Wargaming.net, makers of World of Tanks, sent us eight all-new screenshots and four renders of their upcoming World of Warships. Take a deceptively peaceful moment to enjoy these non-gun-firing pics of what were once the largest war machines on the entire planet.

The US Navy decommissioned the last battleships in the 1990s, though their golden age began waning the moment aircraft carriers plowed onto the scene in World War II. 

I don't think you understand just how badly I need World of Warships to happen. Wargaming.net proved it could craft killer multiplayer combat and a compelling tech-tree grind with World of Tanks, and I have every confidence they'll do good work on World of Warships, too. I'm not ignoring World of Warplanes, but I just like ocean-spanning steel behemoths with triple 14-inch gun turrets a little more. More bang for the buck. I'm obviously compensating for something.

The New Mexico-class battleship is labeled in the renders, but I don't know what class (or nationality) the ship is with the two smokestacks, although I'm guessing the aircraft carrier launching planes with big red dots on them are Japanese. History is hard.

We asked for true deck building in the Magic: Duels of the Planeswalkers franchise and now it looks like we are getting it in the form of sealed play. Sealed play, along with the Slivers creature type, will make their debut when Magic 2014 launches this Summer.

Sealed play will allow players to obtain and open booster packs and build custom decks against the computer and other players. Sealed pools have 84 cards, just like the real game, and there is even a six-deck ladder where players can take on mono-colored sealed decks and a boss. As for the introduction of slivers, the game will feature the following: Sliver Construct, Predatory Sliver, Groundshaker Sliver, Megantic Sliver, Blur Sliver, Striking Sliver, Thorncaster Sliver, Battle Sliver, Sentinel Sliver, Bonescythe Sliver, as well as the Hive Stirrings card which will generate a number of Sliver tokens.

Magic 2014: Duels of the Planeswalkers will be available this Summer for PC, XBLA, PSN, iPad, and Android.

NeocoreGames has finally placed a firm release date on their upcoming action-RPG The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing. The game will launch through Valve’s Steam service on the PC for May 22, 2013.

Along with the official release date, the development team has also released a new trailer for the game that highlights the game’s skill trees and perks. You can check that out below and look forward to our full preview of the game very, very soon. Plus, we will be hosting a special live stream of the game later this week which we will tell you more about later.
   

EVE Online turned 10 today. Not bad, not bad at all, considering it launched the same year as Shadowbane and Star Wars: Galaxies--and both of those massively-multiplayer online (MMO) games went buh-bye. EVE also outlasted Earth & Beyond, even though EVE's developers were warned EVE would fail because Earth & Beyond was The Next Big Thing. But, as history tells it, Earth & Beyond folded after only two short years (2002-2004), while EVE is still very much alive.

So here we are. The Little Icelandic MMO That Could. EVE blew out birthday candles this year by handing out fireworks and festival launchers to players in-game. They gave a "Sarum Magnate" frigate to every paying subscriber on Cinco de Mayo, along with stat-boosting implants and unique avatar clothing. There was also another player-run "Flight of 1000 Rifters" event, which had tons of little frigate ships shooting little frigate lasers at a mothership (for scale, picture 1,000 X-Wings trying to take down a Star Destroyer).

All of this contributed to EVE breaking its concurrent-user record yesterday, with over 65,000 players logged in at one time into the single-shard universe.

To outdo their free-ship generosity from May 5, today they handed out a Gnosis battlecruiser to everyone. Which is cool because the Gnosis looks like Planescape: Torment's Lady of Pain transformed into an angry Ankh lined with shooty guns.

Congratulations, EVE. Here's to 10 more years. [READ MORE]

The torture and murdering of innocent Sims will commence once again as EA and Maxis have announced that The Sims 4 will be released next year on PC and Mac. 

Now, my first thought was "oh god please no. It's going to be online only." Well everyone can calm down because thankfully, EA confirmed with IGN that the single player portion of the game will be playable offline. 

"Today we are revealing to our top fans the fact that The Sims™ 4 is coming to PC and Mac in 2014.

The Sims franchise is fueled by the passion and creativity of its millions of fans around the world. Their continued devotion to the franchise ignites the fire of creativity of the team at The Sims Studio, driving them to continually improve and innovate on one of the world’s most successful simulation game that has sold more than 150 million copies worldwide.

Share your excitement for the game on Twitter with the hashtag #TheSims4."

No other details have been announced but apparently we are getting more info later today.
 

Amazingly, Portal didn't spawn a million copies.  It has, however, now spawned one: Magrunner: Dark Pulse.  Magrunner: Dark Pulse is a downloadable title that will be available for the PC, Xbox 360, and PS3.  It doesn't feature portals, but it does feature people running around in challenge rooms solving puzzles with their Gruckezberg magnetic gloves that allows them to manipulate objects and bypass obstacles.  

Watch the video and see for yourself.  For more info, follow the jump.  Also visit Focus Home Interactive and frogwares.com.
  [READ MORE]

There were many stories on Star Wars: Battlefront III last year. Some developers even claimed that the game was 99% done and all they had were bug fixes to do when the game was cancelled. Well, now you can actually see the game as PtoPOnline has recorded his play through with a build of the game on Twitch. 

I'm sure there will be many folks who watch this and crave for the release of the game. It's unfortunate that the game was cancelled when it was so close to being shipped and we'll probably never know why the powers that be pulled the plug on it at its current state. But, for now, enjoy what would have been.

Insomniac Games and EA announced that a demo for the upcoming cooperative shooter Fuse will be available May 7 on Xbox Live and PSN.

Players can team up with one other friend in split screen mode, or three others online, but also play alone as the four characters of Overstrike 9 squad. Each of the characters will work together in the demo to find the source of Fuse –– the alien substance that grants supernatural powers –– in an arctic weapons depot.

For an in-depth look at our cooperative session with Insomniac CEO Ted Price, head here to see Fuse in action before it releases May 28.

 

We've all played first-person shooters, and we've all, at some point in our gaming lives, thought, "Enough with all this shooting!  I want to hit things with a sword and/or shoot magic at the supernatural and can't just spend two more years of my life lost in Skyrim.  I've only got one chance left with my boss and significant other and I need to save it for GTA V."

Well, Amalgamofeverygamerever, I have some good news for you: Techland, makers of Dead Island and Call of Juarez, have heard your call and present Hellraid.  Hellraid is a single-player first person hack-and-slash game with ranged weapons and magic that also features a four-player co-op mode that sounds an awfully lot like it's a wave-based "horde mode."

Hellraid will be available for the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC later this year.  To learn more, follow the jump.  You can also visit hellraid.com, and facebook.com/hellraidgame. [READ MORE]

• Batgirl possibly outed for Injustice: Gods Among Us DLC
• New Remember Me trailer makes me remember what I love about videogames
• Dark screenshots and and super-generous minimum PC specs released today
• Tiny Tina's assault on Dragon Keep is the next Borderlands 2 DLC.
• Space Hulk: developer Q & A
• Nintendo Download for 05/02/2013
• Now Loading: Audio Edition for 05/02/2013
• Say hello to Katarina, the not-so-friendly ghost (The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing)
• Intel's next chip line will have some greatly improved graphics
• One Defiance gamer will win a "special place" on the Defiance TV show

What does a vampire need stealth for?  They're generally portrayed in popular culture as being stronger, faster, and generally better than baseline humans.  A vampire should be able to take what it wants with no regard for consequences or its own personal safety beyond the typical vamp concerns of sunlight, garlic, holy water, and silver.

Such is not the case in Kalyso's upcoming stealth-action-vampire game called Dark.  Dark is set for release this summer for the PC and Xbox 360 and features vampires that must rely on the shadows to survive.  Today's new batch of screenshots shows off the game's quasi-cell shaded look.  I'm assuming it's thanks to that art style that the just-released minimum specs for Dark are so relaxed and groovy.  They are: Windows XP SP2, a 2.0 GHz Dual Core, 2 GB System RAM, 5 GB free HDD, a DirectX compatible sound card, a Nvidia GeForce 9600 GT/ATI Radeon HD 4670/Intel HD Graphics 4000, 512 MB RAM.  

Even my PC, which was cobbled together for 150 dollars from my neighbor's menagerie of left-over PC components meets that.

To learn more, follow the jump.   [READ MORE]

Space Hulk is a videogame based on a board game, but rather than some crappy ship sinking simulator or intro to the economics of the 1%, Space Hulk is based on the Sin of Damnation campaign from the 3rd edition board game.  The Space Hulk board game, if you don't know, is part of the wide Warhammer 40K franchise.  Basically, Space Hulk is a videogame based on a board game based on a tabletop strategy game that itself has spun off several videogames.

The Space Hulk videogame offers a 12-mission single-player and co-operative campaign, a level editor, and multiplayer modes that allow players to control either a space marine or a Genestealer.  It will be available for the PC, Mac, and mobile devices sometime later this year.  The following developer Q & A should clear up any other questions you have.  If not, visit www.spacehulk-game.com.