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38 Studios, the development house started by former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, was created back in 2006, but the company hadn't officially announced the name of one of their projects until today. They currently have two titles in the works, both under temporary project names. One is "Copernicus," which the 38 Studios site describes as "an unparalleled MMOG entertainment experience set in a truly evolving fantasy world that is both warmly familiar and intriguingly unique." The second was "Project Mercury," but 38 revealed that title's true name today. I'm not going to tell you that name until the end of the post. Trust me, it's for the best.

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Tags 38 studios, ea, kingdom of amalur: reckoning

Microsoft's quest to keep official Kinect pricing a secret from everyone who's not Amazon.com, Walmart, Best Buy or the Microsoft Store ended today as they confirmed that the device will retail for $149.99. How they managed to pull it off will undoubtedly baffle gamers and journalists for generations to come, but...I'm sorry, I've just been told that $149.99 is exactly what everyone was already charging for pre-orders.

It turns out that you will also get "Kinect Adventures" at that price, though, which means you may want to contact Walmart if you selected "Kinect Adventures" as your choice in that $199 deal, because even with the $30 gift card, you shouldn't have to pay that much.

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Tags kinect, microsoft

I had issues with the controls in "Killzone 2." On the default setting, they seemed like they were designed to alienate FPS fans, departing from the popular "Call of Duty" layout, in favor of something a bit more unorthodox. Guerrilla Games had every right to do that, but I just felt like the default controls were an unnecessary hurdle for gamers to climb over.

If you played "Killzone 2," you may recall that the Alternate 2 control scheme was actually the closest to "Call of Duty," the FPS I feel most comfortable with. I wrote about this at my old job, saying that it was close but no cigar, since there was no option to toggle crouch. On all of the control schemes, crouch was set to L2, and since crouch is a pretty important button for more tactical players, being able to toggle it on and off would've done wonders. Unfortunately Guerrilla saw fit to make toggle crouch only an option in multiplayer, saying "The crouch toggle will only be in multiplayer. This wasn't an oversight in single player but rather a function of how the team wants users to play the game. It's a quick action game, and the crouch is more of a function to duck behind objects for pop and shoot gameplay."

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Tags Guerrilla Games, Killzone, killzone 3, scea

"Dead Rising 2" already has an associated serialized movie coming out ahead of its September release called "Zombrex Dead Rising Sun." Capcom will be stuffing its calendar with yet another release, however, in the form of an quick game called "Dead Rising 2: Case 0," which will operate like a prequel game exclusive to the Xbox 360.

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Tags capcom, dead rising, dead rising 2, dead rising 2: case 0

Activision, Infinity Ward and Treyarch all piled on for a collective denial yesterday that a "Call of Duty" video contains evidence of a plot to charge for playing online. In fact, despite CEO Bobby Kotick's public admission that he "would have Call of Duty be an online subscription service tomorrow" if he could, representatives from all three offices shot down the speculation as rumor, and Infinity Ward creative strategist Robert Bowling even went as far as to use the word "never."

"There is not, and will never be, additional fees required to subscribe and play 'Modern Warfare 2' multiplayer," Bowling wrote on his blog at FourZeroTwo.com.

Likewise, Activision social media manager Dan Amrich, called the video a "glitch" and denied that any such plans for an additional subscription-based service were in the works for "MW2."

"This video shows just a glitch — since you can access a Live subscription renewal from within the MW2 game interface, it appears some data got jammed between two parts of Live," he wrote on his One of Swords blog. "It's not a secret portal to some nefarious plot to charge people for COD multiplayer — and there are no plans to do that."

Lastly, Treyarch community manager Josh Olin chimed in on Twitter, probably hoping to put potential "Black Ops" pre-orderers' fears at rest about the CoD series' next installment.

"No, you will not have to 'Pay to Play' #CODBlackOps Multiplayer either. Rumor -> Squashed," he explained.

That's about as comprehensive a denial as you're liable to see anywhere in the video game industry this year. Activision also gave an official statement to IGN that more or less restates what all three of these guys said. Their responses do paint Kotick's comment to The Wall Street Journal into a strange place, though. It looks like his dream model will be getting applied to another game or not at all, unless Activision changes its mind down the road, of course.

Are you glad to know that Activision doesn't want to introduce subscription fees to "MW2"? Are you surprised by the three-pronged response? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

Tags activision, call of duty, call of duty modern warfare, call of duty: black ops, call of duty: modern warfare 2, infinity ward, treyarch

In the grand tradition of giving you free stuff, we're going to give you free stuff. For today's free stuff, we have three copies of "Metal Gear Solid: Peacewalker - Limited Edition" for PSP.

Each box includes the following:
- The Game
- 60-page color art book
- Collector's Case

Getting one these free things is surprisingly easy. All you need to do is re-tweet this post when it appears in the @Multiplayers Twitter account. We'll select three re-tweeters at random, each of which will one of the Limited Editions.

Some caveats: You need to be a US resident to win, and you need to be following the @Multiplayers Twitter account, since we'll need to direct message you and get your mailing address if you're a winner.

We'll direct message the winners first thing tomorrow, so be sure to check your Twitter in-box for any DMs from us. Good luck!

Tags konami, metal gear solid, metal gear solid peace walker

If you dragged your feet getting around to finding a code for the "StarCraft 2" beta test, you have officially waited too long as of today. The test has concluded, and that means that from now until July 27, you'll just have to snuggle up at night with your pre-order receipt or "StarCraft 2" client.

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Tags Battle.net, blizzard, starcraft, starcraft 2

It may not seem like it, but by the time "Rock Band 3" comes out, it will have been more than three years since the last true "Rock Band" sequel. Of course, in that time, we've seen a handful of "Rock Band" spin-offs like "Beatles: Rock Band" and "Lego: Rock Band," but not a true overhaul. Enter "Rock Band 3," which introduces a new instrument (the keyboard) and new modes which are designed to help folks learn how to play real-world guitars, drums and keyboards. "Rock Band 3" is scheduled for release on October 26, 2010 for PS3, 360, Wii and DS.

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Tags ea, harmonix, mtv games, rock band, rock band 3

Both of the domain named-related "Red Faction" mysteries appear to be solved now that "Red Faction: Armageddon" has been dated and THQ and SyFy are using "Red Faction: Origins" as a "working title" for their new TV movie and potential "Battlestar Galactica"-style backdoor pilot. The two-hour production has a March 2011 premiere planned, along with some newly-publicized story details.

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Tags red faction, red faction: origins, syfy, thq

While Kojima Productions has been keeping everyone guessing post-E3 about what kind of 3DS Metal Gear game the studio may or may not be working on, Hideo Kojima has personally been tossing ideas up in the air about what his newest project could be. He reportedly wants to "challenge a certain type of taboo," and his collaborator on that quest classified the game as an "adventure" that will be part of a "science series."

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Tags 5pb, hideo kojima