Enjoying your copy of Grand Theft Auto IV for the Sony PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Xbox 360? Then good news, as Take-Two are also enjoying GTA IV, but in a completely different way. Needless to say, they're rolling in it.  Check out all the details in the full article, and see how the success of the sandbox game of the century has pretty much led to a stalemate between aspiring takeover agent and potential takeover victim.

Verbatim has announced its plans to release a new 500 GB portable hard drive for later this year. Aside from carrying some of the more standard features of the SmartDisk line, this new drive will also carry a reasonable price tag. Details are available in the full article.

Alliance or Horde, the hotfixes being applied to Blizzard's World of Warcraft should prove to be relevant. We caught wind of a thread from the WoW Forums which has the important updates for the week ending March 30, and players of the popular MMORPG can also learn about dynamic spawning. Hit that jump to find what we're talking about.

The reason why we take all those pictures is to make sure our memories will be preserved, and last over time. But will our current DVD discs be able to last a century or two, just enough for our descendants to know about our memories? Mitsubishi, the maker of the awesome 3D Blu-ray players, is developing the key in making our memories last for a long time: the Arledia DVD-Rs. Read more about it in the full article.

Heads up, Sony PlayStation Portable owners! The official 3.90 firmware for your gaming handhelds is finally here, and with the promised Skype feature intact! Check out all the details in the full article. Get to it!

Hassled by the nefarious Military Surplus auction bug in Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa? Then you'll be glad to know that it's going to be taken care care of pretty quick - in fact, tomorrow-morning-quick. Not only that, but they're going to handle a few nitpicks at the same time, too. Show your love for the Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa bugfix team by checking out the full article.

Bad news for those of us playing the waiting game on the Xbox 360 version of Unreal Tournament 3 (PS3, Xbox 360, PC). Mark Rein, vice president of Epic Games, revealed the version's current state of development, and it's suffices to say it's not looking good. It seems that one of the game's main draws - that is, the ability to create and download mods for the game - is hampering the development process. Here's hoping that we get a build that's more or less similar to that of the PS3 and PC version. Rein's own words at the full article.

Blizzard poster Nethaera has posted some clarifications on the changes to Pain Suppression on the official World of Warcraft forums. Issues had arisen concerning the change in Pain Suppression's effectiveness to 40 percent. Here's Nethaera's whole post verbatim:

The change to Pain Suppression is something that has been a subject of debate for some time. Previously when players wanted it to be castable on others, it was mentioned that 65% of a damage reduction was just too much. This change makes it possible to cast it on others and still get significant benefit out of it.

Don't forget that there is also an additional benefit of having Pain Suppression in that you get a 65% dispel resist for 8 seconds, if you have Silent Resolve, that's an 85% spell resist while it's in use.

The threat reduction also can be of benefit for getting that edge off of a DPSer when you need to and at the same, time is still very viable to throw on a main tank if they have enough aggro. We just didn't want it to feel as if the only person that a Priest would be casting it on would be a main tank.

For those wondering, Pain Suppression is a talent acquired in the Priest Discipline tree. This buff originally reduced all damage taken by 65% and increased the Priest's resistance to dispel mechanics by 65% for a duration of 8 seconds.

The latest PTR patch notes mention that the Pain Suppression discipline talent is now usable on friendly targets, instantly reduces the target's threat by 5% and reduces damage taken by 40%. Its cooldown has also been reduced from 3 minutes to 2 minutes.

It's been a while since Team ICO's Shadow of the Colossus gave Sony PlayStation 2 owners a unique experience brought about by topnotch game design and spectacular art, which was the spiritual sequel to another stand out title called ICO. We're among those who are patiently waiting for either of these two to get a sequel, but some fans took a step forward and squeezed out info from the UK Official PlayStation Magazine. There hasn't been any confirmation (concrete or otherwise), but it does seem like Team ICO is working on a sequel.

Fan group Team ICO Gamers sent out a query to OPM UK about any info pertaining to Team ICO's activities, and received an interesting reply. Here it is, verbatim:

We asked Sony boss Kaz Hirai what was going on with Team ICO a couple of months back. As he was pleading ignorance, one of the other execs present blurted out. "I'm pretty sure they're doing the sequel." Our fearless reporter immediately asked. "What, the sequel to ICO or Shadow of the Colossus?" Then the room filled with knockout gas...

Not much, eh? We did hear about Team ICO developing a new title for the PS3, but there were no details about the mysterious project. When they talk about a sequel, we can only guess that the game will be set in the same world as ICO and Shadow of the Colossus. Whether we'll be seeing the horned kid or the wanderer, we're hoping to learn more about the world Team ICO has always kept under tight wraps.

Game developer blog update time, and it's rather squid-alien flavored. Yep, the guys behind LucasArts' Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron has recently updated their online journal, and this time it's about Admiral Ackbar and how his existence in the game gave rise to one of the developers' more cherished childhood memories.

Here's a snippet of the blog entry, verbatim:

If you remember -- and I sure do -- Admiral Ackbar was a "send-away-for" figure that you could only get after you sent in a certain amount of proof of purchase tabs. Well, I sent away for him as soon as I found this out, and one a warm summer day, I received a small gray package with his glorious figure inside. 

Unfortunately, such a collection was not meant to stay intact. The denouement to this childhood memory: I wish I knew where that figure was now. Like nearly all of my others, it fell prey to dreaded "spring cleaning" that many mothers do in their children's bedrooms over the years.

Quite a bittersweet ending, don't you agree? At least many other players will be able to step into Admiral Ackbar's shoes once you recruit him in Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron. Nothing like giving the old squid-alien Admiral some time in the field. Updates as we get them, and in the meantime enjoy this video of him in action!