Saving Ourselves: Psychoanalytic Investigation of Resident Evil and Silent Hill (via Kotaku)

Now that Vista’s out, XP is old news. We always like a top 20 list and Voodoo Extreme has a run-down of the top games during Windows XP’s lifetime. I bet you can’t guess what’s number one.

Sony confirms Wipeout for PS3: “We have nothing to add, but we will be making an announcement with more details in the near future.” Hopefully they’ll bring back tDR… or perhaps another design agency that’s “de jour” to realise the visuals. (via Kotaku)

Disney has announced the pricing structure for their forthcoming MMORPG based on the Pirates of the Caribbean movies and theme park attractions: Free for the ad-supported version, or $9.95 per month for the “Unlimited Access” level. Quite what “ad supported” actually means — bill boards for Princess dress-up clothing in-game, perhaps — remains to be seen.

The game will be released for Windows in the Spring. No Mac version, though, so it looks like Apple OS fans have to use Bootcamp or something to play. (via The Disney Blog)

The guardian reports that the PS3 will launch on the 23rd March 2007 for £425 for the 60Gb model. Ouch. The 20Gb model will be released later, depending on demand, at an unknown cost. Sony haven’t announced how many will be released to the UK but have said that one million will be shipped to the EU.

This Penny Arcade strip really couldn’t be any closer to the truth. I’ve left my World of Warcraft Paladin, Hellioni, in cryo-stasis for the past few months and, like Tycho, have a copy of Burning Crusade sitting on a shelf. I’ll play it one day, I know.

Talking of World of Warcraft, Wonderland’s Alice pointed out this great audio/photo essay introduction to the game on Time magazine’s (of all places) website.

I didn’t know much about Dragon Quest, other than having seen commercials for a crap looking kids shows on TV, until I picked up a copy of the spin-off game Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime for the DS; a great little mini-RPG with cannon fights. Anyway, I decided to look into Dragon Quest a bit more after playing that and discovered this awesome looking RPG for the Nintendo DS due in Japan at the end of the year.

The DS isn’t known for it’s powerful hardware so this video for Dragon Quest IX was a bit of an unexpected treat. From the video it looks like it has a multi-player option planned as well; if it’s wifi enabled I’m sold! Of course, whether the game play matches the visuals remains to be seen, but I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on this one. In the mean time I’ll have to check out Dragon Quest VIII for the PS2, which I’d also overlooked until now.

The Grand List Of Console Role Playing Game Clichés: Including such gems as “All bookshelves contain exactly one book, which only has enough text on it to fill up half a page.” and “The strongest weapons/items/spells in the entire game can only be found by doing things like racing birds.”

Why classic computers and video game consoles turn that yucky yellow-brown colour with age, and what you can do about it. Short answer: not much.

Azeroth’s Dark Portal opens tonight at midnight. My cynical expectations are: World of Warcraft fans will eagerly hammer the servers as soon as registration opens, causing crashes and irate geeks to complain to the forums that they can’t log in, causing the forums to crash.

Meanwhile, the uber-geeks will be down HMV on Oxford Street, all garbed up to the eyeballs in Mage gear made out of tin foil and dressing gowns, to get their complimentary in-game baby Murloc pet. Well worth getting your arse kicked on the way home for, I think.