While a few days old already this IGN interview with Freedom Force creators Ken Levine, Rob Waters, Dorian Hart, Alex Kay and Joe McDonagh shouldn't be missed. These gentlemen discuss the cancelled Freedom Force sequels (Freedom Force 3 and Ultimate Freedom Force) and the successes and failures of the first two titles in the franchise. 

Ken Levine: Well, the first game was reasonably commercially successful: we sold around 400,000 units. For a PC game at the time it was reasonably successful. The second game sold around 40,000 units. I think the mistake we probably made, in retrospect, but I don't think that it was a mistake creatively, is that it was definitely a love letter to the 60's era Marvel comics. The Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko stuff. Sorry, probably Don Heck and Gene Colan as well. (Laughs) It was such a love letter, that for the modern audience, it may have been too weird and different, and not what they knew of comics than what Rob and I knew of comics growing up.  

That's seven(!) pages of questions and answers. It seems like Irrational Games actually had a good chance to do Ultimate Freedom Force: 

IGN: So do you think that's the direction of the artwork and art style of Freedom Force 3 and Ultimate Freedom Force would have gone in, considering the images we're seeing of these two games? These look a bit harder edged in some ways. 

Ken Levine: Yeah, the Ultimate Freedom Force, which was just a working title, was definitely that. The idea was definitely to make it more hard edged. We went back and forth – we had something that was very colorful and something that was very hard edged, but I think the idea was to make it much more modern feeling. That was a game actually that we had a buyer for, and we ended up deciding whether we were doing BioShock or that, and we ended up doing BioShock. But we actually found a buyer for it and got a good budget for it, and we just ended up not doing that game because we ended up doing something else instead. But I always wonder: would that have worked?

Keep in mind UFF would have been quite different compared to Freedom Force and Freedom Force vs The Third Reich: 

IGN: Definitely. Here's another quick question: Was there anything that you wish had been implemented for multiplayer? Elements of multiplayer that you felt didn't work as well? 

Ken Levine: I don't think, to be fair, it was ever a great multiplayer game. I think it was just the limitation of the type of game it is. That's why Ultimate Freedom Force was a direct control game, where you actually controlled a single character. I think co-op would have been really fun in that game, but I don't think the nature of Freedom Force worked great as a multiplayer game. But some people played it that way, and we tried to support it. We added a bunch of modes for Third Reich, and I never played that way much myself. It's such as story origin game, it's about seeing what happens and tooling around with individual powers that I really stuck with it that way. That's really hard to do in multiplayer, because I tend to pause a lot when I play. I play it like a turn based game. 

Rather than stick around the MMO-ized corpse of Big Huge Games, Brian Reynolds has moved on to Zynga.

Zynga, the largest developer of social games, today appointed Brian Reynolds to the newly created position of chief designer. Reynolds will lead the product development team and will be responsible for developing new social strategy games.

Reynolds, an eighteen-year industry veteran, is recognized as one of the industry’s most talented and productive game designers and was honored by PC Gamer as one of 25 “Game Gods.” Reynolds played a key role founding two successful videogame studios: Firaxis Games and Big Huge Games and masterminded the design of several smash hits including Civilization II®, Alpha Centauri®, and Rise of Nations®, as well as Catan® for Xbox360 Live Arcade. Reynolds’ videogames have sold over six million copies worldwide.

So what's this Zynga all about?

Zynga is the largest social gaming company with 12 million daily users and 50 million monthly users. Zynga’s games are available on Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Hi5, Friendster, Yahoo! and the iPhone, and include Texas Hold’Em Poker, Mafia Wars, YoVille, Vampires, Street Racing, Scramble and Word Twist.

The internet is full of new StarCraft II hands-on previews and interviews right now, seems like a big game or something. A beta test is coming up "soon" whenever the new Battle.net service is ready for the moment of truth.

Some articles just focus on a multiplayer hands-on while others contain new information about the singleplayer campaign. If you're interested in the latter then be sure to read Shacknews' interview (part 1, part 2) with lead designer Dustin Browder. The man unfortunately doesn't say "terrible, terrible damage" again but he does reveal that there will be mercenaries in the campaign, that Wing Commander was an influence and which kind of missions we'll be seeing.  

Dustin Browder: We've got a mission right now where every five minutes, lava rises and kills everything on the ground. Everything dies. You've got to get to the high ground or die. We've got a mission right now where infested Terrans are attacking at night, but they're hiding in the ground by day, so you need to just hold out all night long like you're in I Am Legend. Like, "I've got to live!" and then day, "Get 'em! Kill 'em while they sleep!" And you run out and you burn everything as fast as you can, and then when darkness starts coming you have to get back and hide out. 

We've got missions where you're trying to defend a Terran colony that's getting infested one piece at a time, and you've got to try to put out all these fires while fighting off these infested units. We've got this mission where you are a lone ghost trying to influence the course of an entire battle. So each of these missions is like a little minigame. 

For the multiplayer coverage you might want to check out Team Liquid's clinical overview, which offers the current tech trees of all races and all the little infobits you wanted to know about the new Battle.net features. They also got a more wordy player report which sounds interesting if you're into the pro scene or accountancy.

Amidst all the enthusiasm there was a nasty "surprise" though as Blizzard has cut the LAN (local area network) option from their RTS sequel. No playing with your friends offline or playing online with that 'legal' copy over Hamachi then. Here is the official statement about throwing the LAN option into a black hole: 

We don’t currently plan to support LAN play with StarCraft II, as we are building Battle.net to be the ideal destination for multiplayer gaming with StarCraft II and future Blizzard Entertainment games. While this was a difficult decision for us, we felt that moving away from LAN play and directing players to our upgraded Battle.net service was the best option to ensure a quality multiplayer experience with StarCraft II and safeguard against piracy.  

Several Battle.net features like advanced communication options, achievements, stat-tracking, and more, require players to be connected to the service, so we’re encouraging everyone to use Battle.net as much as possible to get the most out of StarCraft II. We’re looking forward to sharing more details about Battle.net and online functionality for StarCraft II in the near future.

They're certainly putting a lot of eggs in that Battle.net 2.0 basket. This decision probably isn't a big surprise to anyone who has been following news of that other BN 2.0 powered game, namely Diablo III, as Blizzard already said last year that title wouldn't support LAN as well.

Tropico 3 is about to undergo closed beta testing (starting on July 13th) on PC and you can be part of that bug hunting dream. Just fill in the sign-up form and hope you're in.

A beta test "on PC" I said because the controlled media has revealed that Tropico 3 will also be an Xbox360 game. The multiplatform rage is finally hitting simulation games as well?   

In what was previously a PC exclusive title this release will see Kalypso Media enter the next- generation console market where they will be concentrating exclusively on Microsoft platforms. 

Stefan Marcinek, Global Managing Director Kalypso Media Group said “The Tropico 3 release on the Xbox 360 is a first for Kalypso and marks the beginning of an exciting entry into the console market. Throughout 2010 Kalypso Media have plans to release four titles in tandem on both the Xbox 360 and PC. Through this we will be able to demonstrate our strong PC Line up with new multiplatform games and this gives us some great opportunities for the year ahead.” 

The console version of Tropico 3 will be released simultaneously with the PC game (around September this year) and is being developed by the same developer, namely Haemimont Games. 

Gary Grigsby and friends are returning to Mother Russia for Gary Grigsby's War in the East.

Gary Grigsby’s War in the East: The German-Soviet War 1941-1945 is a turn-based World War II strategy game stretching across the entire Eastern Front. Gamers can engage in an epic campaign, including division-sized battles with realistic and historical terrain, weather, orders of battle, logistics and combat results.  As with all the award-winning titles made by the 2by3 Games team, factors such as supply, fatigue, experience, morale and the skill of your divisional, corps and army leaders all play an important part in determining the results at the front line. Gary Grigsby’s War in the East will come with a massive Eastern Front scenario as well as smaller scenarios all with different strategic and operational challenges.

Features include:

• 10 miles per hex and Weekly turns
• 25,760 hexes or over 2.5 million square miles of battlespace
• Division sized maneuver units (with some brigades/regiments and Soviet Corps)
• German Corps/Army HQs and Soviet Army/Front HQs
• Map covers from 100 miles west of Berlin in the west to the Urals in the east, and from 150 miles north of Leningrad in the north to Baku and Sofia in the south.
• Independent Corps/Army battalions to attach to maneuver units
• Air units by group in their own airbase units
• Detailed production
• Losses in individual vehicles and squads
• Detailed yet automatic accounting for support personnel and supplies/fuel/ammunition
• Historical commander ratings
• Accounts for troops/vehicles that are disrupted, disabled and fatigued
• Accurately depicts the need for training units before entering combat
• Detailed weather zones and ice levels
• Full war as well as smaller scenarios
• Intricate Fog of War rules and unit detection levels

Kris, our longtime connoisseur of grand strategy games and blond women with strange accents, had a run at Hearts of Iron III to see how it shakes down so far.

I must say I was a bit surprised when I first got into battle in HOI3. While it looks and plays very much like the earlier editions, it feels much better. The battles are longer and with the increased number of provinces and different dynamics it felt quite different and in my opinion clearly better. No longer are battles over in two hours and no longer does it feels like casualties accrue too quickly or don’t happen at all. In the front it feels and looks like they actually fight it out with each other. You can now tie up three enemy divisions with one of yours without being instantly massacred. One clear change in land combat is how joining divisions don’t go straight into battle, they first come up as reserves before later joining the fight. If troops fill up in a battle it could now actually last for months.

Read the preview here...

Petroglyph Games and publisher TrueGames have started the marketing campaign for Mytheon, a free-to-play multiplayer action-strategy game set in ancient Greece, with a first trailer. In true Xena: Warrior Princess/Hercules: The Legendary Journeys style you'll get a look at some in-game footage which tries to convey the setting and some features. 

Mytheon offers a unique game play experience that combines elements of strategy and action with an emphasis on collectability. Players will challenge legendary mythological gods by wielding powerful "Power Stones" that transform into spells, structures and creatures. Players can loot, forge, buy, sell and trade these stones among a thriving online community, then cast the stones during epic battles that play out in a visually stunning 3D mythological world. 

IGN has published an interview with Peter Cesario from TrueGames and Chris Rubyor from Petroglyph in which they discuss the trailer, the three classes, social networking support as well as the free-to-play and micro-transaction parts of Mytheon: 

IGN: It's a micro-transaction game, but is it essentially free to play? Are the micro transactions optional? What sorts of things will you be able to buy? 

Peter Cesario: Mytheon will definitely be 100-percent free to download and free to play for as long as you want. Regarding the micro-transactions specifically, they of course will not be required in order to enjoy the game. However, with Mytheon we're also making a conscious effort to as seamlessly as possible integrate the model into the normal game play experience so as to avoid the sometimes community polarizing effects of "paying" vs. "non-paying" players. We'll be revealing more details in the near future, but in short, our goal is to ensure that from a community standpoint, both paying and non-paying players are never provided a clear advantage over one another but can actually benefit from each other at all times.

That last sentence sounds like wishful thinking to me but hopefully for them it will work out. At least they seem to realise that launching a full price retail game while offering micro-transactions as well might not be the best option (cfr. BattleForge).

Mytheon is scheduled to go live in the first quarter of 2010, a closed beta test should be available by the end of this year.

GlobalExplorer, the man once voted "Most Likely to Have Been Born in the Wrong Century", had another turn at East India Company. This updated preview build let him get his hands on previously unavailable features, such as port battles and trade.

Another thing to learn quickly is that you will need every ton of cargo space that you can get. It is for this reason that the right construction orders matter a lot. It appears to me the East Indiamen will be a first choice, because it offers the best ratio between cargo space and price. Ships of the line will be useful as escorts (because firepower and the ability to survive battles seem to be everything in this game). Separate privateer fleets of Frigates and Brigs to lurk around straights and capes. As to the smaller units, I don't know if they are of much use. With the battle engine in its current state everything seems to boil down to hit points and cannons, so the small vessels will be dead meat.

Head here for the full preview.

WWI naval sim Jutland is getting its first expansion next month with the catchy title Ship Pack 1 - US North Sea 1916-17.

Jutland Ship Pack 1 - US North Sea expands the available ship model database to nearly 1000 highly accurate, well reached, historical ships to re-fight the high seas battles of WWI.

* 8 Ship Classes - 43 New Ships - representing elements of the 1916-17 US Atlantic Fleet operating in the
  North Sea. Eight (8) new classes of Dreadnaught era warships greatly expand the available JUTLAND
  Era Ships to almost 1000! All ships are highly detailed and historically researched.

  Battleship Classes:  New York, Wyoming, Florida, Deleware 
  Destroyers Classes: Obrien, Cassin, Monaghan, Paulding

* Starter Scenarios - Several Stand alone scenarios featuring the mighty US Fleet.

* Hypothetical 1916 Campaign - US Early Entry into WWI - What if the US had entered WWI in 1916?

WWII RTT game Men of War has a stand-alone expansion on the way, Men of War: Red Tide.

Men of War: Red Tide is a stunning mixture of RTS and a third-person action that introduces a new fighting force known for its brutal efficiency during the height of World War II. Played out across more than 20 missions, Men of War: Red Tide has players take command of the feared "Black Coats," the nickname given to Soviet Marines, an elite combat group specializing in engagements near the shoreline. The player has direct control of new game units including the Black Coats, new tanks, self-propelled guns, armored trains, landing craft, artillery and new enemy emplaced weapons to capture and use. New air support options include new fighters, bombers, hydroplanes; cruisers, destroyers and gun boats which provide naval fire support. 

Be warned though, it's not being developed by the original MoW team.

Anno 1404 (aka Dawn of Discovery) was just released today, but Hooked Gamers have already fallen in love with it, introduced it to the parents, knocked it up, and slapped a 9 out of 10 on it.

Dawn of Discovery is an unexpected gem. I had expected more of the same, which I got, and then some. The only small gripe I have with it is that the campaign maps get reset between missions. After each mission that you play on the same map, you see your own buildings disappear and be replaced by ones placed by the game. Considering the quality of the rest of the game however, this is a minor detail.

They series have always delivered solid gameplay but never before did it come this polished and with so many cool new additions. The honor system, the special items, the addition of the Orient as both a trade partner and new culture, there is a lot to discover. Having played the game for two days, I am still discovering new things and finding new ways of achieving my goals. So while the overall game is still very much the same, Dawn of Discovery feels every bit as fresh as playing the very first game for the very first time. Beware: this game will churn away at your time and you will love every minute of it.

Relic is giving you a peek at the "There is Only War" content update for Dawn of War II via this 24 minute video.

Josh and Stefan provide a play-by-play of the action while revealing new Ork and Space Marine changes introduced from the balance update of ‘There is Only War’. The video shows how to use combinations of unit types to directly counter opposing forces. You’ll see how sharper unit roles and newly introduced abilities result in greater strategic depth. 

Miniatures wargame Field of Glory won't be the domain of tabletop jockeys for long as a PC version is in the works. The Wargamer has the details:

• Gameplay that allows key decisions to decide the results of historical battles

• Detailed and accurate depiction of ancient warfare

• 12 historical battles with hundreds of units to control

• Play as Rome, Carthage, Gaul, Germanic Tribes and the Spartacus Slave Revolt and even the Roman civil war

• Single and 2 player head to head modes

• Comprehensive scenario builder included

And if you're like me and said "hey, wasn't there already a PC game called Field of Glory?", that was Fields of Glory. 

EALA has released update 1.11, which they call their "biggest" patch yet for Red Alert 3. You can auto-update or download it separately from this list of mirrors. See the whole rundown of 1.11 bug fixes and balance changes in the full patch notes. 

We really appreciate your patience in giving us the time needed to complete this patch. The Red Alert 3 Dev Team put forth an amazing effort especially on the technical fixes. We're hopeful the map transfer issue should be significantly improved, the (2) new Uprising maps are well enjoyed (and will be considered for rank play), and the multitude of balance and exploit fixes go over well.

It's a big RTS patching week as Demigod has also been updated now to version 1.1. It's the first major patch for the game, the upcoming demo will be based on the same version. Version 1.1 includes:

• Teams can concede a game to end it early once it becomes apparent who is going to win.
  
• Launch of the second Epoch online. Existing statistics archived and rankings based on new games.
  
• Improved chat window handling
  
• When players sell a minion idol, minions connected to that idol are destroyed.
  
• Improved computer AI.
  
• Removed “spammy” achievement alerts.
  
• Improved visuals on certain nVidia cards at lower quality settings.
  
• Heart of Life more expensive, now an artifact, longer cooldown.
  
• Hex Scroll is more powerful
  
• Pantheon games are forced to even teams (e.g. 3 vs. 3)
  
• Reward for completing a game is now 40 favor points.
  
• Reduced experience and gold reward from killing piling priests and angels.
  
• Angel unit AI improved
  
• Many small tweaks and fixes to engine and multiplayer
• Custom Games fully make use of new Demigod Online system developed by Stardock:
• Players who have opened their ports get directly connected.
  
• Players who don’t have opened ports will get connected via a NAT server
  
• Players who still can’t connect will have their games hosted by Stardock servers based in Asia, Europe, or North America depending on player location. 

As with most recent Stardock games you have to update through Impulse to get the patch.