It doesn’t hurt that they make sure your pickaxe and other things don’t break when you use them, unlike Minecraft. That fact alone has made my two older kids intensely intersted in playing Terraria, so much so that I bought a second copy, gifted it to my wife’s previously unused Steam account, and put it on my wife’s computer and in front of my oldest daughter.

The 1.8 update to Minecraft looks to tilt the balance back in its own favor in a big way. A new Create mode will allow flying and unlimited building, ameliorating the irritation of breaking pickaxes and not enough of one resource or another and including the ability to flag specific users on a server to have that capability. A revamp of the Survival mode will have a lot in store for us, too. The advent of NPC villages, underground dungeons, the beginnings of a new experience system, a new hunger and healing system, a new fighting mechanic including critical hits and the need to pull back the bow before firing, along with the scary new Enderman mob promises to drive us out of our painstakingly built caves and homes and out into the wider world.

Look for the features of 1.8 to roll out in at least two updates as 1.8 and 1.9 within the next month or so.

This also makes us scratch or heads over what Knights of the Old Republic will end up doing. Maybe a WOW-style free to play where you get the first 20 levels free and need to subscribe to get into the good stuff? Either way, paying for a boxed copy of a game seems so archaic. I could definitely see CCP dropping the initial setup fee for EVE as part of a f2p model down the road. You want more people to try your game, even if it’s a pared back version of it. Otherwise how will they get hooked?

The Star Trek Online announcement was carried over on Evil Avatar and more details on what subscription “gold” and free to play “silver” players will be able to do is on the main site.

New box art was announced for the game, which I noticed over at EvilAvatar. Why isn’t it shown here? Because it’s not really all that good compared to the other screen shots available at the game’s site. A video also on the site from GamesCom note an October 2011 release date for the game.

The game retailer tipped their hand just a few days ago, announcing their own game streaming service is in beta testing on consoles and PCs for release in 2012, so this situation where they make money on taking pre-orders and selling a game, you know, at retail, was apparently too much to bear.

The statement from GameStop PR really tells you all you need to know: “Square Enix packed the competitor’s coupon with our Deus Ex: Human Revolution product without our prior knowledge and we did pull and discard these coupons.”

This is ugly. Square Enix did that horrible thing, packing the box with whatever they saw fit, and GameStop agreed to (a) buy it from Square Enix and (b) sell it at a profit. I can see how horrible that must be, making money selling games. I think the next step we’ll see is extraction of a packed-in code for enabling online multiplayer or some other game feature followed by a sticker on the box that you can buy those features from their Impulse service. The sky’s the limit with crap like this.

If the publishers do react, game buyers may be the ones to suffer. I could see this hastening the rise of digital-only distribution and activation when publishers decide to sell fewer and fewer boxed copies of games. GameStop has to wonder if this kind of crap will make anyone want to list in their online store when the biggest publishers that sell the most games already have their own online stores.

And while I was curious about a streaming service built into a console like the PS3 or Xbox 360, because as the wildfire success of streaming services built into home consoles shows, nobody wants an extra box to buy and hook up to your TV, now I don’t want to pay GameStop a dime for anything at all.

His recent move to Director of Development for the video game company Behaviour Interactive along with parental responsibilities seemed to be taking up more of his time, and while he plans to continue playing EVE as well as other games, he’s making a new start by basically closing up the blog and his @crazykinux twitter account.

The soft-spoken CK first joined us over three years ago on Aeropodcast Episode 36 to talk about the Drone Bay Podcast he was part of back then, and he later went on to wish us well on Episode 50 and continue his rise to internet fame as one of the more public faces of the EVE player community.

Good luck CrazyKinux, and maybe I’ll see you fly by in EVE someday or give your Corp a try. It’s just that 99% tax rate that I have a hard time getting past.

Notch came back in a jovial mood from his wedding and posted a good-natured challenge to Bethesda, offering to settle the matter with a Quake 3 competition. If Bethesda wins, they get to help Mojang choose a new name for the game, and if Mojang wins they would keep the name Scrolls and add a little disclaimer in small text that it was in no way related to the Elder Scrolls series of games.

There’s no word yet from Bethesda on whether they’d like to take him up on his offer and have a little fun in the process. My guess is that the lawyers won’t want to be made to heel and will argue against it, perhaps if only for their own gain.

SteelSeries, a company that when you hear the name you think of gaming gear for professionals. With their large selection of mice, keyboards, accessories, and headsets it is not easy to come out with another product that can shadow over their already amazing headsets. So SteelSeries does it again by bringing out a work of art with the Spectrum 7XB wireless headset. A great addition to your home theater system, your Xbox360, and even your PC, the Spectrum 7XB by SteelSeries has made what I call one of the best wireless headsets around.

The solid construction of the Spectrum 7XB screams pro gamer. The 7XB has a hard plastic body, the drivers swivel left and right, and the band that goes over your head is padded. The ear cups are leather padded cups that can be changed out for cloth pads, which makes it great because you have the option to change out the pads for a different audio experience. Another great feature is the retractable mic that is on a wire that can be manipulated to what ever need that suits you. The ability to store your 7XB head set would be greatly limited because of its size, but since the head set actually breaks down to 3 pieces you are able to store it in anything you want. Along the side of the right driver there are 5 powerful buttons that change your experience while listening to music, games, or movies. The buttons are; on/off, 2 for volume control, LiveMix, and ExactSND. The first 2 buttons are pretty self explanatory, but once you get into the LiveMix and the ExactSND that is when you start seeing the full potential of the Spectrum 7XB.

The 50mm drivers deliver a great punch for the size; along with the drivers there are 2 buttons that will make your experience a hell of a lot better. The LiveMix button will actually change the settings of your volume while playing and chatting with your teammates during a game, your teammate’s voices are perfectly mixed in with the bullets and explosions are ringing in the background, so you don’t have to keep asking what the hell they are talking about. The ExactSND is a great equalizer button that has 3 setting; Performance, Immersion, and Entertainment. Performance ups the background noise to be able to hear footsteps or gunfire and pinpoint what direction it’s coming from. If you were playing in a jungle or a wooded area of a game you would choose the Immersion setting that increases the background sound and the music. When all the gaming is done and you want to relax and listen to music or watch a movie you would choose the Entertainment setting, which brings out the bass and surround sound to what ever your watching or listening to.

The Spectrums transmitter is a powerful beast for being a little box. It can run on USB power from your XBOX 360 or your PC, regardless where your powering it from you have up to 9 meters (32ft.) of listening space, so yes you can listen to music while your in the bathroom as long as your in view of the transmitter box. The 7XB runs on wireless4Mbit/s bandwidth, which makes it pretty solid and you get no loss of your audio signal, it is able to jump frequencies 344 times per second to keep the sound fresh and crisp. One feature really blew me away was the ability to sync up to 4 Spectrum headsets to the transmitter. So when you’re playing at home with buddies and don’t want to wake the wife up your able to sync up to 4 of these bad boys and play all night.

This headset is one of the best wireless headsets I have seen on the market, hands down. The fact that it changes frequencies so rapidly and is able to hold up to 3 other headsets along with yours makes it absolutely unique. The price tag on this baby is 179.99 off the SteelSeries Website, for some it what this headset has to offer it is worth more than that. I am astounded with this headset after using it for countless hours playing my 360 and then switching it over to my PC. I give the Spectrum 7XB a 5 out of 5, because of great looks, amazing sound, high customization, and reliability that is beyond its price tag. For more information and where to buy check out SteelSeries Website.

In this new trailer for Deus Ex: Human Revolution, we get to see all the pillars of action at work, as well as an extended look at the gameplay that will be found in the game.  Up til now, we had seen each of the pillars at work – stealth, action, hacking and social – but this is the first time that all of them have been combined, showing a focus at tailoring the focus of Deus Ex: Human Revolution not only to your specialty, but also allowing players to modify their behavior on the fly to a specific situation.

The other fact that I gleamed from this new trailer was the idea that the world areas will change based on your actions and the methods you use to solve each situation, or more importantly, the situations you do not fix or solve.  I knew that you actions had a cause/effect relationship with other people, but I was unaware about the environmental changes.

Check out the new trailer after the jump.  Deus Ex: Human Revolution is set for release on August 23rd, 2011 on PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 from Eidos Montreal and Square Enix.

No bull on this headset. One of the best headsets that I have owned. SteelSeries handed me the Siberia V2 Pro Gaming headset in the Special Edition Red and it just blew me away. I currently use the Logitech X540 5.1 surround sound speaker system for my room and this headset make the X540s sound like 99 cent store speakers. The headset offers high comfort, powerful drivers, and gorgeous looks.

The look, color, and smoothness of this headset makes it look like the paint job on a Ferrari or the ruby red lips on a really hot stripper. What makes the Siberia V2 so irresistible is the fact that it has a suspension system that will make them light as a feather on your head. Long gaming sessions will make headsets a pain in the ass to have on, but with these bad boys you forget that you have them on. The microphone is retractable and has an extremely flexible cord that you can twist and bend to your hearts content. The V2 has every look of a professional headset and performance that matches the looks.

With two 50mm drivers the sound is phenomenal. The bass bumps and the sound is crisp and clear like it should be. The headset is a “closed” type of headset which means that they completely cover your ears to help with noise reduction. The drivers are incased in padded leather with sound dampening foam. I used this headset to play TDU2, CodBlops, Dirt2, and many other games, and each one of them brought out the true performance of the V2. Towards the end of the cable of the headset you have a mic mute and volume control. What is nice about the volume control is that it’s little and does not get in the way. The mic picks up my voice very clearly, especially when using it for podcasting or yelling at someone over Skype. The Siberia V2 also comes with a set of 6’ extensions for the audio and mic jacks.

The Siberia V2 headset comes in different colors, other than red you have black, blue, orange, and white. Powerful drivers, lushes looks, amazing comfort, and a reasonable price of 89.99 makes the Siberia V2 Headset in the Special Edition Red a true professional headset. For more information and where to buy check out SteelSeries Website.

Flying Wild Hog is continuing its fast paced media whirlwind for Hard Reset with a new gameplay trailer that shows off some of the weapons that you will use while attacking enemies in the PC exclusive shooter.  The graphics really look amazing in the proprietary engine, but we still do not know much about the underlying story.

I do like the path that Flying Wild Hog has taken with this title, announcing it two months before it is set to release at digital and retail.  Cuts down on the year long hype train that most games go through, and gamers get to play something relatively quickly after launch.  Win-win for all.

Check out the new trailer after the jump.  Hard Reset is set for a September 2011 release on PC.