The release of Resident Evil 5 is looming, but the issue of the game being racist has yet to die down. Stepping into the scene is Glenn Bowman, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Anthropology at the University of Kent, who says that the game isn't racist at all. Always good to have a professional third-party opinion.

Details after the link.

It looks like Microsoft and Remedy Entertainment are finally getting ready to spill more details about their upcoming psychological action thriller, Alan Wake (Xbox 360, PC). The game will apparently be present at this year's Tokyo Game Show according to a Vista gaming contest. More in the full article.

It's time for anther batch of updates on the new things that can be found in the Xbox Live Marketplace. This time around, a new theme and gamer pictures have be released for Halo 3.

Also, four new trailers have been added for Frontlines: Fules of War, Bully: Scholarship Edition and Lost: Via Domus. Find out more in the full article.

These days, GameStop has a lot of reasons to celebrate. It's working on an industry that's growing every day, it's posting some serious numbers financially, and has recently opened its 1,000th store outside of the US.

The Texas-based game and console retailer has opened new stores recently in Italy, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Norway to hit the thousand-store milestone. Prior to that, the company has already branched out to Ireland, Switzerland, Australia, Guam, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

GameStop points to the booming hardware sales led by Kyoto-based Nintendo with its DS handheld and Wii console. Microsoft and Sony are also pitching in with the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, respectively.

Total sales posted by the retailer last year amounted to US$ 5.32 billion and is expected to grow even more this year as hot demand continues for pole platforms. The first quarter of fiscal 2007 saw GameStop with its best quarterly performance ever with US$ 24.7 million in profits while gross sales were at an all-time high of US$ 1.279 billion.

The European Commission is set to introduce a list of common sanctions against retailers that sell violent video games to minors. Perhaps, what's good about this is that the Commission has decided to leave it to member states to identify which games will be considered "violent."

EUobserver reports that the EU justice and security commissioner, Franco Frattini, has told journalists last January 10 that he would file new and stricter rules governing the sale of video games to children below 16 before this year's summer break.

Reuters informs that Frattini had this to say: "I do want to harmonize rules punishing people illegally selling products, people not controlling and checking identity." Frattini does however stresses that the EU executive would abstain from suggesting which kind of material should be banned. He adds: "We cannot judge from Brussels which videogames should be prohibited. "

It can be recalled that last December, Frattini suggested that the Brussels' package could include new age restrictions on certain games as well as stronger, more effective, parental advisory warnings. The commissioner is confident with the proposal, especially since he has so far received support from eight EU countries – Germany, Britain, Greece, Italy, Hungary, Finland, France and Spain.

It has to be noted that this initiative comes after last November's incident in Germany, where Sebastian Bosse injured eleven students at his school before killing himself, and that retailers in most EU countries are not legally obliged to restrict the sale of adult classified products.

Why should we bother to know about these things? Because some people might get some bright ideas.

Gamers in Finland better start taking a good look at those age ratings a little more closely, as the Finnish government has tweaked their media classification system to make Pan-European Game Information ratings (PEGI) equivalent to actual laws.

The Finnish Parliament decided to move the power for rating games from their movie ratings group, the Finnish Board of Film Classification, to the PEGI. In a nutshell, Finnish law will now reference PEGI ratings almost exclusively with regard to their laws on video game regulation. This is some sobering news for those gamers who were hoping to grab an 18+ rated game, at least in Europe.

This also makes some changes to Finnish game ratings in general. Game Politics notes in their coverage that Finland's previously given age ratings of 11+ or 15+ will now be rated as 12 or 16, as per PEGI's standard. It doesn't seem so bad, given that's it's only a few months difference, but conscientious parents might just keep some games away from previously eligible gamers.

There is one bright side to this, however, as some games that are normally rated as Teen by America's Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) happen to have much lower ratings with PEGI. If you're in an area under PEGI jurisdiction, then you can find amusement in knowing that a game like Need for Speed: Carbon has a 3+ rating there compared to ESRB's Teen rating.

Finland-based developer Remedy Entertainment has been extremely quiet about their upcoming psycho-thriller 360 game, Alan Wake. So quiet that updates have been really scarce and some are starting to wonder whether the game will indeed make its way to the 360. Well, fret no more 'coz GameSpy was able to play with Alan (wait, that didn't sound right. But you guys know what we mean), and shares with us the experience.

Environments/Visuals:  the game employs a third-person perspective and the expansive environments are unbelievably detailed! The 100 square kilometers of the Pacific Northwest, including forested valleys, windswept mountain peaks and flat plains, are explorable in the game. With the game's environments, you'll see that it's really the small things that count as GameSpy was left in awe of the little details and touches in houses, garages, etc. that make the town realistic.

Alan Wake also features a dynamic volumetric lighting engine, which GameSpy was impressed with when darkness enveloped Alan's character who responded by turning on his flashlight, and ohsweetlord, even the dust particles floating in the light was finely captured. The shadows also looked great and were of top-notch quality, which will only make us look forward to exploring dark cabins with the trusty flashlight.

Read the rest of the preview in the full article.

Are you a hard-core gamer? Can you afford to spend 100+ hours unlocking the secrets of Final Legendary Dragon Masters of the Enchanted Mystical Mana XXVII? If you've got that kind of patience, we salute you! Not everyone, however, has your special powers, and that is a rather important question that game developers will have to answer in the future.

Both hard-core and soft-core gamers want to have that experience of being inside another world and playing a rich narrative adventure. Hard-core gamers have the time to finish a role-playing game in the mythical 40-hour time limit, but soft-core gamers don't have that luxury. Also, while hard-core gamers (who are usually in their teens and often have less real-world distractions) can easily remove distractions from their mind and focus on the game in front of them, soft-core gamers (who are often older and have to juggle work, family, and gaming) are besieged with other things, such as the problems of taking care of kids or paying the rent.

The trouble now, as this Wired News feature states, is finding a way of supporting the fancies of both sets of gamers without cheapening the experience for either side. Clive Thompson writes, "If they develop a game aimed at the hard-core crowd, a wuss like me will almost certainly never finish it. If they do the opposite, the power cartel will blow through the game in (an) afternoon and feel justifiably ripped off."

Game designers are starting to hit the midpoint, with episodic installments to the Half Life series and the pick-up-and-play nature of Halo. These are only FPS games though, and with newer games for the next-gen being somewhat higher-priced than what we're used to (especially for Sony's console), both hard-core and soft-core gamers alike will have to hope that the newest set of games will really have something for everyone.

(Photo from www.virtualpilots.fi, taken July 1, 1999 in Lieksa, Finland. Thanks to Olli Korhonen. )

European Xbox Live users can now access the Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest movie Trailer on the Xbox Live Marketplace! The trailer has been available for US/Canadian users for a quite a while, and now Pirates of the Caribbean fans can see the trailer on the marketplace if you live in the following Xbox Live regions: Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Sweden. Lets just hope us Europeans don't have to wait so long for other marketplace videos - I'm getting tired of waiting!

Electronic Arts sure do love matching themes, why is that? Well, the songs that comprise the soundtrack of NHL 07 pretty much have their parallelisms with the hard and ruthless game of Hockey.

I will name some bands and realize for yourself the similarities - Anti-Flag (sidecomment: I find Pat Thetic to be unexplicably handsome for some reason), Inkwell, Quietdrive, Good Night Nurse, Gatsby's American Dream among many others.

Punk and Rock groups all in one soundtrack for an ice hockey game, EA's selection of these bands is indeed just like ice hockey- rock hard!

Aside from that, the bands that will grace the soundtrack came from different walks of life, from different parts of the globe. There are bands from the U.S. (Anti-Flag, Cute is What We Aim For), from Canada (Protest the Hero, Mobile), there is one from Finland (Bloodpit), another one from Sweden (The Hellacopters), and one from New Zealand (Good Night Nurse).

Indeed diversity is a good thing. Here's a list of the songs you can listen to in the soundtrack:

• Anti-Flag- This is the End (For You My Friend)
• Bloodpit- Platitude
• Cute is What We Aim For- There's a Class for This
• Gatsby's American Dream - Theatre
• Good Riddance - Darkest Days
• Goodnight Nurse - My Only
• Hurt - Unkind
• Inkwell - Ecuador is Lovely This Time of Year
• Mashlin - The Shore
• Mobile - Montreal Calling
• NOFX - Wolves in Wolves' Clothing
• Pilate - Barely Listening
• Pistolita - Beni Accident
• Priestess - Talk to Her
• Protest the Hero - Divinity Within
• Quietdrive - Rise from the Ashes
• The Hellacopters - Bring it on Home