rousers on the game’s official message board, the added cringe effect won’t work offline....

Playmatics has teamed up with The Millenium Institute (no relation to Lance Henriksen) and raised $1 million from Swiss angel investors for the upcoming “Shadow Government” project. This social game is descibed as “an entirely new form of social gaming based on the gamification of real countries, systems, and worldwide events.”Shadow Governmentuses real-world data and The Millenium Institute’s government modeling tools to create a kind of educational game where you can run nations and play around with variables to see what they do....

Tus ojos son como la luna. Tu cara es como un perro. This week we (“we” being the usual suspects — Sterling, Chow, Linde and myself) be talking about a whole assload of random news-related stuff, as we are wont to do. Stuff about Spitzer,Brawl, swag, and the Holocaust will probably be discussed in some form or another. As always, we need reader questions: ideally, reader questions which have nothing to do with any of the aforementioned subjects....

That might be a bit of an exaggeration. There’s been some pretty horrendous VO work in the past (I’m looking at you, Capcom). But if they gave awards for worst vocal performance in a videogame,Dante’s Infernois currently on my shortlist for 2009 after this teaser. And it’s just a taste of what is apparently a larger trailer — called “Lust and Heresy” — that will be coming down the pipe on the first of June....

With a little under three weeks untilBioShock 2‘s arrival, it won’t be long now until we’re delivering justice to the Splicers with our drill arm and gazing at our own watery reflection as a Big Daddy. For what it’s worth (hint: three dollars worth of Lemonheads), I’m not entirely sure what to expect from the sequel. If trends continue, I’ll probably have the game’s big twist spoiled by some site before I even get a chance to viciously stab at the case’s plastic wrapping, so it won’t even matter....

That is one ugly djinn. I’m somewhat concerned about thePrince of Persiafranchise.Sands of Timeis a legendary game, and the series began a precipitous fall in the titles that followed it. The last iteration, an attempted reboot, took the story in a new direction but many lamented gameplay changes — myself included. But does the solution to the problem really lie in going back to the same thing which had been going to hell in the first place?...

Iexpressed interest inMagickaa while ago, attracted to its sense of humor and classic hack n’ slash roleplaying sensibilities. The game’s publisher, Paradox, doesn’t seem to screw around either, suddenly announcing that the game is out on January 25. That’s less than a week away. Should be a neat little co-op PC title, so keep an eye on it if you’re a fan ofDiabloand genre-savvy humor. And who isn’t a fan of such things?...

If you like Western pop music, chances are high that you enjoy at least a few songs by The Beatles. But if you haven’t yet picked upThe Beatles: Rock Band, Harmonix’s love letter to the most beloved and influential rock group of all time — either because you thought $60 was too much to pay for 45 tracks that weren’t necessarily your favorites, or for some other reason — then you no longer have an excuse....

The PlayStation Portable might be doing well in Japan, but the same cannot be said in the United States. The system’s sales have dropped off a metaphorical cliff in the US, with sales down 58% from last year. This includes both the PSP-3000 and the rubbish PSPgo. 100,000 PSP units were sold this January, according to the latest NPD data. Compare that to 2009, when Sony shifted 172,000 of both units, and we’re looking at a 58% sales drop....

The Parents Television Council is one of many groupsthat would like to seethe videogames industry fall under tighter legislation, restrictions that currently envelop no other form of entertainment, to satisfy their ambitions of being childhood saviors. Despite the fact that it’s considered more likely for a child to buy R-rated movies than mature games, this hasn’t stopped the PTC assuming videogames are the more troublesome issue. “We frequently hear from our members and parents that keeping violent videogames out of their children’s hands is a top priority,” declared PTC national grassroots director Gavin McKiernan....

“In this latest installment of the wildly popular franchise, players are reacquainted with Leon S. Kennedy, Raccoon City’s idealistic rookie cop from Resident Evil 2. In the six years since the destruction of Raccoon City, the U.S. government has been able to destroy the nefarious Umbrella Corporation.” You know how the ESRB website has becometheplace for gamers to sniff out premature game announcements lately? Well, it looks like sites like EBgames and Best Buy are looking to provide some competition in that regard....

Aside from wicked huge monsters and a kicking pace,Resistance 2will feature split-screen play of both varieties – cooperative and competitive. In the latest post onPlayStation Blog, Insomniac community relations manager James Stevenson revealed that the game’s 8-player co-op mode will support split-screen players, as well as itsmassivecompetitive multiplayer component. In addition to the above reveal, Stevenson noted that the bonus DVD included with thecollector’s editionof the game has been switched to a Blu-Ray disc....