Like it or not, gold buying, selling, and powerleveling have become rather lucrative businesses, particularly with the stratospheric rise in popularity of the MMORPG. *cough*WoW*cough*. So what is it? Is it legal? Ethical? Dangerous? Sally forth dear reader, and find out for yourself!

It's time to make our entrance with guns blazing. Or not, lest you're a musket-toting hunter. But Blizzard will have players entering Northrend under a hail of flaming rounds and corpse chunks as soon as they enter from their respective faction portals. Lead designer Jeff Kaplan just sprinkled more details about World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King in an interview, and they can be had at the full story.

For those who have already gotten a new Mac Book Pro and have found the heat generated by the system a bit excessive, you may want to see this. A poster on the MacRumors forums Nikhsub took apart a week-old MacBook Pro after reading some news on the horrible application of the thermal paste on the units chips.

After opening the unit, he discovered that the GPU, CPU, and Northbridge were indeed overly slathered by thermal paste. For those who don't know the recommended amount, lets just say that a small pea-sized dab would be good enough for a processor chip. Check out the amount that was found on the unit that Nikhsub purchased.

   

He also found the heat pipe cooler heatsinks covered with thermal paste (third image). This shouldn't have been lathered with the stuff in the first place! So after cleaning up everything that needed to be cleaned and reapplying a thin coat of thermal paste, the unit was found to be running a full 20 degrees lower then before the clean up. Here are a few pics of the board and heatsinks cleaned up.

   

Nicksub may have done a cool job of cleaning his Mac Book Pro but if your system is running hot, you may want to have an Apple specialist open it up and check it out for you.

Majesco Entertainment has announced that Genki's Kengo Zero is now slated for a fall release in the UK. Reminiscent of the old Bushido Blade series for the Sony PlayStation, Kengo Zero drops players smack dab in the middle of feudal Japan. The mission? Become the best samurai warrior in the land.

"Kengo Zero's stunning high definition graphics bring the game's nine real samurai to life," said John Merchant, Marketing Manager, Majesco Europe. "With its 2-player head-to-head mode, attribute upgrades and fighter customization, Kengo Zero gives every player the opportunity to be the fighter they want to be and to test their metal against the very best."

For a closer look at the game, check out the fact sheet -- minus the PR-speak -- behind the full article link below.

Click the full article link to check out a Kengo Zero fact sheet.

Although Spider-Man 3 (Wii, PSP, DS, PC, PlayStation 3, GameCube, PS2, Xbox 360) isn't actually doing bad while in its pre-launch period in the market, some critics believe it could actually be an even bigger game blockbuster hit - after the movie makes its own blockbuster impact, of course. Activision's multi-platformer is slated to come out smack dab at the film's premiere day.

 

Video game analyst Michael Pachter, from Wedbush Morgan, was also optimistic on the game's potential, saying, "I think it's going to do extremely well." He mentioned that the addition of the evil alter-ego to the plot also gives the game a variety edge, and even named Sandman as an ideal villain. He said that taking Sandman down needs resourcefulness and not pure brawn.

Pachter expects the movie-game adaptation to sell approximately six million units worldwide by the end of Activision's fiscal year of 2007. He estimates that Electronic Arts' own game adaptation of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" would come short by one or two million from that figure.

Because the past two games based on the past two movies have garnered a US$ 300 million in sales, many analysts and critics believe it could do better this time around, especially now that it can appeal to a broader audience who love to have super powers. Will the game live up to expectations? On May 4, we'll find out!

Found smack dab inside a Guitar Hero-themed "rock bus" created to promote Guitar Hero in numerous rock concerts in the UK, RedOctane's president and founder Kai Huang made a few rock poses for the media cameras, while giving a little more insight into the idea behind Guitar Hero III. In an interview with Emma Boyes of GameSpot UK, Huang explained why some great music tracks won't be making the Guitar Hero III cut.

Now we all know how it's like to actually select really good music out there. First, you have to establish an opinion-base which includes everyone that has to do with the game, and that branches from the developers down to the fans.
You, as a fan, can submit your ideas at Guitar Hero songs thread at the official forums of the Guitar Hero web site, or just e-mail the song title and performing artist straight to RedOctane.

Unfortunately, the song selection process takes a long time, and licensing issues don't help speed up things at all. It's great to have a broad selection of songs in this case, because whenever conflicts arise, songs eventually get dropped. And while song dropping is usually "a record company to developer deal", developers also drop most songs that won't be as fun in Guitar Hero, even if they sound amazingly great. Huang admitted that they've had a "lot" of those, and stated:

There are a lot of fantastic songs out there, a lot of great artists, a ton of great music. But not all of them would be the most fun for Guitar Hero, so part of that selection process that we go through is that we have [a list] of some great artists, and then we go through the songs that are there and then we really look for the songs that have some great guitar riffs, or some great guitar solos, and those are the ones that we finalise and choose, because those are the ones that we know are going to be fun to play in the game.

So far, they've been hoping to get songs from artists like Metallica, AC/DC, and Led Zeppelin into the game, but will be giving majority of the floor toward the fan submitted games that make the cut. Huang also revealed that the new guitar controller will be wireless to the delight of many fans who've been asking for that feature.

They're also working on varieties of colors, plus a new shape. He even went as far to say that they'd be "looking at ... creating some more interesting guitars that are higher end, and some of them will be made out of wood, and so they'll actually feel like a real guitar."

Guitar Hero III is currently under the skilled developer hands of Activision's star devs behind the Tony Hawk franchise, Neversoft Entertainment, and should be shipping late in 2007 to the PS2, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

If you thought pink fur was menacing, just try seeing it wrapped around a mean-looking alien with a blaster pointed at you.

After all the wordsand interviews (and the occasional video and screenshot of the week), we finally have a heap of new Tabula Rasa screenshots for your viewing pleasure. Check 'em out above and below.

Tabula Rasa, the brainchild of Ultima Online creator Richard Garriott, is one of the most highly-anticipated MMORPGs slated for a release this year. Set against the backdrop of hostile worlds and even more hostile enemies, Tabula Rasa puts players smack dab in the middle of humanity's last stand against the space-faring menace called The Bane.

NCSoft's Tabula Rasa is expected to go live in Q3 of this year.

More screenshots after the jump!

Word has been out that DKs will be removed come Burning Crusade. Some people have been speculating that DKs will be gone as soon as the December patch.

Well, Nethaera's been posting a lot on the WoW forums about this. As far as we can tell, it's leaning towards "highly likely." Of course it's not completely guaranteed that all that's on the beta servers will make make it smack dab unchanged to the live ones, but Nethaera's been persistent with her entries. Here's one of her more lengthy posts:

DKs were put in at the same time as the honor system to address so many people killing NPCs that were needed, but by doing so it was a bit more insurance than we really needed since most PvP was then moved to the Battlegrounds. I'm not saying we don't want PvP to still continue in the Battlegrounds because we definitely do, and we want it to occur in the Arenas and in the World via the World PvP options that are implemented and being implemented.

We don't want to kill city raids but we also don't want to have cities under siege 24/7. That's why you don't see the major city leaders dropping any sort of loot to make them a prime target for people trying to equip their characters. (I still would like to see some epic cheese though. mmm mmm)

There is a very delicate balance that we are trying to create here and it's not as simple as doing one thing only. It's like working a cryptex (ala Davinci Code). Getting everything just right is what everyone strives for. In this case though the code consists of what a variety of people want and figuring out exactly what combination is going to work best to make the most people happy.

Will it be open season on NPC's again? We'll have to wait and see.

You can find many weird and wonderful USB gadgets here in our USB gadgets section like the syringe USB Flash drive or the Stewie USB, but this one fits into a  whole new category of its own. It's a weird, particularly functional or a practical gadget. This USB "microphone" has something that the ordinary standalone microphone or call centre-like headsets don't offer - originality. This retro commentator-styled microphone isn't actually a Microphone, and thats where it loses on the functionality side.

All of our higher brain functions are telling us that this $19 USB AM/FM Radio that looks like a microphone isn't worth the money, it's stupid, probably quite flimsy, requires being connected to a computer, seems to defeat the object of owning a USB radio. However, we shouldn't always listen to our so-called "higher brain functions". This device is original, looks fun and should spruce up any boring computer desk with food and drink splattered all around it. For $ 19 you cannot buy a functional DAB radio - but you can buy an ounce of happiness with this product.

Starting October 1, 2006, Virgin Mobile will begin streaming jolly-old English (the British, not the language) programmes onto cellular phones across Her Majesty's Britannic Isles with its new Virgin Mobile TV service, becoming the first European cellular provider to do so. Virgin will begin selling the Mobile Lobster 700 Mobile TV Phone (which has been quaintly dubbed with affectionate British humour as the "Telly-Phone") that will receive the service through two payment plans:

• For free with a subscription contract of £25 or more; and
• For £199 on a prepaid plan with the first three months of service free and £5 per month thereafter.

The Telly-Phone will be featured in a multi-million pound ad campaign featuring Baywatch babe Pam Anderson Lee (we wonder if "Baywatch" or Pam also comes with the service. Hmm...). The programmes will be broadcast over the DAB digital frequency spectrum, which currently services more than 85% of the British population, and the device will also receive DAB digital radio frequencies. The Telly-Phone will also be Virgin Mobile's first Windows-based smartphone.

On the offer from Virgin Mobile TV are:

• BBC One (trial basis for 12 months and for free),
• ITV1,
• Channel 4 ("Channel 4 Short Cuts," its made-for-mobile program), and
• E4