If you like the setting of Eve Online, but don’t find the dense, economics-heavy gameplay scintillating, CCP is making Dust 514 just for you. You can still inhabit the Eve universe, but you’re pretty much just shooting guns at it instead of destroying financial systems.

Unfortunately, while the kind of grim space setting is fairly unique for an MMO (as is just about everything about Eve), it’s kind of … well-heeled in the FPS world. As in, there’s nothing particularly novel about seeing an FPS that takes place in a gritty sci-fi world. That said, this looks like a good … one of those, and the MMO idea and Eve integration still manage to be interesting. And in general, we like the idea of using the same universe to express totally different game concepts — like how WWE Crush Hour spun off from the wrestling games. Bad example.

Big changes for Starcraft 2 and Battle.net 2.0 announced by Blizzard. Including a Real-ID that can be used across games and is connected to social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

BlizzCon 09 Battle.net 2.0 Presentation Part 1

BlizzCon 09 Battle.net 2.0 Presentation Part 2

A new version of “Monopoly City Streets” is making its debut on Wednesday, allowing players to compete in the whole world of Google maps. Buying property, building hotels, the whole nine yards. Prepare yourself, once Wednesday comes there will be little time for sleep anymore, as there will be a world-wide game of domination going on.

It’s an ambitious venture that we’ll confess to being fairly excited about: players will literally be able to buy any street in the world, and compete with every other player on the “board”. You start with 3 million Monopoly dollars, and can build not only hotels and houses but also football stadiums, castles and skyscrapers, reports the UK’s Guardian. Downing Street in the UK will cost $231,000, while Pennsylvania Avenue will cost $2 million.

A live worldwide game of MONOPOLY using Google Maps as the game board. The goal is simple. Play to beat your friends and the world to become the richest property magnate in existence.

Own any street in the world. Build humble houses, crazy castles and stupendous skyscrapers to collect rent. Use MONOPOLY Chance Cards to sabotage your mates by building Hazards on their streets.

Truly beautiful gameplay and visuals. Can’t wait to check out Guild Wars 2 later this year.