This week is seeing the commercial release of Advent Children, so it's appropriate to see Jeremy Parish discussing the original game. However, he's got a slightly different take on the game than you might be used to. Seen via GameSetWatch. From Parish's article: "What better way to sell to people than by speaking directly to them? Cloud Strife is the everynerd -- wrapped up in delusions of greatness when allowed to take things on his own carefully-selected terms until he sees the world for what it is and is forced to come to grips with the fact that he's actually completely pathetic. That's your average game-obsessed message board dork in a nutshell: the petty tyrant of a tiny little niche of the Internet but a failure in real life. It's the kind of parable Jesus would have been proud to have shared with the hungry masses between bites of magical fishloaf, the cigarette ad of nerd coming-of-age stories -- a promise to nerdlings that if you face down your demons, accept your failures and struggle to move beyond them, you'll save the world and your childhood crush will fall madly in love with you."

With E3 coming up on us fairly fast now, we're going to start seeing some of the larger company's expected lineups for the event. eToyChest has the titles Square/Enix will be showing off at the event. Gamastura reports on one additional title that didn't make the list; A collaboration between Square/Enix and Nintendo. From that article: "The application in question combines an email application with virtual pet-like interaction abilities, and features various Pokemon characters heavily. Although Nintendo has been relatively reticent to enter the burgeoning mobile content market, which is particularly active in Japan, it has recently started to enter the segment, with the recent licensing of ring tones and animated images for a 'Nintendo Mobile' service on Japanese cellphone providers, and now this announcement of a Square collaboration."

With the success of Bethesda's Oblivion featuring so prominently in the headlines of late, EA's announcement of 'Project Gray Company' comes as little surprise. From the Gamespot blurb: "The action takes place in a massive open world where you can go anywhere you want, and the characters in this world are powered by an incredible simulation [artificial intelligence] based on the same technology used by the makers of The Sims 2. The story of the game is built around a series of Story Quests. You can choose to follow specific Story Quests, embark on a range of other types of quests, or set off on your own adventures in the massive open world environment."

An anonymous reader writes "Thanks to an odd glitch in the game that prevents him from completing the Knights of the White Stallion quest, Shawn has figured out how to keep himself a mighty fine Orc wife, Mazoga. Once she went on adventures with him. Now she lives in his house in Tamriel, and he can't get her to leave. He visits her when he's in the city, tired after his days of adventuring. He's thinking about buying her a kitchen set. Maybe a living room. Hands down, it's the best Oblivion glitch to date."

kainewynd2 writes to mention a public plea put out in the Palladium books forums by the company owner Kevin Siembada. He bemoans the Rifts publisher's poor financial outlook, and asks people to buy a $50 print to save the company. From the post: "The truly wonderful Rifts® videogame - Rifts® Promise of Power - was stillborn. The N-Gage platform never took off in North America. That meant the N-Gage and Rifts® Promise of Power would NOT be available on the mass market in the USA and Canada. Finding it anywhere in North America required an act of God. There would be no Nokia royalty-based revenue stream. Nor would there be a Nokia videogame sequel and the money that might come from it. Nokia treated me nothing short of GREAT. They lost truckloads of money on this venture. We're both the victims of marketing fallout. Please don't blame these wonderful people for Palladium's woes - circumstance just didn't make them part of our solution." Wow, they made a game for the N-Gage and then lost a bunch of money. Who ever could have forseen that?

Gamespot reports that Square/Enix's next Massively Multiplayer Online Game will be a PS3/Windows Vista title. From the article: "While talking up Treasures of Aht Urhgan--the game's latest expansion--FFXI producer Hiromichi Tanaka commented that his team is now working on a new massively multiplayer online role-playing game for Windows Vista and the PlayStation 3. He also shared his thoughts on porting games to new hardware, including bringing FFXI to the PS3 as well as the PlayStation Portable." More details are likely at E3. Update: 04/20 14:03 GMT by Z : Link fixed.

1up has a piece looking back at the GLBT guild mixup that happened earlier this year in World of Warcraft. From the article: "'... last summer a friend introduced me to WOW, and I really liked it, though I didn't care for remarks many of the players made, like the fact that everything is apparently so gay when it's bad. So I decided to create my own guild, which would be GLBT friendly.' Sometimes singing, other times slogging her way through WOW's exacting echelons to a formidable level 60, Andrews had big endgame plans for her developing guild--until January 12, 2006, that is, when a note from publisher Blizzard blinkered everything."

Next Generation is running an editorial penned by former PC Gamer Editor-In-Chief Gary Whitta, wherein he calls on gamers to shut down gold farmers. From the article: "PCG's refusal to accept their advertising is a bold first step toward suffocating these reprobates. But it won't do the job completely: there will always be less-scrupulous outlets who won't be so picky about where their ad dollars come from. The only way to really cut off gold farmers at the knees is not by refusing to take their money, but by refusing to give it to them. And that responsibility falls to you, the community of players they target."

Gamers with Jobs has word that a patch for Oblivion should be expected sometime in the near future. The future official content downloads, at the same time, should be cheaper to obtain. Meanwhile, the game has been burning up the charts, according to Next Generation: "The title has become the fastest-selling Xbox 360 game in North America, and according to The NPD Group, it's currently the best-selling PC game, with the Oblivion Collector's Edition following behind at number 2. NPD also reports that the RPG made up 13 percent of PC game sales during its first week on the market -- more than four times the sales volume of the next best-selling title."

Syberghost writes "Kenneth Hite's annual 'State of the Industry' report has been released in his online column Out of the Box for gamer news site http://www.gamingreport.com. Among other interesting bits; Margaret Weis Productions is the sixth-largest RPG maker, on the sales of their sole RPG product line, the Serenity RPG. Sales overall were down, again; the RPG industry as a whole isn't doing well." Sad but not surprising.

ScaryFroMan writes "Gamespot has a preview up of Blizzard's new MMO, World of Starcraft. From the article: "To put it mildly, the human brain cannot possibly fathom and the English language cannot possibly express how amazingly incredible the next massively multiplayer game from Blizzard is going to be. First screens and details!""

.yosh, who's totally cool I know him textd me to say that Wizards of the Coast is totally making a My Little Pony Roleplaying Game!! OMG! Now I don't have to play with that stupid dungeons and dragons book with all the impossibly clothed women characters. Ponies 4EVA! From the site: "If it's on Butterfly Island, it's in the My Little Pony RPG core rulebook, and we expect the book to be an invaluable tool for RPG fans and game developers alike,' said Jonathan Tweet, senior game designer with Wizards of the Coast. 'Not only will this RPG appeal to current fans of My Little Pony, but it will also help core roleplayers come to appreciate the depth and possibilities in this unique fantasy world. I know I did.'"

The upcoming World of Warcraft expansion has a number of mysteries associated with it, and one of the most often discussed is 'what will the new Alliance race be'? Blizzard has finally unveiled their plans: The new race is the ethereal wisp. Additionally, community mod Caydiem is back on the official forums and has official details on the upcoming 1.11 patch. From those notes: "- Each player will only be allowed to pick up one flag per game in Warsong Gulch. While this decision is slightly restrictive, we do feel the value of teamwork it will teach by allowing each player more opportunity to shine outweighs any negative side-effect. - New Level 1 only Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin bracket available! - If a match-up begins and drops everyone due to lack a lack of players, Horde automatically wins."

The Elder Scrolls series is well known among PC gamers as the high water mark for an open-ended RPG experience. The series, set in the world of Tamriel, has a staggering breadth and depth thanks to the exacting standards of the team at Bethesda Softworks. The newest title in the line brings Tamriel to life in a manner that is renewing the faith of even the most jaded CRPG player. Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion may not be the perfect game for everyone. For those willing to give it a shot, Oblivion treats gamers with a level of respect that is unique, uplifting, and (hopefully) inspirational for game developers in all genres. Read on for my impressions of a truly unique game.

1up has a piece looking at how Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion may just be what the western RPG genre needs to spring back from the brink of nonexistence. From the article: "Western RPGs focus on the characters, and the world around them is a tool to let the player-as-character do and see more. Eastern RPGs focus on the events unfolding around the characters, and how the characters affect the world around them. Western RPGs are based on the experience of tabletop role-playing games, limited only by the imaginations of the players and the game master, where Eastern RPGs are more re-creations of traditional storytelling. Oblivion has taken huge strides toward meeting fans of MMOs halfway by building A.I. that really lives alongside the player and ensuring that the actual missions are easily pursued."

radicalskeptic writes "In the latest installment of Gamespot's series modestly titled 'The Greatest Games of All Time', the editors review Bioware's RPG classic from 2000: Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn. The article is a broad overview of the game and touches on the game's innovations, comments on its historical significance, and includes a section devoted to BGII's romantic subplot. Gamespot concludes that 'all in all, Baldur's Gate II is a towering achievement in the history of role-playing games, giving you a huge world to explore, plenty of well-drawn NPCs to argue with or get romantic with, and an engaging story that's simultaneously epic and personal.'"

With the release of the fourth chapter in the Elder Scrolls saga last week, UGO has put together a piece looking back on the long and successful history of Bethesda's Elder Scrolls series. From the article: "Some RPGs take the restricted world premise so far that they are practically on rails. Thankfully, the team at Bethesda Softworks decided back in 1994 that that wasn't the way things would be for their series The Elder Scrolls. Now at its fourth installment, we have decided it was about time to take a look back at the series that broke the mold on what an RPG should be and that gave players the most important ability of all - the ability to choose how to play the game. So ready your horse, grab your finest set of gauntlets, and prepare to embark on a journey through the history of the series that brought the amazing world of Tamirel to life, and don't be afraid to slay an orc or two in the process."

Next Generation has an article defending many of the somewhat 'controversial' decisions made in the design for the newest chapter in the Final Fantasy series. While it recieved a 40/40 from Famitsu, Final Fantasy XII has recieved some harsh criticisms for straying as far as it has from the Final Fantasy norm. From the article: "With Gambits turned on (and configured with just five minutes of commonsensical thought), battles go at least twenty times more quickly than in any other RPG. At their best, Final Fantasy XII's battles resemble rollicking fights in fantasy movies. The player merely directs his party through an area, freezing the action when he sees fit to make adjustments on the battle plan (stronger enemies appear, et cetera). This alone should be enough to qualify XII as a 'videogame.' The controller's vibration, for example, provides wonderful feedback. Yet players feel betrayed. They say, 'I want to press buttons.' They say, 'I don't want to watch my videogame.'"

Richard Garriot has been lauded over his long career for his work with the Ultima series. Last night he received a Lifetime Achievement award for that work, a testament to his perseverance. This morning he talked about the "Trials and Tribulations" of creating a MMOG, specifically his ongoing project, Tabula Rasa. Read on for notes on his discussion of the long road his project has taken.

HarvardFrankenstein writes "Gamespot's Greg Kasavin will be playing The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion for 12 straight hours tonight (Monday, March 20th) and the entire marathon session will be broadcast live. Kasavin will be 'offering commentary about the experience as it transpires. Subscribers will see a picture-in-picture view of Kasavin as he spends an increasing number of successive hours playing the game, and they will be able to chat with each other over the course of the event.'" The event starts tonight at 6pm PST, if they get started on time.