Turbine is gearing up for the debut of Book 8: Scourge of Khazád-dum for Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria. I recently had the pleasure of accompanying Adam Mersky and Aaron “Rowan” Campbell on an expedition into the heights and depths of Moria. They revealed the horrors and wonders that await players in this latest edition to the LotRO epic storyline.
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Good Old Games is kicking off Adventure Week with more steals on classic games.  Gamers can grab The Feeble Files, In Cold Blood, and Waxworks for $4.49 each. These three adventure games aren’t bundled and can be purchased separately.

ObsCure, a new addition to the GOG.com catalog, is also on special for $9.99 until the promotion ends May 18th. GOG.com promises more surprises over the next week. Adventure games are a weakness of mine so I’ll be watching. Further details follow the break.

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If your looking for a good reason to play the Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen videogame, listen up. Composers Steve Jablonsky and Bobby Tahouri are collaborating with electronica artists Julien-K on the soundtrack. These musical masters have put the excitement in several familiar movie and videogame soundtracks.

You’ve probably heard Jablonski’s work on both the latest Transformers live action movies. If you haven’t seen them, you may have listened to his hard driving score while beating down the Locust Hordes in Gears of War 2. Tahouri worked on the Iron Man film soundtrack and Julien-K was featured on the 2007 Transformers movie with their track “Technical Difficulties.”

More details on these artists and the Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen videogame follow the break.

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Just when gamers thought they had squeezed all the goodness from Gears of War 2, Epic Games targets players on All Fronts. This GW2 collection includes all previously released DLC; the Combustible, Flashback, and Snowblind map packs; and introduces the new Dark Corners map pack.

Dark Corners offers multi-player fans seven fresh battlegrounds to test their mettle. The bundle also includes a chapter cut from the original GW2 taking players back to Locust Hollow with Mutt and Dom. Throw in a poster, a custom Xbox Live theme, and a strategy guide and you’ve got a fairly good buy for your hard earned cash. One last enticement is a preview of “Road to Ruin,” the latest project from the man formerly known as “Cliffy B.” Seriously is there a symbol for that? Whatever you want to call him, Cliff Bleszinski rocks the gaming world.

Look for the Gears of War 2: All Fronts Collection to hit retailers July 28th. You can lay out a cool $19.99 for the bundle or purchase just the Dark Corners map pack for 1,600 Microsoft Points on the Xbox Live marketplace.

Details on the new Dark Corners maps follow the break.

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I don’t know about you guys, but here at Gaming Today, we’re always up for a game that includes zombies. Of late, we’ve been playing Left 4 Dead, and keeping our eyes on Killing Floor, the upcoming release from Tripwire Interactive. Killing Floor isn’t exactly a zombie game, but genetically engineered zombies are close enough for us.

If you’re a Unreal Tournament player, you may remember Killing Floor as a mod for UT2K4. Since then, the mod team behind Killing Floor has teamed up Tripwire Interactive to bring their mod to retail release as a standalone title, and it looks to have some serious potential.

We recently had the opportunity to chat with a few of the people responsible for Killing Floor. Read on to find out a little bit more about the upcoming survival horror title.

Gaming Today: Let’s get the boilerplate stuff out of the way up front. Can you tell us who you are, what your role in the production of Killing Floor is?

Alan Wilson, VP of Tripwire Interactive. I get all the non-tech stuff to do. Some writing and design, bit of voice acting this time, project management, PR and trying to manage the testing.

I’m Alex Quick. I’ve worn a few hats over the course of KFs production, but primarily I’m working as a level designer, and texture artist. Oh, and the mod this game is based on was largely my undertaking, so I’ve been pretty active in gameplay design discussions for the sake of consistency.

Dayle Flowers, Senior Programmer at Tripwire Interactive. Aside from the typical working on game play, I get much of the highly technical stuff that many people overlook and simply expect to work. I was responsible for connecting Killing Floor to the Steam system to support Authentication, the Master Server, and Perks/Achievements. [Edit: and designing a lot of that stuff, too! AW]

Dan Nassick, audio designer and musician. I’ve worked on the Killing Floor mod since 2005 and my responsibility on the audio team has been to organize a complete audio overhaul in the transition from modification to commercial game.

Myles Lambert, part of the original mod team. I get to do a great mixture of work, environmental art and level design and when I’m not working on that I’m working on some future DLC map content.

GT: So, judging from everything I’ve seen, Killing Floor is a survival horror game featuring some very interesting adversaries. Can you tell us a little bit about these zombies?

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On February 3, New York Times bestselling author of Halo: Ghosts of Onyx blends will be releasing his latest book Mortal Coils, an urban fantasy mixed with ancient mythology and published by Tor Books. This will be the book one of five for his epic new series.

Eric Nylund is best known as a writer and story consultant for Microsoft Game Studios ans was instrumental in developing the Halo franchise and for Epic with the Gears of War franchise. In the past, he has also worked with BioWare, and Ensemble Studios and is the author of three of the five Halo novels which sold over two million copies which are: Halo: The Fall of Reach, Halo: First Strike, and Halo: Ghosts of Onyx. Together, his novels have sold over two million copies.

His upcoming projects, which should be of interest to gamers and graphic novel/comic fans alike are a mini-series called Battlestar Galactica: The Cylon War which is a prequel to television show due out in January 2009. Also, a graphic novel titled Halo: Genesis will be published in the spring of 2009, and will appear in the Limited Collector’s Edition of Halo Wars.

Storyline for Mortal Coils is listed after the jump.

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Remember last year around this time when Detroit Prosecutor Kym Worthy was dubbed Gaming Today’s unofficial “Idiot of the Day” due to her outdated list of violent videogames for parents to avoid purchasing for their kids at Christmas? Well, it looks like all the internet bashing she received across the board taught her (and her assistants) a valuable lesson because the list she has issued this year is pretty much up to date–even if it was culled from the National Institute on Media and the Family’s 2008 Annual Video Game Report Card.

Here is the list she has complied for parents who are wishing to avoid the inevitable reality of their children becoming sociopaths after playing these games.

• Blitz the League II
• Dead Space
• Fallout 3
• Far Cry 2
• Gears of War 2
• Left 4 Dead
• Legendary
• Resistance 2
• Saints Row 2
• Silent Hill: Homecoming

All joking aside, these are all mature games that kids should not be playing. Kym should really be encouraging parents to read the ratings on the packaging just like they would on a DVD or Music disc before buying it. All forms of media bought by parents should be age and maturity level appropriate. However, be that as it may, I think one commenter over on the Detroit Free Press website where this was originally posted said it best when they commented:

“And for those who say “lets go back to early American principles” what principles would that be? Before violent games, for entertainment, parents would take their children to lynchings, beheadings, drawing and quartering, hangings, cross burnings, stonings, and for that special evening, the colosseum to see a man get devoured by animals. Make no bones about it, humans have always been a violent animal that has shown their children how to be violent animals.”

Thanks: (GamePolitics)

Major Nelson Has confirmed the VGA announcement and Gears of War 2 Combustible Map Packs are up on Xbox LIVE. Availability is set to all XBL zones except Germany and Japan.

These three maps; Flood, Gold Rush, and Fuel Station; are a hefty 800 MS points. The Combustible Map Pack Trailer featuring content highlights is free only as Gold exclusive offer. You can view the trailer below courtesy of FileFront before investing a chunk of change that big. Details on each of the Gears of War 2 Combustible Maps follow the break.

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The NPD numbers are in for November, and as far as console sales go, Gears of War 2 dominated the chart with 1.5 million units sold and Call of Duty: World at War coming in a very close second with 1.4 million in sales (for the Xbox 360 version).

Shockingly enough, Nintendo’s Wii Music came in last in the top 10, and while that in itself does not surprise me, the fact that it is even in the top 10 is what I am curious over. I suppose that the company’s stellar ad campaign was what did it, along with unsuspecting parents rushing out to buy the game on Black Friday because all the stores in their area were out of Rock Band 2 and World Tour. They probably thought that their kids would like it just as well, by they will unfortunately find out the hard way come Christmas morning.

Top Ten Games

1. Gears of War 2 (Epic, Xbox 360) – 1.56 million
2. Call of Duty: World at War (Treyarch, Xbox 360) – 1.41 million
3. Wii Play (Nintendo, Wii) – 796,000
4. Wii Fit (Nintendo, Wii) – 697,000
5. Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo, Wii) – 637,000
6. Call of Duty: World at War (Treyarch, PS3) – 597,000
7. Guitar Hero World Tour (Vicarious Visions, Wii) – 475,000
8. Left 4 Dead (Valve, Xbox 360) – 410,000
9. Resistance 2 (Insomniac, PS3) – 385,000
10. Wii Music (Nintendo, Wii) – 297,000

(Thanks VG247)

Yesterday, Jonathan let you all in on the weird and not very secretly coded message plastered across a teaser site for Metal Gear Solid. The last code is mostly likely the power button for a PC–at least that is what the symbol on my power button looks like, but it also looks like the one for the Xbox 360. Then again, if you looks at the codes closely, you would also see other gaming symbols that looks very familiar to you. Therefore, one might think that the “i” is for the Wii, and the “!” is for the Xbox 360 and the last one is for the PC.  Yet, the Wii most likely would not be able to handle an exact port of Metal Gear Solid 4, therefore I personally think this had to do with the Xbox 360 and PC only.

So, if my deductive reasoning (and upon further investigation-most of the internet) is correct, MGS4 will no longer be a PS3 exclusive in the near future. That, or all the old Metal Gear Solid games will be heading to other formats–but it is best not to think on this too hard and instead focus on the obvious.

All of the speculation from yesterday is getting even more heightened today, with people chatting on all sorts of forums, but if you look back on the actual beginnings of these rumors, the teaser site just makes perfect sense.

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