We have already mentioned that Will Wright will be making his first appearance at the San Diego Comic-Con next week to promote their upcoming evolution sim Spore. Now it looks like he will be doing more than just showing off the long anticipated game. He will also be demoing a new Spore related application that actually does related to comic books.

According to a just updated listing on the official Comic-Con web site. Wright will not only demo Spore but also show off the MashON Spore Comic Book Creator. This newly revealed application will allow people to make a comic book story starring your custom Spore creature. There's no word yet on if this will be a separate application or one that will be included with the game.

Earlier this month Empire Interactive announced it was looking for a buyer to sell off its Razerworks development studio as part of a reduction of its staff. Well, it looks like it has a customer as UK based independent game developer Rebellion has announced it has acquired Razorworks for an undisclosed amount.

It sounds like Rebellion won't be keeping the actual Razerworks offices but instead will move the 30 person dev team (best known for their Ford Racing games) over to Rebellion's Oxford studio. This isn't the first time such a deal has been made between Rebellion and Empire Interactive. In 2006 Rebellion purchased Empire's Strangelight studios as well.

We here at Big Download love indie games. From telling you about them, playing them, or offering downloads for them, we are all about helping lesser-known developers get their name out into the world. Each week on Saturday, we'll give you the Indie Wrap-up, a collection of all the indie news stories and features during the previous week.

There was no big features this week, unfortunately. Most of our staff was gone at E3, after all! Just Freeware Friday was this week. However, the TOJam 2008 competition recently wrapped up, so there's a ton of games that were released this week! Dwarf Fortress also finally got the first update in the Army Arc, adding battles and wars to the historical records of the game.

Features

Freeware Friday: Off-Road Velociraptor Safari James Murff takes Freeware Friday to a new place: browser games.

E3 2008 is over now but it appears the reactions to the latest edition of the event were even worse than last year's E3 in Santa Monica, and that's saying something. The latest to state these facts is Dennis McCauley, the editor of GamePolitics in his latest Political Game column for our sister site Joystiq.

McCauley points out that Into the Pixel, the video game art exhibit, got more square footage at the convention center than the actual game exhibit hall where people went hands-on with a number of titles.That and a number of other issues mentioned in the opinion piece made the show the worst it has ever been and if McCauley is to be believed, " . . . you can go ahead and schedule that trip to the beach you were planning for next July. You won't be coming to Los Angeles.E3 is dead."

During a live demo of the PS3 and Xbox 360 title Silent Hill: Homecoming (the fifth game in the Silent Hill series), the game's developers revealed that a PC port is planned, although no time frame was specified. We doubt it will be day and date, but this is still good news. Lots of PC gamers have enjoyed the past three games in the series, although the original PlayStation title never saw a Windows release.

Just in case you're not familiar with Silent Hill: it's a Japanese-developed survival horror game. It's not much like the Resident Evil games, though; the characters you play in Silent Hill are not trained professionals. They're regular Joes or Janes who are faced with vastly superior and horrific monsters, as well as psychological trauma. The series is known for its deep storyline, multiple endings, and apallingly disturbing monster design.

Our very last E3 2008 appointment was, ironically, not at the Los Angeles Convention Center but at a nearby hotel. Deep underneath the hotel's meeting room was host to BioWare's long awaited next fantasy RPG Dragon Age Origins. The game was first announced and shown in a very early form over four years ago at E3 2004 (when it was called simply Dragon Age) so we were expecting to be wowed by this new version.

Dragon Age Origins represents a bit of a return to BioWare's PC gaming roots. After releasing the first Neverwinter Nights title BioWare went in a console direction creating the Xbox RPG games Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Jade Empire and more recently the Xbox 360 game Mass Effect (all three games were eventually ported to the PC). Bioware also got a new owner in Electronic Arts. So its good that for at least this title (and perhaps the rumored Star Wars MMO that BioWare Austin is making) the developer will return to making PC games as their first platform of choice.

In a post E3 world thoughts and words are difficult to form in our fragile minds!

Listen as Xav stumbles about trying to pronounce simple words! This week we cover some of the biggest PC news from the world of E3, talk classic gaming habits and throw around the idea that maybe games are meant to be played instead of examined. Crazy thoughts and more in the epic episode with guest hosts Kyle Horner, Samuel Axon and first-timer James Murff. It's time to go big, right here at the BigCast!

Question? Round-Table Suggestion? Email us: podcast [at] bigdownload [dot] com

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Hosts: Xav de Matos, Kyle Horner, Samuel Axon & James Murff

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Music: Intro/Outro: "Am I Awake" by They Might Be Giants. Bridge: "Mercy" by OURS

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(Editor's note: this article is based on seeing a live demo of the Xbox 360 port of the game)

Electronic Arts is aiming to do something different for their upcoming titles Dead Space. While it has released a few "M" rated games in the recent past like Army of Two, The Godfather and others, this is the first real horror game EA has released since, well, the terrific and underrated first person shooter Clive Barker's Undying. Dead Space is also EA's first excursion into the survival horror genre which means it's going up against two of Konami's big franchises, Resident Evil and Silent Hill.

At EA 2008,we got to see a demo of the game being played which showed off some of Dead Space's more unique elements. The game's setting is certainly different than Konami's titles. It takes place in the far future where humanity has broken the light speed barrier and traveled to the stars. Your player character is an engineer who is sent to find out why one starship hasn't reported back in a while. He reaches his destination only to find that in space, people can indeed hear you scream if you happen to be in a space suit with a radio.

With E3 going on, it's possible that the Big Download staff has spent more time watching videos of upcoming games than playing current ones. But the weekend is finally here, and we're looking forward to getting some time that's hands-on instead of just eyes-on with our favorite hobby.

Lead blogger David Craddock will be taking a break from almost single-handedly holding the site together while John Callaham has been at E3 to play Final DOOM (a classic!) on his PC and Civilization Revolution on his Xbox 360. James Murff will be taking a break from his usual indie fare to play Team Fortress 2 and Company of Heroes with his buddies. When they're not around, he'll be laying the SMACdown with Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. Eli Shayotovich is going to be lopping off limbs in Age of Conan.

Lastly, I'm in the middle of moving halfway across the continent, and I had to ship my desktop via UPS ground, so only my notebook is gonna be accessible over the next few days. Therefore low spec games are the flavor of the weekend -- Sam & Max Episode 4 and Fallout. I'm also going to be playing a bit of Rule of Rose on the PS2 (well, technically PS3). But that's us. How about you? What aRe yoU Playing?

With the anti-trust suit against Nvidia and ATI still raging (which alleges the two kept prices artificially high by releasing products at the same time and at very similar prices) it was really bad timing for an unwanted Email to surface. Especially when the Email in question was written by Nvidia's Dan Vivoli to ATI's Dave Orton.

Apparently as far back as 2002 (the suit has been going on since '06) the two graphic card giants were talking about alinging their marketing plans. The Email from Vivoli to Orton stated: "I really think we should work harder together on the marketing front. As you and I have talked about, even though we are competitors, we have the common goal of making our category a well positioned, respected playing field. $5 and $8 stocks are a result of no respect."

Nvidia's stock at the close of market today was a "whopping" $11.56 while ATI's (now owened by AMD) was a "stunning" $4.65. Um, there still doesn't appear to be much respect for these guys. Where's Rodney Dangerfield when you need him?

If the original Command and Conquer timeline is a fairly standard sci-fi affair and C&C Generals is a more realistic near future storyline, then Electronic Arts' Red Alert franchise is all about comic book goofiness and fun. The alternate history where the Communist Soviet Union is still large and in charge and wild weapons are plentiful will get a revamp this fall with the release of C&C: Red Alert 3.

At E3 2008 we got a chance to go hands-on with a PC build of the game (it's also being released for the Xbox 360) where we got to play as the brand new Red Alert Japanese faction called the Empire of the Rising Sun. The visuals, while in 3D, remain in the style of the first two 2D Red Alert titles. They are colorful yet detailed and are actually quite fun to just look at.

Rockstar Games, popular child of parent company Take-Two Interactive, deals not in sandbox titles nor smut simulators, but in controversy. GamesIndustry.biz interview conducted with Take-Two CEO Ben Feder to discuss the controversial gaming landscape which the publisher's popular Grand Theft Auto games have decisively staked as its own territory, as well as the constantly changing topography of that landscape.

Now that many gamers have finished Grand Theft Auto IV's expansive campaign, the focus for many players looking for more storyline longevity from the title has shifted to the promised downloadable content. When asked how he feels about DLC's business model when (ostensibly) compared to other sales methods, Feder expressed his belief that the core GTA fans will be "screaming to buy it" when it becomes available.

Feder admitted that GTA software "just saturates hardware," but increased hardware sales are pivotal if GTA sales are to be increased. According to Feder, this holiday season's hardware sales will go a long way toward deciding which platform will receive more DLC. After all, noted Feder, it's financially wise for Take-Two to aim for the platform with the larger user base: more gamers equal more money.

The interview can be found on GamesIndustry.biz.

The Creative Assembly's list of historical RTS games in its Total War franchise is extensive with the European middle ages, Rome, and feudal Japan. Now the developer has moved into the 18th century with its latest effort Empire: Total War as the series finally moves to the New World and those pesky American colonists.

At E3 2008, we got to see a quick live game demo on Empire: Total War at Sega's meeting room that focused on the major new feature in this edition of the franchise: high sails naval warfare. If the game concentrated just on this it would still be a game we would look forward to. The fact that it will have both naval and land battles (more on land missions later) has us really excited.

Okay, so we lied. We had to make another pun, because this one was just too easy. In the TOJam 2008 competitor Cheese Blaster Extreme, you play a man with a large gun whose goal it is to destroy an army of cheese. You can see how our awful puns relate! The game itself is fairly simple, consisting of just mouse control and your goal of killing the oncoming hordes of cheese. You can control a tank along with your regular guy. The character is no pushover either, being armed to the teeth. The graphics and sound are both phenomenal, and the gameplay is just simple arena action, making this a great game to chill with.

We apologize for that pun up there. We just couldn't resist it. We promise it will never happen again. The game itself, Cheese Beats, is a TOJam 2008 competitor with lots of violence and absolutely no puns. We promise! The goal of the game is to beat the cheese against a surface to kill it. After killing the cheese, you must place it on a delicious cracker. The gameplay itself is simple, if silly, but where Cheese Beats really shines in the graphics. They remind us of Don Hertzfeld's Rejected short film, among other various excellent pieces of traditional animation. The game is small download with no install, so have fun.