March hits the ground running with a week packed with solid releases.

Pick of the Week: Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War: Soulstorm Real-Time Strategy | PC You shouldn’t just buy Soulstorm as a memorial to the recently deceased Iron Lore Entertainment (though, admittedly, that’s a pretty good reason). No, you should buy Soulstorm because it promises to be the best Dawn of War stand alone expansion yet, and given the quality of Dark Crusade, that’s really saying something. Like Dark Crusade, Soulstorm brings with it a non-linear single player campaign, two new playable races (The Dark Eldar and Sisters of Battle), and a new unit for all seven of the game’s already existing races. That’s right, Soulstorm brings Dawn of War’s playable roster up to nine completely unique races. Best RTS since Starcraft? You better believe it.

Runner-Up: Army of Two Third-Person Shooter | 360, PS3 Army of Two’s come a long way; looks like the delay into ‘08 has done it good. As is often the case these days, players take control of an army operative in an nondescript Middle Eastern country. However, this time around you’ll have a buddy at your side from start to finish. Offline, the game’s AI will pick up the slack and take control of your partner-in-war, but you can also jump online and play through the entire game cooperatively with a friend. We love cooperating. Army of Two also features some needlessly in-depth weapon customization and fully-destructable environments, according to this press release here.

It’s with genuine sadness that I report on Iron Lore’s closing. Founded in 2000 by Brian Sullivan (co-creator of the Age of Empire series) and Paul Chieffo, Iron Lore’s first game, Titan Quest, was the first action RPG to rise out of Diablo 2’s all-encompassing shadow. The game saw players battling hordes of mythical creatures across ancient Greece, Egypt, and China in the pursuit of the “teh phat loot.” And it was good. Their second title, the positively awesome looking Dawn of War: Soulstorm, the third expansion for Relic’s popular Warhammer 40k RTS, is set to hit store shelves and digital distribution services on March 5 of this year.

In their closing statement, Iron Lore cites their inability to secure funding for upcoming titles as the reason for their sudden and unexpected closure. It looks like rumormonger Surfer Girl was right. Their in-development title, described as “Titan Quest meets God of War meets Oblivion” won’t see release. I think I speak for every PC gamer on the planet when I say:

Military shooters and quirky Japanese titles. Yup, it’s a week of multiplayer video game releases, alright.

Pick of the Week: Heavenly Guardian 2D Shooter | PS2 Ever heard of the Pocky & Rocky series? No? I’ll wait for you to get caught up. All done? Heavenly Guardian is a spiritual successor to the Pocky & Rocky series in that “it’s a full-fledged Pocky & Rocky sequel but the developer couldn’t secure the license” sort of way. The game plays like a linear, level-based version of Robotron, as you blast your way through hordes of baddies with some good ol’ fashioned directional shooting. They don’t make them like this anymore. Except on Xbox Live Arcade, that is. The game is co-op from start to finish, comes at a budget price, and is unbelievably fun. Play this game! Unless you hate being entertained, of course.

Runner-Up: Lost Planet: Extreme Condition Third-Person Shooter | PS3 Yes, it’s just a PS3 port of the year-old Xbox 360 and PC game, but that doesn’t make it any less fun. In fact, the PS3 version of Lost Planet is the definitive version, with “superior” graphics sure to trigger flame wars on video game message boards and all of the Xbox 360’s DLC. It’s a mech game, and it’s fun. Often times, those two things are mutually exclusive. If you haven’t yet played the game, you’re literally out of excuses at this point.

Another mostly worthless week for multiplayer releases. Still, if you’re desperate enough to happen to fit in one specific niche or the other, you mind find a game or two worth enjoying.

Pick of the Week: The Club Third-Person Shooter | 360, PS3, PC Ignore the “hip,” “urban” setting and art direction. Ignore the simple gameplay and the budget title sensibilities. Behind these abstractions lurks a legitimately interesting, if not particularly innovative, title. Featuring eight different multiplayer modes, The Club offers up the sort of visceral, entertaining shooter experience so many games forgo in favor of more complicated and murky waters. The Club cuts straight to the heart of the genre, providing a solid run-n-gun experience for anyone looking for one, and anyone able to stomach the midly offensive take on “urban” life.

Users of Halifax bank in the UK who use their account to pay Activision Blizzard for the chance to play Warcraft have a surprise waiting for them. They can’t pay.

Halifax has blamed the situation on the high number of stolen credit cards used to play the game. Simply put, any attempt to pay your bill is blocked by the bank, and every situation needs to be discussed with the bank personally. Some customer service reps are about to have a crash course in the players of World of Warcraft.

On a side note, if you’re going to steal a credit card, why would you use it for a few $10 transactions? Then again, if you’re dumb enough to do it in the first place, it must not be obvious that you could be buying a new plasma.

NVIDIA, the largest producer of computer graphics chips in the world, has announced their plans to acquire AGEIA Technologies on their official company site. AGEIA’s PhysX Processors were the first physics cards to hit the market. While an interesting enough idea, their steep cost (~$300) and limited game support (most famously Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter and City of Villians) prevented them from becoming the next required piece of gaming hardware. While the official press release skirts around the issue, new cards combining the best of NVIDIA’s GPUs and AGEIA’s PPUs are almost certainly in the cards. And as high-end PC gaming becomes even more expensive, frankly, we’re too excited imagining the gaming wonders these two PC giants are about to unleash on the world to care.

Four new multiplayer games arrive in stores this week, none of which will do you wrong.

Pick of the Week: Wipeout Pulse Racing | PSP The always-excellent Wipeout series returns to the PSP this week with Pulse. The futuristic hover car racer plays fast and loose with physics, featuring impossible, topsy-turvey tracks. This latest Wipeout title also includes a strong online mode, where up to four players can race online wirelessly. The PSP isn’t exactly known for its library of strong racing titles, especially ones with meaty online modes, so Wipeout Pluse definitely has a niche to fill.

Runner-Up: Dark Messiah of Might and Magic: Elements First-person shooter, RPG-Lite | 360 Yes, the original game shipped a year-and-a-half ago on the PC, where its hype quickly dried up in the wake of bug reports and a small playerbase. Elements adds a bit more spit polish to Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, and some new content to boot. Of course, some of that new content comes at a premium, as the game’s DLC was already on Xbox Live before its release. Couldn’t quite force yourself to stick that content on the disc for “free,” eh Ubisoft? Still, for those of you looking for the hacking n’ slashing of Oblivion without all the conversation, or a respectable swords and sorcery multiplayer mode that supports up to 32 players, this is the best you’re gonna get.

If you’ve ever spent any time playing World of Warcraft, you’re familiar with Peons4Hire, even if you don’t know them by name. The company, owned by In Game Dollar, was responsible for chat spamming players with advertisements for buying in-game gold and items. Peons4Hire were good at what they did, creating characters with names consisting of random strings of characters (see: Hrysocpoff, Thhvspoq, Xjoimlkzwwp), whisper spamming players using the game’s /who feature, and logging off before you had a chance to report them.

In a shining example of a Victory For The Good Guys, Wired’s Game|Life blog is reporting that Blizzard has won an injunction against In Game Dollar, preventing them from continuing their shady dealings for WoW’s entire lifespan. Clearly, this is good news for everyone in Azeroth. Virtually Blind has all the details, including all relevant court documents.

A new documentary is focusing on the lives (and loves, and lost jobs) of MMO fanatics. The seven profiled players are a mix of styles, from the hopelessly addicted, gold farmers, those who have moved on, and the casual players. Thankfully, from the trailer, it doesn’t look like it’s condemning the players even though it has an obvious comedic hook. Instead, the trailer delivers a sharp first look at this piece with interviews from all sides (except the “experts” as posted on the website, and that link is down as well). While it might not fight with King of Kong for best documentary, this one still looks like a fine piece of filmmaking.

The website offers all of the links you’ll need. For a quick trailer, a YouTube video can handle that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPOxuOCGi9I&eurl=http://kotaku.com/

The industry rebounds after the dreck released last week with another batch of excellent releases. The beginning of February is the new end of January is the new middle of November!

Pick of the Week: Turok First-person Shooter | 360, PS3 Turok promises to be the best game in the Turok series, but given the quality of the franchise under Acclaim’s watch, that’s a lot less impressive than it sounds. The game marks the first step in an initiative by Disney Interactive to enter the hardcore gaming space. It looks like they’ve succeeded. With some top-notch graphics, over-the-top weaponry, and multiple online gametypes, Turok is set to deliver on its lofty promises. Those concerned about the controversial team killing element of the Grab Bag Achievement have no need to worry; it will be patched out on day one.

Runner-Up: Culdcept SAGA Board Game/Collectible Card Game | 360 Culdcept SAGA is a game that defies easy categorization. Imagine a board game crossed with a CCG and can begin to understand the game’s unique gameplay. Less of a sequel and more of a remake of the overlooked PS2 title, Culdcept SAGA introduces a heap of new cards and online play to the series. If you haven’t downloaded the demo that’s been on Xbox Live for months now, stop procrastinating and get to it. You may find yourself hopelessly in love with what will surely go down as one of this generation’s most underrated gems.

Steam, Valve’s digital distribution system, has passed the 15 million user mark. For those of you keeping score at home, that’s 5 million more users than Xbox Live! And only 5 million more users than World of Warcraft.

Recognizing a good opportunity to toot their own horn when they see one, Valve was quick to point out that Steam also saw “year-over-year sales growth of 158% through the holiday season.” Honestly, I can believe it. I can’t even remember the last time I bought a PC game at retail.

Steam’s been the subject of even more good news recently, having just inked a deal with ValuSoft to distribute their games digitally and receiving their first MMORPG, CCP’s excellent Eve Online. Now Valve just needs to convince Atari to get give its games the Steam treatment so I can finally play Neverwinter Nights 2, and all will be right with the world.

Funcom’s official Anarchy Online community site has the first details on the game’s new tiered pricing scheme. The basic sci-fi MMORPG remains free from level 1-200, but players can now opt to subscribe to just Shadowlands, the game’s first expansion, for 5 USD/EUR a month before taking the plunge and subscribing to the game’s other expansions (Alien Invasion and Lost Eden) for the full 14.95 USD/EUR.

Wired’s Game|Life blog points out that this deal benefits American players the most, saying:

While this is excellent news for AO players in the United States, thanks to the relatively weak dollar, European players who pay the 5 EUR per month would actually be paying almost 50% more than their US counterparts (5 EUR = 7.25 USD).

Regardless of unfortunate European inequalities, these sort of tiered MMO pricing schemes are definitely something we’d like to see more of going forward. How about instead of just offering cheaper subscriptions that only cover specific expansions, we start seeing lower rate plans that offer casual-friendly time limits? With the MMO market continuing to grow, it would be a fantastic way to continue playing multiple games without having to work overtime.