As you may or may not already know, I am the current Site Manager for IGN’s Rift Kingdom. Closed beta 5 for RIFT is currently underway, and I thought I would take a few minutes during the current server downtime to reflect on the new stuff so far. We are currently on the second day of the most widely available beta so far, and the developers are applying the second update to help improve stability and performance.

For people that participated in the earlier betas, a lot of the existing content remains the same. The starter area plus the first two faction specific zones are full of new players. Trion has opened up a ton of new servers and a new shared zone called the Scarlet Gorge, which includes a new dungeon and an increased level cap from 27 to 30, as well as a whole lot of polish.

Read more over at IGN’s Rift Kingdom or stay here and view my screenshots from the event.

You would be doing yourself a huge disservice to quickly write off DC Universe Online (DCUO) as another spandex superhero game. Sure, it is that at the basis, but there are some key distinctions that set DCUO apart, making it the next evolution (or mutation) in superhero online games.

One can’t even begin to review DCUO without immediately comparing it to the other two superhero MMO games: City of Heroes and Champions Online, so let’s take a quick look at some history.
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In his third consecutive appearance in Beckett Massive Online Gamer Magazine, Sprawl this time is featured covering the Rogue class in a multi-page article on the upcoming World of Warcraft Cataclysm expansion. He also covers his adventures playing through the new Lord of the Rings Online Free-to-Play, which just went live back towards the end of September.

So rush out to the newsstand to pickup the latest copy and be sure to subscribe to Beckett Massive Online Gamer. We suspect Sprawl will continually be featured for many issues to come.