Attention Xbox Live demo fanatics, the ultra competitive shooter from Capcom, Lost Planet, is launching their demo today via Live Arcade and it’s most definitely worth a look! I have high hopes for Lost Planet since I’m a sci-fi nerd and any style of mech-battle scenarios grab my interest.

Read more: Lost Planet | Lost Planet official blog

Guild Wars has recently entered closed beta in China and has blown away expectations. Even though Guild Wars is being hyped as the most anticipated MMORPGs coming to the Chinese market, NCsoft and China partners The9 impressed many by receiving over 200,000 applicants on the first day of closed beta signups. Hot damn! Closed beta in China begins November 29th, administered by The9 Limited, who also are running WoW China.

Read more: Guild Wars enters closed beta in China

There’s currently a firestorm brewing in Germany (and Austria) in regards to the recent school shooting involving a disgruntled student who recently shot up his school, injuring several classmates before killing himself. School tragedies like this are always an unfortunate incident and seem to always be followed by sensationalist reactions from press and politicians alike. Currently, the German and Austrian press are going all out, placing much of the blame on video games and the internet. You see, the shooter was a huge fan of Counter-Strike and also posted videos and his suicide note on the internet. Thus, the media have a perfect pair of scapegoats for which to cover up most adult’s inability to relate to their kids in any way shape or form.

Read more: German teen shoots classmates, kills self

ML Enterprises, an up and coming games industry consultancy startup from Munich, Germany, has announced their assumption of production for Replay Studios’ upcoming PC title, Sabotage. The interesting part of the announcement is the mention of ex members of Rockstar Vienna, Rockstar’s European development studio which was axed in May of this year, being involved in not only their own startups but also involved in work that actually gains them a little bit of credit. Good luck guys…

Read more of “ML Enterprises, ex-developers from Rockstar Vienna, take over production on Sabotage“

The Method Reporter, a collective blog based in Chicago run by Medill graduate journalism students, has an impressive story of a Chicago-land man who helped keep things orderly while waiting in line for his PS3 at a local Best Buy. By arriving early and taking charge, 24 year old Angel Colon, a train conductor and engineer, setup a mini-utopia in his line, creating a running list of all those in line, a break schedule for everyone on the list and even ran security keeping unwanted line hoppers at bay. Angel even coordinated with Best Buy management for the various issues that popped up throughout the weekend ordeal. Order was kept, everyone had fun and respect for one another and best of all, Angel and his family got out of it with a few new friends and a few PS3s to boot.

Good on you Angel, if only more stories like this were out there.

Read more: Chicago Best Buy utopia

JoWooD has launched the teaser page for Freakout, an upcoming freestyle skiing title to be released on the PC, PS2 and PSP platforms Q1 2007. Developed by Coldwood, who seem to be stuck making skiing titles for the Austrian publisher, Freakout aims to bring freestyle skiing to the masses, or at least to the countries where anyone actually cares about freestyle skiing.

Read more: Freakout | JoWooD

What better city than New York is there to hold a fun and healthy ARG event? None! This time around, we have Payphone Warriors, an alternate reality game which pits teams of players on the streets of New York who must control the area around Washington Park by controlling the long-forgotten payphones around the area. A team controls their area by simply making a call from a payphone to the game system and entering your team number, before dashing off to the next payphone on your map. For each minute your team controls that phone, you score 1 point, so the more phones you grab and the longer you own the phone, the more points you get.

Read more: Payphone Warriors | ARG entry @ Wikipedia

DING DING DING. In what will probably be their most expensive marketing campaign ever, Nintendo has stated that they will spend more than $200 million USD in order to market the Wii console. With Nintendo’s success with the DS handheld and their profit on every piece of hardware sold, Nintendo has built a nice little war chest in order to compete against the new PS3 from Sony and Microsoft’s Xbox 360. 80% of the marketing spend will go towards adult markets, also marking a shift in strategy for Nintendo, which is trying to broaden it’s appeal among adults as the gaming market ages and younger consumer tastes continue their shift towards the mature market. Nintendo is projected to shift over 1.2 million units of the Wii this holiday season, with projections of only around 500,000 units for Sony, thanks partially to the manufacturing difficulties of Blu-Ray components. It’s also not helping Sony that their new console is over priced and their image among many gamers is severely damaged after months of public relations mis-steps.

Read more: Nintendo to spend $200 million

CCP, the makers of the sci-fi MMO EVE Online have announced that they will be merging with White Wolf Publishing, one of the leading creators of traditional RPG franchises in the world. The companies will operate autonomously, but with White Wolf owning some impressively rich worlds such as World of Darkness, it looks as if CCP is positioning themselves to release some interesting new MMOs in the coming future.

Read the full press release after the jump..

Read more of “CCP, makers of EVE Online, merges with White Wolf“

Galactic Gravity Golf is absolutely one of the best Flash-based games I’ve played in ages. The interface is completely slick and the game play, though simple, is challenging and always good fun. Come on, who doesn’t want to play golf in outer space with comets and planets and black holes? Enjoy a few rounds of galactic golf-based simulation via T45OL, a great source of flash-based games from mini-golf, to Real-Time Strategy and a great poker game or 12.

Play more: Galactic Gravity Golf