The altogether average TimeShift released a free pack of multiplayer maps, available via Xbox LIVE as of May 7th.  The five new maps, entitled "Futures-Past Multiplayer Map Pack," sport One-on-One, Deathmatch, and Team Deathmatch modes, naturally, but TimeShift "reveals the future of multiplayer fragging" with its exclusive King of Time and Meltdown Madness modes.  More details back at the official TimShift site.

So here's the first look at Gears of War 2. The video shows off some scenes from the first act, chapter three. I do like some of the new abilities such as using a Locust as a body shield and the chainsaw fighting. Epic does seem to be going for bigger scaled battles as one part has Marcus shooting down at a good number of Locusts. And when I say good number I mean in the high twenties or more. Hard to tell what graphical improvements there maybe in this video but fans who wanted more Gears should be happy at what they see.

Atari has launched a new website for Alone in the Dark which allows you to explore the world of the game before it hits shelves.  With the company being delisted this from the NASDAQ this week it's hard to underestimate how important this game is to the company.  What I've seen looks really good but it remains to be seen if the final product will be enough to help turn the company around.

Here's a new video showing off some of the ginormous boss battles you'll see in Assault Heroes 2 when it's launched next week.  

Funcom and Eidos released eight new in-game screens for Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. Every time I see new screens, this MMORPG seems to look better and better. The screens are from the Poitain area. [READ MORE]

Looks like the BioShock movie has a better than expected director. Gore Verbinski is set to direct what he hopes to be an R-rated BioShock movie and I think it's a good choice. The guy turned a theme park ride into one great movie and two OK movies. The game's ripe with great imagery and should produce some incredible set pieces so we just need a good translation of the story here.  Just as long as they change the ending. Just kidding. I threw that in there to poke Cyril a little. :) Anyways, Gore seems to be into video games as there's a little tidbit in an interview alluding to interest in a Portal movie.Who would you want to play the roles?

-Update with Press Release- [READ MORE]

Articles

• Our own John Yan ain't got nothin' nice to say to the Cleveland Indians GM. [GamingNexus Blogs]
• WarCry looks at the difficult task of roleplaying a merchant in this edition of RoleCraft: Professional RP.
• "The most robust of them all," here's Techgage's review of the ASUS X48-based P5E3 Premium Wi-Fi-AP board.

Videos, Screens

• VIDEOS:  Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit Trailer #6 (MP4); NASCAR 09 Paint Booth Trailer (WMV); Street Gears Cinematic Trailer (WMV); Mythos Open Beta Trailer (WMV); Assault Heroes 2 Big Bosses Trailer #1, #2 (QT); Elefunk Trailer (MP4); Ninja Gaiden 2 Lunar Staff Trailer #1, #2, #3, Castle, Brooklyn, Venice Environments (WMV).

• SCREENS:  Ninja Gaiden 2 (X360); Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors (Wii); The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor; MotorStorm Pacific Rift (PS3); Race Driver: GRID [demo shots]; The Lord of the Rings: Conquest; Street Gears (PC); Trainz: The Complete Collection (PC); Sins of a Solar Empire (PC); Sudden Strike 3 add-on (PC) [winter landscapes]; Voltage (PS3); Men of War (PC); Battle Rage: The Robot Wars (Wii); Toki Tori (Wii); Code Lyoko: Quest for Infinity (PS2 and PSP shots); Code Lyoko: Fall of X.A.N.A. (DS).

Thanks to WarCry, AtomicGamer, and Techgage for today's news roundup.

Here are a few things I missed while checking if my ISP was throttling my bandwidh:

• The Analog Gamer is back with a D&D Bar Fighting game...I'd kick ass my with +4 Tankard of ass kicking brew
• Totilo wonders if reviewers needs to finish games, the overhype of Bioshock comes to mind
• GameSetWatch looks at the good, the bad, and the kind of ugly of the PlayStation Network.
• The NES re-imagined
• Ars Technica examines how Activision will still be milking the ESA even though it's not paying dues anymore

Here are the stats sent out by Microsoft on the performance of Grand Theft Auto IV on the Xbox 360 and Xbox Live. The numbers provided are quite impressive, but this is Microsoft's internal take from retailer feedback on the sales figures. We probably wont know the true impact until both the April and May NPD numbers have been released.

-Xbox 360 consoles increased by 54% week-over-week
-Retailers are telling Microsoft that 60% of GTA sales are on the Xbox 360
-The game is being attached to new console sales at a 40% clip (retailer info)
-2.3 million people played GTA IV on Xbox Live in the first week
-GTA IV is the #1 game on live
-There were one million concurrent users on live over the weekend
-Over 12 million achievements for 100 million gamerscore points unlocked
-Set a record of four hour average time spent playing GTA IV on Live [READ MORE]

It's been over two years since the last round (less than that for PS3 owners) but the highly-ranked Fight Night boxing series is coming out of the corner with Fight Night Round 4.  Fatigue, adrenaline, footwork, and timing are all part of the sweet science, and now rough and tumble inside fighting is thrown in the mix.  Not coincidentally, Mike Tyson makes a return to boxing games after a decade of no-shows.  The new physics systems now accounts for missed punches, glancing punches, and knockout blows.  We'll see if these old gloves can still hold their own against the challenger, Don King Presents: Prizefighter, and FaceBreaker coming out of EA's newly sub-branded EA Sports Freestyle development house.  Fight Night Round 4 is ballparked for a 2009 release on PS3 and Xbox 360. [READ MORE]

Rockstar has released a patch for the PS3 version of Grand Theft Auto IV which should help reduce the locking and stuttering issues the game was having.  It looks like the culprit was the GameSpy servers as they were getting flooded with requests.  Here's the statement from Rockstar

Rockstar Games has released a GTA IV patch for Playstation 3 today that prevents Gamespy’s servers from being overloaded and therefore reduces the impact on those servers that were causing the game to stutter and lock up. We continue to monitor the performance of the game both on and offline and will provide further updates as necessary. We want to assure everyone that, together with our hardware partners, we continue to strive to give our fans the best possible interactive entertainment experiences possible. This update will ensure that everyone will experience Grand Theft Auto IV the way it was intended. We apologize for the inconvenience this has caused.

Besides games, I love movies and it hurts to see both of them get bastardized by Uwe Boll. The guy makes bad movies period and on top of that he makes bad movies based on some good video games. You'd think companies would learn not to sign off on the deal to give him the ability to turn their creations into horrible wastes of time. Word is if StopUweBoll.org gets 1 million signatures, he'll stop making movies. To help achieve that goal, Stridge Gum has said they would provide one free coupon for a pack of their gum to each individual who signs the petition should the 1 million mark be reached between May 7th and 14th 2008. So what are you waiting for? Go sign the petition and chew bubble gum. If you sign it you won't be out of bubble gum. [READ MORE]

The New York Times has word that Take-Two will announce today that they have sold six million copies of Grand Theft Auto IV in the first week with 3.6 million going on the first day alone. Industry analysts, not to be confused with analyst therapists, were expecting 5 million in two weeks. So how will this effect Electronic Art's attempts in purchasing the company? Take-Two said all along they are going to wait until after the sales of GTA IV before discussing being acquitted by anybody.  Being #2 I'm sure doesn't suite EA well and acquiring Take-Two and the GTA franchise is one big step in trying to be #1 again.

Thanks Kotaku,