Cryogenecist Victor Fries dedicates his life to saving his wife Nora from a rare disease, keeping her body frozen in suspended animation as he conducts experiments to try and cure his love. One day an experiment backfires, turning him into the freakish Mr. Freeze, forever confined to temperatures as frigid as his own heart. Like I said, tragic, and even more so when you read through the comics and realize that his poor ice block of a wife might as well have a giant target painted on her chest once everyone figures out what his deal is.

"Put down the freeze gun sir, we've got your wife and a blow-dryer!"
"Noooo!"

Mr Fries does not want a Snuggie for Christmas, incidentally. Such is his tragedy,.

I'm glad the DCU folks have decided to go Patrick Stewart with Fries instead of governor of California-style bad catch-phrase machine. Kill da heroes!

I would have figured SOE would have gone from cats and dogs to something like hamsters or potbellied pigs, but instead they go and pull this huge pet update, with mythical and prehistorical beasts of all shapes and sizes now available. This means you can now be a fairy riding a unicorn, which I believe counts as winning the internet, according to the official rules.

Player housing is a feature players have been clamoring for since the game launched, and SOE delivers, with free apartments for everyone. Non-paying customers get a one bedroom layout, while paying subscribers get a free 2-bedroom apartment, with an option to buy a 3-bedroom condo in the game's marketplace.

A new fishing mini-game has also been added to the game, giving players 20 job levels to hook any of 30 different species of fish.

Finally, the Snow Days events are SOE's way of saying that they appreciate Christmas but don't want to commit to it in name in case someone gets offended. Expect candy, sweets, presents, and snowball fights - you know, Christmas things. Christmas. Say it with me.

You can check out all the new updates by heading over to http://www.freerealms.com/ and playing the damn game already. OR you can just live vicariously through other players with these Kotaku-exclusive screenshots. Your choice!

EverQuest Underfoot, available today at EverQuest.com for $39.99, substantially adds to Norrathian real estate by going deeper underground than ever before. Players can expect to encounter plenty of new creatures as they venture forth, hunting for tradeskill recipes so they can make the powerful new items afforded by the addition of Master Tradeskilling.

Other new additions include an expanded target window, which lets players assign group members to specific roles for ease of targeting, and an achievement system, much like the one already implemented in World of Warcraft.

"Celebrating a decade of EverQuest throughout this year has reinvigorated our community and development team alike, and that passion is clearly on display with the latest expansion," said Thom Terrazas, Producer, Sony Online Entertainment. "Underfoot presents a world unlike anything you've experienced in Norrath, providing a deep and fun experience for all our players."

I've not played EverQuest for years, but there are times I miss my bard something terrible. Then I remember this, and the melancholy fades.

Originally scheduled for release on November 24th, the PlayStation Blog post we culled the information from on Revenge of the Wounded Dragons was updated to reflect a brief delay shortly after we posted the news. The dragons went back into hiding for around two weeks, and according to Sony Online Entertainment, they're ready to kick some ass on your PlayStation 3 this Thursday, December 10th.

Unless of course they delay it again, in which case it's Owen's turn to write the next release announcement.

I thought DC Universe Online was going to try and coincide with the storylines currently happening in the comics, but apparently that isn't the case. See, in the comics, Bruce Wayne is dead (sort of), with his skull spitting out Black Lantern rings left and right as part of the Blackest Night zombie event currently tearing its way through the DC Universe. Dick Grayson, AKA Nightwing, is now Batman, and Robin is Damian Wayne, Bruce's son with Talia al Ghul.

Perhaps they'll work this all out by the time DC Universe Online launches for the PC and PlayStation 3. Grayson makes a fine Batman, but I miss me some Bruce.

The nature of Alexander Stern's visual impairment isn't clear from the report, whether that is total blindness or partial blindness, or some other form of sight disability. But his suit, filed in federal court in California, claims that Sony has ignored repeated requests to modify its games - the suit seems to focus on SOE's MMOs - and that the realms Sony maintains here are essentially public accommodations as defined by the ADA.

Stern repeatedly asked Sony for the addition of visual cues to point out destinations for gamers with "disability impaired visual processing." The suit mentions World of Warcraft and another game that, through the allowance of third-party modifications or other features, make their games more accessible to the visually impaired.

There's also a claim that by not making accommodations for the visually impaired, Sony essentially deprives Stern and others of fair participation in selling off in-game items over SOE's official auction site.

Sony told GameSpot it doesn't comment on pending litigation.

Whatever the merits of the suit, and I'm sure our team of lawyers will robustly discuss them in the comments below, the action is intriguing to me in that it seems to depend on finding a virtual environment is a public accommodation. I can't even begin to argue coherently that it is or isn't or should or should not be. A judge could find that an MMO is a public accommodation and Stern could still lose, but such a ruling could have larger ramifications that outlive this case, for more than just Sony.

Visually Impaired Gamer Sues Sony Online [GameSpot, thanks Roberto E.]

SOE's fascination with card games finally comes full circle. After years of creating collectible card games based on their popular MMO properties like EverQuest and Star Wars Galaxies, now the company's Denver studio is creating a strategy game based on the inspirations for those games - Magic: The Gathering.

Magic: The Gathering - Tactics draws on the Planeswalkers lore of Magic, putting players in control of 3D figures and spells from the popular CCG. The game will include both single player scenarios and online PVP multiplayer. As with any Magic-related product, fans can expect regular content expansions and strong tournament support, along with achievements and rankings.

"By collaborating with Wizards of the Coast, we're able to combine the strengths of both companies to develop an innovative, online, 3D game based on an extremely popular IP," said John Smedley, president, Sony Online Entertainment. "We're going to be taking the Magic: The Gathering Multiverse places players have never seen."

I still prefer the Xbox Live Arcade Magic game myself, as it's the straight-up card game and not a strategy derivative, but it's nice to see the PlayStation 3 getting a little Magic loving either way.

Look for Magic: The Gathering - Tactics to hit the PC in early 2010, with a PlayStation 3 release coming soon after.

Bizarro is one of Superman's more colorful villains, originally created back when comics were a great deal more lighthearted and fun. Today's Bizarro is a bit more tragic - an imperfect clone of the man himself who really just wants somewhere to belong. He has powers comparable to Superman, only some are switched - heat vision becomes ice vision; ice breath becomes flame breath. One would think he'd be super weak instead of super strong, but that would be no fun. In fact, Kryptonite, Superman's bane, actually makes Bizarro stronger, so if they were ever both locked in a room with a hunk of the green stuff, Bizarro would crush Clark Kent's head like a grape. Good times.

To me, Planetside Next means we get a chance to take the essence of everything that was fun in Planetside and make it a lot better. Massive battles on a scale no other FPS will touch. None of this 64 player stuff. REALLY MASSIVE. With much better organization, and a tight focus on making sure the action is always going on, with awesome graphics.

No official title has been given - heck, the project has not even been officially announced - making Smedley's use of Next rather curious. And its deliberate capitalization suggests that is at least the working title of this game.

I have emailed the press contact for SOE to ask if this is indeed the new game's title. If I hear anything back, I'll put it here.

What Planetside Next Means to Me [Smed's Blog, via Joystiq]

Oliver "Ollie" Queen, that is, known as much for his ad choice of kid sidekicks as he is for his signature weapons. His first kid sidekick, Speedy, once became a heroin addict. The current one has HIV. In other words, if Oliver Queen asks to take you under his wing, just say no. It isn't worth the hassle.

The email sought help from "loyal player(s) and experienced shooter fan(s)" in designing this next game. "Don't worry about the original PlanetSide, it isn't going anywhere," the mail assures.

The independent site Planetside Universe found the Web site registration, and also reports that it reached John Smedley, the CEO of SOE, who said only, "PlanetSide fans will be happy We have big things planned in the next 12 months. We're working on something new that's really cool."

I have emailed the press contact for SOE to ask if they'd like to shed any more light on this. Should we get a response, I'll update with it here.

The goddess Erollisi Marr has gone missing, and only your stalwart band of adventurers can infiltrate her home shard of Love and get as much loot as possible, perhaps learning something about her fate in the process. The Shards of Destiny update brings several new features to EQ2, including a new four-man dungeon, the ability to dumb-down your skills and spells in order to take on earlier content you might have missed while leveling, and ... achievements? Achievements in an MMO? What a brilliant idea! Why didn't Blizzard think of that first?

Oh.

Video Games | EverQuest II: Shards of Destiny | Debut Trailer

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

That's right, free character transfers are so popular that everything must go by October 15th! Go from the twelve closing servers to the remaining thirteen, that is. From the SOE forum post on the subject:

Due to the overwhelming success of the recent Free Character Transfer Service, we want to inform you that on October 15, 2009, at 5:00 PM PT, Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) will close the following 12 Star Wars Galaxies servers:

o Corbantis
o Europe-Infinity
o Intrepid
o Kauri
o Kettemoor
o Lowca
o Naritus
o Scylla
o Tarquinas
o Tempest
o Valcyn
o Wanderhome

Players have between now and October 15th to vacate the premises and head to a more populated server for some Death Trooper re-killing action. Any characters remaining on said servers past October 15th will be permantly removed from your account, so if you're a lapsed SWG player on any of those servers, you might want to hop on and move your Jedi to a safer harbor.

UPDATE: Just got this in from a QA lead: "Beginning October 16th, 2009 at 12:01 AM PT you will be able to contact Customer Support and for the standard Character Transfer fee of $50.00 you will be able to schedule a transfer for your character, eligible structures and inventory."

So safe, just expensive.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR SWG ACCOUNT [SWG Forums via MMORPG.com]

Not sure that I really see a theme here running between all five screenshots. There's S.T.A.R. Labs in two or possibly three of the shots, but then there's the picture of the hospital in Metropolis and those guys fighting with the Green Lantern. Perhaps I'm just not up on my DC lore, being a born and bred Marvel fan, to really understand the connection here. Help me out here, comments section!

For a tie-in with Joe Schreiber's upcoming book of the same name - which is about zombies in the Star War universe - Star Wars Galaxies will in October drop an update called Death Troopers, which sounds like an excuse to drop you and your friends in a room and have them kill a bunch of "horrific new enemies with a frightening affliction".

So, yeah, zombies.

Still won't make Galaxies fun, but it'll at least make it good for a laugh.

More than just an art book, this large, hard-bound special edition tome is filled from cover-to-cover with the history of the EverQuest franchise, from the original release to the coming of EverQuest 2. You'll find developer interviews, box art, concept art, and developer commentary that will have a lapsed player itching to get back into the fray.

Or at least it had this lapsed player itching. SOE delivered a copy of the book to me late last week, and I've had a hard time putting it down. It's been years since I traveled Norrath, but half a decade of my life is contained in those pages, and the reminiscing is fine.

You can purchase the book for $34.99 directly from SOE by clicking the link I cleverly hid in this sentence.

Eurogamer reports that producer Matt Wilson, art director Corey Dangel, and producer John Smith have all defected from SOE and The Agency, setting up their own studio, Detonator Games. Eurogamer also writes of a rumored "reboot" and "rethink" of the PlayStation 3 and PC bound MMO, speculation that SOE reps flatly deny.

We heard a little loose talk at Comic-Con that the game may have been having some development issues, probably related to the departure of key Agency staffers.

The game is tentatively scheduled to hit in 2010.

"No reboot" to The Agency as staff leave News [CVG]

Rather than worry about issuing a preview comic months in advance like some video game adaptations, the Free Realms comic series kicks off today, with issue one arriving on comic store shelves around the country as we speak. The book is penned by J.S. Lewis, writer of the Grey Griffon series of young adult fantasy books, with art by art by Jon Buran and Allen Martinez.

SOE has passed along the first several pages, and already I am seeing inconsistencies with the game. For example, all combat is instanced, so that poor guy would have been dead. And then he'd come back to life two or three times before the mission ended. Lewis did however nail the common response to a friend request.

Lee and Wolfman talked about the challenges of squeezing the 75-year-old DC Universe into the game, focusing on "the coolest characters, the coolest content" for DCUO, which is still in a pre-alpha state. Geoff Johns was the one on the DC Comics side responsible for the overarching story in DCUO, with Wolfman fleshing out the story concepts appropriate for the game.

"If you think about a building, Geoff created the entire structure, the beams, now I'm filling in the individual rooms, the plastering," Wolfman said. "We're all coming up with story concepts that fit within the DC universe. They'll take up a paragraph I've marked up, and the developer turns it into 60 missions. It passes through us a second time to make sure it fits in the universe."

Those on the DC side sounded enthusiastic to be able to work within the broader confines of DC Universe Online, with Wolfman relishing the chance to write for the player who chooses to side with DC's villains.

"In DCUO sometimes the hero loses," he said, noting that DC writers are "trained to have it the other way."

Lee joked that it was challenging on the artistic side, making the transition from 2D comic book panel to 3D multiplayer online video game, bemoaning that "Drawing the other side of buildings was tough."

"There is no map of Metropolis," adds Johns, one of two main locations that DCUO is focusing on for its initial release. But Andersson pointed out the depth of the game's interiors, particularly S.T.A.R. Labs in Gotham City and the thrill of "cleaning up all the disasters that happen there."

"There's just too much cool stuff to put in the game at launch," Lee said, explaining SOE and DC's focus on two main cities. That obviously doesn't rule out other famous DC Universe locations in future expansions and patches, but considering the MMO is dated for "2000-something" right now, don't expect to hear anything about a Central City expansion any time soon.

Lee did joke that the bottle city of Kandor, miniaturized by Braniac, would probably be the easiest, quickest to download city expansion.

Sony Online Entertainment says the game is due to hit an alpha milestone "soon," but still has no release date to announce.

At a development conference their answers might have been different, but this is Comic-Con, and this distinguished panel of guests from BioWare, Gazillion, Sony Online Entertainment, Turbine, and Nexon America know full well that the majority of the audience are simply folks who showed to save seats for the Star Wars panel coming up afterwards. The key here, in most cases, seemed to be mentioning their games as often as possible in the hopes that the folks in the audience who weren't members of the press would remember them.

Let's start with Gazillion's Dave Brevik, who is currently working on the Marvel Comic MMO he cannot really talk about. Dave could only speak in generalities throughout most of the panel, and he seemed to struggle with the question of change in the MMO industry more than most, as he isn't allowed to tell us what he's changing. Only that "something different" is coming, and that something different will reflect a positive change in the industry.

Next up was BioWare's Leo Olebe. As BioWare is working on Star Wars: The Old Republic, his example of positive genre change is, of course, Star Wars: The Old Republic. Specifically the fully-voiced NPCs and player characters in the game, which he claimed would spoil players for all other massively-multiplayer titles. I'm not sure that actually counts as a positive change though. Look guys, now you're going to have to spend several million dollars on voice work every time you create a new online game!

The saddest thing? He's probably right about that. It'll be the same feeling you get when starting a console RPG and realizing that all the dialog is simply text-based.

SOE head honcho John Smedley took the opportunity to answer the question by hyping up the upcoming DC Universe Online, stating that delivering action-packed combat "We want you to be able to throw a bus on your PC and have your friend catch it on his PS3. That's the level of gameplay and interactivity we're looking at."

Cross-platform bus throwing is the way of the future.

Nexon's Min Kim gave what was perhaps the most genuine answer to the question, though he had already mentioned Combat Arms five or six times during the panel and was probably feeling a little spent.

"Access is gonna change...the price point is going to drop to free for a lot of these games...but access is going to change. Traditionally when you get a new PC game you have to worry about whether your hardware can run it. Developers are going to realize that it isn't about building the flashiest experience, but making sure the game is accessible to the widest audience."

And then he mentioned Combat Arms again.

That covers four of the five panelists, with Turbine's Henrik Strandberg speaking far too quietly for anyone to really hear him, which is problem Turbine's been dealing with for quite some time.