We don't know about you, but back in the day, we loved Savage. If you missed out, it was a FPS/third-person multiplayer affair that allowed one player to make battle plans from a top down view. He'd give the orders, and the guys on the ground would see a column of light and they'd head towards their next objective. ... Well, no, they didn't always take orders. But when it worked, it was brilliant, like some digital version of Jimmy Carter, brokering a temporary peace between RTS players and FPS fans. ... Of course, when it didn't, it became an RTS with the worst AI in history.

Now, Savage 2: A Tortured Soul has nearly arrived and has entered the beta testing phase, but not for everyone: Only those who have paid full price for the game can get the client. Luckily, S2 is self-publishing the game at a price of $29.99, so it's not a huge financial risk if it sounds like something you'd be interested in. We haven't tried it out yet, but we've got high hopes.

Sierra and Microsoft have revisited the grid-based fortified town of Carcassonne, as the XBLA rendition of the popular European board game has gotten a new downloadable expansion titled "The King and Baron" as part of today's regular XBLA update, which also includes block dropper Tetris Splash.

With an asking price of 300 Microsoft Points ($3.75), the download is the second such expansion following the already available "River I & II," and adds a set of five additional tiles described as 'interesting configurations of Town pieces,' as well as pair of new rules. We're not exactly sure what they mean by "interesting" ... perhaps they glow.

The new rules are designed to award those players with either the largest city or the longest road at the end of the game with a pair of icons placed next to their avatars and Gamertags. But it's not just for looks or bragging rights, no sir! With this expansion, the player with the biggest city, identified by a newly added 'portly' King icon, will receive one point for each completed city in the game, while the player with the mightiest of roads, denoted by a 'crafty' Robber Baron, will take home one point for each completed road in the game -- and you know how much we love to pile up them points.

Command & Conquer: The First Decade, EA's comprehensive celebration of all things C&C, packed a lot of value into one box set, offering all 12 games and expansions spanning the series' ten-year existence. The compilation seemed to be all a C&C fan could ask for, though not according to EA, as the company has strangely announced plans to revisit the set less than two years later with Command & Conquer Saga, adding this year's Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars on top of everything else included in The First Decade.

But why stop there? At $50, Saga will admittedly include a lot for players' hard earned credits, but we have to wonder if subsequent C&C games will be likewise bundled into new, even more comprehensive packages shortly after their solo debut. With Tiberium Wars set to suffer Kane's Wrath in early 2008, we fully expect yet another collection to follow in short order. Mark your calendars for Command & Conquer: The Whole Enchilada for release in time for the 2009 holiday rush.

Sierra has confirmed that the Xbox 360 port of Cold War era real-time strategy game World in Conflict won't surface until sometime in 2008. The game, which is currently available for the PC, was originally planned for release on the console this November. The jury is wide open to speculation as to the reason for the date change, though Sierra has offered no official reason for the delay.

Interestingly, the shift follows last month's PC ship date announcement, which if you'll recall completely ignored the existence of the Xbox 360 alternative, though when pressed Sierra did tell us that the game "is still scheduled for this year," information that we know to be erroneous. Still, the PC version has been garnering impressive reviews so far, so we continue to hold out hope that Sierra's internal studio Swordfish, which is handling the console port, will deliver the goods someday.

[Via Xbox 360 Fanboy]

If you're a PC gamer looking to fill the gap in your soul until Starcraft 2's release in Who Honestly Knows of 200?, you might be disappointed to hear that sci-fi RTS Universe at War: Earth Assault has been delayed from November into January 2008. The delay does come with a silver lining though. The game supports cross-platform play between 360 and PC, and this delay puts the two releases closer together. Maybe this means 360 players won't be beaten as badly by their PC counterparts.

Also, the delay means a few more months of peace for the universe, and isn't that what we're all really working for? Of course it is.

Microsoft said today that Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties is good to go and will hit store shelves Oct. 23. The second expansion for AoE III is all about the Asia and adds a bevy of new content. Big Huge Games (Rise of Nations and Legends) handled this expansion of the historical RTS while Ensemble studios, the original developers of AoE III, continue work on that other Halo game: Halo Wars. Age of Empires III will retail for $30.

[Via Press Release]

THQ has once again returned to Games Workshop's well for a drink, announcing yet another expansion for the company's popular Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War real-time strategy franchise. The series, which launched in 2004 for the PC and already includes expansions Winter Assault and Dark Crusade, is based on the popular tabletop miniatures war game, though thankfully the electronic version is far less expensive.

In development at Relic, Soulstorm is expected to launch in spring 2008. In addition, like Dark Crusade, Soulstorm will be a stand alone expansion, allowing players to jump right into the grim darkness of the far future without having to pick up the other games in the series to do so.

Previous expansions added new armies like the Imperial Guard, Tau, and Necron, and Soulstorm looks to continue this tradition by introducing two new factions, bringing the series' total to nine playable races. While THQ remains tight lipped on one of these new races, the other will be the Dark Eldar. The game will also add new units across the seven other races, including air units, a first for the series. Finally, the scale of the game is swelling as well, with THQ noting that players will do battle across an entire star system. For the Emperor!

Following up on his recent look at difficulty in game design, Gamasutra's John Harris is at it again, this time offering an ample look at what he calls 'open world games' -- titles, according to Harris, where a player is dropped into a larger world and left to figure things out on his or her own. Like his difficult games feature, the lion's share of the article is spent looking at specific examples of games he feels fit this mold, from arcade and 8-bit classics to more contemporary examples like the Grand Theft Auto series.

Interestingly, despite GTA's inclusion in the list, Harris concedes that most of the article is spent talking about older games, an observation for which he makes no apology. According to Harris, older games feature "more elemental designs," meaning they don't get all caught up in trying to be more than just a game. Even so, the list is pretty random, with nods to titles such as Cadash, Crazy Taxi, and even Warren Robinett's Atari 2600 classic Adventure, while MMOs go strangely ignored. This last bit seems more peculiar given that that author himself spends time writing scripts for Second Life, but it is an interesting read nonetheless.

[Disclaimer: I wrote for Gamasutra from March 2006 to August 2007.]

Forgetting the travesty that was Bomberman Act Zero, there certainly hasn't been a lack of love lately for Hudson's bomb-obsessed icon, with the earlier released XBLA title Bomberman Live getting one expansion pack already, while another is planned for release later this month. Additionally, Hudson has also now confirmed a trio of new titles in the Bomberman Land series in development fot the Wii, DS, and PSP, with all three planned for release in January 2008.

Offering a collection of 50 mini-games, Bomberman Land seems right at home on the Wii, though with a catalog as saturated with similar experiences as Nintendo's latest console is, we're having a hard time mustering excitement for the prospect. Likewise, Bomberman Land for the PSP will feature 50 mini-games, while the DS variant – branded Bomberman Land Touch 2 – will include just 40 such games, with most designed to take advantage of the handheld's touchable screen.

Beyond these bite-sized diversions, quests, puzzles, and both single- and multiplayer antics are guaranteed, with each game featuring a multiplayer battle pack mode, complete with new maps, items, and in the case of the PSP and DS versions, UMD/single cart gameplay.

When the guys from Petroglyph sent over some better pictures from their visit to see Master Chief at Madame Tussauds for our gallery, we felt obligated to ask how Universe at War was coming along. Well, things seem to be just fine with the PC version which is still set for October, with the Xbox 360 version expected early next year. They sent over a bunch of screenshots of the game for our gallery below. Above you'll see the pretty UaW cinematic and (because you know how much we dislike showing non-game footage,) after the break you can find gameplay footage of the three factions in UaW.

One of the big things about Universe at War is that PC players will be able to compete against Xbox 360 gamers across Live. Which, of course, begs the question of: How's the UI? We first got the "official line" which was: "We have validated not only our controller design, but the functionality and ease of use of our UI as well." Then in normal human speak Chris Ainsworth of the community team said, "Honestly, I think UaW is going to be the act to follow when it comes to RTS interface and control, and we're backing our words... we'll be the first 3rd party game with interoperability between console and PC players, so the console controls are going to HAVE to be good." Definitely a game RTS fans should keep on radar in this packed holiday season.

Microsoft unveiled at their pre-Tokyo Game Show press briefing yesterday a new strategy RPG from Idea Factory that will likely never see release outside of Japan. Still, it's noteworthy that the English title given to the game hearkens back to Legendary: The Box, a game we awarded the (dubious) honor of E3 2007's Worst: The Title Award for Worst Game Title.

So do the characters of Apocalypse: Desire Next desire the (next) apocalypse, is the apocalypse itself an embodiment of desire, or is the RPG some bizarre word-association puzzle where all negative-connoting terms are replaced with more suggestive diction (i.e. "Watch out, it's the Four Horsemen of Trojan Desire!"). Japanese Xbox 360 owners can find out this November.

We're really interested in the newly announced Worms: A Space Oddity that THQ is bringing to the Wii in spring of 2008, and it's not just because the Wiimote is a perfect fit for the turn-based action game. No, we're more curious about how, exactly, one goes about making Worms into a console game again after its release in its $10 downloadable Xbox Live Arcade form.

Wii will have four-player online play, but XBLA already has that. There's also apparently a "fresh visual style," you'll have to ask Worms 3D how that worked out. Don't get us wrong, we love Worms, we're just curious how they'll make it seem like a full-priced game again. If they pull it off, we'll be the first in line.

Was that thirty seconds of Halo Wars gameplay footage from July not enough to quench your thirst for wanton Spartan vs. Covenant destruction? A new, ten-minute gameplay trailer with narration is now available in HD over Xbox Live.

The trailer goes over how the controls currently work, as well as show off some of more acute details of the game (spoiler: UNSC troops do push-ups). If you can't fire up your Xbox 360 (either because of circumstance or an irksome Red Ring), the new video is embedded above for your viewing pleasure. Be sure to check out our impressions of the game from this year's E3.

[Update: D'oh! Due to extenuating circumstances -- our Xbox 360s are sleeping with digital fishes -- we took the word of the press release that the Halo Wars trailer would be available on Xbox Live. You can still enjoy the video, in standard definition, via the embedded video above.]

The Wii version of Fire Emblem should be quite familiar to anyone who's played Fire Emblem. The graphics and presentation are basically identical to the Gamecube version. That's not really a complaint-- the semi-cel-shaded style still looks nice. The game doesn't depend on motion controls for anything but cycling through camera views. However, for a turn-based RPG like Fire Emblem, this is a welcome decision.

The demo started me in a town square in the midst of a bandit attack; I took on a group of three or four bandits with swords and magic. Movement is done on a grid, just like before, and attacks zoom into the more cinematic view seen above. After I had taken care of the first bandit, a new character named Leonardo showed up and joined in the fight, allowing me the use of an archer.

People who liked Fire Emblem enough to want another one probably already have their minds made up: this is another one. But people who were afraid that waggle would ruin a strategy RPG have no reason to fear (this time).

Every other week Scott Jon Siegel contributes Off the Grid, a column on gaming away from the television screen or monitor.

Looney Labs -- makers of Fluxx and those bizarre Icehouse pieces -- are once again in their element with Chrononauts, a time-traveling card game that is almost too clever to work. Almost.

Unlike other games, it's the complexity of Chrononauts that saves it from mediocrity. With a heady central "timeline" mechanic, and a 44-page booklet of rules that reads like an operations manual for the Flux Capacitor, it would be pretty easy for the crunchy game to fold under the weight of its own ambition. Luckily for Looney, time travel was never meant to be easy, and it's too damn fun hopping through history to allow a little bit of complexity to get in the way.