I’ve been a fan of the Battlefield series since BF1942 launched way back in 2002. I have to admit to being at least moderately excited about the upcoming release of Battlefield 1943.

Sure, it’s just a downloadable game for consoles, but BF: Bad Company was a blast, and BF1943 is based on the same Frostbite engine. Sure, it’s just a remake of some classic maps for BF 1942, but they were great maps!

Anyway, on the back of this month’s gamesTM magazine (a German games publication) you can find an ad for Battlefield 1943. In that ad, it lists the release date for the game as June 25 on Playstation Network and XBox Live.

Here’s hoping that’s entirely accurate. You can find that ad after the break.

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LucasArts has gamers setting sale for Monkey Island in two new updates of this classic adventure series. Guybrush Threepwood is coming at you in new episodic adventures from the creative team behind Sam & Max and Strong Bad, Telltale. Gamers can enjoy Tales of Monkey Island in five months of brand new swashbuckling adventures for the PC and WiiWare

The word on the web on the Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition has turned out great for Money Island fans. gamers will get to meet all their favorite characters from the Secret of Money Island in there-imagined first adventure of Guybrush Threepwood with HD graphics and full voiceovers. Learn the art of insult sword fighting with Guybrush to a new musical score. The game will be out for the Xbox 360 and PC.

Get the full details on Tales of Monkey Island and the Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition from the press release following the break. There’s also word of an easter egg included on the upcoming Wii version of Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings.

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Seems like a poster over on the F13 forums was told by a job recruitment type not to mention the fact that he plays MMOs. Supposedly, the recruiter told him that one of the employers he consults for specifically asked not to be sent people who play World of Warcraft.

According to the post:

I met with a recruiter recently (online media industry) and in conversation I happened to mention I’d spent way too much time in the early 2000s playing online games, which I described as “the ones before World of Warcraft” (I went nuts for EQ1, SWG and the start of WoW, but since 2006 I have only put a handful of days into MMOG playing – as opposed to discussing them – I’ve obsessed over bicycles and cycling instead).

He replied that employers specifically instruct him not to send them World of Warcraft players. He said there is a belief that WoW players cannot give 100% because their focus is elsewhere, their sleeping patterns are often not great, etc.

I mentioned that some people have written about MMOG leadership experience as a career positive or a way to learn project management skills, and he shook his head. He has been specifically asked to avoid WoW players.

For one thing, I can understand this on some level, but so what if it is a videogame? It could be a number of things that the person does when not at work that can lead to being a less than suitable employee. There is excessive drinking, whoring, knitting, dog training, working out, getting high all night, MMO grinding, reading into all hours of the night, clubbing, your kids myriad of different sporting events you have to attend, a TV marathon of “My Big Redneck Wedding”, the wife/husband/mother-in-law bitching and yelling all night, insomnia, chronic masturbation habits, just being a crap employee– a number of things can make a person less worthwhile on the job. Don’t just blame MMOs, and if you have hired a load of people who play these games for your company, that means you are an industry that appeals to gamer types any way so get used to it. It could just as easily be some multiplayer “shoot em up” on Xbox LIve that is keeping them up all night.

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After a renewed start we had an interruption these last few weeks but rest assured Filefront is still hosting and promoting all the great user created and hosted content contributed to us. We return with a double length post highlighting some great mods and files for quite a few outstanding games including usual suspects like Half-Life 2, the Battlefield games and of course one of my favorite series “that I am really no good at yet still enjoy” – Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War

Highlights from this week’s column include mods for:

• Doom III – Wrathchild Act I (not ROE compatible), Revised Alphalabs
• Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion – A Provost of the Nine Divines, More Nord Beards
• Battlefield 2 – Operation Peacekeeper, Allies Intent Extended
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R – Ballistics Mod
• Far Cry 2 – new maps: MP_Surf & Gold Rush

There are also links to other maps, mods and patches for many of your favorite PC modifiable games. Be sure to check it all out after the jump.

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Fans of the Gothic games from German developer Piranha Bytes have kind of been in the dark a bit regarding their upcoming project Risen. The company has been a bit hush-hush over details for the game, especially now that they have split with publisher JoWood–however, thanks to a little prodding from the folks over at PixelRage, we now know a little bit more.

During an interview with Piranha Bytes’ Ralf Marczinczik, the graphic designer skipped over a few questions regarding release dates, major details, and what sorts of enemies you will face. While this sort of secrecy is pretty standard for upcoming games, Ralf did give them a bit of information on the current status of the RPG and just slightly more than the teaser site shows you regarding the plot.

Pixel : When are we going to see Risen / what is the current status ?
Ralf Marczinczik : We are entering the polishing and debugging phase with alarming speed.

Pixel : Is it still an CRPG ?
Ralf Marczinczik : Of course. You also have multiple careers you can follow and have the endings according to your actions.

Pixel : Can you drop some details on the story ?
Ralf Marczinczik : Nope. Just the stuff you´ve already read elsewhere. You wake up on a mysterious island and have to learn your way around. The inquisition is already on to something – but I can´t spoil that too early. (NR – They’re going to get wacked if they leak too much…

Pixel : Who’s gonna be the baddies ? Orcs /demons / some other evil spawns ?
Ralf Marczinczik : I am sworn to secrecy, sorry. I really don´t wanna loose my job.

Pixel : With Gothic you set the standard for realism with a living-breathing world, character schedules, consequences, etc. In what area are you going to amaze the world this time ?
Ralf Marczinczik : You have tremendous detail in the world- and lot´s of stuff to explore. And all this is set by hand. No random elements like some other games. Very controlled and tastefully arranged. And of course you have to take into your consideration, that we also have to deliver the standard GFX-FX that people expect from a game like this.

Pixel : What size is the gameworld going to be ? Is it a long and epic game ?
Ralf Marczinczik : A bit Bigger that Gothic one- but definetly not as big as Gothic 3. And yes – it´s quite an epic journey with long hours to play around…

You can read the full interview over on PixelRage, which also has three screens of the game. Hopefully, the folks over at Piranha Bytes will soon be a bit more forthcoming with the goods because while gamers love a good tease, they can get a bit cranky if left in the dark too long.

It’s one thing for a company to announce they’re laying off a bunch of employees; it’s quite another to have an employee reveal financial issues that everyone in the company has noticed. Factor 5 artist, Sam Baker, has apparently noted the developer’s economic problems in a blog post — that has since been removed — citing the loss of some benefits, the cancellation of projects, and the fact that no one has been paid in awhile:

“I find out no one at Factor 5 had been paid in a month…. and we weren’t going to any time soon…If we left, there would have been no hope in F5 staying afloat. We had faith in the projects and the company, so there was no reason to bail just yet…

“Then we lost health care. Ok, who needs it? If we’re going to eventually be paid, some sacrifices would be worth it. I had my own on the side, so I wasn’t sweating it. Then things turned bad…

“Without proper funding on the project I was working on, the company was forced to stop production…The president of the company basically told us that if we didn’t receive funding in 1 week, all of us should move on and look elsewhere for another job. I had no idea how bad this economy was getting until something like this affected me personally, and yea, it sucks. I have 1 more week left at Factor 5.”

Baker has since deleted the blog post in question, but it can still be found cached here. He also replaced it with a note saying that certain projects at the company are still doing well and that some of the financial problems were related to the demise of Brash Entertainment, one of their partners. Still, it’s looking like the Factor 5 house isn’t too stable at the moment, and with other developers dropping left and right due to the economy, I wouldn’t get too attached to them.

Most people were gunning for a video game console on Black Friday, and it looks like a large chunk of them were specifically going for a Wii. Nintendo prez, Satoru Iwata, has stated that his company sold 800,000 Wiis over the Thanksgiving weekend. That’s more than double the 350,000 that they sold during the same time frame last year. So what does Iwata attribute this growth to? Why, the economic crisis of course:

“When the economy is strong, people tend to buy three things from the top of their wish list,” he said in an interview with Reuters. “But when things are bad, people often buy only the first thing on their list – Fortunately for us a lot of shoppers put our products at the top of their list.”

He also reported that the DS sold about 20% better than last year too. Now I’m just waiting for Microsoft and Sony to fire back with their Thanksgiving sales figures.

Elven Legacy, the sequel to Fantasy Wars, is promising to deliver a world filled with magic and a nonlinear storyline, gauged to provide many hours of gameplay for strategy fans or just fans of Fantasy Wars. Through an epic quest aimed to restore the former glory of the Elven race, the game promises both depth and scope, and from the looks of the new screens we just go in–a colorful and inspirational one at that.

In the game you an play for elves or humans in two primary campaigns or for the orcs in a wide variety of bonus missions. Using the accompanying tools players may create their own missions and campaigns and share them in multiplayer mode.

The game features a new Elven race along with new opponents; unique character talents, spells and artifacts; improved AI (one of my beefs with Fantasy Wars) additional maps for multiplayer mode, role development of characters and units, and various tactical opportunities.

Elven Legacy is expected to be released sometime in March 2009, so until then check out the very pretty screens for the game here and here. I am hoping that they fixed all the bad things about Fantasy Wars this time around, because I am really wanted to give it a try.

Valve has always had pretty popular games, and if their recent release of sales figures over the past ten years are any indication of the company’ success, well then they will have nothing to worry about for a very long time. Well, that’s barring some unforeseen gaming or spending catastrophe like a Superman 64 or a very bad heroine addiction.

Here are the numbers reported to Game Informer, then posted on Gamasutra and broken down in a pretty list by VG247:

• Half-Life – 9.3 million
• Half-Life: Opposing Force – 1.1 million
• Half-Life: Blue Shift – 800,000
• Half-Life 2 – 6.5 million
• Half-Life 2: Episode One – 1.4 million
• The Orange Box – 3 million
• Counter-Strike – 4.2 million
• Counter-Strike: Condition Zero – 2.9 million
• Counter-Strike: Source – 2.1 million
• Counter-Strike (Xbox) – 1.5 million
• Left 4 Dead (projected) – 3.6 – 3.9 million

The figures add up to a total retail amount of  32.8 million and if you include the projected Left 4 Dead numbers, it increases to 36.4 – 36.7 million. These figures also do not include digital sales of their products through Steam, which Valve is currently keeping under wraps for some reason or another. Be that as it may, the numbers speak for themselves, and whether you are a Valve fan or not, they are nothing to sneeze at by any means.

Yesterday, during the big Atari press conference in London, Infrogames President Phil Harrison mentioned that Atari is planning on future installments of Forgotten Realms games Baldur’s Gate, Dungeons & Dragons, Neverwinter Nights and the racing game Test Drive Unlimited. Being that I am a huge Baldur’s Gate fan, I cannot believe I missed this yesterday, but here it is anyway.

The bad news, at least for fans of any of the above titles, is that none will be released within the next year. However, Harrison did promise that “you will hear more from these but not today, because we’re focused on 2009″. Fine then, dangle the worm out there in front of us, let us bite and then just let us float in the water a bit there Phil. We don’t mind (note the sarcasm).

What else the company may have in store for Neverwinter Nights remains to be seen, because they just released the Storm of Zehir expansion last month. However, the thought of actually getting my hands on another Baldur’s Gate game is what really excites me. The PC games were very fun, and even the console version Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance was loads of fun especially with Drizzt popping in at the end (Interplay, Black Isle Studios)– but I won’t even mention the crappy Dark Alliance 2. Wait, I just did. Yeah, it sucked. Hopefully Atari will not make the same mistakes Vivendi and Black Isle did with that stinker should they decide to revisit the console route with it the series. Unless, of course, Vivendi holds the console rights. I have no idea and don’t really care. I just want another good Baldur’s Gate game.

At any rate, Phil Harrision also mentioned what Eurogamer called an “early-09 pledge” for actual retail releases of Sam & Max: Season Two on PC and Wii (no exact date given), and Ready 2 Rumble: Revolution for Wii in March.

As soon as we know more about any of the above titles, we will be sure to let you know. In the meantime, for more information on any of these game, just hit one of the many links.

UPDATE: You can watch and download the hour long keynote speech featuring Phil Harrison and David Gardner here.