For the past decade, games have been sold as being open-ended. The game worlds are huge, you can explore for hours, and the graphics are always cutting-edge. In this market, full of games claiming to be bigger and better and pushing their systems to the brink, it's unusual to see successful games that go in the other direction. Trine (PC, PS3, soon XBox360) , however, breaks out of this mold. Trine is almost a throwback to the old Commodore and Atari games and it provides far more fun than one would expect with a side-scroller fantasy adventure game.

Here's something for those of you who are looking for a *real* Role Playing experience, a Live Action Role Playing convention: Wyrd Con. Having seen how many people come in their own costumes to Comic Con I'm sure that this one (where costumes and roleplaying is openly encouraged) will be a blast as well!

The event will take place in Costa Mesa, California, on June 11-13, 2010. If you want to find out more or volunteer as a Minion or a Game Designer, visit convention's website at WyrdCon.com

Wyrd Con is a Live Action Role Playing (L.A.R.P. or L.R.P.) convention focused on bringing Role Players from different backgrounds, standards, rule sets, and game settings to one place to experience one another's diversity. We'll discuss Live Action Role Playing and hold many events that will allow people of all ages and familiarity levels to participate in the diversity of this rapidly growing international hobby. Wyrd Con stands for raising awareness and offering unforgettable experiences for those who wish to learn about the infinite varieties of the art form known as Live Action Role Playing.

There used to be time when if you were talking about RPG people did ask you if it was single player or MMO. RolePlaying Games were pen, paper and imagination. And let me tell you, computer games can offer but a shadow of joy those games back then brought us. After computers and gaming consoles started to be commonly seen in households the popularity of "old" RPG's suddenly dropped, but not to zero! There are still people who enjoy a fun get-together with a Dungeon Master and a party of adventurers. If you happen to be one of those people take a look at this:

Sonic Legends, a new company that offers high-quality, original, downloadable music and sound effects ("soundscapes") for tabletop and live-action roleplaying games, launched their webstore on October 24, 2009. There are a variety of genres and musical styles available, and more soundscapes will be added each month. Each soundscape is eight to ten minutes long and seamlessly loopable. All the composers and sound designers at Sonic Legends are gamers themselves, so they know how to create soundscapes that will enhance your game without being too intrusive. Check out what Sonic Legends has to offer at www.sonic-legends.com!

Kingdoms Live is an online strategy for iPhone and iPod Touch, set in a fantasy world, where medieval kingdoms wage wars against each other. You can find Fantasy Fan's review of Kingdom's Live here. Today, I'm going to write few things that new (and not only new) Kingdoms players might find useful, so if you want to know how to earn a lot of gold and win more battles, keep reading! (Also, if you haven't read the review yet, go and do it now, this article is going to assume you know the basic game mechanics, which is covered in the review.)

Even though Kingdoms Live is a relatively simple game to play (there are only few things you can do: buy land, quest, buy equipment, fight) it's not a simple game to master. Like it or not, in order to be successful in it you'll have to do some math every now and then.

If you're too lazy to read through the wall of text just jump down to the bottom, to the quick, bullet point summary. :-)

The roleplaying game based on Andrzej Sapkowski's Witcher books has been a smashing hit. Second part of the game was coming, there was no question about it. Game's developer, CD Projekt, wanted to keep things quiet though, until they are ready to come out with a full blown marketing campaign. Unfortunately the decision was not made by them, but by someone, who, probably for a large amount of money, leaked the video to public. In the official press release CD Projekt's CEO commented that this leak is an uncontrolled side effect of the process of finding a publisher for the new game.

As for the video, it's more of a presentation than a trailer, but it gives you a great peak into what the second Witcher game (Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings) is going to bring to the table. And it looks awesome! You can watch the video on YouTube. Hope you like it as much as I do! :)

In the old day, before World of Warcraft was dominating MMORPG market, three men (Mike O'Brien, Patrick Wyatt and Jeff Strain) left Blizzard to create a new company called Arena.Net . This new company, having combined experience of people who created games like Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo, made a new game, a MMO called Guild Wars.

In March 2007 Arena.Net announced a sequel to Guild Wars, however only recently first trailer of the game was released. The movie contains fair amount of story and some incredible in game footage. You can watch the trailer on Game Trailers website.

This information has not been announced by Blizzard, however so called "reliable" sources leaked the information regarding next expansion for the most popular MMO game: World of Warcraft.

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm is the next expansion for World of Warcraft. Dark and forgotten threats that have long stayed out of sight have finally arrived on our shores, unleashing a cataclysmic event upon Azeroth and now preparing more nefarius plans to take it back.

According to sources the expansion is not going to include new land to explore, however we will get the two initial continents revamped (including dunegons) and enabled for flying. Two new races are going to be introduced: the Goblins for the Horde and the Worgen for the Alliance. There are not going to be new classes, however new combination of race and class are going to be unlocked.

To read entire list of changes go to our World of Warcraft forum.

For the longest time World of Warcraft was THE fantasy game for me. I just wouldn't touch anything else. Times have changed though and with the acquisition of a brand new iPhone I found myself exploring new world of entertainment. While I was browsing multiple games from Solitare to Soccer Manager I found something worth writing about here.

Kingdoms Live is a free game (true story, absolutely no fee required to install or play) for your iPhone or iPod touch. Your task is to run a successful kingdom set in a fantasy world, with magic swords and powerful spells. As the game is played over Internet you will be facing other players, who have the same goal in mind and often believe that the best way to get rich is by taking gold from others.

Turbine announced that they are planning relaunching their Massively Multiplayer Online game "Dungeons & Dragons Online" as a free to play version available for everyone. The new version is going to bear the name "D&D Online: Eberron Unlimited" and is planned to bring profits through the game content available in their DDO Store. Dungeon packs, character slots, potions, character customization, and hired goons will all be available for purchase with Turbine Points.

Turbine will also launch a "DDO VIP" program that will grant access to all premium content for a monthly price. Benefits include priority server access, 10 character slots, a shared bank, and a monthly pack of 500 Turbine Points to spent at the DDO Store.

Dungeons & Dragons Online was launched in February 2006. Turbine has since updated the title with eight modules.

Thanks Guysun for the tip! :)

GRRM announced on his Not-A-Blog today that Cyanide Studios, an independent video game developer based in Nanterre, France, has acquired an exclusive option to develop Ice & Fire as both an RTS (Real Time Strategy) and RPG video game for next generation consoles and PC. Cyanide will begin development immediately, with an eye toward rolling out the games for release in the summer of 2011.

So it seems that we have a Role Playing Game (single player I assume) and a Real Time Strategy on it's way! I have to say, I'm really anxious to see what Cyanide comes up with. I remember the amazing times I had playing Dune RTS. If SoIaF strategy provides half of that fun - I'll be happy!

You can read entire GRRM's post here.

That might not be your classic take on fantasy, but it's still Warhammer. The trailer for Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine was just posted on the IGN (to view it click here) and it looks awesome!

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine is a third-person action-RPG designed for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Read more about the game, again, on IGN.

Do you like the old fashioned pen-and-paper RPG games? You'd love to play, but there just isn't enough of interest in the local area to make it happen? There might be a solution to your problem!

RPGGameFind.com is a new website created with the thought of players looking for all types of role-playing (rpg) games, rpg/fantasy card games, RPG board games, and miniature games! If you have an existing RPG game or starting a new role-playing game and need players, just submit a game listing in your local area.

In the era of MMORPG it's refreshing to see that not everyone imagines playing RPG as an activity performed in front of the computer screen.

One of the most classic elements of fantasy is rescuing princesses (or other fair maiden) from the oppressors. This simple concept has been adapted by Titan Studios in their latest game "The Fat Princess". Shack News posted a movie where the creators of the game talk about their creation.

I just got contacted by Alexandre Scriabine, Marketing & Communication Manager in Cyanide Studio, who informed me of a press release regarding the agreement between his company and George R.R. Martin.

Cyanide, an independent video game studio, and George R. R. Martin today announced their partnership to create the first-ever video games inspired by the author?s award-winning, international bestselling ?A Song of Ice and Fire? fantasy series. Under the terms of the agreement, Cyanide has obtained the exclusive rights to develop ?A Song of Ice and Fire? video games for next-generation consoles and PC, and in collaboration with George R.R Martin, development has begun.

This is an exciting news. A Song of Ice and Fire world has an amazing opportunity and if the game turns out to be something akin to The Witcher, its popularity might boost both the book series and HBO's TV show. One thing is sure, big things are happening for SoIaF this year!

TheWitcher.com: According to our latest sales data, The Witcher has sold more than 1,2 million copies around the world! Because of those numbers, The Witcher has jumped onto the list of the 100 bestselling PC games in history!

Go Geralt! I'm sure that the popularity of the game will ensure the translation of remaining Witcher books. So far the only ones translated into English were The Last Wish and first part of the Witcher Saga, The Blood of Elves.

Diablo 3 is slowly coming our way. Even though it's not nearly ready yet there are already many fans of the game searching the Internet for Diablo 3 avatars. Well, search no more, a gallery of 100 Diablo III avatars has just been added to our downloads section.

If you want to download the gallery go to our fantasy avatar downloads .

Final Fantasy fans are getting another treat from the Square Soft! Final Fantasy XIII is on the horizon and it looks even better than the previous one - as usual. To view the new Final Fantasy trailer go to Game Trailers website:
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/44896.html

Not too long ago Blizzard updated their Diablo 3 website with new wallpapers featuring characters of Tyrael and Leach as well as some of the locations from the game, Tristram, Ureh and Caldeum. You will also find a very nice wallpaper with Diablo 3 world map!

Take a look below or on the official Blizzard Diablo 3 website at:
http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3

Big changes are coming to the land of Conan. Funcom, game developer, decided to drastically shrink it's number of servers merging 49 original, based on regions and gameplay type, to just 18. As GameSpy reports, merges are typically a bad sign for the state of the game, as it indicates that less and less players are interested in the title. In comparison Blizzard is still adding new realms for their World of Warcraft players.

It's been two weeks since the launch of the new expansion for the World of Warcraft. The Wrath of the Lich King seems to be a huge success so far. If you're looking for feedback on the expansion and find out what people think about it you can visit the World of Warcraft section of our forum, where Fantasy Fan members are commenting the features of the new content.

Red Eagle Entertainment, a California production company which holds the film, TV and video game rights to the series, has opened a subsidiary, Red Eagle Games to produce games based Wheel of Time movies. One of the games made will be a MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game).

Red Eagle will develop the games in-house, but the company currently lacks developers. Selvage and co-founder Larry Mondragon, both former IBM executives, have "identified key game developers" and plan to start hiring "in the coming months."

So if you're looking for a job in game design and you're a Wheel of Time fan - here's once in a lifetime opportunity for you!

We're expanding our downloads section again! The new download contains World of Warcraft avatars you know well from the Blizzard forums. The file contains over 300 wow avatars with combination of all classes and all races. You can download the new gallery from our fantasy avatar download section.

It has officially begun. World of Warcraft biggest competition opened it's gates today. Thousands of players bought today the newest MMORPG on the market, Warhammer Online . Some of the Fantasy Fan members were among them, so if you're looking first hand impressions or maybe you'd like to hook up a bunch of great people in the game, go to our Warhammer Online Forum .

The official release date for World of Warcraft expansion, Wrath of the Lich King (WotLK), is set to 13th November 2008. The information comes from the official WOW fansite WOWHead.com . WOTLK will be in stores 11.13.2008

With the imminent coming (official release date September 18th) of the long awaited MMORPG: Warhammer Online the Fantasy Fan community decided we need to have a dedicated spot for WAR discussion. So, without further delay I present you with new Warhammer Online forum .

Crimson Guard, Fantasy Fan guild, which came to existence in World Of Warcraft will branch out to Warhammer, so feel free to read our forum and join us!