The most recent dev diary for Space Siege seems to be a step away from Gas Powered Game's dungeon crawling roots. The shifted focus from team-based gameplay to a solo character seems to allow the creation of a more compelling protagonist. Seth Walker fights a number of invading baddies aboard humanity's last space station while upgrading his weapons and himself with all sorts of cool future technology. It sounds as if the moral choice of upgrading Seth and ultimately altering his humanity will play a large role in Space Siege.

Boll may not win any awards for his Hollywood translation of the PC game, but Jason Statham deserves some sort of official recognition for his ability to deliver the line "Tomorrow, we gouge evil from its shell!" with a straight face.

In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale

Boll's other adaptation, Dungeon Siege, will see a bigger unsuspecting audience when it hits at the beginning of 2008 on over two thousand screens. Finally, the filmmaker also apparently can write, not just direct, and will release an original horror project titled Seed at no-one-cares-when.

With a $60 million production budget for In The Name Of The King: A Dungeon Siege Tale and a $20 million ad budget, I can't help but think someone is encouraging him. Will you stop please? Michael McWhertor

Boll rolls out 3 films with Freestyle [The Hollywood Reporter, via 1UP]

"Projects include PC titles within the Supreme Commander franchise, PC titles with original IP and something new - an original IP that is the company's first next-generation console project"

Gas Powered Games confirms console project [GamesIndustry.biz]

Has anyone been playing Dungeon Siege Throne of Agony for the Playstation Portable? It landed at my house right in the middle of all of the Playstation 3 and Wii insanity, so I really haven't had a chance to play a ton of it, but what I've played so far has been quite fun.

From what I've seen, which is just the first few missions, the game seems to have a very Diablo feel to it. You start with one of several generic charcter classes and then personalize them over time with weapons, abilities, attacks and items.

The graphics are suitably impressive and the game's missions seem to suit both the design of the PSP and concept behind portable gaming: short and sweet.

The only potential problem I see cropping up with the game is that it might be a bit too much of a button-masher for it's own good, but I suppose you could say the same thing for Diablo now. Brian Crecente

Super Monkey Ball Adventure (GC, PS2, PSP)
Sega ditches traditional Monkey Ball level clearing and thumb dexterity for platforming adventuring courtesy of developer Traveller's Tales.

Dungeon Siege II: Broken World (PC)
The next expansion pack for the hack-and-slash action RPG concludes the Dungeon Siege story. For now! Dun dun dunnnnnn!

FlatOut 2 (PC, PS2, Xbox)
The destructive racing game gets a sequel. Yawn. Any FlatOut fans out there?

I anxiously await my imported copies of the Bit Generations series for GBA and will continue to play Lumines and Half-Life 2 Episode I. You kids picking up anything this week? Let us know in the comments. Michael McWhertor

Thoughts: Feels like Dungeon Siege, looks like Dungeon Siege, but has some of its RPG elements taken out. To make this feel better on the PSP, they've made the fighting and spell-casting more straightforward. Face button to slash, right shoulder + face buttons to cast spells. All in all a smooth control scheme.

The booth rep said it should be out by the holidays, but we managed to crash the game just trying to cast some spells. This will probably be fixed by release, but the 30 second load times may not.

The next DS game will be Dungeon Siege II Throne of Agony for the Playstation Portable, due out this Fall.

Dungeon Siege II: Broken World picks up right where Dungeon Siege II left off with an all-new campaign mode, a new playable race, more items to discover and a brand new multi-class character development system. Dungeon Siege II: Broken World will require the full version of Dungeon Siege II.

Dungeon Siege: Throne of Agony for the PSP system, under development by SuperVillain Studios, is an entirely new adventure created specifically for the handheld system. The title features all-new playable characters and a freshly designed, non-linear, single player campaign as well as support for Ad Hoc co-operative and competitive multiplayer games.

Gas Powered Games will be developing the expansion pack and Super Villain Studios is developing the PSP game.

BloodRayne, it seems, has been quite a train wreck at the theater. According to Shack News, an additional 5,500 copies of the movie shipped by accident. And Variety is reporting that despite the fact that Romar is saying the film is showing at 1,900 theaters, it is only actually at 985.

I'm hoping, well, hoping is the wrong word, to watch the movie tonight for a story I'm working on.

One of the cool things about my new Rocky Mountain News gig is that I get to write about almost anything video game-related. My editors are very open to my ideas. So when I pitched a story on video game movies that would look closely at Uwe Boll, they were all for it. I talked to Romar earlier this week and they've set up interviews with both Boll and the head of the company.

Apparently, Romar is also considering distributing Boll's next video game film based on Dungeon Siege. Nothing concrete yet, though, it sounds like.

Let me know what questions you think I should ask.

Thousands of Accidental BloodRayne Reels Shipped [Shack News]

Consider it a Christmas present.

A team of hardworking volunteers have put together an amazing rework of Origin Systems Ultima V from 1987. The new version is in fact a mod built on the Dungeon Siege engine and features an enhanced storyline, characters and settings all based on the original game. It also includes new side quests, a deeper richer plot and enhanced dialogue, according to the site. Most importantly, the game looks freakin awesome.

The mod is a whopping 500 megabytes with 300 unique NPCs and hundreds of hours of play and it s free.

You can get it for your PC or Mac in English with French and German versions coming soon.

It took the team of 30 five years to put this free masterpiece together, so run out and buy a copy of the original Dungeon Siege or Legends of Aranna and then hop on over to the link to download the mammoth mod.

Congrats Team Lazarus and thanks for the pressie.

Ultima Lazarus [Official Site]

The first trailer from Uwe Boll's Dungeon Siege (the latest video game he's murdering into a movie) has popped up at the distributor's website according to Gamespot. The trailers takes a long time to open and it's actually just sitting at the website link, so when you click it, it'll be a few minutes before anything happens. But it's Uwe Boll, he's worth the wait, right?

Dungeon Siege Film Trailer Surfaces [Gamespot]
The Trailer Itself [Fantastic Films International]

Insomnia Mania did a shortish Q&A with veteran bad film director and destroyer of all things game-related Uwe Boll about Dungeon Siege, which he is currently skull-fornicating into a cringing mass of celluloid crap. Turns out Boll s interviews are as painful and cardboard as his movies.

When Boll isn t answering questions with two or three word grunts, he s calling his next great flop a blockbuster. Boll also reveals that he s targeted both Postal and Metal Gear as games that have caught his eye. That s enough to send a chill down a couple publishers backs.

Here s my favorite exchange:

10. Dr Boll, you have made quite few films now, what do you think your trademark is?

Dr Boll - You tell me.

Unfortunately, the interviewer resisted the temptation. If I had to pick one I d say Boll s trademark is turning great games into the sorts of movies that make grown men cry and game developers carve out their eyes with jagged pieces of game cases.

Dungeon Siege Update Straight From Director Uwe Boll [Insomniac Mania]