Is Hitman's Next Target Assassin's Creed? 
Why Kotaku Australia Should Never Work With Children... Or Robots 
Three Words I Said To The Man I Defeated In Gears Of War That I'll Never Say Again 
New Doom 3 For Xbox 360 And PlayStation 3 Supports Head-Mounted Displays 
Far Cry 3 And The Stranger In A Strange Land 
Why Robin Makes Batman Better With each new clip and screenshot of its indie shooter capturing the hearts and minds of mech lovers around the globe, Adhesive Games further ingratiates its growing fan base with the news that Hawken is coming in December, and it will be free-to-play.
Have you ever wished you could play the first 20 levels of Trion World’s massively multiplayer online role-playing game Rift with no time limit at no cost to yourself whatsoever? Damn, that’s a very specific wish. Also, you’re in luck, as Trion launches Rift Lite, which is exactly what you wanted.
After more than a decade of dedicated fans paying a monthly fee to adventure in the lands of Norrath, the massively multiplayer online role-playing game that got the MMORPG ball rolling back in 1999 is going free-to-play come March.
The most disappointing aspect of Dungeons & Dragons Online was that the game was set in Stormreach instead of the much more popular Forgotten Realms campaign setting. Turbine rectifies that mistake with the first expansion pack for the six-year-old MMO, Menace of the Underdark.
Set your phasers on stupid Trek reference, as Cryptic’s Star Trek Online opens its free-to-play docking bay and invites the world inside following a brief subscriber-only period. To see what players get for free, hit up the official Star Trek Online web page.
In video game years, Everquest II‘s like the great grandpa to newer MMOs like The Old Republic or Rift. Launched in 2004, it’s got a faithful community that’s still questing around on its servers but the game’s days of accruing new players month after month seems to have ended a while back.
Maintaining balance in a free-to-play game is no easy task. The free-to-play sales pitch goes something like this: “You can play the entire game, see every map, and get every upgrade without paying a cent.” The truth of the matter is a bit more complicated: “You can see every map and get every upgrade sooner if you pay.”
Need for Speed World introduced its first “premium elite” car and, yeah, based on the sticker price, we’d say it qualifies. The Koenigsegg CCX Elite Edition is on sale in the in-game store for $US100. But wait! If you act now, you can get this car for only $US75! They’ll even throw in a passenger-side floormat (I think.)
When EVE Online began selling premium vanity items this summer, everyone lost their minds and rioted. Granted, these were $US68 virtual monocles and such, but they didn’t offer any kind of performance advantage. Another space-based MMO, Dark Orbit decided to offer a rare spacecraft with a value of €1.000 (roughly $US1,300) and found more than 2,000 takers. Willing seller, willing buyer and all that.
