Series aficionados will take heart at the integrity of the core game mechanics and universe, which are likely just as they remember it from the original games — as in Twisted Metal, you drive around a handful of diverse arenas, dispensing various projectiles in an effort to be the last man (or rather, vehicle) standing at the end of each match. Charged shots and upgradeable vehicles (via collectable scrap pieces) set Vigilante 8 apart from its now-faded genre competition, along with a 1970s setting packed with references to disco music, the oil crisis, and UFO-loving hippies.

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Thanks to quality retailers like 7-Eleven selling the game days ahead of time, many gamers have found that they still have to wait for the official launch to play their early copies of ‘World of Warcraft - Wrath of the Lich King expansion. Luckily, WOW Insider is reporting that the wait is almost over, as Blizzard has changed their previous launch plans to allow everyone in the U.S. — regardless of time zone — to hop a boat to Northrend at 9 p.m. PST tonight. The European servers, it seems, are already up and running with the new expansion content.

Like almost any decision Blizzard has ever made, this revelation has drawn the ire of a small contingent of upset subscribers who feel that this arrangement is somehow unfair to them. In response to one such thread on the official forums, Blizzard poster Zarhym sarcastically replied, “We’re working to ensure the sun reaches all areas of the world at the same time of day and plan to have this corrected in a future patch.”

WOW Insider also notes that there is apparently already a bug involving players being unable to create characters of the new Death Knight class on the European servers. Blizzard’s temporary solution is for subscribers to first create a fresh, level one character, then attempt to make a Death Knight. Surely this will be just the first subject of the countless hotfixes that await during the post-launch weeks ahead.

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Gamers were outraged when they heard that StarCraft 2 would be coming in three different parts. Blizzard had claimed it wouldn’t let the merger between Activision and Blizzard parent company Vivendi impact the way it did business. But the move reeked of the type of thingthat would fit right in with Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick’s recent comments that the company want their games to be exploitable. But it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that Blizzard COO Paul Sams vehemently denies that StarCraft 2 is being milked.

Speaking with VideoGamer.com today before a midnight launch of ‘Wrath of the Lich King’ game in London today, he said:

The fact of the matter is, it’s absolutely, positively untrue about us trying to stretch it out and milk it. People think that it was a monetary driven decision. I can absolutely, positively tell you, with 100 per cent certainty, that that was not part of the conversation. I guarantee it. I give my word. There was never, ever a conversation where we said, ‘let’s do this because we’re going to make more money’. I guarantee it. As a matter of fact the sole reason we did it was because we thought it was going to be a better experience. Anybody that says otherwise is not correct. It is absolutely not what we did it for.

Sims’ denial is more passionate than the usual corporate line we get, so maybe it’ll be enough to convince fans that Blizzard truly is doing this to deliver the best game is possible.

But we doubt it.

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