The QuakeCon Website has details on next year's installment in id Software's long-running gaming convention, saying the event will run August 13-16, 2009 in the Hilton Anatole Hotel in Dallas, TX. Online registration will begin at 9:30 pm EST on March 6, 2009, and as usual, participation in the BYOC, tournaments, exhibits, conferences, and all other events is free of charge. Though event registration is months off, registration for hotel rooms is already underway, and there's a special QuakeCon Reservation Page and the website also has instructions on how to get the special rate for the event if you make phone reservations. Here's the description, indicating Quake Live will be the feature attraction: "QuakeCon will once again host North America's largest BYOC (Bring-Your-Own-Computer) LAN party - with spots for nearly 3,000 gamers to hook their systems up and play on our world-class network. Of course, it wouldn't be QuakeCon without the drama and intensity of the big-money pro tournaments, featuring id Software's new free-to-play, web-based multiplayer game QUAKE LIVE. QuakeCon also offers non-stop fun and entertainment for those that don't bring their own computer. The world's leading gaming and technology companies will be on hand to demonstrate their latest hardware and software in the 35,000 square foot exhibit hall, and every day of QuakeCon is packed with contests, entertainment, announcements, panel discussions, and parties."

A new patch is now available for Hired Guns: The Jagged Edge, updating the turn-based strategy game to version 1.07.001, smoothing out some of the game's jagged edges with "many gameplay tweaks and a fix to prevent the “vanishing squad” icon bug appearing in new games started with this updated version." Full details and the patch can be found on the Matrix Games Website, and the patch is mirrored on AtomicGamer, FileFront, and Gamer's Hell.

The winSPWW2 Website now offers a new patch for winSPWW2, updating either the free or enhanced CD editions of this turn-based strategy game based on Steel Panthers: World at War to version 3.5. Word is: "Bringing the game to version 3.5, the upgrade patch is available for immediate download and weighs in at 5.9 MB of digital excellence. The upgrade is for both the free download and the Enhanced CD Edition. Please note that if you have missed out on previous upgrade patches you must install the patches in their numeric order; patch contents are not all inclusive." Downloads of the patch are mirrored on AtomicGamer, FileFront, and Gamer's Hell.

A local UK paper's website has follow-ups to this morning's reports that Free Radical Design has closed. The official news is that the company entered administration yesterday, and as many as 185 jobs are at risk if the company goes under. Here's word from Cameron Gunn of administrator Resolve Partners: "We will be spending the next three or four days assessing the financial position of the company but it's business as usual, although we have asked that almost all of the employees apart from a skeleton crew remain at home." Gunn goes on to say: "All employees have been paid up until the end of December and we hope to make another announcement before Christmas or very soon thereafter, but we must stress at this stage that it's business as usual." Thanks Shacknews.

TweakTown reports that once-mighty motherboard manufacturer ABIT is shutting down operations as of December 31. Word is: "Fast forward to this year and ABIT were left with a single product line to try and keep the company from collapsing – digital picture frames with the ability to print. They didn’t work out as planned, there were rumors of ABIT re-entering the graphics card market once again, but those rumors didn’t eventuate."

VSTEP announce the next installment in the Ship Simulator series will be Ship Simulator 2010 Extremes, to be released in Summer of 2009. There are no further details about the next version of this seafaring sim, but a teaser movie offers a look. The clip can be found on AtomicGamer and Gamer's Hell.

• The Worst Heartbreaks in Videogames 2008 - UGO.com.
• The Best (and Worst) of 08- The GamePro Awards.
• Persons of the Year 2008 - Part 1 on GameDaily.
• Gamasutra's Best Of 2008- Top 5 Handheld Games. Thanks Mike Martinez.
• GameSpy - State of the Wii 2008.

• BusinessWeek - How Electronic Arts Lost Its Way. "EA is spending too much to make video games for systems that cost too much for consumers, and its new titles aren't hooking gamers. Is it takeover time?"
• MTV Multiplayer » Massive, Huge, Journalist-Packed, Harry-Allen-Included Video Game Reviews Symposium Kicks Off, But What’s The Problem?
• Sessler's Soapbox - Bigger's Not Better.
• Penny Arcade - A Penetrating Look. On scarcity in Home. Thanks Mike Martinez and Techdirt.
• The Vault Network - Why A Game Hopper Hops.

• Battlestations: Pacific on GameSpot.
• Bionic Commando on IGN.
• Empire: Total War on IGN.
• F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin on IGN.UK.
• Gray Matter on the Gray Matter Blog. Prequel fiction by Jane Jensen.
• Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 2 on GamesRadar.

• Bionic Commando on Gamer's Hell.
• Demigod on RPG Vault.
• Duke Nukem Forever on the 3D Realms Website. Cool wallpaper in several resolutions.
• Metro 2033: The Last Refuge on PC Games.

Thanks Mike Martinez.

• Report: Scottish Developer Ruffian Formed - Crackdown 2 A Possibility?
• PlayStation Home updates to 1.04, temporarily removes voice chat.
• Rock Band - Rockin' The Holidays 2008 Pack. Hanukkah Blessings, Christmas is the Time To Say I Love You, and Blue Christmas on the 23rd.
• Analyst: Take-Two DLC Strategy Won't Pay Big In 09.
• Gear Shift- An Interview With Cliff Bleszinski on Crispy Gamer. On Gears of War 2.
• Call of Duty flops on Nintendo platforms.
• 250,000 sales for Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix for Xbox 360.
• Rare Contest To Reward Top Banjo-Kazooie- Nuts & Bolts Creations With In-game Immortality.

Thanks Mike Martinez.

• GTA 4 (PC)- Benchmark with 7 Ati and Nvidia graphics cards on PCGH.
• Nvidia Ion Platform: Atom gets GeForce.
• AnandTech: Holiday 2008 GPU Guide- Price Cuts Galore.
• AnandTech- Holiday 2008 Display Guide.
• Apple After Macworld and Steve Jobs – Death of the Cult of Mac.
• Cable Companies Hold Off On Digital Conversion To Avoid Confusion (And Potential Lawsuits).
• 10 Items Your Geek Friends Don't Want for Christmas.

Thanks Mike Martinez.

• EA Releases SimCity for the iPhone.
• NVIDIA lobbying PC mfrs to get into netbooks.
• Kojima Goes In-Depth on Metal Gear Solid Touch.

Thanks Mike Martinez.

• Writers from The Simpsons, Futurama and Family Guy Working on Machinima Experiment. Thanks Ant and Digg.
• Social Networking Sites Still Struggling With The Whole Monetization Thing.
• IMDB links up with Box Office Mojo. Thanks Ant and Digg.
• The Real All-Star Action's In The Voting.

• Journalist Reflects on Brandon Crisp Case, Terms CoD 4 Multiplayer "a Sad Place".
• Oops! Mozilla forgets Firefox 2 patch, must re-issue update.

• EA's Bid to Buy T2 Figures in Wall Street Insider Trading Charges.
• Sharp fined for fixing display panel prices. Thanks Mike Martinez.

• Grey's Anatomy PC game revealed…
• NPD: Guitar Hero, Rock Band Boosting Music Sales…
• High Definition Video Games Have Invaded Dish Network…
• Reality Check: Mirror's Edge on 1UP.com compares the action in the game to real parkour. Thanks Mike Martinez…
• Maggie Q Crowned -King of Fighters. She must have the world's best publicist. Thanks Ant…

R.I.P.: Wife of ‘Star Trek’ creator dies at 76. Nurse Chapel. Thanks Neutronbeam. Here's a best of Majel Barrett-Roddenberry- video roundup. Thanks Mike Martinez.

The World of Warcraft Website announces the availability of a 10-day free trail for World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, offering the chance to get addicted to sample the latest expansion for the incredibly popular MMORPG. This is not for the uninitiated, however, as participating in the trial requires a full version of World of Warcraft and The Burning Crusade expansion, as well as a character of at least level 55 (to create a Death Knight) or level 68 (to explore Northrend). This FAQ has further details. Thanks Ant.

Spore Sculptor Website outlines how to get a sculpture of one of your creations from Spore, EA's life simulator. Creatures created with the Spore Creature Creator can be made into sculptures up to 4" tall using Z Corporation’s 3D printing technology. The cost of each sculpture is $49.50.

VideoGamer.com has a release schedule for Take-Two's fiscal 2009, which concludes at the end of October next year. Included is a listing for Mafia II for PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 and a listing for BioShock 2, though target platforms are still not specified for the waterlogged objectivist first-person shooter sequel. Other games on the list include Gearbox's multiplatform shooter Borderlands and The Lost and Damned Xbox 360 DLC for Grand Theft Auto IV. Thanks Mike Martinez.

GameSpot has word that Take-Two's 2K Games has dropped plans to publish Cryptic's upcoming MMORPG Champions Online that were announced during the summer. It has been widely speculated that this move would occur following Atari's acquisition of Cryptic as it seems obvious to assume Atari would prefer to publish the game themselves, and sure enough, the article quotes Take-Two president Ben Feder from a post-earnings conference call with analysts saying: "We no longer intend to publish the MMOG Champions Online due to Atari's acquisition of Cryptic."

Oxygen Games announces CID The Dummy, a new multiplatform action game based on the anthropometric test devices also known as Crash Test Dummies. The game is to be released in Q1 2009, and a playable demo is available even as you read these words. A CID The Dummy Website is online with information and media, and a batch of screenshots accompany the announcement, which describes gameplay involving puzzles as well as combat. Here's a bit: "Interact as only a crash impact dummy can. Climb walls, swing on ropes, burn obstacles, destroy exploding barrels, use lifters, bounce on springs and with a neat head butt destroy walls all in stunningly realized environments. Game environment interaction is the most important part of the gameplay." Word on the demo is it: "contains a tutorial to let you get a hang of CID with his tricks, skills and weapons and then it lets you unleash what you’ve learned onto one of the best (and scariest!) levels from the game – The Graveyard!" The 275 MB download is available from AtomicGamer, ComputerGames.ro, FileFront, and Gamer's Hell.

The Spore Website now offers downloads of the promised de-authorization tool for Spore, which allows users to manage the digital rights management in the life simulator. They say: "You can de-authorize at any time, even without uninstalling Spore, and free up that machine authorization. If you re-launch Spore on the same machine, the game will attempt to re-authorize. If you have not reached the machine limitation, the game will authorize and the machine will be re-authorized using up one of the five available machines." This is a Windows utility, Mac owners are told to check back for a future update to cover their needs. Thanks Voodoo Extreme.

As noted on the Command & Conquer Forum, the recently promised patch is now available for Command & Conquer 3: Kane's Wrath, updating the real-time strategy expansion to version 1.02. The update is available automatically from within the game, but there are also manual patches for the million different localized editions of the game, these can be downloaded from the Command & Conquer Website or the mirrors on AtomicGamer, FileFront, and The Patches Scrolls.

GOG.com offers holiday gifts in the form of the free releases of Beneath a Steel Sky and Lure of the Temptress, two point-and-click adventure games from Revolution Software. The free releases from the developers of the Broken Sword series represent a discount of (calculates) infinity over Good Old Games' typical $5.99 and $9.99 price points. Though free, the games are still Windows Vista and Windows XP compatible, and contain no digital rights management. Word is: "Both games were developed by Revolution Software and famously introduced the Virtual Theatre game engine, which enabled non-playable characters to interact with the environment without players interaction. The two games have been wrapped with GOG.com's smooth and slick installers, and “Beneath a Steel Sky” even includes Dave Gibbons’ comic book inspired by the game itself."

A cinematic trailer from Wheelman offers a theatrical-style look at the upcoming action driving game. Word is: "As highlighted in the trailer, Wheelman stars Vin Diesel as an undercover agent and highly skilled driver who must infiltrate the Barcelona underworld to gather intelligence surrounding a covert heist. Posing as a driver-for-hire, he ends up caught in a crossfire of corruption and chaos while trying to stay one step ahead of local law enforcement and rival gangs." The clip is available from AtomicGamer, FileFront, Gamer's Hell, and MyGameTrailers.

GameTap now offers A Christmas Carol, this week's episode of American McGee's Grimm, the adventure game series based on the Grimm fairy tales (or in this case a Dickens novella). In the spirit of occasion, this episode is free through the end of the year so you can play it over Christmas. Here's word: "In this very special Christmas episode of American McGee's Grimm, our dark anti-hero and history revisionist corrupts Dickens' classic tale, A Christmas Carol. If you thought Ebenezer Scrooge was bad, you haven't met Grimm!"

GamesIndustry.biz is reporting that Free Radical Design has closed, saying they've heard this from "multiple sources," including a report that staff arrived at work to find the doors locked and a note telling them to attend a final company meeting at a nearby hotel. They recap their recent reassurances from Free Radical about the company's situation, but say that their calls over the past couple of days have gone unanswered. The developer was working on TimeSplitters 4 and an unannounced project for LucasArts, and the story also reflects rumors that the LucasArts project is Star Wars Battlefront III, and that development of the sequel to this Star Was action game has already been shifted to Rebellion, developers of Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron for the PSP.

• Penny Arcade Adventures Ep. 2 coming today to PSN.
• Lionhead confirms Fable II DLC delay.
• Guitar Hero World Tour: The Eagles on Xbox LIVE.
• Feature- Home for the Holidays -- But Which Console Should I Bring?
• Rumor: Jill Valentine to appear as boss enemy in RE5?

Fallen Earth Announces Sign-Ups for Alpha Testing on the Fallen Earth Forums has word that all registered forum members are now eligible to participate in alpha testing of this science fiction MMORPG. Remember, it's all fun and games until someone pokes an eye out, so the offer comes with this warning: "Although we are on our way to a completed product, our testers must expect many bugs while we are in Alpha phase. We strive to fix these as quickly as possible but ask that you be patient while we work. This is not a preview or demo; this is chance to help us find as many bugs as possible during test phases so that we can make the best game possible for you. As testers, the information you provide can make or break our success."

NDOORS announces new content for Atlantica Online, their MMO turn-based strategy game: "NDOORS Interactive has expanded the game with its first major content upgrade, dubbed the “Next Frontier.” For the past month since the game launched, Atlantica adventurers have battled and explored some of the ancient civilizations of the Eastern Hemisphere. Now they will cross the oceans into the Americas, where they will encounter monsters drawn from the myths and legends of the American Old West and Aztecs. In addition to new geographic regions being added, new mercenaries will be made available. The level cap has also been increased from 100 to 120." They are also running a Christmas event in the subscription-free MMOG.

There's a Battlefield interview on Total Gaming Network talking with DICE about upcoming support plans for the Battlefield series. They discuss efforts at competing cheats, plans for a version 1.51 patch for BF 2142 to include security measures from the latest Battlefield 2 patch, and plans for a new unnamed map for Battlefield 2 for which they have some screenshots.

There are new F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin interviews on 3dzone and Strategy Informer, each playing what would you say with Dave Matthews about Monolith's upcoming first-person shooter sequel. Strategy Informer asked about multiplayer support, and here's the response: "We don’t have co-op. We thought about it a while back and we tried it, but ultimately getting two people to experience the same combat - that’s great - but the horror aspect always felt watered down, so we made a conscious decision to keep FEAR 2 single-player, so that we could tailor the emotional responses. With regard to multiplayer, I’d love to tell you all of the features of multiplayer, but I can’t (keep an eye out for our multiplayer hands-on in a few days). Very soon we’re going to have a big announcement about it. What I can tell you is that we’ve been playing it for months and we’re not sick of it. We love it, and there’s a lot of cool stuff we’re doing with multiplayer that’s really fresh. I think people are going to like it."

• Edge Awards 2008.
• Holiday Giveaway 2008 on DragonSteelMods.
• NZXT College Football Bowl Game Challenge on Big Bruin.

• Hired Guns: The Jagged Edge on Games32.
• Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People - 8-Bit Is Enough on Gaming Nexus.

• AeroCool AeroRacer Pro Case on Techware Labs.
• AMD Athlon X2 7750 Black Edition CPU on TrustedReviews.
• AMD Phenom X4 9850BE CPU on RBMODS.
• ASUS Lion Square and Arctic Cooling Freezer Xtreme Coolers on X-bit labs.
• ATP 8GB ToughDrive Camo USB Flash Drive on Test Freaks.
• Corsair TX850W PSU on JonnyGURU.
• E- Power Xscale 1000W PSU on Overclockers Online.
• G.Skill DDR3 PC3-12800 Triple Channel Memory on Guru3D.
• Huntkey Green Star 350W PSU on Hardware Secrets.
• Intel X25-E 32GB SSD on bit-tech.net.
• Jetway NC92 Atom IPC Motherboard on Phoronix.
• Kingston DataTraveler 150 USB Flash Drive on CDRLabs.
• Kingston DTMS 4GB USB Drive on ASE Labs.
• Level One N_One 11n Wireless Broadband Router on X-bit labs.
• Logic 3 i-Station25 Speaker Dock on ITreviewed.
• Logitech Alto Cordless Notebook Stand and Keyboard on ThinkComputers.org.
• MSI R4830-T2D512-OC Radeon HD 4830 Graphics Card on PCSTATS.
• Noctua NH-C12P INTEL/AMD Heatpipe CPU Cooler on Tweaknews.net.
• PaLiT Revolution 700 HD 4870 X2 Graphics Card on Legit Reviews.
• Samsung SPF-105F 10.2" Digital Photo Frame on Everything USB.
• Sapphire HD4870x2 Atomic Graphics Card on Overclockers Club.
• Sleek Audio W1 Wireless Headphone Adapter on TrustedReviews.
• Sony Reader Digital Book PRS-700 on TechReviewSource.
• Swiftech MCW-NBMAX Water Block on PureOC.
• Teknmotion PulseWave Headphones on [OC]ModShop.
• ThermoLab Baram Cooler on Legion Hardware.
• Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme Copper Cooler on Bjorn3d.com.
• TOM BIHN Checkpoint Flyer Laptop Briefcase on Futurelooks.

• 28 video games being made into movies... Will they suck? Yes, even the ones not made by Uwe Boll. Thanks Ant and Digg…
• Universal, Verbinski plan to role-play. Second Life: The Motion Picture?…
• Steam announces their European Local Currency dealie is out of beta, as well as updates for Garry's Mod and Sacred 2…

Well my cable modem is operational again, but it's not 100%. I'm not getting my full bandwidth, but that's not the problem, since even a fraction of this pipe's usual fatness is impressive, but there is a noticeable lag when connecting to websites and the such, which seems to be packet loss. All in all it's all workable, but just a trifle annoying.

Trifled Links:	Thanks Ant and Mike Martinez.
Play:	Rescue Under Fire. Carver. Fishing Girl.
Links:	The 6 Most Politically Incorrect Video Game Moments. Scientists Discover New Element, the Heaviest Yet Known to Science. Thanks Bob. 5 Inventions That Enhanced Laziness. Toilet? Depends!
Story:	Weather rocket kills man and blows up his body at cremation.
Science:	NASA neglecting basic research in race back to moon.
Media:	Aunts And Stepdads Line Up For This Year's Hottest Gift. Ninja > Pirate. NSFW. Jones' Big Ass Truck Rental & Storage. Thanks Strich.
Follow-ups:	Countries can take piracy fight to Somalia's land, air: UN. Spaceport America Gets FAA License.
The Funnies:	xkcd.