Just when you thought there couldn’t be another expansion for World of Warcraft, think again! Blizzard have just released details of the latest expansion titled ‘Cataclysm’.

As reported by Edge magazine:

“In addition to revitalising some of the most familiar and iconic areas of the game world, this third World Of Warcraft expansion will add new features and a large amount of new content for players to explore,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment.

WoW fans rejoice!

Wow, that’s a mouthful! I enjoy reading interesting tidbits about the video game industry, particularly finding out things I didn’t know (but probably should!).

Looking through Tweetmeme this morning, I stumbled upon this interesting article about some very big businesses involved in the gaming industry. How many of these scintillating facts did you not know?

Me – I’m sitting on about 4/4 at the moment – and yeah, I know how slack of me!

Here’s the article if you’re interested. Thanks to JoyStiqDivision for the article.

The PC multiplayer beta for Section 8 the new first-person shooter from TimeGate Studios began for Australians and New Zealanders on the weekend and thankfully, I was lucky enough to score a beta key. I hadn’t done any homework on this title and the only thing I knew about it was that it’s a shooter (which immediately sparked my interest).

I decided to jump straight in (without reading the forums or the online manual) and found that the basic control mechanics used in most online shooters these days seemed to work fine for Section 8. The W, A, S, D keys are used for movement (strafing etc) and left mouse button for shooting. But there are quite a lot of different control keys required for alot of the other basic gameplay mechanics in Section 8 so I’ve got a few hours of gaming ahead of me to learn about all of the weapons and their functionality.

From a gameplay perspective, it reminds me of Halo 3 on the Xbox 360. You play as a soldier that is shielded in special protective armour capable of absorbing damage (just like Halo 3). You get to choose from several different classes (such as Assault, Infiltrator) much like Call of Duty with specific weapon sets (which you can edit and change before each respawn). The sprint boost is unreal! Finally, a game where you can dash around the map at super speed that lasts longer than 4 seconds!

Weapons are also really pretty kickass – grenade (like rocket) launchers, assault rifles, sniper rifles etc. There are various other weapons too which I have yet to use. I’ve spent most of my time playing Assault class but when I get more time, I’ll blog about the other classes. Section 8 also features vehicles (much like mechs).

There’s no campaign mode and you can’t upgrade when you rank up as yet. From the looks of things, ranking up (by team assists, kills etc) will be fully featured in the release and you’ll be able to upgrade everything from weapons to armour. Connecting to US servers was easy but laggy. My ping to Aussie servers was looking good on 37. It’s nice having local servers to connect to for online multiplayer.

So far, my first impressions of the beta for Section 8 is ranking at about a 4/5. I’ll blog more once I’ve had more time with the game online but so far, it’s looking pretty solid.

Quake is one of my favourite game franchises of all time and the dudes at id software some of my favourite developers. I interviewed a kiwi gamer named ‘ChiQ’ some time ago when I was editor of GC magazine and she had some pretty amazing things to say about the guys at id when she was developing skins for Quake. So I support the devs and the franchise wholeheartedly. I’d also give my right arm to attend QuakeCon which is where this trailer was first shown. Thanks to Joystiq for the tweet!

If you haven’t heard of ‘Rage’ you need to check this trailer out!

It IS only rumoured at the moment (as reported by Slash Film) but apparently Steven Spielberg is showing some interest in a screenplay for Halo titled ‘Halo: The Fall of Reach’ which has sparked rumours that the director may be interested in pursuing this project.

There’s no news on Peter Jackson’s input thus far but if Steven Spielberg is interested, who knows where the project could go?

Apparently, Mr. Spielberg is also an avid gamer… another thing I never knew! Although admittedly, I have never played his Wii game ‘Bloom Blox’, in fact, I hadn’t even heard of it until now… oops.

One game I am really looking forward to playing is Batman: Arkham Asylum. If the demo trailer is anything to go by, it’s gonna be wild!

Thanks to Gametrailers – here is the demo trailer:

When I first saw Guitar Hero I was a little perplexed by it. I thought it was a gimmick and also wondered why the people playing GH were swinging their plastic guitars in the air. It kinda looked silly to me at the time. But then I started playing GH and became a total addict! Admittedly, I can only play a few songs on expert now (and I am wayyy out of practice at the moment) but I consider most of the GH games as some of the best (and most played) in my collection.

So I read about this website some time ago and wasn’t sure if it would be just another gimmick or whether it would be well worth investigating. Turns out it’s a pretty big deal and if Tech Crunch are talking about it, it’s worth revisiting. You can upload songs as long as you own the rights to do so (so that means work protected by copyright can’t be submitted). At first I read the article thinking you could upload anything but you can’t (for obvious reasons but that’s a bit of a bummer).

To play you simply use your keyboard as keys and an alternate key to strum (if you want). You can also interface songs with Twitter and Facebook and share them including sharing your stats with your friends by setting up an account.

So check it out here. I am going to give it a go. Fun, fun, fun!