One of the policies will affect popular online games such as Barameui Nara, Maple Story, Mabinogi and 16 others by cutting off access to underage users at 12am sharp. Another policy is “the slowdown policy” where gamers will find their Internet speed dropping to 56k levels if they play for too long.

There was no mention of regular Internet connections cutting off, just online access to those games. So, the underaged gamers in question will stop playing any one of these 19 games at 12am, then either a) load up a new game, b) find a way around the block, or c) surf for porn.

Then what happens when Star Craft II releases? The original Star Craft still draws millions of South Korean gamers online, in LAN parties, and at professional Star Craft competitions and tournaments across the nation. Good luck stopping people from playing that. Its practically a national sport.

As reports of this new online game ban circulate, the example of gamer depravity and addiction that keeps getting mentioned is the story of the death of a South Korean newborn through starvation. It has been claimed that the parents’ addiction to online gaming led to their neglect of the child.

A horrible story indeed, but will this new online game ban save millions of babies of underaged parents from a similar fate? Considering the parents in the story mentioned above are 41 and 25 years old, this new ban stands to only truly aggravate and generally hack off millions of (tech savvy) South Korean teenagers, force new games into the limelight, and drive porn profits instead of curbing online game addiction or saving babies.

So that led me to look around and actually stumble upon an article over at pc.ign.com which talks about the top 10 FREE to play Shooter games. Shooter games have been very popular as of late and more and more of the “Free to Play” games have been popping up left and right with some being worth it and some… well just don’t have any appeal and only make the others look that much better. Without wasting anymore time, lets go straight into the list!

• Alliance of Valiant Arms
• America’s Army 3
• Battlefield Heroes
• Combat Arms
• Quake Live
• Savage 2: A Tortured Soul
• Tremulous
• Urban Terror
• Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory
• World of Padman

So I won’t go into any details other than the fact that I personally have played a few of these games and can confirm that the list is indeed a good one. If you would like to check out these games or read up on what IGN has to say about them in the article, you can do so here.

The next time you are bored out of your mind, and do not feel like dropping $50.00 or more on a new game, check out one of these games from the list, you should be very pleased and entertained by any of the games on this list. So check them out and get to shooting!

No, say the parents of the would-be misanthrope, as they watch their progeny sink further into a headset.

No, says his social circle, shaking their heads and wondering why he’d enjoy such endeavors as they pile into a Pasat en route to giving Michael Bay $15 each.

No, says the FOX News anchor, as he spouts rabid talking points blaming videogames for the decline of modern everything.

But he deserves better. We deserve glory.

Being a gamer is no easy task. It seems that you will always catch some flak from people because of one person or another just because they probably don’t understand. Most all of us gamers have been in the situation where we do something in our favorite games that we didn’t think was possible or just got darn lucky. If it was beating the final level on the hardest difficulty, or finding that secret room that everyone said didn’t exist, we have all had our moments that we like to brag about.

Those of us that are gamers understand where our fellow gamers are coming from, but those who choose to miss out on the excitement of gaming will sadly never get to be a part of these great moments. So below is a list of nine moments that we gamers were proud to be gamers!

1. Finally Getting Past a Tough Boss
2. Reaching 100% Completion for the First Time
3. Beating a Game Without Cheating or Using Codes
4. Beating a Next-to-Impossible Game for the First Time
5. Getting a Higher Score Than Your Sibling
6. Being the First to Camp Out for Midnight Launch
7. Discovering a Cheat or Easter Egg Before Anyone Else
8. Beating a Smack Talker
9. Knowing More Than the Clerk at Game Stop

So there you have it… nine moments that without a doubt would make just about any gamer proud! I am not going to go into detail with each of these nine moments because they are all pretty self-explanatory. If you don’t seem to understand some of these moments listed… well then I am sorry to say that it looks like you are not a gamer and you just probably wouldn’t be able to understand.

I was pretty impressed that it was able to load up the entire game in about 15 seconds and was able to start playing. It even let me pick my difficulty and had a large portion of the music from the game (everything from the sounds to the level music playing).

The game itself looked and felt a lot better than I was expecting when I entered the first level. While I was only able to go to the left or right (and jump of course), the details and he models of the guns, bad guys, and myself were so crisp it felt like they had been taken right out of the original game and stuck into what I was playing.

I would also like to mention that while the little levels didn’t look like they were similar to the original game (I don’t really see how they could be in 2D)… I was very pleased at how your objective was the almost the exact same. You simply need to get to the exit button killing anything that gets in your way and if you are lucky stumbling across a secret or two in the process.

Even though this post won’t be as long as they usually are, being a big DOOM fan I just couldn’t resist taking some time out of my morning to talk about this nifty little game I just so happen to find. I am sure some of you are wondering where you can try out this as well so fear not… I do have the link for you to go play it! If you wanna try it out for yourself, just make sure you have the latest version of Adobe Flash installed and CLICK HERE to go enjoy this little game.

The good news? There’ll probably be more features. The bad news? You may have to pay for them. Apparently, a survey has been floating around the gaming community with Activision gathering data on how best to proceed. Would you be willing to pay a small fee to have early or exclusive access to game maps, special modes, and advanced tracking tools? That seems to be what they are banking on. According to the survey, this would be optional content added as a paid service to those interested – you wouldn’t have to pay to just play Call of Duty multiplayer.

The question is, does that mean that if you don’t pay, you don’t get supported? Will there be no new downloadable content for those who don’t buy in?

But more surprisingly, is the rumor of a MMO element that is going to be added into COD4. This might be reality soon since Activision’s Bobby Kotick hinted at the possibility of a Call of Duty MMO awhile back with this quote from Morgan Stanley Technical Conference.

“What would be the natural evolution of a property like Call of Duty into a massively-multiplayer environment and how do you monetize that?”

“While a Call of Duty MMO may be a long way off, if it ever gets off the ground, it’s starting to sound like Activision execs may be giving it serious thought and we’d expect it to be a big focus for the publisher’s ad revenue model.”

Also, Kotick pointed out that he is very interested in implementing in-game advertising, which the model of it will most likely resemble Starcraft ladder tournament style. It could be a risky move on Activision’s part to put in this so called “online shell”, but let’s be real… we all saw this sort of move coming. Who wouldn’t enjoy a MMOFPS anyway huh? What do you guys think?

I personally think this could go either very well for the CoD series if it is done correctly. After recently participating in the Huxley Closed Beta I feel that a MMOFPS can be done, there is just a very fine line that has to be walked to either do it right or have it become a huge failure. We shall have to wait and see!

According to the PC Gamer preview, the five campaigns of the sequel will be set in the American south — in Georgia and Louisiana. The game will feature new playable boss infected characters alongside the Boomers, Smokers, Hunters, and Tanks of the original. Melee weapons will also be introduced, including fire axe, chainsaw, and even frying pan. No word yet on backward compatibility with the original Left 4 Dead, though we would expect that Valve won’t split their community in two. You’ll want to check out the PC Gamer preview (the Official Xbox Magazine has their own exclusive preview and interview for console fans) for more details, including the new levels, environmental effects, and how the sequel’s story ties in with the adventures of Bill, Louis, Zoey, and Francis.

Here are a few of the highlights of the upcoming sequel:

• Survivors: Nick, Ellis, Rochelle, and the Coach
• Missions played in full daylight
• Witch behaves differently during the day – wanders around like an old homeless woman
• New weapons: silenced SMG (silencer has no gameplay implications)
• One new gameplay mode not revealed at this time
• Stronger narrative thread to connect the campaigns
• Savannah campaign where “the zombie infection hasn’t hit yet”
• Instead of a Last Stand-type finale, survivors may have to fight through a hazard-filled highway
• Director can change the layout of the map
• New boss infected: The Charger

Even though this game will have a lot to live up to with Left 4 Dead being as popular as it was, people are already talking about it as the next big game to hit later this year. But only time will tell if it can deliver as it promises but I for one have high hopes that it can take over where the original left off and provide us with countless hours of mindless (and satisfying) zombie killing that we have all come to love!

So I will leave you with a few videos of gameplay that have already been released for us to start drooling over…

Click HERE to watch the rest of the videos that have been released so far!

But fortunately, for those who were not able to get keys from them, I am happy to say I found another site that is still giving them out (for free of course) to whoever wants them while they last. So, before I talk about the game a bit I will go ahead and link those who are interested to the site. All you need to go is go here: http://tllg.net/rqnwd6.

For those interested in the game and what it is about… here is a quote from Wikipedia about the game!

Battlefield Heroes features a modified conquest mode providing each team 50 tickets and eventually one flag at the start of the round. Killing enemies and holding more flags than the opposing army will progressively reduce their number of tickets. The game also features matchmaking, to keep players of the same level together. Developers of the game have talked about levels going as high as 40 or 50. The two armies are called the National Army (possessing a red base color flag) and the Royal Army (possessing a blue base color flag). 

You can read the entire page on the game right here: http://tllg.net/5cxsba. So enjoy it and just maybe I will see you in-game!

**UPDATE** It seems that shortly after this article became available that they too ran out of keys. While this outage isn’t permanent, there is no set time on when more will become available… so it seems for those who weren’t able to grab one will just have to keep checking back and hope to get lucky!

**UPDATE #2** Well I have found another site that is still giving them out! Check it out and hurry over to http://tllg.net/6rfz32 and near the top right side of the page, there is a simple form (just enter your email) and poof, in your email is a key!

Site Statistics: Over 1.5 million files totaling 48+ TB of space

Files from game demos to patches to user made videos and screenshots will be disappearing after the 30th as they will no longer be available through the website. With so many files being hosted here a lot of websites will have to find other places to host files for users to download if they want their content to be publicly available to everyone through a free service like FileFront.

It will be interesting to see which websites step up their hosting practices to try and take the place of FileFront… and only time will tell if any will be able to do it as good and as effective as they were able to over the years that they have been in service to everyone.

Will they find a way to make a comeback to the community? As it looks now the chances seem pretty slim but a lot of users are hoping they will find a way. Some are also speculating that this could be a big April Fools joke but most are agreeing that that is not the case here.

Either way they were a great site to host files on completely free of charge, with me being one of the users who used the site frequently. If they are going down for good it is going to be a sad day for everyone who used them, and I would just like to thank them for all that they were able to provide everyone while they were operating as a website. Here is a LINK to the farewell letter they put up on the site.

• Addressable market forecast: broadband households, online active consoles
• Subscription MMOG Market Overview and Updated Forecasts
• Regional Analysis and Forecasts
• North American Territory Analysis and Forecasts
• European Territory Analysis and Forecasts
• Title Market Share Analysis
• Company Market Share Analysis
• Content trends
• The Year Ahead

A comment from Screen digest’s senior analyst and head of games Piers Harding-Rolls: “Industry commentators have for some time been using the example of the Asian online games market to proclaim the death of subscription business models in the West, praising the accessibility and flexibility of free-to-access games that generate revenue by encouraging players to make micro-transactions as part of the gaming experience.”

For now it would seem that the MMO subscription route is the way to go as the more popular games such as World of Warcraft and Warhammer Online have millions of paying players which renew their subscriptions on a monthly basis. With these games and other like them having such a great success I can’t see them going away anytime soon. While the market could move towards more free based MMOs, I just can’t see it happening anytime soon.

And just recently a few MMOs have tried to enter the pro gaming scene with World of Warcraft leading the way. Even though there have been some bugs along the way they are trying hard to make it an even playing field for the players which is already starting to spark more interest in the competitive gaming scene. This will only lead to more people playing these games to try and get good so they can also compete, which is just bringing in more and more cash for the game.

While I am not a big fan of MMOs, I can recognize that they must be doing something right to be able to bring in that type of money from their players. Only time will tell if these business models of the subscriptions will continue to become more and more popular as they get older and newer games come out that are free to play.

#	Game	Downloads
1	Spore	1,700,000
2	The Sims 2	1,150,000
3	Assassins Creed	1,070,000
4	Crysis	940,000
5	Command & Conquer 3	860,000
6	Call of Duty 4	830,000
7	GTA San Andreas	740,000
8	Fallout 3	645,000
9	Far Cry 2	585,000
10	Pro Evolution Soccer 2009	470,000

Ok, so there it is. Many people claim that the reason Spore hit the #1 spot so quickly was because of the stupid DRM that EA Games put into it only allowing you to re-install a couple of times. To battle this a lot of people have boycotted EA buy starting to pirate their games to show their protest. When EA was asked why they put such a DRM onto the game, they said it was to “Protect their software from piracy”. Well… ok it seems to have worked really well there guys! Good work!

One of game maker Valve’s most valuable properties is Steam, on online service that works as a distribution, communication and anti-piracy platform. Steam may also be the reason Google is reportedly in talks to purchase Valve, though neither company has confirmed whether a deal is in the works.

Click Here for the Full Article!

UPDATE: It seems that Doug Lombardi has commented ont he matter and says that it is pure rumor so it doesn’t look like we will see any buying out of Valve from the giant known as Google! But interestingly enough he did also say that they were open to being bought if the right offer comes along! Guess we will have to wait and see!

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On another side note, I have re-opened the Forums for the website and they are open to anyone and everyone! So basically feel free to look around, sign up, and post away! I will keep adding some small content to keep some new and interesting stuff flowing through the topics, but all of your stuff is welcome as well… so get to posting!

The Forums!

Gears Of War 2 is going to be great, right? Huge battlefields comprising hundreds of warriors. New levels of devastation that genuinely elevate things to the state of all-out war. A truly, truly epic fight for the future of the planet. It absolutely cannot fail to be fun.

But before you get ready to dive into all of that, there are a few things you should be aware of. Things that just don’t come up during the first game’s vague “Here are the bad guys, kill them all” exposition. You see Gears Of War actually has a hell of a lot of backstory, most of which didn’t make it into the game itself. And when all things are taken into account, that war you’re going to be reveling in in November really isn’t what you might think it is.

Check out the full article HERE!