Square Enix first put up a Japanese site, and then a similar North American one, that sent a very clear message.  Now, the news has also been made official (via press release) — Chrono Trigger is coming back.  The game will be released in North America for the Nintendo DS this holiday season.

Like recent reincarnations of old Final Fantasy titles, Chrono Trigger will make use of the Nintendo DS’ improved graphics and touch-screen functionality.  The story, battle system and styles of the game will remain unchanged.

Chrono Trigger sold some 2.5 million copies worldwide, and became a favourite for many fans.  It only makes sense that it should be part of Square Enix’s recent strategy of remaking/re-releasing classic titles.

Fans of the Chrono series were disappointed when Chrono Break, which would have been the fourth installment in the series, was cancelled.  Perhaps renewed interest in the series will prompt a new Chrono game to appear in the next couple of years?

It looks like Final Fantasy XI, the MMORPG from Square Enix, is getting a new set of achievements on the Xbox 360 platform.  25 new achievements, worth 250 Gamerscore, have appeared on the game’s listing.

Of course, they’re all ”Secret” achievements (something that’s pretty useless for an MMO like this), so the details aren’t known yet.   It’s a safe bet, though, that they relate to the new content available in the Wings of the Goddess expansion.

I think it’s probably safe to assume that two of them are for reaching 75 with  Scholar and Dancer, the two jobs introduced in the Wings of the Goddess expansion.  Another would probably be for completing the WotG missions, and another for reaching the top rank in Campaign.  Most of the achievements are worth 5 Gamerscore — perhaps they represent various minor achievements related to campaign battles?

FFXI is a cross-platform title, available on the PC, PS2 and Xbox 360.  The achievements, of course, only apply to the Xbox version.  Xbox 360 achievements are earned by speaking with a title-setting bard in one of the major cities.

Tomorrow, June 9, there will be an update to the game following some maintenance.  The new achievements may become accessible then.

Editor’s Note: Today’s post comes to us from Andrew, better known on the Galbadia X forums as CarnivalofHorrors. Since I’m not much of an expert in World of Warcraft, he’ll give us a rundown of what to expect from the upcoming expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. Enjoy the post!

As most, if not all, WoW players know, Blizzard is currently working on their second expansion for their coveted World of Warcraft titled Wrath of the Lich King. With Wrath of the Lich King, players are going to be given a whole new area, a new class, and quite a few game changes, including new dungeons, a higher level cap, and a new proffesion!

Stepping onto the new continent, Northrend, will be like taking a step from your front porch into Antarctica — so I hope you packed a couple extra sweaters. Northrend is the Lich King’s domain, and for those of you that don’t know the Lich King lore, go and educate yourself. Filled with new monsters, quests, and new allies for the Horde, Northrend promises to be just as difficult to overcome as the Outlands were, so pack up your tent, fishing pole and some armor and let’s get going!

With the new expansion also comes a new class, the dreaded Death Knight. The Death Knight isn’t new to the Warcraft series, but it does come with some large changes compared to the others. The talent trees for Death Knights come in Blood, Frost, and Unholy. From my understanding, Blood is the ‘raid spec’, dealing damage through instant casts and attacks. Frost is the tank spec, decreasing damage taken and increasing threat generation. Unholy is more of a PvP spec, allowing summoning and disease spells to be cast.

Death Knights don’t use Mana, Energy, or Rage like all other WoW classes. Instead Blizzard created a new “Rune” system which works along the same lines of a warrior’s rage coupled with a reagent called (surprise!) Runes. Runes come in three ‘flavors’: Frost, Blood, and Unholy and you’re able to equip up to 6 of them at a time to use your devastating abilities in combination with your Runic Power (Warrior’s Rage). (Learn more on WoW’s site.)

With the new class and area comes a new profession: inscription. Inscription, again from my understanding, is quite a bit like enchanting. The difference is instead of enchanting a piece of your gear, you enchant a spell to give it bonus effects. I’m not sure what, if any, limitations are presented here, but this proffesion opens a whole new world in both PvP and PvE aspects of the game and allow for players to greater customize their class to better suit themselves.

For the brave and adventurous, which is most likely all of you, feel free to visit The Nexus. This ice filled cavern of creepy crawlys is just what the doctor ordered. The new dungeon includes 3 wings. The Nexus, for levels 71-73; The Oculus, for level 80 characters, and an unnamed raid for level 80’s. Each comes equipped with their own blue dragonkin and mage hunters. So while you’re dodging dragonkin and making your way towards Malygos, be sure to stop and appreciate the wonderful work of the Blizzard developers.

Add in new character customization options, a level cap of 80, a new faction and a slew of new enemies and this sounds like a very promising expansion, indeed. To all you Alliance, best of luck. To the Horde: FOR THE HORDE! /cheer

All information gathered at the Official WotLK/WoW site.

Speaking with Eurogamer.net, some of the senior members of Blizzard’s World of Warcracft team spoke out today about the state of competition in the MMO gaming market.

Earlier this year, analysts and game publishers alike began to complain about the apparent monopoly that Blizzard has on the MMORPG space with WoW.

But Blizzard’s own staff disagrees, saying that newer MMOs, such as Age of Conan and Warhammer Online have a great chance of succeeding alongside World of Warcraft.

J. Allen Brack, producer of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, wants to see more MMOs make it:

“The worst thing for our industry is for online games to come out and fail. They cost so much money to develop, and it’s so difficult, and it’s such a huge labour of love to launch an online game, for it to fail is sad for everybody.”

Game designer Jeff Kaplan credits WoW’s success to the strong dedication that Blizzard has to quality, and challenges other companies to match it:

“No hard feelings when a game comes out and beats WoW, it’s going to have to be a great game.”

As game developers and publishers continue to make attempts at this risky business, it’s natural to blame the one company that’s had the greatest success in the market — but Blizzard won’t have it. I think publishers are starting to get it, and are working much harder now to come up with original concepts and quality gameplay.

Of course, no video game company wants pirated copies of their games, but BioWare is taking anti-piracy to the next level.

The company says that in order to avoid losing revenue on the PC copy of the game, a number of security measures will be taken. These include:

• A standard CD key will be issued with each disc
• Each copy of the game can only be activated three times. After three activations, you’ll need to call customer service in order to activate your game on a new or reformatted PC.
• The game will also verify itself online every ten days, ensuring that the activation was valid and the game is not being played on too many systems.

It seems that the only measure EA and BioWare aren’t taking is forcing you to keep the game’s DVD in your drive. The game will, kindly, play without it.

The measures are an effort to ensure that piracy doesn’t eat into the potential profits from the game. This comes after notorious piracy of the game Crysis is causing publishers to seriously question the PC as a gaming platform.

PC games offer potentially higher capabilities in terms of technology, but the ease of piracy on an open platform can have an impact on sales. Of course, it’s only a matter of time before someone manages to crack it all open and Mass Effect shows up on the torrent sites.

All I can say is this: It’s a good game, and it’s worth paying for.

BioWare has announced that downloadable content for Mass Effect will be free on the PC platform. This is in contrast to the Xbox 360, where players must pay for any downloaded extensions to the game using Microsoft Points on the Xbox Live Marketplace.

It seems like those who are waiting to purchase the game on the PC are getting rewarded for the wait. The PC version also plans to have several imrpovements and bug fixes over the original Xbox 360 version.

The one download released so far, Bringing Down the Sky gives you roughly 90 minutes of additional gameplay. That’s a nice extra as a freebie, but on the Xbox 360 it was a bit disappointing. I was expecting a more unique mission with a little more story to it — something planned out like the missions on Feros or Noveria. Instead, the extra mission is more like the planetary assignments in the rest of the game, with a few bells and whistles.

The PC version of Mass Effect ships on May 28 in North America, June 6 in Europe. It really is an excellent game, so if you’re not in the Xbox crowd consider grabbing the PC version when it comes out.

Eidos has begun selling pre-orders of the much-anticipated MMORPG Age of Conan — and they have a special offer for those who pre-order.

If you pre-order Age of Conan, you’ll get a special code that will allow you to enter the game three days early (on May 17 instead of May 20). Players who pre-order will also get a special Amazon Curved Bow item and a hardcover mini-guide to the game.

It’s a nice extra that will help them anticipate the number of players in their game at launch, while giving some bragging rights to those who get in the game early. A head-start in an MMO is never a bad thing!

The game is available for pre-order from Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.co.uk, Gamestop, Walmart and other locations.

A new MMO game is coming to a platform near you — and its sounds a lot like an open-world Grand Theft Auto title.

CrimeCraft will be an MMO game from Vogster Entertainment. Powered by Unreal Engine 3, the game will take place in a large city where players can interact with each other and take part in the various facets of the city life.

The game promises strength in character development and in the AI demonstrated by non-player characters. Players will be able to choose their own career paths on both sides of the law, as well as own cars and property and fight over turf in the game’s city.

What’s more, the game will be free to play. We’re assuming the standard charge for purchasing the game will apply, but Vogster says there will be no monthly charges for the game.

The game is due out in less than a year — March 2009 is the anticipated date for release on the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC platforms.

I was a little disappointed a while back when Bethesda mentioned that Fallout 3 would have a smaller explorable area than its previous blockbuster, Oblivion. The huge explorable areas are one of my favorite features about Bethesda games, and I was hoping they’d be brining some of this to the Fallout series. (Of course, they’ll be brining some, just not quite on Oblivion’s scale.) Well, this past week, Bethesda let out a redeeming quality that shows off the flexibility of the game.

In an interview with IGN, the game’s executive producer Todd Howard said that Fallout 3 will have over 200 endings. “Being that we are Bethesda, everything gets a bit big,” he said. The game’s many endings depend on the actions you take throughout the game.

Of course, this doesn’t mean 200 completely unique endings. Howard goes on to explain that there are about ten main endings, with many subtle changes, extra scenes or other additions that are affected by your game choices.

Also, although the gameplay area is smaller than Oblivion’s, it’s larger than was originally planned, with hours of gameplay that Bethesda has been throwing in whenever they’ve come up with a good idea. “Fallout is probably twice the size that we originally had on paper,” he says, pointing out that the 20-40 hours of main gameplay grew quickly into 100 hours of potential fun.

So, 200 endings? I definitely like the sound of that. I enjoy the choices you can make in some RPG games, but in most cases they still boil down to one or two possibilities (like in Bioware’s Mass Effect and Knights of the Old Republic). The choices make for interesting gameplay, but it will be even more exciting to expect lasting consequences of your actions.

Fallout 3 sounds better every time I hear about it. Howard does warn both Bethesda and Fallout fans — this game will take new turns, so don’t expect Oblivion and don’t expect the same old Fallout.

Fallout 3 is set to be released this fall for the Xbox 360, PS3 and Windows. “I’d be shocked if it were not out then honestly.”

Amazon recently dropped the price of Tabula Rasa down to $9.99. Now, I know this might not be the most outstandingly excellent MMORPG out there, but I’ve definitely gotten over $10 worth out of it. (After your first month, you’ll have to pay monthly fees, of course.) If I recall correctly, I paid $30 (Canadian) for this when Best Buy had it on sale in January. Regular price is $40 U.S.

If you’re not familiar with it, Tabula Rasa is a sci-fi MMO that takes place in a world where humanity has evacuated Earth and is fighting to survive constant attacks from hostile aliens.  The interface and gameplay is very much like World of Warcraft, but with guns and technology replacing swords and magic.

I’m not sure how long this will last, but it’s a great opportunity to snag the game if you’ve been curious about it: Tabula Rasa on Amazon.com. Unfortunately Amazon.ca is still listing it at $30 Canadian.