Game Console news roundup at techday.com

As you may know, I write the daily gaming news on New Zealand technology website   www.techday.com, the online home of Netguide magazine and Game Console.

This week I reported on an internet leak, the changes to the MMO business model, the return of an old hero and a look at two of this year’s top upcoming games.

Microsoft and Epic Games were mighty pissed to find their Gears of War 3 game freely available on the internet for all to download. Thankfully the leaked game is only playable on dev kit Xbox 360s; but that wasn’t stopped spoiler-laden videos of the game being posted on YouTube. For more details click here.

Age of Conan
Scary lady

Icelandic developer, Funcom has now switched their Conan MMO to the increasingly common free-to-play model. Age of Conan: Unchained is now available for all to download and play free of charge. Top MMO World of Warcraft has had the time constraint removed from its trial, allowing all to play the game for as long as they like up to level 20 without charge. And finally, on 15th December in a galaxy far, far away, Sony and Lucusarts will be closing down the Star Wars Galaxies MMO.

Snake? Snake? Snaaaake!!!

There was news on the upcoming buffed up HD reissue of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of

Liberty, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker on the 360 and PS3. I lamented at the absence of Metal Gear Solid in the collection. This sadness was overpowered by my excitement at having the opportunity to play these classic games once more, and in HD.

Dragon slaying!

I got all excited about Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim after reading though Bethesda’s fan Q&A. All this talk of dragons and the like got me all fired up for the game’s November release.

And finally I gave a rundown of the multiplayer beta for other game that I’m really looking forward to in November, Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception. Big thanks to developer, Naughty Dog, for giving us PS3 owners the opportunity to experience a small part of what we’ve got coming to us.

Zee plane, zee plane!

All in all it has been an interesting gaming week. With the huge amount of triple-A releases coming our way in time for Christmas, expect more revelations in the near future.