Jonric: What kind of RPG is Titan Quest, and what distinguishes it from other titles in the genre? What kind of gamer is likely to find it most appealing?

Brian Sullivan: Titan Quest is a pure action RPG set in the ancient world, where myth and the gods are real. It takes the 'action' part seriously, and has great visceral combat at the heart of its gameplay. The fantastic graphics, ancient world setting, and over the top combat really distinguish Titan Quest from most other RPGs.

Anyone who likes a good PC game, especially an RPG, will like Titan Quest. Even though we built a lot of depth into character development and other parts of the game, we made it incredibly accessible, so even casual gamers will want to give it a try. And ultimately, Titan Quest is following in the footsteps of the Diablo games, which really popularized the category and defined many of its basic tenets, so we expect many Diablo fans will especially like it.

AMD To Cut Prices When Conroe Arrives 11:12 am - Elia 'Mithan' Doulia - hardware: AMD (15 comments)
DailyTech is reporting today that they got a hold of some leaked internal memo's and that to help fight off Conroe, AMD appears to be planning massive price cuts for its AMD 64 CPU's once Conroe arrives. The price cuts will take effect at the end of July (24th) and cut prices as much as 50% on some CPU's.

Perhaps the most interesting price reductions are on the Athlon 64 X2 dual core line. The memo claims the Athlon 64 X2 3800+ will fall from a processor-in-box (PIB) of $303 to $169. Single core Athlon 64 3800+ processors will fall from $290 all the way to $139 through special promotions. The AMD Athlon and Sempron Energy Efficient models do not show any price reduction.

Age of Conan Interview 11:05 am - Elia 'Mithan' Doulia - Games: MMOG (0 comments)
FiringSquad has popped up an Age of Conan interview with Funcon project director Jørgen Tharaldsen. The interview covers a broad range of topics.

FiringSquad: What can you tell us about the creatures players will encounter in Age of Conan?

Jørgen Tharaldsen: We have tried to sample a lot of the history of Conan in the gameplay, and you can expect to meet many of Conan's foes (and friends) throughout your journeys in Hyboria. The range of creatures goes from known animals like bear and wolves, to fiendish native people like the Picts, to mighty demons, gigantic creatures and horrors and beasts from the depths of the earth. The world of Conan is filled to the brim with unspeakable horrors, and we plan to keep you on your toes throughout the game.

Apple To Buy Nintendo? More Rumors... 10:15 am - Elia 'Mithan' Doulia - Consoles: Nintendo Wii (25 comments)
Well more rumors about Apple buying Nintendo are coming out. Actually, wheather its new or just being recycled, I don't know, but you can check out CVG's article on it here.

Any evidence for such wild mutterings? Well, to be honest there's not a great deal. Last month, rumours from the US fingered LucasArts' tech director Mike Lampbell who'd apparently been switched to a secret Apple games project, which would apparently involve making iPod games. Conspiracy theorists immediately summoned the salmon of doubt to pooh-pooh this idea and speculated widely that Apple had another, bigger target in mind, namely Nintendo.

Xbox 360 Backwards Compatability Update Coming Soon 10:11 am - Elia 'Mithan' Doulia - Consoles: Xbox 360 (8 comments)
It's been a while since the last 360 backwards compatability patch hit the system, but according to this CVG article, we can soon expect 20+ games to get patched, including Doom 3 and Lego Star Wars.

Speaking in a Podcast with Microsoft's infamous internet spokesman Major Nelson, Moore - as well as revealing that he's an avid CVG reader - says that "20 titles or more" of the original Xbox games will be made 360-friendly in the next BC update, including Doom 3 and Lego Star Wars. According to Moore the update is undergoing final testing at Microsoft, and should be out sometime this week.

Poll: Episode One Battle 04:00 am - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Games: General News (16 comments)
I'm not sure why, but we had quite a few requests for this one via email. This week's VE poll asks: Which Episode One did you like the best? Vote on your right!

Here are the results of last week's poll:

Coolest upcoming PC action game?

1) Crysis [908 votes]
2) BioShock [693 votes]
3) Dark Mesiah of Might & Magic [407 votes]
4) Quake Wars [405 votes]
5) Unreal Tournament 2007 [369 votes]
6) Prey [351 votes]
7) Alan Wake [241 votes]
8) Battlefield 2142 [172 votes]
9) Rainbow Six Vegas [72 votes]
10) John Woo Presents: Stranglehold [68 votes]

Hardware & Tech Nuggets 03:35 am - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - hardware: General News (1 comment)

Boards

• ASRock 939SLI-eSATA2 PCIe SLI AMD Athlon 64 - OCInside
• Athlon 64 FX-62 Dual-Core Socket AM2 - Hardware Secrets

  Cooling
  

• AeroCool Dominator CPU Cooler - Thinkcomputers.org
• Spire RockeTeer V 500W PSU - techAge
• Sharkoon SilentEagle 120mm Fan - LAN Addict

  CPU
  

• Benchmarking Intel Conroe Core 2 X6800, E6700 and E6600 - Tweaktown

  Memory
  

• Corsair TWIN2X1024-8500 PC8500 1GB Kit - Thinkcomputers.org

  Power Supply
  

• Cooler Master iGreen Power 600W - Viper Lair
• OCZ GameXStream 700W - Bytesector

  PPU
  

• Havok FX/ATI Interview - Firing Squad

  Storage
  

• Western Digital's Raptor WD1500ADFD - Tech Report

  Video
  

• Asus EAX1900 XTX 512MB - Maxit Mag
• HIS X1600 Pro IceQ3 Turbo Single and CrossFire - ViperLair
• Sapphire Ultimate X1600 Series - TheTechZone
• Two for One: Nvidia's Dual-Chip GeForce 7950 GX2 - Xbit Labs

Game Reviews 03:15 am - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Games: General News (0 comments)
Nothing huge in the way of new releases this week.

PC

• Avernum 4 - RPG Dot - 7/10
• Half-Life 2: Episode 1 - 2404- 8.1/10
• Half-Life 2: Episode 1 - 3DAvenue - 4/5
• Rise of Legends - Computer Games Romania - 85%

  360
  

• MotoGP 06 - Boomtown - 7/10
• X-Men: The Official Game - Eurogamer - 3/10

  Xbox
  

• FIFA World Cup Germany 2006 - Armchair Empire - 8.3/10

In Other News... 02:45 am - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - In-House: In Other News... (22 comments)
Played quite a bit of Rise of Legends over the weekend. No real complaints really, other than I just played this mission where I was supposed to destroy/capture all the enemies and cities, but it isn't ending. I bet there's some lone miner or something hiding or a caravan stuck on the edge of the map. It was a fun mission, but kind of a long so I'm going to try and find that last little guy...

Today's question is from DIVCorp:

Do you prefer major game companies to make proven sequels or to create new intellectual properties?

i.e. - Something that doesn't have a number on the end of it.

(Click to Enlarge!)

In Other News... 01:11 am - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - In-House: In Other News... (103 comments)
As an American, I don't get the whole World Cup thing. Yet, everyone else is going nuts over it. Maybe because our football is a different sport (i.e. - soccer)? No idea. I don't dislike soccer (played it a ton as a kid in organized leagues) but I can't turn on ESPN or whatever and actually sit down and watch it. It's slower than baseball, and that's saying quite a bit.

Today's question:

Why don't Americans get The World cup fever?