Hey, remember Mercenaries 2? Yeah, it's that fantastic looking follow up from Pandemic that involves scores of explosions and a pissed off Merc who literally gets ripped a new ass hole. EA and Pandemic have finally nailed down a date—August 31, 2008—for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2 and PC game, making it just a tiny bit late. IGN has a new trailer for Mercenaries 2, something that might reignite your interest in it. It's explodey!

Mercenaries 2 US Release Date Trailer [IGN]

I've had a pet project I've been working on for years, three of them if my memory is right. It started as a simple idea: You can judge a lot from a person's desk. I bet you could judge just as much from their home entertainment system. So I decided it would be fun to try and track down some pictures from the work desks and home gaming set-ups of the people who work in and cover the video game industry. Simple right? Not so much.

Turns out that many of the people are either too busy or too private to want to participate in such a project. To make matters worse, there's always fear that something sitting on someone's desk, that ends up in a photo, could actually be news worthy. Like a secret project or the next big thing. But I didn't give up and about once a year I'd harass a bunch of game developers for photos. Finally, this year, the harassment paid off.

What started as a trickle of photos turned quickly into the collection of galleries you'll find on the jump: More than 40 different photo galleries from 17 studios, seven publications, two industry movers and shakers and a couple of fun surprises.

You'll get to see the desk of such greats as Sid Meier, Peter Molyneux and Tetsuya Mizuguchi along with plenty of others. Remember you can comment both on the next page and on each individual photo if you click on them.

If I find there is interest, I will try to periodically update this gallery of galleries with more developers, journalists and industry movers and shakers. Have fun.

It may have been announced a few months back, but Electronic Arts didn't get the keys to BioWare and Pandemic until this month.

Frank Gibeau, president of the EA Games Label, will oversee the studios within EA. Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk of BioWare Corp. have each been named as Vice Presidents of EA and Co-General Managers of BioWare Corp. Pandemic Studios' Andrew Goldman and Josh Resnick have each been named Vice Presidents of EA and Co-General Managers of Pandemic Studios, while Greg Borrud has been named Vice President of EA and Chief Production Officer of Pandemic Studios.

That's a lot of promotions going around.

"BioWare Corp. and Pandemic Studios are two world-class studios and bring strong, highly compatible cultures of creative excellence to the EA Games Label," said Mr. Gibeau. "Their strengths in the RPG, action and adventure genres further broadens EA's portfolio, and reinforces our commitment to creating the world's greatest interactive entertainment."

"Our new EA partnership is already proving to be both positive and productive," said Mr. Resnick. "Pandemic Studios prides itself upon its creative independence while being the best place for top industry talent to work. These values continue to be upheld by all levels of EA and we couldn't be more excited about the future of our studio and our games."

Mr. Muzyka added, "EA has shown great respect for the creative integrity of our studios and BioWare's core values of quality in our workplace, quality in our products, and entrepreneurship. Operating as a city-state within the larger EA studio family, our talented teams at BioWare Edmonton and BioWare Austin are empowered to continue delivering powerful emotional experiences through our story-driven games."

Sounds like everybody is jazzed about the deal so far, lets see how they feel in six months.

EA COMPLETES ACQUISITION OF VG HOLDING CORP. - WELCOMES BIOWARE CORP. AND PANDEMIC STUDIOS TO THE EA GAMES LABEL [Games Industry]

When we played Mercenaries 2: World in Flames at the Leipzig Games Convention last year, we walked away with the impression that stuff blows up. It would appear that stuff will continue to blow up, as new screens from Pandemic would indicate. If you look closely at the in-game screen shot above, you might be able to pick out one of the things that blows up. Mercs 2 feels like it's already been released for some reason, but it seems it hasn't. Regardless of my confusion about how time flows, a handful of new official screens are in our mini-gallery below.

Good news for both the VG Holding Corporation and Bioware/Pandemic employees on the receiving end of some $155 million, as the Federal Trade Commission is pleased to announce that EA's purchase of the developers is just peachy. The $755 million buy out by Electronic Arts was approved by Federal Trade Commission regulators and should go through by January of 2008. Development on the Madden RPG is expected to begin in the Spring.

Regulators Clear Electronic Arts Deal [AP/Yahoo!]

Yesterday, EA CEO John Riccitiello, EA Games Label President Frank Gibeau and a few other top EA folks traveled down to Pandemic Studios to say hi to the recently acquired company and welcome them into the EA family.

But the Pandemic folks thought it would be fun to turn the tables and welcome EA into their family instead. Andrew Goldman and Josh Resnick (Pandemic Co-Founders) dyed their hair "Pandemic" yellow, while the entire company showed up wearing their Pandemic t-shirts.

When Riccitiello and Gibeau got on stage to take questions, a Mercenaries 2 team member decided to ask his question dressed in his signature chicken-suit garb. So now Pandemic is hiring... just kidding. Apparently Riccitiello and Gibeau both have a sense of humor.

We liveblogged yesterday's conference call with Electronic Arts about their buyout of Bioware and Pandemic studios, but that was really just about grabbing some of the highlights. Hit the jump if you want to read the entire script of their pitch and delivery which includes confirmation that BioWare, not Microsoft, owns the Mass Effect IP, that Pandemic is working on several unannounced titles and that BioWare's MMO is several years out.