This EverQuest II Webpage has word on sign-ups to beta test the upcoming MMORPG sequel (thanks Brian N. Galow), which they will begin accepting on May 3 at 1:00 p.m. EDT. The post outlines system requirements, but not how many testers will be involved, nor is there any word on how they will be selected.

IGN's Men of Valor Movie Page now features three new gameplay movies from Men of Valor, 2015's upcoming Vietnam War shooter. Also, the Burger Wars Website announces plans for a multiplayer first person shooter from Amped Labs set in a future where the corporate wars break out into an armed conflict between the McBozo and Burger Clown hamburger chains. The site offers a gameplay trailer and a pre-order program that will allow those who sign up to beta test the game. The trailer is mirrored on GameCenter.cz and Gamer's Hell.

A playable demo is now available for Neighbors from Hell 2, showing off the sequel to the game where the good neighbor policy involves setting tricks and traps, not mowing your lawn, and all that sort of stuff. The demo is a 31 MB download that features a level not included in the retail game, available on ActionTrip, Adrenaline Vault, Boomtown (registration required), GameCenter.cz, Gamer's Hell, and Worthplaying.

Vivendi Universal Games Announces Empire Earth 2 is the press release announcing plans to release a sequel to the era-spanning strategy play of Empire Earth during the first half of next year. The first screenshots can be found on Jucaushii.ro, and here's a bit from the press release:

LOS ANGELES, CA (April 26, 2004) - Vivendi Universal Games (VU Games) today announced development of Empire Earth® 2, the ambitious sequel to GameSpy.com's 2001 "PC Game of the Year," Empire Earth. Developed by Mad Doc Software and due for release in the first half of 2005, Empire Earth 2 will build upon the award-winning formula of its predecessor by adding features requested both by casual game players interested in a brief spin through history and by more hard core gamers who demand a real-time strategy game that will challenge them for dozens, if not hundreds, of hours.

More information about Empire Earth 2 can be found at http://www.empireearth.com/.

"Empire Earth was a tremendous worldwide success for us, but we aren't resting on our laurels for Empire Earth 2," said Michael Pole, VU Games' Executive Vice-President, Worldwide Studios. "We are going to great lengths to ensure that the sequel is in every way a worthy successor that builds upon the Empire Earth franchise."

Empire Earth 2 will build upon the success of its predecessor by adding unique units, powers, leaders, and inherent bonuses to all of the game's 14 different civilizations. Cities, territories, and borders in Empire Earth 2, often treated as "eye candy" in other real-time strategy games, will factor into game play and be treated as tradable resources much like they are in the real world. The game's artificial intelligence will be more reactive, dynamic, and variable than its predecessor's, able to adapt to human opponents in ways that are more engaging for the player. And, for the first time in the Empire Earth series, ambient weather and seasons like fog and snowfall will affect game play, forcing players to adapt their strategies to the changing environment.

The Pharaoh Productions Website (thanks Frans) offers a pop-up eulogy announcing the closure of the company. Here's part of what David Allen has to say about this move: "Unfortunately, I have not enjoyed the direction that the industry has taken. My passion is gone; and it has been for quite some time. As I witness the recent games that have come out, and are currently being released, it has quickly become apparent to me that the industry has lost its way; gone is innovation and vision - and to make matters worse, I do not see resolution to the current problems anytime soon. I've been a gamer all of my life, and the amount of copycat boring products that are being released seems to compound every year."

Wideload Games has announced itself to the world, a new developer formed by Bungie alumnus Alexander Seropian. The announcement features word on plans for a Halo-engine game, and though no details like the title or target platforms are included, the announcement does focus extensively on the apparent innovation of planning projects in advance:

CHICAGO, IL (APRIL 26, 2004) - Wideload Games, Inc. (www.wideload.com), unveiled itself to the world today as a new development studio dedicated to making hit video and computer games by injecting a unique blend of their visionary development model, creative gameplay and oddball humor into the computer and video games industry. Wideload was started by Alexander Seropian, industry veteran and founder of Bungie Studios of Halo, Myth and Marathon fame.

Wideload brings together some of the brightest talents in the videogame industry with a singular focus on creating original games with a new kind of production model. Wideload’s team designs and creates playable game prototypes in their Chicago lab. This focus on prototyping and pre-production eliminates many production risks as the team is able to see all of the technical and creative issues prior to going into full production. Once the prototype is approved, Wideload pulls together the best independent talent in the industry to complete the game’s production. The company will work with publishers and distributors to bring their final vision to gaming consumers.

“This is a variant of the model that’s been successful in film for quite some time,” says Seropian. “We develop the intellectual property and put together the technology and production pipeline in-house. Then we leverage our team to manage a staff of independent talent.” This combination of an internal design team coupled with external production teams gives Wideload the flexibility to have extremely thorough pre-production, prototypes of multiple titles at once, and scale for production efficiently. In addition, Wideload’s development model eliminates risk for Wideload partners by having a complete and proven plan before staffing production.

Wideload may be an unfamiliar name, but the company itself oozes a familiar blend of creativity and oddball humor that gamers around the world have loved for years now. Joining Seropian, who has built a successful and respected 13+-year career in the game industry, is a short list of former senior Bungie programmers, artists, and designers. Wideload's first title, a wildly innovative game powered by the Halo™ engine, is currently in production and expected to hit store shelves in 2005.

Headfirst's planned game based on the Deadlands pen-and-paper RPG (story) that sat quietly for a few years before getting mentioned again (story) has been re-re-announced. Here's the old project page, the new teaser page (thanks Frans) that offers three new screenshots, and the announcement:

Birmingham, UK, April 26, 2004 – Headfirst Productions today announced that development is underway on the first title in a series of games based on the world of Deadlands, the multi-award winning Role Playing Game from Pinnacle Entertainment Group.

Headfirst have secured exclusive, world wide rights to create interactive entertainment titles based around this highly desirable property and its plethora of expansions. Deadlands, scheduled to be completed on all platfoms [sic] in Summer 2005, will be the first title available in this exciting new franchise.

Using multi-platform, ground breaking game creation technology produced over the last two years and funded by significant external investment. Headfirst are now in an excellent position to develop a range of first class, multi-sku products over the next few years.

• Dark and Light
  The Dark and Light Q&A on FileFront tracks down Stephane Quilichini, one of the lead designers on the upcoming MMORPG Dark and Light: "Some areas of the game are more arcade than RPG. But every one is free to do what he wants and change his rhythm (changing between speed action like fighting and slower speed action like exploration or other things) when he decides to. This is the reason why we aren’t going head-to-head against the two giants of the video game industry: WOW and ULTIMA, as we believe we will attract new specific players to DnL."
• Kult
  The Kult: Heretic Kingdoms Q&A on RPGDot talks extensively with the 3D people at 3D People about Kult, the upcoming RPG formerly known as Cult.
• The Fall
  Carsten Strehse on The Fall - Last Days of Gaia is a Q&A talking with Silver Styles about The Fall: The Last Days of Gaia, their upcoming post-apocalyptic RPG. This is dated a few days ago, but the link was broken until now.

The Thief: Deadly Shadows Diary Volume I on GameSpy is now actually available, as the link was posted before the link started working. The article offers some sound thinking from Brian Sharp, sound technology programmer on the upcoming stealthy sequel.

• Dungeon Lords on Yahoo! Games Domain.
• Ground Control 2 on HomeLAN Fed.
• World of Warcraft on GameBanshee.

Though there are no accompanying details, the Massive Assault Network (thanks Frans) now offers a new patch incrementing the online strategy game from version 1.2.203 to 1.2.205.

The Dark Horizons Lore Players Site (thanks Frans) has word that: "The first patch to the Early Adopters release of Lore is coming later this week. This patch will be for both the retail and demo version of the game. The patch addresses some bugs and is the fisrt [sic] set of content additions."

Thanks Mike Martinez.

• TechReiviews interviews NVIDIA's Tony Tamasi.
• Technology and Show Business Kiss and Make Up (registration required).
• Google revisits policy on hate sites.
• Yahoo gives Messenger an 'all new' look.
• Slashdot | After DeCSS, DVD Jon Releases DeDRMS.

Thanks Mike Martinez.

• Progressive Scan Dashboard Available.
• Xbox cops another loss.

Pirates Ahoy! -- View topic - Build v11 RELEASED! now offers version 11 of the Pirates of the Caribbean build-engine modification.

Kenelm's Macro Bible on Star Wars Galaxies Vault offers tips on several helpful macros for the Star Wars MMORPG encompassing topics like crafting and combat.

• Battlefield Vietnam on GamerDad and Review.Gamer.
• BREED on Gamers Depot.
• Enter the Matrix on Caltrops.
• Far Cry on Telefragged, GamePlasma, and XPD8.net.
• kill.switch on PC Gaming.
• Midnight Nowhere on GamePlasma.
• Painkiller on The Armchair Empire, Computer Games Romania, Worthplaying and (in German) on GameCaptain.de.
• Unreal Tournament 2004 on Review.Gamer.

• APC Biometric Password Manager on Designtechnica.
• Arctic Cooling Super Silent 4Pro L Cooler on MADSHRIMPS.
• Chaintech A865PE Motherboard on MBReview.
• Coolermaster Hyper 6 Cooler on OCWorkbench.
• Coolermaster LLC-U03 Musketeer 2 Cooler on ExtremeMhz.com.
• Evercool SCP-A Fan Controller on Hardware Hounds.
• Insight Solutions P4-ITX Motherboard on WhiningDog.NET.
• Lian Li PC-V1000 Aluminum Case on Overclocker Cafe.
• Mesh Cubex64+ LAN-Xtreme SFF PC on TrustedReviews.
• Samsung 173P 17” LCD Display on MODSYNERGY.
• Samsung ML-1750 Laser Printer on Bytesector.
• Soltek Qbic EQ3401 P4 SFF PC on hardCOREware.net.
• Titan Cooler Comparison on MADSHRIMPS.

• There's a Pat Tillman Madden 2005 Petition looking to get the K.I.A. Cardinals safety on the cover of the next edition of the game...
• Cable broadband just got faster. Thanks Sleepless...

Wish me luck... we're having a guy come by today to tell us what the story is on our roof, which has started to fall down on its primary job of keeping the rain on the outside of the house. Oh who am I kidding? Luck won't matter here... when's the last time someone said "Oh, don't worry, that's the cheap kind of roof repair!"?

Story of the Day:	Even blind old ladies terrify the cops. Thanks nin.
Science!:	Study Blames Corn Syrup for Rise of Diabetes in US. Nuke Mosquito, End Malaria? Missile Defense: Ready, Set, Go?
Follow-up:	Howard Second Only To Oprah in Web Visitors. Thanks A/S/LayerAODsk.
	Thanks Mike Martinez