YOU! Sitting there at your PC! Forget the Summer sunshine. The sun causes cancer* and must be avoided. (* Your computer monitor probably does, too. I recommend gaming from the next room using a wireless mouse and a pair of binoculars.) Instead of going outside and enjoying the weather, why not stay inside and play around with some of the new content we posted on FilePlanet this week? Despite the normally slow Summer months, there's actually a lot going on:

1. Play the Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2 Multiplayer Demo. Ubisoft designed this version of the game specifically for the PC: it's got more maps, new modes, and new classes not available on the console version. Personally I dig the Recon vs. Assault multiplayer mode -- it's a great twist on objective-based teamplay.

2. Join the Sword of the New World Beta [Subscriber only]. I raved about this one in a blog earlier this week. SotNW is an MMO allowing you to control up to three characters simultaneously. The graphics are gorgeous and the gameplay is wild -- get together with a couple of friends and together you can have a nine-character raid. There's nothing else like it on the market. Try it!

3. Revisit UO with the Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn Beta. Another title I dedicated a whole blog entry to, Kingdom Reborn takes the classic MMO and completely redesigns the graphical interface. Are you a current player? An old fan? New to the game? Whoever you are, you can get a free glimpse at a game that's gone strong for nearly a decade thanks to a deep economy and an amazing player community.

4. Experience a New Kind of PvP with the Fury Pre-Beta Test. Fury is on a tight beta schedule that only allows people to play during the weekend. So now's the time to dive in! This MMORPG is ALL about PvP -- you won't kill a single mob. There's a dynamic matchmaking system so you always get a fair fight and there are over 400 abilities to mix-and-match in order to create your own class. Sign up and start killin'!

5. Puzzle Out the World of Professor Fizzwizzle. Let's totally switch gears a second. Normally platform/puzzle type games are the domain of handhelds, but Professor Fizzwizzle and the Molten Mystery will keep you glued to your PC's arrow keys for hours. These levels are real brain-scratchers, and if you ever make a mistake, there's an 'undo' key that'll retrace the professor's steps Prince-of-Persia-style so that you hardly ever have to bail out of a puzzle. The graphics may be cute, but the puzzles are brutally clever. If you dig the new game Molten Mystery, try the previous game in the series, or go for something more action-oriented with Fizzball.

As always, you can Subscribe to FilePlanet for access to our closed betas or to get the quickest downloads. In fact you could start downloading all five of these games at once. Have a great weekend!

      -Fargo

• Shadowrun Demo on Live -GameSpy
• Spider-Man Still Reigns at Blockbuster -GameSpy
• Resistance Map Packs Officially Delayed -GameSpy
• Smash Bros. Supports All Control Styles! -IGN
• UK Release Round-up: Mercury Melts Down Wii -IGN
• LEGO MMOG Gets a Name -IGN
• World Cyber Games Begins Host Bidding -IGN
• Ubisoft: Assassin's Creed to Ship in November -TeamXbox
• BioShock Hands-on Preview -TeamXbox
• Tenchu Z Demo Impressions -TeamXbox
• PS3 Sales Exceed 1mln PAL Milestone -Next Generation
• Develop Unveils Awards Finalists -Next Generation
• Develop Conf. & Expo Sponsors Announced -Next Generation
• Japan: DS Drives Game Market Up 10% in May; Over 17 Mil Sold -GameDaily Biz
• Is the Wii a Threat to Hardcore Gamers? -GameDaily Biz

• Half-Life 2 - Firearms: Source Update - Planet Half-Life
• Battlefield 2 - Point of Existence 2 Update - Planet Battlefield
• Oblivion - Oblivion Mods Update - Planet Elder Scrolls

• Boards: Antec P182 Case - XYZ Computing
• Boards: ASRock Conroe 1333-DVI/H - Legit Reviews
• Boards: Asus Striker Extreme - Neoseeker
• Boards: Lanparty UT NF680i LT SLI-T2R - OCC
• Boards: XFX 650i Ultra - Bjorn3D
• Cases: Antec P182 Performance Mid-Tower - TechAge
• Cases: Cooljag Falcon 92-AL AMD/INTEL CPU Cooler - Tweaknews
• Cases: NZXT Hush Case - 3DGameMan
• Cases: SilverStone MS-04 HD Case - Hard-H20
• Cases: Tagan A+ Black Pearl Full Tower - TechAge
• Cooling: HIPER HIPERFLOW 80 and 120mm Fans - Viper Lair
• Cooling: Thermaltake Big Typhoon VX - Anandtech
• Memory: Patriot PDC22G9200ELK PC2-9200 2GB DDR2-1150 - PC Stats
• Pads: BestFeel Gaming Mousepads - Thinkcomputers.org
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• Power Supply: OCZ 780W - GWN
• Power Supply: Ultra Products 1000W - GWN
• Video: Nvidia GeForce 8600 GTS/GT and 8500 GT Roundup - HWUpgrade

With so many massively multiplayer games in development, and so many being imported from overseas, it's easy to lose track of everything that's happening. But there are a handful of very cool games in development, and we just landed a beta of one of the most interesting here at FilePlanet:


Sword of the New World has a lot going for it -- including some absolutely breathtaking art -- but probably the biggest single innovation is the ability to control a party of up to three characters simultaneously. In fact, when you play Sword of the New World, you don't just play a character; you play a whole family of characters, swapping them in and out to form a new 3-character party with every adventure.

This seemingly simple innovation really opens up the game and gives it a unique feel. At times it plays more like Dungeon Siege than a traditional MMO. Your characters can execute some simple AI: for instance, it's awesome to be able to click a button and have all three of your characters fan out to loot an entire room in a couple of seconds, all automatically.

It sounds like controlling three characters would be overwhelming, but the game has a lot of built-in ways to make it easy. You can set the characters to all follow one leader, healing and assisting as necessary. (Yep, healing characters are smart enough to auto-heal your party.) In relatively safe areas you can also just turn your characters loose to kill anything that moves -- and hope that things don't get too sticky.

Naturally when you join up with a couple of online friends things get pretty intense pretty fast. Think about it: with just two friends you can have a nine-character party. A group of five players will field a small army of fifteen characters! If this sounds like overkill, it isn't: Sword of the New World throws dozens and dozens of monsters at you with every encounter. Your musketeers will be blasting away left and right, your elementalists will be dropping massive spells, and all hell will be breaking loose all over the screen. Yeah, Sword of the New World is not for the faint of heart, but it's a riot if you're looking for a new challenge.

But what about player-vs-player? Here, the party system gets out of control. The permutations of even just a one-on-one duel alone will make your head spin, since everyone can experiment with three different characters. When we played around with it here at FilePlanet we tried to keep our parties together, but the top PvP guys at K2 (the U.S. publisher) like to fan out, which really threw us off. The strategies can get deep.

So far Sword of the New World hasn't gotten a ton of press, but I think once people start getting their hands on this beta the word is going to spread. It takes a little while to get used to the controls but the gameplay is wildly different. Try it out and tell your friends:


      -Fargo

• Mystery Beta Key for BlizzCon Attendees -IGN
• Namco: "Anyone can Create Original Games" -IGN
• Aussie Xbox 360 Software Sales Break Records -IGN
• Gala-Net Burns Up Online Racing -IGN
• A Sequel to F.E.A.R. -IGN
• Microsoft Launches Ignition Program -TeamXbox
• VGL to Perform at National Monument in Washington D.C. -TeamXbox
• 300 and SAW Video Games in the Works -TeamXbox
• 10tacle Wraps Around Stormregion -Next Generation
• Gamers Continue to Get Younger -Next Generation
• X360 Games Sales Top 1 Million Down Under -Next Generation
• Google Holding "Holy Grail" of In-Game Advertising? -GameDaily Biz
• Cheaper Blu-ray Player Fuels PS3 Price Cut Speculation -GameDaily Biz

• Battlefield 2 - Operation Peacekeeper Update - Planet Battlefield
• Battlefield 2 - Fallen Time Update - Planet Battlefield
• Battlefield 2 - Forgotten Hope 2 Update - Planet Battlefield
• Oblivion - Oblivion Mods Update - Planet Elder Scrolls

• Cases: Gigabyte 3D Aurora 570 - TechAge
• Cooling: Scythe Andy Samurai Master vs. Thermaltake MaxOrb - Anandtech
• CPU: 65nm 5000+ AM2 - Neoseeker
• CPU: AMD Athlon X2 BE-2350 and BE-2300 - HotHardware
• CPU: AMD Athlon X2 BE-2350 45W CPU - Viper Lair
• CPU: Intel Conroe Cache Performance - LegionHardware
• Memory: Crucial Ballistix 2GB PC2-8500 - Bjorn3D
• Memory: Mushkin 2x1GB PC5300 EM2 Dual Channel Kit - Hard-H20
• Pads: Steelpad QcK Heavy Gaming Mousepad - Thinkcomputers.org
• Video: DX10 performance in Company of Heroes - AMDZone
• Video: ECS GeForce 8800GTS 320MX - ChileHardware
• Video: Gigabyte GeForce 8600GTS Silent Pipe III - Hardware Logic
• Video: Sapphire x1950 Pro AGP - XS Reviews
• Vista: Is Microsoft Trying to Kill PC Gaming? - DailyGame

Via Kotaku I discovered this link to a dude who built a 3rd person suit. A what?

It's a suit that allows you to live your life from an over-the-shoulder or above-view perspective, the way many 3D games or MMOGs are played. First you put on a padded suit -- padded presumably because you're almost certainly going to hurt yourself. The suit has a computer monitor hanging in front of your face, which is how we will all live in the future. There's also a trio of aluminum rods (in the U.K., that's pronounced "Aluminum") extending from the back of your head, supporting a video camera. The camera's picture is broadcast to the screen in front of your face.

Since the camera is positioned above your head and its picture fills your complete field of vision, as soon as you put on the suit, you're living in third-person. Think about this, you deep-thought-thinkers: We are the first human generation who has ever even contemplated living in the third person. We're the videogame people. We are the first of the human race ever to be so comfortable spending hours at a time looking at our own ass. Well, technically, looking at Lara Croft's ass.

Apparently people who first don the third-person suit move tentatively and slowly as they get used to the new perspective. Then they start re-enacting what they see videogame characters do, such as running or jumping or skipping cut-scenes. Presumably once they get used to the interface they spend an hour killing rabbits until they level up. For me, the desire to take huge honking Frankenstein steps with my arms outstretched would be overpowering.

But I know what you're thinking: You're thinking to yourself, "What practical purpose could the third-person suit actually serve?" The answer, friends, is obvious.

It's built to be blogged about.

      -Fargo

• Halo 3 Beta Roundtable: Week Three -GameSpy
• Age of Conan Regional Profiles: The Frost Swamp -GameSpy
• World of Warcraft -The Gold Hits the Fan -IGN
• New Studio for Company of Heroes Devs -IGN
• Silverfall Dev Talks Ports -IGN
• Game On at Melbourne's ACMI -IGN
• Nexon's Audition Reaches 100,000 Users -IGN
• GTA IV May Be Delayed, Says Analyst. One Reason: Halo 3 -TeamXbox
• World Cyber Games 2007 Tour -TeamXbox
• New Content Coming to Xbox Live Marketplace -TeamXbox
• Halo 3 Programming Goes Rated R -Next Generation
• New Firm Makes Brash Moves -Next Generation
• Bloomberg: Wii Outsells PS3 5:1 in Japan -Next Generation
• Former Relic Vets Reveal Smoking Gun -GameDaily Biz
• ESRB's Good Housekeeping -GameDaily Biz

• Half-Life 2 - Fortress Forever Video Update - Planet Half-Life
• Half-Life 2 - Big Firearms 2 Update - Planet Half-Life
• Battlefield 2 - BattleGroup-Frontlines Update - Planet Battlefield
• Battlefield 2 - Fight for the Future Update - Planet Battlefield
• Oblivion - Oblivion Mods Update - Planet Elder Scrolls

• Boards: ASUS P5K3 Deluxe WiFi-AP - TechAge
• Boards: Biostar TA690G - InsideHW
• Boards: P965 Shoot-Out: Asus P5B-E vs. MSI P965 Platinum - Hot Hardware
• Boards: SilverStone SG03 Micro-ATX Case - XYZ Computing
• Cases: GT3 Sport Case - GideonTech
• Cooling: LGA 775 CPU Cooler *Mega Test* - 25 Coolers - Hexus
• Cooling: Noctua NH-U12F HSF - DV Hardware
• Cooling: Spire KestrelKing V - Cooling-Station
• Cooling: Thermaltake V1 CPU Cooler - Overclockers Club
• Memory: OCZ 2x1GB PC2-8500 Reaper HPC Memory Kit - Virtual-Hideout
• Memory: OCZ Reaper PC2-6400 Enhanced Bandwidth Memory - Hardware Logic
• Memory: OCZ PC2-9200 Reaper HPC Edition - Tweaktown
• Power Supply: FSP ZEN400 400Watt Passive Cooled Power Supply - Madshrimps
• Power Supply: HEC Zephyr 650W PSU - Madbox PC
• Power Supply: The Power Saving Guide, Part 2 - THG
• Storage: Seagate Savio 15k 73GB Drive x4 in RAID - BootDaily
• Video: AMD's UVD Debacle - Anandtech
• Video: Jetway Radeon X1950 Pro GDDR4 vs X1950 Pro GDDR3 - Madshrimps
• Video: MSI Overclocked GeForce 8600 GTS - Hardware Secrets