Hollywood actors Ed Harris and Gary Oldman have been confirmed as providing voiceovers for Activision and Treyarch's Call of Duty: Black Ops.
Oldman will be reprising his role as Viktor Reznov, a Russian character from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, whilst Harris plays CIA agent Jason Hudson.
The game, which is due out on 9 November, also features the script-writing talents of David S. Goyer, who penned Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.
A quiet update to the PlayStation 3's system software has stopped the recent PSjailbreak piracy hack from functioning.
Speaking to our sister site Eurogamer, Digital Foundry's Richard Leadbetter explained that the discreetly-released 3.42 update, which will be required to access the PlayStation Network service as of today, will actively prevent the security bypass known as PSjailbreak working.
However, it may be possible for hackers to reverse engineer the download to re-enable the hack. Offline machines will not be affected.
SI Electronics is to launch new arcade machine technology in Japan which allows 3D visuals without the use of glasses.
Perhaps comparable to a larger version of Nintendo's upcoming 3DS handheld, the System Board Y3 can handle high-definition graphics in 3D with minimal performance cost, reports Andriasang.
While SIE's board may not ultimately slink across to the West, it is growing proof that stereoscopic glasses may not ultimately be required for home 3D displays.
A number of freeware games have reportedly been banned in South Korea, following their creators' failure to pay for rating.
All games in the country must be age-rated by the government's Game Rating Board (GRB) in order to obtain a legal release. However, this entails a cost to the creator or publisher of between $20 and $700, dependent on file-size.
This has proven difficult for amateur developers creating not-for-profit titles distributed purely online. As detailed by a frustrated post on Reddit, increased GRB monitoring has apparently led to a number of free games being taken down.
Microsoft's director of game platform strategy, Andre Vrignaud, is leaving his post to join Amazon, taking a position which remains unspecified but is widely considered to be game-related.
Vrignaud was heavily involved in the incubation of the Xbox LIVE service when he joined Microsoft in 2002, but had more recently been working on the Windows Phone 7.
He is believed to be part of Amazon's new drive to increase its digital game distribution sector, a move strongly predicted by Lazard analyst Colin Sebastian earlier this year. Employment advertisements at Amazon were said to indicate that "Amazon.com is developing an exciting new customer experience in video games".
The UK's independent games talent could benefit hugely from a single unifying personality or brand, helping to bring together overlooked games coherently and promote them to much wider, accepting audience.
That's according to GameCity founder and director Iain Simons who said in an interview published today that the region already boasts the games and creativity, but lacks the central figure to evangelise the scene.
"For years, we've been banging on about how the games industry needs this Reservoir Dogs moment, or Sex, Lies and Videotape moment - we've got to find the new Tarantino," said Simons. "We'll have some kind of moment where some indie title really hits the public consciousness, where everybody's playing and there's a whole new scene formed around it.
Medal of Honor publisher Electronic Arts has confirmed its commitment to this year's Eurogamer Expo, taking place October 1-3, at Earls Court in London.
FIFA 11, Crysis 2, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, Dead Space 2 and the latest Medal of Honor will all be hands-on for consumers at the show.
Tickets for Saturday October 2 have now sold out, but tickets for Friday and Sunday are still available at the official website.
Movie and game rental service LOVEFiLM has appointed Playfish's as one of two new non-executive directors.
Segerstråle is co-founder and chief executive of mobile developer and publisher Playfish, which was bought by EA last year for an estimated $300 million (£194m).
A keen advocate of social gaming and digital distribution, Segerstråle also co-founded Macrospace, the company which later became Glu Mobile.
Junction Point boss Warren Spector has highlighted the need for the games industry to battle political efforts to bar the sales and rental of adult-themed videogames to perceived minors.
"November 2nd could be the start of a timeline where we're the first entertainment medium denied first amendment protection," the Deus Ex and Epic Mickey creator claimed at the PAX conference.
Although the motion from assorted states, including Californian governor Arnold Schwarzenneger, has previously been denied, a further Supreme Court ruling is due in November.
Former LiveGamer executive Stevie Case has joined virtual goods and currency outfit PlaySpan.
Case first found fame after besting John Romero in a Quake deathmatch, leading to a now-defunct but much-discussed relationship with the flamboyant former id man.
She has also worked at Ion Storm, co-founded Monkeystone Games with Romero, lead a development team at Warner Brothers and was director of business development and sales at Tira Wireless.
2K's crime shooter Mafia II has retained its spot at the top of the UK all-format chart, despite selling 23 per cent fewer copies last week than the week ending 28 August.
Square Enix's Kane and Lynch 2 kept the second spot, while the undying Wii Sports Resort hit its highest chart position all year at three.
Toy Story 3 and Red Dead Redemption have both slipped a place to make room for Wii Sports Resort, while LEGO Harry Potter has dropped out of the top ten to eleven.
Gearbox has assumed outright ownership of the venerable Duke Nukem IP, in addition to promising a shock 2011 release for its completion of 3D Realms' long-delayed Duke Nukem Forever.
A press release issued during Gearbox's keynote at PAX confirmed that the Borderlands studio had "acquired the full intellectual property rights of the 'Duke Nukem' brand including Duke Nukem Forever and all future projects."
The buy-out appears to have been conducted on affable terms, a situation made simpler by the existing friendship between Pitchford and 3D Realms co-founder George Broussard, who play poker together each week.
An undisclosed number of staff and a future game project have been axed by PC developer/publisher Stardock, following the rocky launch of fantasy strategy title Elemental.
The game attracted ire from its community and the media due to its buggy release state and the absence of promised features such as multiplayer.
Following an initial defence of the title, Stardock CEO Brad Wardell last week issued a public mea culpa.
Sony's PSP handheld shot to the top of the Japanese hardware chart last week, as well as taking the top two places in the software chart.
Capcom's Monster Hunter Diary sits firmly at number one with 256,000 sales, followed by Namco Bandai's Ace Combat X2: Joint Assault at two with 58,000. A third new PSP title, Hakuouki: Zuisouroku Portable, took fifth place with 24,000 sales.
The PSP itself sold 55,112 units compared to the 27,554 which saw it take second place last week. Sony also took the second place in the hardware chart with the PS3 shifting 24,053 units. All hardware platforms saw slight reductions in their sales figures, apart from the PSP and the PSPgo, which crept up from 631 to 836.
PopCap Games' Chief Creative Office Jason Kapalka has claimed that the rapid growth of Facebook gaming may be coming to an end.
Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz in an interview published today, he said "You're definitely in the stage right now in social games where there's a lot of bandwagon jumping, where everyone sees moneymoneymoney and suddenly all these new companies appear...
"It happened before in mobile, it happened before in casual in the past it's tended to signal the beginning of the end. Not necessarily of the genre, but of the sort of golden era, where everything was a fresh blue ocean.
Gearbox Software has confirmed recent rumour that it would complete development on long-delayed shooter Duke Nukem Forever, following last year's closure of original developer 3D Realms.
The reborn game was unveiled at the PAX conference today, with Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford confirming release to the Wall Street Journal.
"Clearly the game hadn't been finished at 3D Realms but a lot of content had been created," he said.
Kinect Sports developer Rare has played down worries about the size of room required by upcomin Xbox 360 motion controller Kinect.
In July online shop Amazon revealed Kinect requires six feet of space between the player and their television, fueling much debate as to its effectiveness in small rooms.
However, Rare's senior software engineer Nick Burton said the issue has been blown out of proportion.
It has been alleged that an American firm has this week purchased Project MyWorld from the administrators of Realtime Worlds.
The report by Develop did not name the mystery firm, but if it is indeed American, earlier suggestion that Realtime World's Dundee-based bosses Dave Jones and Ian Hetherington were planning on buying the social game back would appear unfounded.
Also alleged is that Realtime World's other title, the commercially unsuccessful MMO APB, is not part of the deal, leaving its fate unknown.
