Because of the breaking news from Cryptic Studios and NCsoft (makers of the upcoming City of Villains) I will be making a bit of a change from the previously posted schedule. Expect my review for Valve's Day of Defeat Source (PC) tomorrow night into Saturday. My review for the season one box set of Battlestar Galactica will be postponed until next week.

Anywho, on with the big news:

As I explained in the previous article titled "Off the Wagon," I faltered from my vow to never again purchase a MMORPG. Despite my goal to play only free, first-person shooters and offline, single player RPG's, I couldn't resist the urge to preorder City of Villains (CoV).

For those unaware of the game, CoV is the highly anticipated sequel/expansion to City of Heroes (CoH), which was released in April of last year. CoH received critical acclaim and quickly grew to have a large, devoted fanbase. Since it's release, however, there has been much speculation that an update would allow players to control the bad guys of the superhero story.

Now that speculation is coming to fruition.

Today, at a press conference held at non-other than Alcatraz Island, the details for City of Villains were revealed. There has been alot of questions regarding the pricing plan for CoV. For CoH, you pay a monthly fee of $14.99. Many anticipated a $5 - 10 additional monthly fee in order to include CoV. NCsoft has taken a rather unexpected route by announcing no additional charge.

That's right. For those who already subscribe to CoH, your monthly fee will not change. Effectively giving you two games for the price of one (as CoV subscribers likewise get CoH at no additional charge). Personally, I think this is a great move not only for subscribers, but also to try and sway people from genre giant, World of Warcraft.

This news obviously has me quite pleased.

I had the privilege to play CoH on several occasions due to free trials I've received. The game is good, I won't deny that, but between the two, CoV would be my primary choice. But now that they're effectively tacking on CoH, I will definitely be playing a few hero characters in addition to my villains.

As a pre-order participant, I will be eligible for beta testing in the next few days. And although a non-disclosure agreement will keep from blabbing about it here, you can expect big time coverage when the game is finally released, rumored to be October 31st (Halloween...just perfect timing).

You can read the full press-release HERE.