The October issue of Game Informer magazine features the big reveal of Dead Space, an upcoming survival horror game from EA. It is said to be similar in style to Event Horizon as well as other straight-up horror films.

According to the magazine cover, the game is being developed by a “renegade team” at the behemoth publisher and is set in the “far reaches of space”. The game will feature “forgotten alien scourge” as enemies, with the playing donning the role of “one man cutting through darkness”.

Paradox Interactive announced Penumbra: Black Plague, a sequel to the horror adventure, which is being billed as the final chapter in the series. Set for release during Q1 2008, the game will further the story and will feature enhanced gameplay.

“Penumbra: Overture has been referred to as the scariest adventure game to appear in years, and with Penumbra: Black Plague, the developers have managed to push the boundaries of psychological horror even further, said Fredrik Wester, Executive Vice President of Paradox Interactive. “Their unique and innovative approach to gaming adventures made Penumbra a fan and media favorite and we are convinced that Penumbra: Black Plague will have an even bigger impact on the gaming community”.

“Penumbra: Black Plague is horrific, life-like, interactive and unique and we are thrilled to be working with Paradox Interactive to introduce this game to a worldwide audience, said Jens Nilsson, Co-Founder Frictional Games”. “We’ve worked with Paradox in the past and their support for our vision and ideas has made it possible for us to keep on developing games that we believe in.”

Uwe Boll is at it again: this time he has acquired the rights for the film adaptation to an unreleased action-RPG Legend: Hand of God. The relatively unknown game hits German stores on October 12, with international release next year.

“I think Legend will be very successful because of its unique blend of high fantasy and dark atmosphere,” said Boll. “The world of Legend contains major crossover potential and was already adapted as novel and audio book.”

The film is said to have a $40 million budget, with Boll set to begin shooting in 2009. He is currently working on Far Cry; his next release Postal will arrive in theatres later this month.

The engine behind Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and the upcoming Fallout 3 has been ported to the Wii. Emergent Game Technologies has adapted its Gamebryo engine for use on the less powerful console.

The Wii version of the engine includes platform-specific enhancements like a scene design layout tool and more. It is also the first version of the Gamebryo engine optimized for a Nintendo console, as the engine previously supported more powerful hardware.

Celebrating its success in the portable console space, Nintendo of Europe announced that gamers in the region will get a new Nintendo DS Lite color - silver. Starting October 12, gamers can pick up the silver edition alongside the popular black, white and pink versions. It will retail for £99.

The Wii is getting NeoGeo games via its Virtual Console service, according to an announcement by SNK. The publisher has announced that it will release Fatal Fury, World Heroes and Art of Fighting on the service, each costing 900 Wii points. More titles will follow in the coming months.

Organizers of the World Series of Video Games have announced that the remainder of the 2007 season of the global gaming competition has been cancelled, eliminating tournaments planned for London, Sweden and Los Angeles. Here’s the deal:

The World Series of Video Games launched with the goal of expanding interest and participation in competitive gaming. Over the course of two seasons, we have been honored by the strong support the community has shown in attending our festivals, and watching our competitions online and on television– all in record-setting numbers. We have been grateful for the generous support provided by Intel and other sponsors since our inception.

However, the continuing challenges of securing adequate revenues to sustain the production of the WSVG’s large scale events and television programming, in a very crowded field of competitive gaming leagues, has prompted us to re-evaluate our direction as an organization.

Unfortunately, the decision is to cancel the remainder of the WSVG season, as we shift our focus solely to growing our online advertising network of websites, which currently reach seven million users each month.

Winners of prior tournaments in the season will get their prizes, they promise.

Having completed a trial run, Valve has opened Steam Community to the public, offering gamers social networking and online multiplayer in one package.

The Steam Community lets gamers create a personal profile-a Steam ID-complete with a photo or avatar, biographical details, favorite lists, and other information. Community members can add peers to a personal Friends List that shows in real-time who’s online and available to chat or play a game. Accessible from within the Steam client or while playing a game, the Friends List makes it easy to invite friends to chat, play a game, or join a group.

Starting Monday, September 17, the Team Fortress 2 (TF2) beta opens to those who pre-purchaser The Orange Box via Steam and save 10% of the regular price. The Steam community features will allow TF2 players to track detailed player and team statistics and achievements records.

Proposing someone to marry you is a huge task to be undertaken, and one which requires ingenuity, among other things. This guy had the bright idea of using Viva Pinata as a vehicle to propose to his girlfriend. She said yes. Congratulations, man!

This post on the official Shadowrun community forums offers sad news that FASA Studio has closed down. Without wasting words, here’s the scoop:

Dear Friends,

It is my sad duty to announce that FASA Studio has officially closed its doors. Today was the official last day of employment for those of us who had not moved on to other positions within Microsoft Game Studios. While the rumors have been circulating forever, we chose to wait on an official announcement because we didn’t want people’s attention distracted from our last product, Shadowrun, a game we love.

As a testament to the team’s commitment to Shadowrun, we released three title updates to improve the product even after the team learned we were losing our studio. We have kept our Community Manager and Technical Support Manager on the job to aid and support you and will continue to do so while people continue to play our game. I am pleased that about half of us have found great positions elsewhere in MGS and Microsoft where they can share their experience and passion with the great people there.

But now, as the last of us say our goodbyes to each other, I’m saying goodbye to you on behalf of a group of talented and dedicated professionals who busted their humps for the love of the game. I am proud to have worked with and represented them to you and know that wherever they go, they will continue to kick ass.

Mitch

At its pre-Tokyo Game Show briefing, Microsoft officially announced Ninja Gaiden 2, the full sequel to the bloody action game. Team Ninja designer Tomonobu Itagaki took the stage to show off the game and announced that it is exclusive for release on the Xbox 360 sometime next year.

The game, among other new things, will feature an entirely new engine and have “finishing blows” system for fatality-like moves. It will feature an automatic health regeneration system with “semi-permanent damage restored at save points,” over 30 hours of gameplay and both land and water-based fighting.

Check out a nice, shiny teaser trailer below.

Gamespot carries word from Nihilistic that the other Conan game, an action title in the likes of God of War, will be released on September 28, a whole month earlier than its previous date of October 26. The game will be available on both PS3 and Xbox 360 and will retail for $59.99 in the US.

Meanwhile, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, the highly anticipated MMORPG, is set for release on March 25, 2008. It was previously expected to hit stores later this year.

Disasters are nothing new in the gaming world. This article takes a look at the top ten video game system disasters, offering up a list of failed consoles which went away quickly.

A Russian demo for Aggression: Europe 1914 is now available along with an English converter for those who are not into the Soviet mother tongue. Grab it from this website, 3D Downloads and FileFront.

Meanwhile, a v1.0.2.1 patch for Pro Cycling Manager 2007 has been released, updating the game’s StarFroce copy protection to eliminate a problem that intermittently caused game crashes. A beta patch for Commander: Europe at War has also been released, updating the game to v1.03. It is accompanied by a new version of the game’s editor which is said to make use of new features.

A new v1.4 patch for Stronghold 2 is now available from the 2K Games website, which features complete patch notes. You can also grab it from 3D Downloads, FileFront, Gamer’s Hell and The Patches Scrolls. In more patches, a v1.04a update for Age of Empires III: The Warchiefs can be downloaded from FileFront, Gamer’s Hell and The Patches Scrolls. The Ship Simulation 2008 website offers a v1.1 patch for the game that can also be downloaded from FileFront, Gamer’s Hell, Strategy Informer and The Patches Scrolls.

An awesome Enemy Territory: Quake Wars launch trailer has been released. Running for over two minutes, the trailer shows in-game cinematic footage. Check it out below: