We brought you news of a possible 40K action game coming out for consoles late last year. This, of course, raised a lot of interest and even more speculation as to whether or not the trailer was real. As it turns out, the leaked footage was simply a hint of something much more awesome…

That’s right, Relic Entertainment is working on Space Marine the video game for PS3 and X-Box 360. And its so beautiful I want to weep. Seriously. I think its safe to say that this is the best looking rendition of the 40K universe that’s ever been put to screen. No word on a release date, but hopefully, we’ll get to see more of the game during E3.

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The Las Vegas International Chess Festival will be June 4 to 7 at the South Point Hotel. Prizes of up to $100,000, with $70,000 guaranteed to be awarded.

At the same time will be the Susan Polgar World Open for Boys and Girls, with sections for players up to age 7, 10, 13, and 18, divided by sex (not sure why they need to be divided by sex, but there you go).

(source)

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Columbia’s army updated its pack of FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia) playing cards, after the death of the most wanted, Manuel Marulanda. The most wanted spot has been replaced with Alfonso Cano. There is a $2M reward for the capture of any of the 54 commanders (higher for the aces).

(source)

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The president of Azerbaijan just ordered an increase of support for the national chess education. (source)

This is probably a good thing, and may be in response to a recent interview give by the current VP of the Azerbaijan Chess Federation (source). Azerbaijan has 16 grandmasters who recently took on (and lost to) The World (a consortium of grandmasters from around the world) in a competition for The President’s Cup, and the broadcasting of the event was a technical failure. (source)

I’m not sure if the increase support goes far enough.

Kasparov was born in Azerbaijan, by the way.

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The premier board game podcast, The Dice Tower, has posted its nomination list 2008 awards. Aside from “best game” they tried to pick a few awards that aren’t the usual, which is nice. Update: edited.

• Best Game: Agricola, Battlestar Galactica, Dominion, Pandemic, Stone Age
  [Good luck choosing best game out of these, fellas. There comes a point where one game is not better than another, just more suitable for different places, people, and times.]
• Best Small Publisher Game: Galactic Emperor, Snow Tails, 2 de Mayo, Pizza Box Baseball, Tinner’s Trail
  [I heard good things about Tinner's Trail, and little about the others.]
• Best New Designer: Antoine Bauza for Ghost Stories, Marco Bing for Timber Tom, Donald Vaccarino for Dominion, Uwe Eickert for Conflict of Heroes, Daniel Val for 2 de Mayo
  [I think Dominion is probably the essence of excellent game design, but I don't know the others.]
• Best Reprint: Formula D, Chinatown, Chicago Express, Cosmic Encounter, Talisman
  [Heard many good things about Cosmic Encounter, and Tom has a soft spot for it.]
• Most Innovative: Android, Battlestar Galactica, Dominion, Snow Tails, Space Alert
  [Not sure how innovative the others are; I expect Dominion will likely inspire other games with similar mechanics.]
• Best Expansion: Descent: Road to Legend, Last Night on Earth: Growing Hunger, Memoir ‘44: Mediterranean, Shadows Over Camelot: Merlin’s Company, Time’s Up: Title Recall
  [Heard good things about Descent and Memoir expansions.]
• Best Artwork [Update: TDT has now added names for this award]: Kevin Childress, Andrew Navaro, Brian Schomberg, and WiL Springer for graphic design, and artwork from NBC Studios for Battlestar Galactica, Stephanie Painscot, Nicolas Caniaux, and Arnaud Simon-Laforet for Formula D, Pierre Lechevalier for Ghost Stories, Michael Menzel for Stone Age, Josh Cappel for Wasabi
  [People compliment the new Formula D art, but I didn't think it was that fantastic; Stone Age's artwork is incredible. Unfortunately, they covered only popular hobby games. That's a huge problem for the authority of this award. There are probably a lot of fantastically illustrated or designed games that are not really any fun, but could rightfully win an award with this title.]
• Best Family Game: Formula D, Pandemic, Say Anything, Sorry Sliders, Stone Age
  [Formula D and Stone Age are not really family games just because they have dice; Sorry Sliders is accessible, but it's just shuffleboard; I think Pandemic has hit an incredible market outside the normal game market, and should win.]

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