New Line Cinema is aiming to release an adaptation of Epic’s Gears Of War for summer 2010. Stuart Beattie, the scribe behind Collateral and Pirates Of The Caribbean, is working on the script and Epic’s Cliff Bleszinkski is lending a hand to ensure it meets expectations. It will allegedly be filmed entirely on green screen in order to accurately recreate the look of the game, but there’s no word on who the human cast might be – we assume the team are still hunting for someone suitably buff to play the testosterone-fuelled lead (a tenner says it’s The Rock).

You may recall a little game called Trials that was popular a few years back, in which you drove a motorbike over an obstacle course in a test of balance and skill. An online version was responsible for much lost time in our offices and developer RedLynx has just released a full-blown sequel that provides all new challenges, sexy new visuals and an online leaderboard. It’s awesome and addictive and you need to buy it now from http://www.redlynxtrials.com/. Monday, monday, MONDAY!

Ubisoft announced today that it has acquired full intellectual property rights to the Tom Clancy name from Mr Tom Clancy. The acquisition means Ubisoft can create future Tom Clancy titles including films, books and merchandise as well as games, completely free of any royalty payments.

While the sum involved was undisclosed, it is likely to be in the region of £15 million, based on Ubisoft’s previous 2007-2008 financial year cash position of €150 million, compared to its current €130 million estimate.

“The Tom Clancy brand is recognised around the world for offering exciting video games, films and books,” said Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot, “The most recent example of such value creation through brand management is the EndWar book, based on the video game story, which has been in the NY Times top 10 Paperback Mass Market Fiction best-seller list for the last four weeks.”

Financial wisdom aside, the move by the French publisher signifies an unofficial severance from the man behind the brand, as the amount of input Tom Clancy had into every game created under the name was questionable anyway.

More than half of all MMORPG players play characters of an opposite gender, we’re sure you’ll be horrified but completely unsurprised to learn. According to a study by Nottingham Trent University, 54 per cent of male MMO gamers play as the fairer sex when online, while 68 per cent of girls play as guys. The results showed that the guys got more favourable interactions from male gamers while playing as gals (”Nerd plus boob equals loot,” apparently) and the majority of gender-swapping women just wanted to lose the online sex-pests. The paper is called “Gender-swapping and socialising in cyberspace: an exploratory study” by Zaheer Hussain and Mark Griffiths, and surveyed 115 participants through a number of forums.

…when you sign up to PlusNet. Between now and 31 March PlusNet is offering all new customers £40 to spend in GAME if they sign up to the Broadband Your Way Pro, their gaming and VoIP prioritised broadband package. It’s £19.99 a month for up to an 8Mb connection speed with a 10GB download limit that’s free between midnight and 8am. It also comes with a minuscule one-month contract option, but with a free wireless router offer for 12-month sign-ups.

Scoring nearly 1 million points in Guitar Hero III, competitor Chris Chike set a new world record last week at an event in New York City. Scoring 840,647 on expert setting for DragonForce’s notoriously exhausting Through The Fire And The Flames, the 16-year old has become the holder of the ‘Highest score for a single song on Guitar Hero III‘ record. That is at least, until someone else breaks it. Anyone who thinks they can beat that or set any other gaming record should pop along to the Guinness World Records Gamer’s Edition website and register, for your chance at going down in the history books too.

Gaming site Dark Zero has got itself a first look at the movie adaptation of Remedy Entertainment’s Max Payne. Mark Wahlberg stars as Max Payne himself and Mila Kunis (voice of Meg on Family Guy) is also starring in an as-yet unknown role (presumably female assassin Mona). The film is directed by John Moore (Behind Enemy Lines, Flight Of The Pheonix), though the rumour that it is aiming for a PG-13 rating has upset fans. See the pic and more info at DarkZero.co.uk.

Terran Conflict is a standalone expansion that concludes the epic X trilogy, taking brave space pilots right back to Earth. Terran Conflict is currently pencilled in for the third quarter of 2008. See the video after the jump.

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GSC Game World has released some brand spanking new screenshots of S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Clear Sky, the prequel to Shadow Of Chernobyl. The game is due out in a couple of months. More pics after the jump.

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