EA-Land, or Sims Online as most know it, will see its final day at the end of July. EA has chosen to shut down the last of the servers on 1 August having seen a rapidly diminishing population in recent years since its 2002 release. Those still playing will get the final 60 days free of charge and anyone that subscribed as of 29 April 2008 will get $15 off any game in the EA store or three months Club POGO subscription… and maybe you’ll be able to win your money back. Nice.

Check out the full details of the shut down on the EA-Land Blog site.

In issue 5 we reviewed the outstanding Sins Of A Solar Empire from Ironclad Games, awarding it 9/10 and commenting that it was a “brilliantly executed space-strategy game.” And we weren’t wrong. However, at the time of writing Sins was only available via download or international order from Stardock.com, and several readers got in touch with queries about purchasing it in their local game emporium. Now, thanks to Kalypso Media, UK players will be able to grab a boxed copy from stores. The release date is TBA but expected to be sometime in June, and in the meantime why not download the demo, giving you 90 minutes of play over several maps.

Industry mole Surfer Girl has claimed to have seen screenshots of Ubisoft’s next Prince Of Persia title. It’s known as Ghosts Of The Past and the news came a few months before a 15 April trademark filing for a new episode in the series by POP creator, Jordan Mechner.

The game, whose name could easily be working title at this early stage, isn’t necessarily a full Prince Of Persia title and could be an Xbox Live download similar to POP Classic. It leaves us wondering whether this could be the ‘other’ game that Assassin’s Creed’s technical director, Claude Langlais, said was in development using the incredible Scimitar engine.

The Elder Scrolls‘ modding scene has reached a new high with this recent video of Oblivion running under CryEngine 2. It’s the work of modder Salenger, whose work and resulting video has caused a stir the Crymod and TES community.

The Fallout 3 Collector’s edition has been revealed. Currently there’s no UK price available for the PC version, but in the US, $69.99 will get you a copy of the game plus metal lunchbox (oh, to be five years old again) and the following:

Capcom has announced that a live-action Street Fighter movie will be dragon-punching its way into cinemas (or the bargain bin of your local Blockbuster) next year. This isn’t the first time the company has tried this, 1994’s Street Fighter: The Movie, starring Kylie Minogue and the delightfully insane Jean-Claude Van Damme*, was atrocious on every level but it apparently wasn’t bad enough to stop a second attempt. The Green Mile’s Michael Clarke Duncan will be playing Balrog while pretty-boy Chris Klein is signed up as Charlie Nash. And in case you’re wondering what this has to do with PC games… well… Street Fighter 2 was released for the PC in 1992, y’know. It was crap.

*check out the trailer for his latest movie, the self-indulgent Being John Malkovich-esque JCVD.

The official name of Ubisoft’s air combat game has been unveiled: Tom Clancy’s HAWX. That’s High Altitude Warfare X. Presumably Ubisoft was waiting until they’d acquired the rights to Clancy’s name before revealing this nonsensical title. HAWX is a flight action game that bares a resemblance to Ace Combat, with a touch of Ghost Recon Advanced Warfare. Set in 2012 there’s a jump-in co-op campaign, online battles with 16 players and simplified flight model that will make it easy to fight and issue orders to your wingman without smashing into the ground.

Total PC Gaming fully opposes the unnecessary use of ‘X’, ‘Z’ or any other characters that may be used to make a game sound ’street’ for ‘da yoof’.

Blizzard, creator of World Of Warcraft is suing the maker of a software tool that it says infringes its copyright. Michael Donnelly, creator of the MMO Glider program that automates everyday actions in the game, denies any infringement. He states that no copy of World Of Warcraft is ever made using his program.

Blizzard is demanding that he cease selling Glider and hand over all profits he’s made from the program. This could amount to several million dollars as Michael claims to have sold over 100,000 copies, which ranges in price from a $5 month subscription to a $60 lifetime pass.