The recent formation of Robot Entertainment by former Ensemble employees was met with much applaud from gamers. It was even more awesome when they announced they would support Halo Wars while working on a new project.

Now comes word that a second studio has risen from the ashes of Ensemble in the form of Bonfire Studios. Based out of Dallas, Texas, the 35-person studio is working on a new game which they hope to announce in the coming months.

“Ensemble had an incredible group of highly talented people and the companies coming out of it are really made up of the best of the best. Ensemble was one of the few studios with two A-teams,” said Bonfire Studios CEO David Rippy, who most recently served as producer at Ensemble.

Codemasters today announced that off-road racing sequel DIRT 2 will be released this September. The company is yet, however, to provide a real look at the game, passing out ‘concept’ screenshots to the press.

The game will use the latest version of the EGO engine, which has powered recent titles from the publisher, including Race Driver GRID. DIRT 2 features a World Tour mode and fully-featured multiplayer support with social features across multiple racing disciplines.

DIRT 2 is being developed for the usual suspects – PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 – as well as less powerful platforms – Wii, PSP and DS.

Finally, the prayers of those who’ve been asking God for a new sequel to Alice have been answered! EA today announced that American McGee is working on a sequel to his 2000 action-horror game; the publisher will release it through the EA Partners label.

McGee’s studio Spicy Horse is working on the game for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. No release date was given.

An Alice in Wonderland movie is currently being developed by Tim Burton, which is set to star Johnny Depp. It is not known if these projects are attached in any way.

Must be some kind of theme I’ve got going here, because I segue from one action-heavy mindless shoot-o-rama into another one, this time called Zombie Shootout.

With a name like Zombie Shootout, you can probably guess the plot almost instantly–yes, you will shoot zombies. Lots of them. You will be in a boarded up house with three open, interconnected rooms, and zombies will approach those barricades and attempt to get in.  You, meanwhile, must kill them all before they can kill you.  You’ll get a variety of upgrades, including better weapons, better barricades, and the ever popular sentry gun, that opens fire on any zombie (thankfully, not you) that happens to wander in front of it and will do so until it runs out of ammo.

You’ll have to survive twenty waves, and failure is met by the ever-popular “you failed at life” slogan (what’s next, epic fail?).  It’s definitely a fun little time waster, if a bit monotonous, and I don’t think I’m overstepping my bounds saying that the ending you get really isn’t worth the twenty rounds of time you invested, but if you can’t get enough of peeling zombie heads off zombie necks, then this is definitely a game you’ll want to try.

Oh no you didn’t. Didn’t you, oh no?

You didn’t pay me what you owe me, and now it’s over for you.

Chances are good you recognize those two lines from one of the strangest video game promotions of all time, the ads for Mercenaries 2: World in Flames.  Not since a boy’s father attempted to molest Lara Croft in an autograph signing line and believed he was buying a “Siggie” has video game advertising been quite so strange.  But we’re not here to talk about the vaguely operatic advertising–we’re here to talk about the game.

The plot of which is fairly simple–you play one of three mercenaries (a tough Swede that regenerates health faster, a big, strong black guy who can carry more ammo and a sprightly Asian girl who runs the fastest) who’s just been royally screwed over on a contract in Venezuela.  Naturally, that sort of thing is bad for business, and thus you’ve engaged your own services in trying to get payback on an epic scale, writ large across the very face of the oil-rich country.  In doing so, you’ll have to balance your public perception and your perception of several different factions, all with a vested interest in Venezuela, including an oil conglomerate and a group of oddly Marxist rebels getting funding straight from the People’s Republic of China.

I’ll say up front that if you played and enjoyed the original Mercenaries game, then its sequel will be a thrill for you that’s downright unfathomable.  It’s a step up in virtually every way, with more weapons and more things to do and more things to blow up and everything else right on down the line.  The game looks better, plays better and sounds better than the original, which looked, played and sounded pretty nice to begin with.  You also get a better variety of vehicles–I definitely don’t remember the option to drive motorcycles in the first Mercenaries, and I certainly enjoyed the new addition.  And there’s always, of course, plenty of atavistic thrill involved in running amok with a large quantity of automatic weapons and a panoply of explosives.  That’s just always fun.
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It seems like Blizzards latest expansion for the popular World of Warcraft, Wrath of the Lich King, has been out here in the states forever but the same could not be said for China.

Apparently, the expansion’s release date has been delayed even further, but why?

Well speculation has circulated that Blizzard and The9, China’s WoW distributor, are in a bit of a quarrel. Apparently, Blizzard wants more money for WoW‘s license and the9 doesn’t want to give it. Oh you two.

Read (IncGamers)

A member of StarCraft 2‘s dev team has recently stopped by the game’s official forums to clear up some confusion surrounding the game and it’s release date.

While Blizzard has always used the ‘when it’s done’ philosophy when considering a release date for a game, Dustin Browder has said the beta for the game will in fact be made available in 2009.

As for the release of the final game? Well, it’s ”in the final stretch” according to Browder. Hopefully that means Starcraft 2 will be released this year or early next. 

Read (Joystiq)

MadCatz has recently taken the time to address the community, saying that the problem with defective FightSticks is not as wide spread as originally thought.

MadCatz’s Alex Verry had this to say about the problem:

We have shipped tens of thousands of standard Arcade FightSticks. I can assure you, the number of consumers who have actually contacted us with this issue numbers well under 50 to date.

So there you have it, while they have admitted to a problem it’s apparently a very small one. Verry also suggests that you call MadCatz if you do so happen to have an effective FightStick before trying to repair it yourself as it may void the warranty.

Read (1UP)

Capcom has recently announced via their official blog that they are set to release a trailer for an upcoming Xbox Live Marketplace title. That’s all the details they give, leaving us, the readers, in the dark.

Although we do know that Capcom recently released Street Fighter IV and is gearing up for the launch of Resident Evil 5. So you can get your fill of Capcom-goodness until this announcement.

Read (Capcom)

I feel Unreal Tournament III was a great game, but not regarded so highly as many. Perhaps Epic’s recent announcement of a huge DLC pack could spurr some forgotten interest.

Included in the Titan Pack are 11 all new maps along with 2 new game modes called Betrayal and Greed.  The new Greed mode is described as a “tug of war style kill points battle”, whatever that means. And Betrayal seems to be a mode where teams are changed throughout the match leading you to kill your previous teammates, hence Betrayal.

Other than that, the Titan Pack adds a bunch of new weapons, vehicles, and new characters. Yes, really lives up to it’s name because that’s not all. It also adds support for Steam Achievements and Trophy Support for the PS3. Phew.

The Titan Pack for Unreal Tournament III will be released for the PS3 and PC on March 5th. No update for the 360, I guess.

Read (That VideoGame Blog)