Prolific World of Warcraft add-on maker cknight has released the latest version of his Cartographer mod, transforming WoW’s static in-game world map into a Google Maps-inspired dynamic map.

Even though the add-on is only in beta, it’s already an extremely impressive achievement, and I look forward to experimenting with it when I reactivate my WoW account in the coming weeks (Really! …Probably).

Of course, as any Lord of the Rings Online player knows, Azeroth isn’t the first virtual fantasy world to get the Google Maps treatment. Arda Online’s map of Middle-Earth has been helping LotRO players find there way from the Shire to the Trollshaws for months now.

Cartographer 3, Interview, Daily Blue, Contest [World of Raids]

The long rumored sequel to Michel Ancel’s last generation opus Beyond Good & Evil is real, and we’ve got the uninformative, supposedly real-time trailer to prove it. This announcement from Ubidays 08 is particularly surprising given the poor sales of the original, which was marked down to below 50% of its original MSRP just two months after it was released.

Ubisoft doesn’t have a release date to go along with the new teaser, and fans eager to experience the continuing adventures of Jade and Pey’j may yet have a long wait ahead of them. Ancel was reportedly crushed when Nintendo’s Pokémon Snap beat him to the photography-based video game punch in 1999, four years before Beyond Good & Evil would finally be completed.

The criminally overlooked original plays like a combination of The Legend of Zelda, Metal Gear Solid, and the aforementioned Pokémon Snap. It is, naturally, all kinds of awesome, thanks in part to its excellent and varied musical score that matches the schizophrenic assortment of gameplay elements perfectly. Thankfully, Christophe Heral will be returning to score Beyond Good & Evil 2 as well.

Beyond Good & Evil 2 Screens! More Importantly: TRAILER! [NeoGAF]

You probably noticed, but I’ve been neglecting this place. Consider it yet another oscillation as I alternate between completely ignoring this site and treating it as the center of my universe. I’m not entirely sure what, if anything, I’ll do with this space “going forward,” but were I betting man, and were there options to bet on, I’d go with “sit idly by and watch the latest news post become increasingly out of date.”

At this point, I’ve been “working” in the “games industry” for six weeks, “I guess.” Basically, my day-to-day responsibilities involve a lot of forum posting, a lot of e-mailing, and a whole lot of copy-pasting the same damn thing repeatedly.

One of my primary duties, though it’s mentioned nowhere in my job description, is to act as a sort of PR liaison between the mysterious unnamed company where I work and the websites we so desperately need to cover our products. This mostly involves letting them know when new stuff gets added to our games, and explaining exactly what all this new stuff is. Because I’m not about to write a press release, instead I relay this information in e-mails that closely resemble dorkclub.com-style blog posts, often pooling information from various forum posts that aren’t quite fit for public consumption.

At no point did I expect every single site that receives these updates to just blatantly copy-paste my information word for word and post it under someone else’s name. Literally every single site that I’m in contact with, with the exception of one exceptional site that has linked to this very space in the past (HINT), simply re-posts my email and pretends they wrote it themselves, seemingly unaware that half a dozen other sites are doing the exact same thing. I wonder which one will blame one of the others of plagiarism first.

Now, we all know the “journalism” in games “journalism” is in quotation marks for a reason, idiotic publisher-press post-Gerstmanngate conspiracies aside, but I never realized so many sites are so blatant about their complete lack of ethics.

This is, unfortunately, an industry where GamesRadar, pandering mess of shame and retardation that it is, actually has relatively high standards.

The musical, previously PSN-exclusive shooter Everyday Shooter is now available on Steam. To mark this this momentous occasion, early adopters can download the already-cheap game for just $8.99. That’s a whole dollar off the sticker price!

Those of you unfortunate enough to not yet know Everyday Shooter’s glory should check out the 1UP Show’s feature on the game from August.

Now, let’s update the relevant charts for everyone keeping score at home:

Reasons to Own a PS3:
1. Jeremy Hahn
2. Metal Gear Solid 4
3. Everyday Shooter

Reasons Steam is the Best Thing Ever:
1. No more CDs/CD-keys
2. More money in developers’ pockets
3. Community features
4. Achievements
5. Everyday Shooter

Everyday Shooter Makes PC Debut On Steam Today [Steam News]

How do you get into the upcoming closed beta for Tribes spiritual successor Fallen Empire: Legions?  Very easily.