The launch problems that have hobbled SimCity since its US release on Tuesday seem to have avoided the game's UK launch.

SimCity was made available in the UK at midnight and, so far, seems to be working. GameSpot has managed to successfully and repeatedly login to SimCity, which requires a constant connection to the game's servers in order to function, and play the game this morning.

EA said this week that it was "confident" the game's European launch would avoid the same missteps that saw the game's US release completely hobbled by connectivity problems.

"Good news, Mayors--we just added a brand new #SimCity server: Europe East 3. Hop on and start building," tweeted the official SimCity account this morning. In total two new servers for Western Europe and an additional server for Eastern Europe.

EA's next test will be whether the game's European launch can cope with the stress of the peak evening and weekend period.

Overnight, Amazon pulled digital copies of the game from sale, citing the ongoing server issues, while EA disabled some of the game's features--including Cheetah speed, leaderboards, and achievements--to reduce stress on the servers.

GameSpot's SimCity review has also gone live, where the game received a score 5.0. "The bugs will probably be fixed, the wrinkles smoothed, and the online problems sorted out. What hurts most, though, is that it didn't have to be this way. SimCity's makers looked to MMOGs for ideas on how to bring players together, but didn't absorb the lessons MMOG developers learned long ago on how to implement practical online play. SimCity (the game) isn't the pinnacle of the series, but it's super fun. SimCity (the service) is a disaster," said reviewer Kevin VanOrd.

After posting yesterday to say that EA was committing "everything we have" to fixing the game, SimCity senior producer Kip Katsarelis returned to the EA forums to once again apologise for the troubled launch and to update fans on the current status of the game.

"Server capacity is our biggest obstacle," said Katsarelis. "We launched in North America on Tuesday and our servers filled up within a matter of hours. What we saw was that players were having such a good time they didn't want to leave the game, which kept our servers packed and made it difficult for new players to join. We added more servers to accommodate the launch in Australia and Japan, and then more yesterday to accommodate the launch in Europe. As of right now, we are adding even more servers which will be going live over the next three days. And, our plan is to continue to bring more servers online until we have enough to meet the demand, increase player capacity and let more people through the gates and into the game."

Former Epic Games president Mike Capps has announced he is leaving his advisory role within the studio, and will no longer be affiliated with the prominent developer.

Capps had held his advisory role since December 2012, when he stood down as Epic Games president.

"When we announced that I wanted to transition out of my leadership role at Epic, the plan was for a continued but less active role, service on the board of directors, and ideally, being that eccentric semi-retired guy who still comes to playtests and gold parties," said Capps on his Facebook page.

"I’m sad to say that plans have changed, and as of February 11th, I’m no longer affiliated with Epic Games. I have many wonderful memories of my time at Epic, and I wish my friends there all the best in their future projects."

Capps intends to remain part of the video game industry, but is now focusing on family.

"Games have been so good to me, and I’m delighted to have the time to give back. I’m a member of several game industry boards, and I’m proud to serve as an advocate for our art in Washington. I’m considering seats on a few company and advisory boards, as well as options for teaching at one of the world-class universities in the North Carolina Triangle area. And mostly, I’m focused on being a new dad in a few short weeks. Time is flying by, and I’ve still got a dozen games I want to play before the UnSleep begins!"

Epic Games' next title, Gears of War: Judgment, will be released on March 19 in the US and March 22 in Europe.

Amazon has stopped selling digital copies of SimCity. As spotted by GameSpot sister site Giant Bomb, the online retailer is no longer allowing consumers to purchase the digital version of Electronic Arts' just-released city-building PC game.

"Many customers are having issues connecting to the SimCity servers," Amazon said on its website. "EA is actively working to resolve these issues, but at this time we do not know when the issue will be fixed."

The boxed version of SimCity remains available for purchase through Amazon.

SimCity launched Tuesday in North America and was beset by various server issues that in some instances have kept gamers from logging in. EA said yesterday that it is "confident" that such issues will be resolved for the game's United Kingdom launch tomorrow.

EA announced today that it had disabled "non-critical" SimCity features to address server woes.

The Witcher developer CD Projekt Red is not looking to sell. Studio head Adam Badowski told GamesIndustry International that the company considers creative and financial independence to be a core component of its development strategy.

"Independence is a crucial part of a our strategy," Badowski said. "That means we need to be independent in both ways. First, financially and secondly creatively; they're both crucial for us. So as a company we're listed publicly on the Warsaw stock exchange, which gave us financial independence and creatively we own all our IP so we're free to invest in our own business with total creative freedom. This gives us a fresh eye in the studio, so it's very important to us. Maybe we could get extra money or experience, but it wouldn't make us happy."

Badowski elaborated further on the subject of independence, saying CD Projekt Red has gone to great lengths to ensure business decisions do not decide the company's future.

"I believe that if you want to succeed, creative vision has to inform business policy and not the other way around; that's crucial for us," Badowski said. "Sometimes business will decide a company's creative policy, that's very bad for a studio."

Badowski pointed to CD Projekt Red's unwillingness to embrace the free-to-play market as an example of why creative ambition should be placed ahead of business dealings. He said though there may be money to be made in this market, CD Projekt Red ultimately sees free-to-play as "strange and awkward" and a reason to stay away, at least for now.

"I believe that if you want to succeed, creative vision has to inform business policy and not the other way around; that's crucial for us"

"Financial and business concerns shouldn't decide which path we take or the creative aims of the company. For example, right now we are not dealing in the free-to-play market and this is why; the market is far from perfect yet, I think there's something strange and awkward in this business model," Badowski said.

"So we're not getting involved in it, even if everyone is excited by how much money can be made using this model. Maybe we'll change our minds in that regard, but not yet," he added. "To succeed you have to believe in your project first and then do your job 100 per cent. So the creative side and your heart comes first. Business should be based around your vision."

CD Projekt Red is currently developing two projects: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Cyberpunk 2077. The company also operates GOG.com, an online marketplace for PC games.

GameStop president Tony Bartel believes a PlayStation Vita price cut or the release of a new bundle ahead of the PlayStation 4 launch this holiday would "make sense." Speaking to Forbes, the retail executive said he believes more gamers will be spurred to buy a PS Vita to tap into multi-screen functionality with the PS4.

"With multi-screen gaming continuing to rise in popularity, I think you’ll see more gamers purchase a Vita to take advantage of the enhanced gameplay offered by the PS4," Bartel said. "We’re always happy to see a price cut! Both bundles and price cuts tend to spur additional sales, so this would make sense leading up to launch."

During the PS4 announcement in February, Gaikai CEO David Perry revealed that PS4 has integrated Gaikai technology into the system to allow PS4 titles to be streamed directly to the PS Vita. According to Perry, the PS4 acts as a server and sends video straight to the PS Vita screen, which can then be played remotely on the handheld.

Sony president of Worldwide Studios Shuhei Yoshida said last month that a PS Vita price cut for North America was not in the cards. In Japan, the recent price drop for the device led to sales jumping by a factor of four.

The PS Vita currently retails in North America at $250 and $300 for the Wi-Fi and 3G models, respectively.

There may be more Far Cry 3 in the works. The Brazilian classification ratings group (via Joystiq) has posted a listing for Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, describing the project as a first-person shooter for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.

No further information is available and a Ubisoft representative was not immediately available to comment. Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said in February that "fans certainly won't have to wait for more years for the next Far Cry."

Far Cry 3 lead writer Jeffrey Yohalem told Joystiq this week that the action-shooter is getting some sort of a continuation, though it's not clear if Blood Dragon is this rumored content.

"I'm working on something now that will be surprising, I think, when it's announced," Yohalem said. "But it definitely is a 'strike while the iron's hot' thing, and we'll see."

Far Cry 3 has shipped 4.5 million copies to date.

In an effort to address ongoing server issues, Electronic Arts is preparing to deploy a SimCity hotfix that disables some "non-critical" features and also provides "various improvements."

"We are continuing to do everything we can to address the server issues. In the meantime, so that we can give you as good an experience as possible, we are in the process of deploying a hotfix to all servers," wrote an EA community manager in the SimCity forums.

"This includes various improvements and also disables a few non-critical gameplay features (leaderboards, achievements, and region filters). Disabling these features will in no way affect your core gameplay experience."

EA said it will continue to update the community as more information becomes available. "Getting you playing is our absolute highest priority," the company said.

SimCity launched Tuesday in North America and was beset by various server issues that in some instances have kept gamers from logging in. EA said yesterday that it is "confident" that such issues will be resolved for the game's United Kingdom launch tomorrow.

Take-Two Interactive believes emerging platforms like mobile, social, and online do not pose much of a threat to its core gaming business, at least not yet. Speaking this week during the Wedbush Transformational Technologies Conference, chief operating officer Karl Slatoff said the reason for this is such experiences thus far have been "very casual."

"It's worth noting here, there's been a lot of discussion about these emerging platforms and whether or not they've cannibalized the core gaming business and their effect on the core gaming piece. We don't believe that's the case at all; certainly not up to this point," Slatoff said. "And the reason being most of these experiences are very casual experiences."

Slatoff said Take-Two prides itself in creating "highly compelling, immersive experiences" for core gamers. These mobile, social, and online games have not yet been capable to deliver those kinds of experiences, though they do serve as a means to introduce new gamers to core experiences, he said.

"We see it really more as expanding the audience for video gaming in general and hopefully the folks who've gotten into video gaming for the first time via these platforms will migrate up into a more core gaming audience," he said.

At the same time, Slatoff said products for these emerging platforms are likely to become deeper and more engaging experiences as technology evolves. He argued Take-Two is preparing itself for this future by investing in these markets and meeting gamers wherever they are.

"That being said, we fully expect that these platforms are going to become more sophisticated over time," Slatoff said. "Which is why we're actually investing quite a bit in making that we have games releasing on these platforms and we're monetizing them as best we can now because they will become more sophisticated. And if core gamers want to play on these platforms, we will be there and we'll be ready to do that."

Microsoft today announced Age of Empires II HD Edition, a reimagining of the 1999 real-time strategy game. With Ensemble Studios closed, work on the updated version is being done by Hidden Path Entertainment (Defense Grid series, Counter Strike: Global Offensive).

Age of Empires II HD Edition will launch on April 9 exclusively through Steam across the world. Gamers won't need to wait that long to play, however, as those who prepurchase (at a 10 percent discount) will be able to jump in April 5.

Age of Empires II HD Edition includes every single-player campaign from the Age of Kings original and the Conquerors expansion, totaling 18 in all. In addition, gamers can challenge other Steam players through the game's online mode.

According to Microsoft, Age of Empires II HD Edition has been remastered for high-resolution displays at 1080p. It also includes an "enhanced visual engine" sporting improved textures for terrain, water and fire, and ambient lighting effects.

Steamworks features for Age of Empires II HD Edition include achievements, leaderboards, matchmaking, and cloud support. In addition, gamers can share user created content through the Steam Workshop.

Lastly, Microsoft revealed the minimum system requirements for Age of Empires II HD Edition today. They are listed below, along with the game's debut trailer.

Minimum System Requirements:
Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8 Pro
Steam Software Platform
900x600 minimum display resolution
Direct X 9 Capable GPU
1.2GHz CPU
1GB RAM
2GB HDD

Grand Theft Auto parent publisher Take-Two Interactive has an "extensive pipeline of unannounced titles in development" that will be unveiled in the months ahead. Chief operating officer Karl Slatoff revealed the news during a Wedbush Transformational Technologies Conference this week.

"Looking beyond 2013, with Grand Theft Auto V launching on September 17, fiscal 2014 should be one of the best years ever for the company with substantial revenue and earnings growth," Slatoff said.

"And we also have an extensive pipeline of unannounced titles in development which you are going to hear about in the future months," he added.

Slatoff did not share any further information regarding these games, though he did call out the Red Dead, Mafia, Borderlands, L.A. Noire, and Max Payne franchises as being important to the company.

Mafia III is rumored to be in "full production" for a release on the Xbox 720 and PlayStation 4.

The first batch of DLC for Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance will be released next week, Konami has announced.

The VR Missions DLC will add 30 challenges to the game, and are designed to emulate the aesthetic of the virtual reality training parts of previous Metal Gear games.

In North America the VR Missions DLC is exclusive to the PlayStation 3, where it will be offered for free from March 12 until April 3.

In Europe the pack will launch on March 13 and cost £1.99 on PlayStation 3, or 240 Microsoft Points on Xbox 360.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance scored an 8.5 in its GameSpot review.

Take-Two Interactive has explained why it does not release a new Grand Theft Auto game every two years. Speaking during the Wedbush Transformational Technologies Conference this week, chief operating officer Karl Slatoff explained doing so would degrade the franchise's value.

"Often times people ask us 'Why don't you come out with Grand Theft Auto every two years?' To us, that doesn't make sense, because Grand Theft Auto, every single time it comes out, is a brand new experience. You can't possibly do that in two years. And if we did that, our product would fatigue and the franchise would degrade from a value perspective."

Slatoff's comments match up with Rockstar North developer Leslie Benzies, who said in November that the company could develop a new GTA title every year, but won't.

"We could easily have churned out a new version year after year without really progressing as a franchise, but if we did that, eventually the fans would lose interest," he said at the time.

Grand Theft Auto V is due out on September 17 across the world. Slatoff reiterated that this game will feature a world larger than Grand Theft Auto IV, Red Dead Redemption, and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas combined.

Dead Space 3's Awakened downloadable content will arrive March 12 on Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, and Origin for PC worldwide for $10, according to a report from Polygon. The content will be made available in Europe one day later.

Awakened is set directly after the main game, and adds several hours of content to the Dead Space 3 campaign, featuring single-player and co-play gameplay. In addition, new weapon parts and circuits will be made available from the main game, the site reports.

The Awakened expansion for Dead Space 3 introduces players to the franchise's "darkest chapters," EA said in February. Visceral Games general manager Steve Papoutsis said Awakened will represent some of the "most disturbing content [players] have ever seen in a Dead Space game."

GameSpot's Dead Space 3 review praised the game's weapon crafting system, sense of atmosphere, environmental variety, and new co-op option, but lamented its story and certain gameplay sequences.

A recent report claimed EA had put the Dead Space series to rest after poor sales of Dead Space 3. EA addressed the suggestion, calling it "patently false."

God of War: Ascension will feature a two-player, wave-based co-op mode, Sony has announced.

Called Trial of the Gods, the mode sets the pair of players up against both the clock and five increasingly difficult waves of enemies. Extra time is awarded for each kill, with some bonus seconds added to the total at the end of each wave depending on performance.

Experience awarded in the mode can carry over to the game's other trio of multiplayer modes; Team Favour of the Gods, Favour of the Gods, and Capture the Flag.

At launch the mode will support three maps--Desert of Lost Souls, Forum of Hercules, and Rotunda of Olympus--and Sony promises that more will be added down the line.

While designed for cooperative play, Sony adds that Trial of the Gods can also be played solo.

GameSpot's review of God of War: Ascension will be published later today.

God of War: Ascension will be released on March 12 in the US and March 15 in Europe. A single-player demo is available.

Blizzard Entertainment "mismanaged" production on the World of Warcraft film, according to former director Sam Raimi (Spider-Man, Oz: The Great and Powerful). Speaking to Vulture, the director gave a timeline of events from his side of the table.

"First, they asked me if I wanted to make it, and I said, 'Yes, I love World of Warcraft, and I think it would make a great picture.' So I read a screenplay they had that was written by the guys at [Warcraft developer] Blizzard, and it didn't quite work for me. I told them I wanted to make my own original story with [Saving Private Ryan and The Patriot writer Robert Rodat], so we pitched it to Legendary and they accepted it, and then we pitched it to Blizzard, and they had reservations, but they accepted it."

After this, Raimi explained Rodat wrote the film's screenplay, but it was only then that the pair came to realize Blizzard has total veto power. This would ultimately prove to be a sticking point.

"And they had never quite approved the original story we pitched them. Those reservations were their way of saying, 'We don't approve this story, and we want to go a different way,' so after we had spent nine months working on this thing, we basically had to start over," Raimi said. "And Robert did start over, but it was taking too long for the people at Blizzard, and their patience ran out. Honestly, I think it was mismanagement on their behalf, not to explain to us that the first story was vetoed long ago. Why did they let us keep working on it? Were they afraid to tell me?"

A Blizzard Entertainment representative was not immediately available to comment.

Chief creative officer Rob Pardo did have something to say on the matter, tweeting, "I don't want to create controversy, but there are two sides to every story’"

Blizzard has since tapped Moon director Duncan Jones to direct the Warcraft film. It is believed to have a budget north of $100 million and shooting will start this year for an intended release in 2015.

Details on the untitled film's script--written by Blood Diamond scribe Charles Leavitt--are being kept under wraps.

Many US customers are still unable to connect online to EA's recently released SimCity, leading the company to take the game's servers down yesterday in an attempt to fix the stability issues that have hobbled the game since its launch on Tuesday.

SimCity requires a constant connection to EA's servers in order to function.

Last night SimCity's senior producer Kip Katsarelis wrote a message on the EA forums to apologise for the continuing woes, detail what EA is doing to fix them, and pledged that EA is working around the clock to iron out the game's server issues.

"This has been an exciting and challenging week for the team here at Maxis, the culmination years of planning and development," said Katsarelis. "We have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support and enthusiasm from our fans which has made it even more upsetting for us that technical issues have become more prominent in the last 24 hours. We are hitting a number of problems with our server architecture which has seen players encountering bugs and long wait times to enter servers. This is, obviously, not the situation we wanted for our launch week and we want you to know that we are putting everything we have at resolving these issues."

"What we are doing is deploying more servers over the coming two days which will alleviate many of the ongoing issues. We are also paying close attention to all the bug reports we are receiving from our fans. We’ve already pushed several updates in the last few days. Our live ops team is working 24/7 to resolve issues and ensure that bug fixes roll into the game as quickly as possible."

"While the ongoing issues are troubling, we can also see that players are really enjoying the game. In a single 24 hour period, there were more than 38 million buildings plopped down, nearly 7 and a half million kilometers of roads laid down, 18+ million fires started and (my favorite fact) over 40 million pipes filled up with poop."

"This team has put everything into this game and won’t stop until things are smooth. We ask our fans to be patient as our team works diligently to fix the issues. We share your passion for SimCity and thank you for your support and understanding."

EA is also keeping a forum thread actively updated with its work on the game's servers. "We are aggressively undergoing maintenance on the servers and adding capacity to meet demand. Performance will fluctuate during this process. Our fans are important to us, and we thank you for your continued patience," reads the latest update at time of writing.

Yesterday, EA said it was "confident" that the game's issues would be ironed out ahead of the game's UK release on Friday. GameSpot's review of the game is currently in the works.

The 7th Guest: 3, a sequel to classic 90s adventure The 7th Guest and The 11th Hour, is in the works for PC, Mac, iOS, and Android.

Charlie McHenry, co-founder of original developer Trilobyte, announced the project to Polygon. The 7th Guest: 3 retains the same emphasis on puzzles as its predecessor, but is now rendered in realtime 3D as opposed to the full motion video of the 1993 original, which was one of the earliest games to ship on CD-ROM as opposed to floppy disks.

"In the world of The 7th Guest: 3, you will re-enter the mysterious and magical mansion, newly restored with games, puzzles and artifacts," said McHenry. "But it is still haunted, as players will soon discover. You will learn more about what happened on that terrible night, and discover the real story and previously hidden secrets of the gaming world's most mysterious toymaker."

Some of the original 90s development team are returning for The 7th Guest: 3, and the team is planning on launching a Kickstarter campaign for the game next month provided they can't secure funding by alternative means.

Development on The 7th Guest: 3 is expected to take between 12 and 18 months, according to McHenry.

Telltale's second season of its critically acclaimed The Walking Dead will begin its episodic release in Q3 2013.

Speaking to Game Informer, a Telltale representative said "the current estimated release window for Season Two of The Walking Dead is for fall of ’this’ year (2013), and not ’next’ year (2014) as has been reported after a recent interview. We apologize for any confusion and thank you and all of our fans for your continued excitement for Telltale’s series."

In a previous interview with Eurogamer, Telltale CEO Dan Connors suggested the game's second season wouldn't see a release until the second half of 2014.

Telltale writer Gary Whitta has already teased the possibility of some new The Walking Dead content being released to bridge the gap between season one and season two, and presumably he's not talking about Activision's FPS take on the TV series being released this month.

The Walking Dead picked up two gongs at the BAFTA Game Awards on Tuesday night.

Alongside season two of The Walking Dead, Telltale is working to adapt Bill Willingham's Fables graphic novels.

Halo and Marathon creators Bungie are currently accepting applications for alpha and beta testers for its upcoming shooter Destiny.

Wargaming.net has announced that it will launch a new update to World of Tanks this week.