Now, before you get all reactionary and declaim this title as "yet another Bejeweled clone", let me just say two things right up front: 1) It is a Bejeweled clone, and 2) There's more to it than the standard Bejeweled swap mechanic. What's the big difference? Explosions. Read on for the full scoop!

Celetania is a rare beast indeed: a 4X MMO. For those who are unfamiliar with the term, 4X stands for "eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate" -- think of games like Master of Orion, where the game concept revolves around building an empire from the ground up. Now apply that concept to an MMO and you've got Celetania. The development team has been working quietly on this title for a while now, but new in-game screenshots have finally been released, giving us our first look at the universe.

Things are looking pretty good so far, with a nice clean interface, classically sci-fi-looking ships on display, and the ubiquitous resources at hand. Whether or not any of this will translate to the open-ended nature of an online, persistent world remains to be seen. One interesting aspect of gameplay, however, is that even when the player is offline, events will continue to happen -- by which we take it to mean that if you begin a project, or start mining a resource, you can log off and the process will continue in your absence. This could be something great; we'll keep you updated on Celetania's progress.

In what can only be considered a triumph for the MMO community as a whole, beleagured French title Saga of Ryzom, after enduring great hardships, has returned. Typically, when these things go away, they don't come back. Even more so when control of the assets gets passed on to others to be auctioned off. Yet against all odds, Ryzom has cheated death and is set to fully open itself up to new players soon.

Ryzom was always more of a fringe title, with its completely unique look and feel, but the larger MMO sphere needs games like this to really flesh out the potential of persistent online gaming -- tired of the standard fantasy hack and slash? Think science fiction is played out? This game might just be your cup of tea. As an added bonus, the Ryzom team has made the game free for past subscribers, and kept everyone's game accounts as they were when things went down. It's a win-win for everyone. Welcome back, Ryzom. Let's hope this puts an end to your previous troubles once and for all.

Harvey Smith, Lead Designer for the classic Deus Ex, will be the keynote speaker for the Game Career Seminar at this year's Austin Game Developers Conference on September 17th. The keynote will focus on careers in game design, and is titled "Luckiest People Alive" [sic].

Smith, currently with Arkane Studios, will be speaking on what he foresees as "an imminent explosion of change, creativity, and possibility within the world of interactive entertainment." Being a publication that loves explosions of all types, we're all for it. Other speakers will include representatives from Aspyr Media, Game Developer Magazine, and Vicarious Visions.

[Thanks, Gryphon!]

The last Big Ideas focused on the idea of identity, and what it means to see yourself truly represented in a video game. In this installment, we take a look at gender portrayals for both men and women and try to shine a light on some invisible assumptions.

To begin with, it used to be a commonly-held -- and trumpeted -- belief that "girls don't play video games". Certainly, the Boys Clubs that most video arcades became in the 1980's managed to make video games unattractive by sheer atmosphere. Dimly-lit, smoky, and raucously loud, is it any wonder that gaming might not have been a draw to females until it entered the home? Peering over the shoulder of a big brother as he played Combat on his Atari 2600 might have sparked some interest in a dormant gamer if she weren't brusquely told to go away.

Similarly, the rise of media coverage of the pastime perpetuated the stereotype of video games as a male-only pursuit, bolstered in the main by the focus of its advertising. Typically featuring sexy female models clad in ridiculously fetishized fantasy costumes, these ads titillated pubescent males into buying games based solely on the perceived value of the model. Sadly, content in the games themselves followed suit.

Reflexive Entertainment's The Great Tree is a game containing elements reminiscent of other titles while still retaining its own unique identity. Regardless of which other games it might remind you of, it's as addictive as anything else, belying its fairytale appearance.

In The Great Tree, you play as a fairy, charged with collecting free-floating pollen to nourish the titular tree that grants life to all fairies. Don't let the faltering voiceover get in the way of your enjoyment of the game; the story itself can be safely ignored. It's really all about the increasingly frenetic gameplay. More on this after the jump.

Download The Great Tree Demo [Windows]
Download The Great Tree Demo [Mac]

Identity is a fluid concept, particularly in today's Internet Age. When your self is displayed by an avatar whose image is infinitely mutable, the potential for mischief is great -- as is the potential for true representation. Some people use their avatars as masks to hide behind, while others see them as a means to finally show the world what their real selves are like.

In games, however, there is often a more limited set of choices available to the player. Massively multiplayer online games offer a wide range of options, and non-MMOs usually have far fewer. When you're playing a first-person shooter, for example, regardless of the ostensible story, you are the gun, not an actual character with a personality. The question is, then, does it matter if you don't get to play as yourself? How important is the concept of identity in a game?

Spider-Man is generally a light-hearted hero. Always ready with a quip in the face of danger, he's known for his high-flying acrobatic antics. The newest footage from the E3 2008 floor, however, is decidedly dark and moody, with an atmosphere of dread and just a bit of squick. It's the latest trailer for Spider-Man: Web of Shadows, and it's got no action sequences, just a lot of darkness.

We've seen the revamped combat system, and it's gotten us pretty interested in this title -- more so, we dare to say, than this piece, intriguing as it is. Who's behind this web infestation? Are those symbiotes running around? What's happened to the city? All these questions and more, in the HD version of the trailer, available now on Big Download.

Download the Spider-Man: Web of Shadows E3 2008 trailer now!

The narrator of this Singularity trailer possesses an air of weary resignation. "This may be the last time my voice is heard," he says in an Eastern European accent. He goes on to tell us, without giving any details, that something really bad has happened, and continues to happen. And then all sorts of electrical phenomena occurs, intershot with images of military personnel and a mysterious, glowing figure.

So what exactly is Singularity? And what's going on, anyway? See for yourselves in the HD version of this E3 2008 trailer, downloadable right here on Big Download. And if you find out, maybe it's better that you keep it to yourselves, so that later, you won't have to say "I told you so."

Download the Fallout 3 E3 2008 trailer now!

Ever since the Diablo 3 announcement, we've hosted a ton of downloads for Diablo 2, for both Mac and PC. However, if you're running the latest and greatest Mac hardware, you're likely shut out of reliving your D2 days of glory, unless you run it in Boot Camp. It's clear that the gameplay of D2 holds a special place in our hearts. So much so, in fact, that any game featuring similar gameplay is usually warmly received, if not continued to be played once the initial romance wears off.

Such a game is Depths of Peril, a top-down isometric RPG in the style of Diablo, Ultima VIII, etc. There are many qualities unique to this title that makes it stand out from the pack, including some of the most complex and vast histories in any game I've ever played, and gameplay which does a great job of simulating the MMO experience, even though Depths of Peril is a single-player game. We take a look after the jump.

The sequel to Monolith Productions' F.E.A.R. has gotten the trailer treatment, just in time for E3, giving fans a nasty shiver with the return of Alma, a young girl with immense psychic abilities.

Fans of the franchise can expect just as much of a horrorfest as the original, if this trailer is anything to judge by. Clearly inspired by "The Ring" and possibly Silent Hill, there are lots of shots of body horror images -- pale, decaying humanoids, raw and pulsing organic orifices -- and static-filled jump cuts combine to create a lasting sense of dread and foreboding. Good thing you have guns, huh?

[Thanks, Jason!]

Project Powder, the snowboarding multiplayer online game, has recently finished its first closed beta, and is ramping up for closed beta 2. We recently had a chance to check this title out at Outspark's San Francisco studio, and can vouch for its exciting gameplay.

As some of what we've seen will likely change by launch, we'll refrain from going into too many details here. Rest assured, however, there is a good chance will be bringing you some first impressions soon enough! Until then, enjoy these screenshots of actual gameplay!

The idea that video games could be classified as art is a fairly recent one, emerging right around the time that we began to include narrative as a game element. All too often, the subject is brought up by detractors of the form as a way to look down upon a medium to which they feel no attraction. The underlying conceit is ridiculous of course -- if video games aren't art, then they have no lasting cultural value, and may therefore be dismissed as mere juvenilia. Yet video games are, nevertheless, quite a large part of our culture, and the lingering perception that they are made only to be entertainment for adolescents does the entire industry a disservice.

However, merely positing the possibility that video games might be art isn't enough to ensure that they are art. Part of the problem lies in our definition of what art is, and what it isn't. Once we've defined that to our satisfaction, we have to endure the much more difficult task of judging whether it applies to video games. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we need to ask ourselves the question "Does it matter?"

For decades, Mac owners have had to sigh dispiritedly when assessing their gaming options compared to what has been available for the PC. Development studios like Bungie and Blizzard aside, most gaming houses have always decided to create their games for the larger market share, which have always been PC-based. While there have been successful ports of PC games from studios like Aspyr, these have always arrived much later than the launch of the original versions.

Later, a slew of Mac-dedicated studios appeared on the scene (see last week's MacMonday, which focused on Freeverse) and have proven that not only is it possible to create great games for the Mac, but to be successful at the task. This has helped energize the Mac gaming community and is undoubtedly a good thing, but a recent arrival to the Mac lineup of products has added a new element that ought to be considered. In this post we'll talk about how the iPhone could affect developing games for the Mac.

Ahh, the tyranny of the blank page. For a writer, there is nothing more daunting than staring at an empty space with a deadline looming. Yet that's what wordsmiths do every day -- dig deep to find the content, the signal amidst the noise. However, it's one thing to sit and write a novel, where it's just the writer and the story, with the audience taking a static, non-participatory role. When one writes for a video game, the audience becomes an active part of the experience, and the writer must take that into account.

Yet often, the player merely sits through the story portion of a game, frequently told through cutscenes. Even those games which tout branching storylines with multiple endings do little more than offer closed choices, offering only the illusion of audience control. Are there any real choices to be had to affect a game's plot? Do narratives merely interrupt gameplay? What exactly is the role of story in video games?