Right, here’s a warning: this video contains fashion.Actualfashion. Frogster Interactive Pictures, the European publisher of MMORPGTera, brought us another MMORPG known asRunes of Magiclast year. To further promote the game, the PR folks bring us something a little bit different. They contracted some budding designers from Berlin who brought the in-game fashions to life and presented them on the catwalk here at gamescom. This is more than just cosplay — the details on the clothing is fantastic....

One of the games I’ve been most closely paying attention to in the downloadable space isFat Princess. The concept, cartoonish design and emphasis on team-based strategy are all things which I have found highly appealing as we’ve continued to cover the game in the last several months. I’ve seen it played a few times now, but never had the opportunity to hold the controller in my hands and really see for myself....

As many of you know, I have been less and less hopeful about the future of the story driven RPG as next gen gaming blasts into the limelight, fearful that story and characters will be left behind for cutting edge graphics. Yesterday I attended a press event with Peter Molyneaux, Ray Muzyka and Sakaguchi that made me hopeful again. Summatoidlive bloggedit at the event, so if you would like to read the word for word version it is up, but I’d like to hit on a few key points that I feel will be a breath of fresh air to the RPG gamer still seeking an affecting game experience....

On a few levels,Brothers in Arms: Furious 4is quite the departure from the way war is depicted in the long-running series. Having not been particularly into any of the prior installments, I’m looking forward to this new one. That said, I can see how fans would long for a return to form — bit of news on that front. At the Gearbox Software PAX Prime 2011 panel, president Randy Pitchford commented that the team isn’t done with taking a more serious approach toBrothers in Arms....

Epic has released information on what will be contained in the fourth major title update toGears of War 2. Theupdateadds multiplayer experience rewards for playing Horde mode, improves the odds that downloadable content will appear in map selections (provided all players own the relevant DLC) and adds support for the deleted chapter, “Road to Ruin,” which will be released on July 28th in the Dark Corners Map Pack. It also contains a host of bug fixes, closes a few exploits and makes some balance adjustments....

Why…why didn’t you do that in the first place, Polyphony Digital? Did you run out of time? No, that can’t be it. Before I start ranting, an upgrade ofGran Turismo 5‘s standard cars to premium models is not yet confirmed, but Polyphony Digital’s Kasunori Yamauchi has mentioned the idea. In a Famitsu interview, Yamauchi said that there are plans to upgrade the standard cars to the high level of detail that the game’s premium models feature....

Focus Home Interactive’s upcomingCities XLis looking really nice. The developers have just released additional screenshots of the sequel to the the rather goodCities XL 2011. I like the variety here; there’s a homely looking Alpine town, a gleaming European city, and what looks to be a fairly close approximation of Sydney, all high-rise buildings close to the ocean. It all looks rather lovely, if a bit too clean — no pollution in these cities?...

One of the interesting things about blogging about videogames is that, in a lot of ways, people in the industry make my job relatively easy. For example, while I was playingBorderlandstoday, Hideki Kamiya started spouting off toGame Informerabout a sequel tothe well-receivedBayonetta. Boom — instant news. In an interview for the March edition ofGI, Kamiya, who producedBayonetta,teased that Platinum Games “obviously have love for the work we have created, so I don’t see anything wrong withBayonetta 2....

The team who brought you the acclaimedUnreal Tournament 2004modRed Orchestra: Combined Armsrecently put out another game that started out as a mod, and it’s calledKilling Floor. Tripwire Interactive might not have beat Valve to the co-op survival horror punch, but the developer seems to be going in a different direction thanLeft 4 Dead, thankfully. Instead of offering 4-player cooperative play,Killing Floorsupports up to six users, and rather than zombies, there are “experiments....

Metal is an abstract thibng. A lot of us use the word to convey that a videogame has an indefinable amount ofoomph. The word describes a swagger. An emotion. An action. It describes a lot of things. For theDragon Age: Originscrew, metal is a feeling. A feeling that can be hard to describe. I know this because I asked. Over the last few weeks myself and Nick Chester have been asking developers (and characters) a simple question: how f’ing metal is your game?...

While most of us were off stuffing our faces with chocolate eggs andpersevering againstthe evil that is the Easter Bunny, the support team for the recently releasedDemigodwas hard at work no thanks to a certain retail giant. For whatever reason, GameStop released the game last week even though it wasn’t supposed to be sold until today. Normally, this wouldn’t be a huge deal, or anything too out of the ordinary, as street dates are broken quite frequently....

[It’s time for anotherMonthly Musing— the monthly community blog theme that provides readers with a chance to get their articles and discussions printed on the frontpage. — CTZ] Throughout my life I have always held myself to a very extreme standard of perfection. That is to say that in most areas of life, though I have been moderately successful, I have failed by my own standards. I have most actively applied this standard to my gaming habits....

I love zombies. More than you do. I keep a copy ofThe Zombie Survival Guideby my bed just in case I ever need to get at it in a hurry, I’ve watchedDawn of the Deadmore times than I can count, and my ultimate dream is to make a zombie movie (or game) starring my sister and Nathan Fillion. Don’t ask. Although, perhaps it’s dishonest to say that I actually love zombies....