Beyond Good & Evilcreator Michael Ancel has been talking about the inspiration behind the game and its long-awaited sequel, and has counted the September 11 terror attacks among his chief influences. “It was a mix of a lot of experiences,”he explains. “It was a phantasm to create an adventure game, a universe too. It was the game I wanted to create for a long time. There were a lot of inspirations: the Miyazaki universe, my own inspirations, politics and the media; the theme of September 11 – the CNN show with army messages and the fear climate....

[Editor’s note: Charles Sharam talks about how just naming a character immerses him in videogames for his A Time to BuildMonthly Musing. — CTZ] Typically, when people consider the creative element of videogames, their thoughts turn to PC mods likeWarcraft III’sDotAand games focused on user generated content a laLittleBigPlanet,The Sims, and so on. But there are more subtle elements of creativity at work in the world of gaming. All it takes is a small injection of personalization and a game can become truly immersive....

[Editor’s note: BulletMagnet tells a wonderful tale about Capcom’sDemon’s Crestand how it messed with his religious beliefs for his A Time to DestroyMonthly Musing. — CTZ] This might be a bit too personal of a story to be appropriate for a blog like this, but I’ll try to avoid going too deeply into the stuff no one else would be interested in. Regardless, just be advised of what’s on offer here – if you don’t mind a bit of exposition, read on....

As you may remember,Electronic Arts sent us a $200 checkto test our “greed” as a promotion for Visceral Games’Dante’s Inferno. And this is what happens when you cash it: EA then sends you a (fake) severed hand in a wooden box, of course. The packaged arrived last week while I was in Tokyo, so for about five days the severed hand and its wooden home sat on my desk while my cats batted at it with their paws....

The eight annual Game Developers Choice Awards are set to take place on February 20th withPortalandBioShockboth having the most nominations with five nods each, including Game of the Year. The award show will be hosted by Jason Rubin, creator of Crash Bandicoot, and there will be skits from the Escapist’s Zero Punctuation show as well as byMega 64 again. Aside from the main awards and the skits, there will be a few special awards given to special individuals who have made a significant impact in our beloved industry, which include Ralph Baer, Jason Della Rocca and Sid Meier....

It is no secretthat the world (except for maybe theNetherlands) is not giving Take-Two/Rockstar’sManhunt 2an easy time. The game’s violent content has beenbeaten to a bloody pulpby thevarious ratings boards, and this latest news shows that they won’t let up untilManhunt 2is an un unrecognizable, disfigured mess. Today, theBritish Board of Film Classification (BBFC) has shut down Rockstar’s newest revision toManhunt 2, essentially banning it, despite changes made in efforts to clear it for UK release....

Hey, so get this —Half-Life 2is coming to Mac tomorrow, May 25. Neat, huh? Valve announced the impending arrival of the critically-acclaimed first-person shooter by sending us a video teaser called “Free Yourself.” According to Valve, “Game ownership is no longer dictated by platform.” Seeing as how it seems the Mac is one of the last viable platforms forHalf-Life 2to land on, I suppose maybe they’re right. That’s all the info we’ve got, and pretty exciting news for Mac owners who’ve yet to experience the Valve classic....

Word fromCVGis that Sega has recently filed for trademark of “Sonic Chronicles,” which one can safely assume has everything to do with that nasty little bugger, Sonic the Hedgehog. A larger (but obvious) leap is thatSonic Chroniclesmay indeed be the name of BioWare’s unnamed Sonic role-playing game. This is backed by your favorite female who surfs,Surfer Girl, who says in her blog that “BioWare’sSonic Chroniclesis easily the most inspired game in the Sonic franchise in years and is the best sinceSonic Adventurefor the Dreamcast....

For the best gaming deals, it looks like GameStop is your best bet. Hardware wise, the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii will all be coming with free games. For the Xbox 360, you’ll have the choice betweenMadden NFL 11orMedal of Honor. For the Wii, you’ll be able to scoreJust Dancealong withWii SportsandWii Sports Resort. The best deal is with the PlayStation 3 as that will come withGod of War IIIandGod of War Collection....

Long time readers may remembera postI made almost a decade ago (in e-years) regarding the legal battle between the creators ofWorld of Warcraft(Blizzard/Vivendi) and the creator of a “bot” program called WoW Glider, one Mr. Michael Donnelly. Well, it looks like Blizzard has finally, officially filed their lawsuit against Mr. Donnelly, with the aim of stopping him from selling his program, as well as recouping money they claim they lost due to his actions....

Some days you roll out of bed and realize that you shouldn’t even have made the effort. That’s probably how the makers of WoWGlider felt when they got theVivendi legal team all up in their “biznass”over the third party program they developed that allows people to functionally playWorld of Warcraftwithout having to be present at a computer. WoWGlider is your quintessential bot program. It allows your character to go out, hunt monsters, kill them and then loot their corpses without any human interaction....

If there’s one thing Sony knows how to do, it’s a crazy advertising campaign. It’s something of a shock then that the new campaign is actually quite tame in comparison to the insane war veterans, silly cartoons and deformed heads that we’ve seen in the past. Asreported before, Sony is going back to its schizophrenic marketing by pushing the Blu-ray capabilities of the PS3 above its games, because it’s not just high definition — it’shigher definition!...

An interesting tidbit came out of aBodycountinterview with Codemasters game director Andy Wilson. “We looked atBulletstormand I think it’s fair to say that it was a sort of ‘acid test’ for us,” he tells CVG. “Because they were coming out first we were very interested in how they did and it’s a very good sign.” “It shows that there’s room around those huge titles likeBattlefieldandMedal of Honor. It’s nice to see that you can still have multi-million-selling FPS games that are not that....