No doubt the cousin of Professor Science, the Jetpack Brontosaurus has been eagerly awaiting to explore the stars with his trusty thruster. The much anticipated browser game of his adventures has finally entered alpha, allowing anyone to step into his over-sized dinosaur boots. Featuring a few missions, there's not much to it at the moment, but it is an alpha. Check it out at the official Flashbang Studios site. You'll need the Unity Player installed on your browser to play, and remember to fill out the feedback form!

[Via IndieGames]

DICE and EA's Mirror's Edge trailer debuted a week ago, and wowed the gaming community with its immersive first-person perspective, interesting visual style, and Assassin's Creed-esque free-running, city-scaling gameplay. During your first viewing, you'll probably come to believe the game has the makings of a cult hit, and maybe more.

But there are a lot of things you might not notice on your first viewing. That's why GameTrailers put together an excellent HD analysis video. It's packed with observations of hints about the gameplay, the graphics engine, and the setting, and it's all brilliantly edited to match the game's ultra-classy visual je ne sais quoi.

Did you notice the dynamic depth of field effects? How about the police cars circling the buildings Faith is scaling? Or her shoes' obscure Indonesian brand? All that in more in the video.

[Via Rock, Paper, Shotgun]

So little has changed in recent months -- The Sims 2 and World of Warcraft still completely dominate PC game sales. Sure, now and then something usurps them for a short time, but they always come back. The top 10 PC games in the NPD sales report released this past week:

1. The Sims 2 Kitchen & Bath Interior Design Stuff Expansion Pack
2. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe
3. The Sims 2 FreeTime Expansion Pack
4. World Of Warcraft: Battle Chest
5. World Of Warcraft
6. Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
7. Sins Of A Solar Empire
8. World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack
9. Assassin's Creed: Director's Cut Edition
10. Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2

That makes four years that The Sims 2 and World of Warcraft have been fairly consistently pwning the industry. The only other PC exclusive on the list is Ironclad/Stardock's runaway 4X RTS hit Sins of a Solar Empire. The others -- Call of Duty 4, Assassin's Creed, and Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 -- are multi-platform titles. WoW's position is no surprise, given the NPD's research with regards to online game revenues. The Sims 2's domination of the charts, however, speaks to a vast, silent market of gamers to whom hardcore games like Rainbow Six don't appeal.

Much like Mass Effect, Spore has come back after the outrage over the SecuROM copy protection and announced that they are utilizing it a little differently than default. No, they aren't requiring you to authenticate every 13 seconds or submit DNA tests to a mysterious database.

Like Mass Effect, Spore will only (re)authenticate when you go online or install the game. It also makes it so you can play without the disc, as well as install it on multiple computers. Best of all, you'll be able to play offline without any issues! As Spore is destined to be one of the biggest PC games of the year, this sudden shift in copy protection is much appreciated.

If you're a PC gamer then you've probably been subject to the news that both Mass Effect and Spore are going to require an online activation and subsequent re-activations every ten days. This piece of news has caused quite a bit of internet buzz over the discussion of whether or not these games should even have anti-piracy protection or not. Some say yes, some say no and others are somewhere in-between.

The guys over at Opposable Thumbs have created one of their "The Showdown" articles wherein two of their writers flip a coin to decide which side of the argument they'll represent.

Ubisoft released a three minute "introduction trailer" (also available in HD) for Far Cry 2 today, embedded above. It includes glimpses of the Montreal development studio, a small amount of gameplay footage, anecdotes about the team's African research safari, and commentary by the developers (one of whom looks suspiciously like Paul Rudd) about their vision for the gameplay and setting.

Note that the studio behind the original Far Cry -- Crytek -- is not involved with this sequel. Instead, the team that put together the Far Cry Instincts games -- the Xbox and Xbox 360 iterations of the series -- is cooking this one up. Those games were a little more focused than the original title, but also less progressive.

We witnessed a live presentation of Far Cry 2 on the floor at GDC this year and were impressed by the technology. The open-world approach to gameplay sounds exciting, but past attempts at open world FPSes have been hit-and-miss in terms of quality. We'll see if Ubisoft can pull it off when the game launches this fall.

Evochron Renegades, an indie elite-like, has released a new version. The game is very similar to X3: Reunion or Freelancer in terms of being a realistic freeform space sim. There's many new features, but here are the most notable:

• A new multiplayer system allowing for improved router support and performance.
  
• Option to save in different profile slots in-game (multiple save points).
  
• Custom music option now supports event/threat level triggered music. In other words, you can add all your own music for actions you might do in the game.
  
• Server software updated for new multiplayer functionality.
  
• A new clan battlefield system.

For a full list of changes, as well as the download link for the demo (trust me, it's well worth it!), visit the official site. You can purchase the full version for $25 as well, which gives you a registration key for the demo to unlock it to the full version.

[Via Blue's News]

Grand Theft Auto IV has arrived on the XBox 360 and the PlayStation 3, and if Metacritic reviews and first day sales numbers are to be believed, it's one of the greatest, most successful games in history. So when do PC users get their overclocked hands on this morally deviant masterpiece?

CVG reported a while back that a French retailer had revealed October as the European release window for a PC version of GTA4. That would match Rockstar's last-gen precedent of releasing PC GTA titles six months or so after the console versions. CVG contacted Rockstar, and were given the classic response: "no comment." Not a denial, but not a confirmation. How disappointing!

While the date is up in the air, it's probably a safe bet that a PC version is coming, given the precedent and the lack of a denial. Every GTA game to date has seen a PC release. Why stop now? We mean, besides the piracy and the depressing sales numbers. Oy!

[Via The Escapist]

Radical Entertainment rolled out a few videos and an interview for its upcoming open world game Prototype. We've embedded the interview, which has the bulk of the new footage, here. GameTrailers also has it in HD, for all you image quality junkies out there.

Watch the video, and answer this: balls to the wall, much? There's a lot of stuff going down in these short clips. The gameplay looks insane. We're not so impressed by the interview. The guy talks like amnesia is the most original story idea in the world, when we all know that concept is very tired in the gaming world. Also -- "power fantasy?" Probably true, but how many people want to think they're playing this game to work through their feelings of powerlessness in the real world?

Ah, well. Watch the video and bask in the excessive, superhero-esque violence.

A while ago, it was announced that Prototype's co-op mode was axed, much to my dismay. However, Ansell has good news for those who love to romp around with a buddy in an open-world setting.

Speaking to Eurogamer, Ansell expressed the desire to explore multiplayer in the future. "We had some pretty cool ideas about multiplayer and we can't wait to start exploring that stuff. We're hoping the game sells really well so we can explore it further," he said.

This is speculation at this point, but there are three potential things this could mean. Multiplayer might be released in a patch, an expansion that adds multiplayer to the game might come out after release, or a sequel that implements what the original could not might be in the works if the game sells well.

Personally? I think it'll be a patch. Companies are still adding massive content to games with new patches, if the excellent Team Fortress 2 patch is any indication.. But as was said, this is all wild speculation. So what do you think?

A new Garry's Mod patch has been released today. No, you don't get another awesome chair animation this time. Just some bugfixes. But they are still pretty important! The patch fixes bugs concerning sound problems with people who don't own Half-life 2, save-game issues, and other small bugfixes.

We have to admit that Mafia II is one open world action game that will have an art style like no other. Unlike all the other sandbox style titles like Grand Theft Auto IV, Saint's Row 2, Prototype and This is Vegas, the 2K Czech (formerly Illusion Softworks) title isn't set in the modern day world but in the 1950s. That means classic cars, old-fashioned archtechture and, oh yes, tommy guns..

The new screnshots that have just been released for the game show off all of these features and more as the organized crime groups battle it out on foot on with in-car action.The visual look absolutely stunning at this point but at the end of the day it's all about gameplay and we hope that playing Mafia II will be just as fun to play as it is to look at. The title is due for release in late 2008/early 2009.

Two worlds are better then one. OK, maybe not, but more new content is coming for Reality Pump's RPG, Two Worlds. Xbox 360 users got a taste of "Tainted Blood" last month, but come May 1st PC gamers will be able to download the extra content for free from the game's official website.

Gamers who bought the GotY edition of Two Worlds received the new PC multiplayer add-on with their purchase, but those who didn't snag it will soon be able to take on the new adventures in Antaloor. "Tainted Blood" will let players hunt down a crazy Necromancer (we thought Charles Manson was still in prison), "unsolve" the mystery of a massacre in a woodcutters' camp (which oddly enough sounds like the current state of Vista), deal with a rebel knight (what Jack Thompson likely thinks of himself) and more. Just what the "more" is, we'd surely like to know since "more" can mean anything... or nothing.

The add-on also lets players visit the new Business and Training Center, which we doubt is run by Kinkos. The fictional town of Tharnburg now provides a large trader's district as well as various arenas to try out those fresh and phat new combat techniques.

ZUXXEZ Entertainment also announced that another add-on called "Curse of the Souls" is coming to your world (or maybe it's two worlds) soon.

Garry's Mod, the excellent manipulation mod/game using the Source engine, has just been patched. Along with some bugfixes and a new menu option, the new patch adds chairs. But not just any chairs. Chairs with a sweet rollercoaster sitting animation. One can only imagine how much better Full-Life Consequences would've been with this sort of animation. Video of the new animations after the jump.

There will be no shortages of open world action games this year but Midway plans to do something just a little bit different with the genre with their upcoming game This is Vegas. Developed by Surreal Software for the PC and other platforms, Midway recently released the first screenshots from the game to show off what it has to offer.

As the visuals show, Midway isn't trying to recreate a real version of Las Vegas but rather a idealized vision of Sin City that's more like what we might see in the movies or TV shows about the city. Your character is trying to keep the adult version of Las Vegas going against the will of a businessman who is trying to turn Vegas into more of a family tourist location. The game itself will have some aspects that are familiar to the open world genre like combat and driving through the 40 square miles of Vegas. However it will also have features like gambling (where you can "cheat" to win cash) and more importantly keeping the parties going with dancing, bartending and more mini-games. Look for This is Vegas to be released sometime this fall.