IGN reports that the latest issue of Famitsu PS3 is chock-a-block with details on the forthcoming Final Fantasy XIII demo, due to be packaged with the Blu-ray Disc release of Final Fantasy: Advent Children Complete. The info comes straight from the game's director, Motomu Toriyama, who divulges more than its expected length – which, as we previously reported, could break the two-hour mark. (Presumably just to prove that more than an hour of the game is actually finished.)

According to Toriyama, the demo will be "Like the FFVII demo that was included with PlayStation's Tobal Nol.1," allowing players to experience the game's opening sequence and prologue.

He also says that the primary goal of the demo is to get players acquainted with the new party system, which will allow them to experience the game's story from multiple characters' perspectives. Players will control more than one character in the demo – Toriyama points out to Famitsu that, in fact, there's no one "central" character in FFXIII – and, in "classic" FF form, will be controlling them directly, one after another, in purely turn-based combat.

When Jeff Gerstmann bemoaned Too Human's "monotonous combat and dated approach to cooperative play," he was unknowingly shunted from the group of haves to the considerably less illustrious group of have nots -- as in have not a clue to comprehend Too Human's unyielding explosion of uniqueness and innovation. "I think we took for granted how innovative the game was," remarks the game's humble director, Denis Dyack.

Speaking to OXM at the game's UK launch, Dyack explains that a lot of the negative reaction to the game's demo (and presumably, the final version) has its roots in the provocative fear of the unknown. "But what we're also seeing is for the people who don't like it, generally just don't get it. And it's because we've created something so innovative and different," he says. "It's ironic, it just shows that human nature of if you don't understand something, you immediately attack it. It's pretty interesting in that regard."

Consider this a plea to game designers everywhere: Please tone down all that rampant innovation, lest we become embroiled in confusion and hostility and ultimately give your game a six out of ten.

It's been almost ten years since we first saw Too Human at E3 1999, at that point reportedly a 4-disc action adventure for the original PlayStation. In that time, the game has jumped to GameCube and then to Xbox 360, re-emerged as a slideshow, became overshadowed by a lawsuit, and later became the most downloaded action demo on Xbox Live in its first week.

So, after all the hype and controversy, how does the final game fare? Judging by the reviews, it's certainly not a knockout title, with the general consensus being that it aims for the stars and misses the mark. One thing is for sure: If you like seeking out loot, then Too Human is definitely for you.

• GamePro (4/5) "Here's an Xbox 360 exclusive that proudly wears its lofty ambitions on its sleeves, and yet sometimes seems bent on self-sabotage. That it's so relentlessly addictive despite its aggravations is something of a minor miracle."
• IGN (78/100) "What's been delivered in the end is a good game that ultimately falls just short of its promise due to a few questionable design decisions. One thing is for sure, though. If you love collecting random loot drops, you'll find a lot to like here."
• Giant Bomb (3/5) "If you have an insatiable lust for items with higher stats than the ones you're currently using, or if you get giddy at the mere thought of Diablo-style rare item naming conventions, you'll probably be able to look past the game's issues and have a good time. But even at its best, it's hard to ignore Too Human's monotonous combat and dated approach to cooperative play."
  
• GameSpot (55/100): "Too Human is a game of false starts and unrealized potential that infiltrate almost every aspect of the game, from story, to combat, to balance. Its elements feel stitched together, making for a patchwork quilt of a game that's fraying at the seams."
• 1UP (C-) "At the very least, the cyber-Norse concept of Too Human is a good one that's worth exploring further, just not in this context. The game is simply schizophrenic; it attempts to be all things to all people and never succeeds in executing any of them well. The end result is in dire need of polish and focus, and that doesn't solely apply to gameplay mechanics. There's absolutely no reason why a game released in 2008 should have a bug where characters can fall through solid ground and into some pseudoabyss."
  

Blizzard announced today that World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King's opening cinematic will premiere at the Leipzig Games Convention. The clip will be shown this Thursday, August 21, at 1PM German standard time (7AM Joystiq time).

We'd speculate about what Blizzard has in store for a big reveal at Blizzcon, but with Diablo 3, Starcraft 2 and WoW in play, who knows what the company could announce. We'll see what happens on October 11.

[Via WoW Insider]

Thanksgiving this year will include both turkey and time travel, a magical cocktail made possible by Square Enix. The company said that it'll ship its DS throwback to SNES favorite Chrono Trigger in North America on November 25, just two days before families sit down for the annual feast.

Giving players plenty to keep them busy while fighting off the adverse effects of tryptophan, Chrono Trigger's DS debut promises new dungeons, touchable controls and an arena mode. Additionally, as the RPG keeps with the original's pixelated sense of style, Square Enix has all but ensured that Thanksgiving 2008 will play out much the same way as it did some thirteen years prior, as we ignore seldom seen family members in favor of the more interesting trio of Crono, Lucca and Frog.

Famitsu has posted a correction on its website (via IGN) about an incorrect The Last Remnant release date that appeared in the latest Famitsu PS3 publication. The issue, dedicated to Square Enix's recent DKΣ3713 event, incorrectly listed the PlayStation 3 version of the game as coming November 20, the same day as the Xbox 360 release. The PS3 version's actual release date is, as they say, TBA for both Japan and the rest of the world. As far as we know, the Xbox 360 version is still poised to make that November 20 "worldwide" release.

Our initial plan was to give you excellent readers brand new copies of Atlus' upcoming Persona 4, a desire which those purveyors of quirk deemed noble, but overly contingent on them finishing the game. Sensing our outraged impatience regarding the anticipated RPG's December 9th release, they instead granted us some Persona 3 art books (signed by character designer Shigenori Soejima!) and Persona 4 t-shirts (tagless!). The chance to wear Persona on your person, eh?

To enter this giveaway:

• Leave a comment telling us who your summoned Persona is! It could be anyone or anything from Cthulhu to something infinitely more evil, like TV's Patrick Duffy.
  
• You must be 18 years or older and a resident of the US or Canada (excluding Quebec and sprawling, otherworldly dungeons).
  
• Limit 1 entry per person per calendar day (comment more than once and you'll be kept in detention).
  
• This entry period ends at 7:00pm ET on Friday, August 22nd. We'll randomly select three winners at that time, who will receive a signed art book and t-shirt, valued at $50 (can you really put a value on that signature?). Please check your e-mail!
  
• For a list of complete rules that you can peruse or shoot in the head, click here.

If you're really set on winning, sign up for the Atlus Faithful spam ... err, mailing list -- another three winners will be randomly selected from Faithful members.

We've been getting some mixed signals from BioWare in recent days about Dragon Age: Origins and its fate on consoles, going so far as to make us wonder if the console versions of the game will be wholly different from the one coming to PC. BioWare took some time out to clear up the confusion with Eurogamer.

"Yes. Dragon Age: Origins will be coming to consoles in the near future, yes," Dan Tudge, director and executive producer for the game, said. So, not exactly a console-specific version, but hey, at least that means less of a wait, right?

A recent issue of Famitsu revealed a startling fact about the upcoming demo for Final Fantasy XIII -- the playable preview will apparently last longer than the film that it is packaged with, Final Fantasy: Advent Children Complete. For those of you keeping score at home -- the original Advent had a runtime of 101 minutes. Assuming this length will only increase with the director's cut of the film means Square-Enix's eagerly anticipated demo could last longer than two hours.

To put that in perspective, here are a few things that the demo (which the same Famitsu article revealed will cover the very beginning of XIII) will likely last longer than: an expeditious playthrough of Portal, the Anglo-Zanzibar War, an international soccer match (barring any lengthy penalties), and the celebrity status of Lou Bega. (Who? Exactly.)

[Via PS3F]

At its annual Fan Faire, Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) has revealed new expansions for EverQuest and EverQuest II. For EQ players, The Seeds of Destruction expansion offers a new level cap (85), 20 new zones, a new mercenary system, and all fourteen previous expansions in one box. EQII: The Shadow Odyssey will feature brand new zones, some revisits to the original EQ dungeons, a bump in the number of achievements you can get (up to 200), new deities, new quests and a new loot system that lets you pick your loot rewards.

Our MMO-obsessed colleagues at Massively have interviews with the EverQuest design team and EQII Senior Producer Bruce Ferguson about the expansions. All Fan Faire attendees will receive both games for free and will be able to participate in the SoD and TSO betas when they begin on August 19 and September 2, respectively.

Seeds of Destruction will come out October 21, while The Shadow Odyssey is scheduled for November 18. Stay tuned to Massively all week for more Fan Faire coverage.

Disney Interactive Studio VP Graham Hopper thinks Disney needs more role-playing games. Speaking with GameDaily, Hopper says the company has an RPG in the pipeline, but can't yet make an announcement. Square Enix's Kingdom Hearts series is probably the only RPG we can think of that uses Disney characters, but that was more of a dalliance on the house of Mickey's part.

Hopper goes on to say that RPGs fit with Disney because the company believes storytelling and character design are important. He notes the company isn't looking to make "the hardest core RPG," but a blend, which he believes the studio is fully capable of. May Diablo help us if Disney's answer to role-playing is something like High School Musical RPG.

We rather like trilogies. Not only are they narratively neat, allowing us to indulge in our favorite characters and universes just long enough, but they bring things to a close before the roman numerals get all complicated with incomprehensible Vs an Ms and stuff. Letters for counting? Ridiculous!

Despite this bothersome mental hurdle, developer Blizzard remains unrepentant when delving into the rich fantasy world it has crafted for Diablo. While the upcoming, artistically controversial three-I'd installment brings the trilogy's story of demonic overlords and highly uncomfortable facial jewelry to an end, it'll leave the portal open for future games, lead designer Jay Wilson tells MTV Multiplayer. "We're not saying this is the end of the 'Diablo' universe, but we are trying to bring this storyline to a close," says Wilson. "It's not just 'Diablo III' - we've got plans beyond."

Oh, and don't even bother submitting "World of Diablo." The commenter above you already did.

Hot on the heels of news that Midway would be laying off approximately 90 employees from its Austin location comes a tip from a reliable source that NCsoft Austin (a.k.a. NCsoft North America) is on the verge of eliminating all of its development staff. The studio is currently home to the teams behind Tabula Rasa and Dungeon Runners, the latter of which will "be closed," according to our source. We've been told that only customer support staff will continue to operate out of the branch.

Future development of Tabula Rasa will reportedly be handed over to Seattle-based Guild Wars creator Arena.net, with Massively reporting that the title may meet a similar fate as Dungeon Runners if it "fails to turn the tide of subscribers and expectations." It has also learned that any future collaboration between NCsoft and Tabula Rasa principals Richard and Robert Garriot will be "limited in scope," due to a souring of relations with the Korean management team over their title's lackluster performance.

With regard to City of Heroes, a source at NCsoft's Bay Area studio confirmed with us that its development staff will be completely unaffected by the events transpiring in Austin, saying that the title's status is "sound." Further to this, the source echoed Massively's report that only the Austin studio is being affected, with remaining development proceeding normally in Seattle, Los Angeles, and Korea.

As of 3:50 PM ET according to the World of Warcraft forums, Blizzard reinstated the BlizzCon ticket sales after "murloc failing" the first time earlier this week. But within 30 minutes the Blizzard store was listing the tickets as sold out ... then it came back up ... and now it's sold out again. Additionally, there are a few unverified reports of credit cards being double- and triple-charged without even receiving confirmation of a ticket.

While you shake your Epic Fists of Anger (with +2 fire damage) at them for yet another botched launch, our calmer friends at WoW Insider remind us that Worldwide Invitational tickets sold in multiple rounds and that more BlizzCon tickets -- with hopefully less technical malfunction / malfeasance -- could be given out at a later date. For a more detailed chronicling of the BlizzCon ticket drama, check out WoW Insider.

Update: A WoW forum poster is reporting that a billing service rep is telling her that the tickets are being sold in phases at the moment to keep up with order processes and that it's going to cycle between "sold out" and "available" repeatedly today until they really do sell out. When you're not busy refreshing the Blizzard store listing, practice typing in your account information really fast.

Update 2: Blizzard has posted an official statement on their website: "The bulk of the BlizzCon tickets we had available were sold out within minutes of ticket sales going live again this afternoon. We have a small reserve of tickets left -- to make these available to some of you who might not have had a chance to purchase yet, we will be releasing the remaining reserve tickets for sale tonight, August 12, at 8:00 PM PDT. We appreciate the enthusiasm everyone has shown, and wish we were able to accommodate even more attendees at this year's BlizzCon."

Ben Fritz writes about video games for Variety and was one of the E3 judges this year -- and he's not too happy with this year's winners. He calls Mirror's Edge "gimmicky" and the Gears of War 2 improvements "minor." He was really pulling for Resistance 2, which he felt offered up a lot more than the original, and we'll admit that's a good point.

However, he really laments the fact that Fable 2 didn't win anything. He hated the original Fable, but thinks that "the human interactions, from multiple gay marriages to public drunkenness, seem really fun" in the sequel. He also admits that he didn't care for last year's Super Mario Galaxy and disliked Mass Effect. Which is probably why the second comment from Just A Guy is "You suck."

Update: Ben Fritz actually contacted us to let us know he didn't hate Super Mario Galaxy, he just "didn't lavish superlatives" on it. He goes on to tell us that the review he wrote of the game was "positive," but you can judge for yourself right here. With friends like that, who needs negative reviews? However, he did point out (and rightly so) that the headline implied that he doesn't like the E3 awards. In actuality, "I just personally disagree with the majority of the winners." Our bad, and we've fixed that.