NVIDIA’s latest graphics card, the GTX 280, goes on sale today. The GTX 280 is, to date, the fastest consumer card from NVIDIA, outperforming its current top-end model the 9800 GX2. Its got a 602MHz core clock, 1GB of GDDR3 memory at 2.2GHz and 1296MHz shader clock. A quick search of various online stores shows prices starting at £429 and going up to over £500 for factory-overclocked models. If that’s a little too rich for you, the GTX 260 will be available from 26th June. It has a slower core, memory and shader clock speeds and 896MB RAM instead of 1GB, but can be found for around £300. There are reviews at AnandTech, Tom’s Hardware, Ubergizmo and many other sites, and we’ll be taking a close look at the card in issue 9, on sale 10th July.

THQ has confirmed that Volition’s sandbox shooter Saint’s Row 2 will be released on PC this October. Set in the fictional city of Stilwater, Saint’s Row is a hyper-realistic take on the sandbox genre with over-the-top action and all-round silliness to set it apart from Grand Theft Auto. In addition to the main storyline players can take part in a vast selection of ridiculous activities including monster truck racing, barnstorming, robbery and - our favourite - insurance fraud, which involves flinging yourself in front of vehicles to rack up insurance cash.

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According to reports from Videogame247 and Kotaku, the game development and publishing arm of George Lucas’ LucasArts has laid off between 75-100 staff across all departments, including game designers and programmers. It’s a sad sight for a company that has produced so many bona-fide PC classics in the past, but an interesting side effect for gamers are the rumours being spread by disgruntled LucasArts employees revealing unannounced titles. A post on Kotaku claims that the web site has received emails about a Knights Of The Old Republic MMO being developed in partnership with Bioware, another Lego Indiana Jones and a third Battlefront game. And just to rub salt in LucasArts’ wounds Kotaku also got a message describing the upcoming action game Fracture as “an absolute piece of garbage”. Ouch.

Avatar boobs have been shrunk in a recent Age Of Conan: Hyborian Adventure patch, according to a thread on the official AOC forum. Not that affects the MMORPG in any real way, but for one AOC forumite, Dusk, it was enough to prompt a degree of outrage and to post a thread containing these shots:

Before… And after…

Amid the sniggering and lame masturbation jokes, there was a more serious undertone to the thread: Dusk’s character had been alterated without his consent. Happily, Funcom is addressing the issue, which means we can create all the stereotypical buxom hotties we like. How’s that for fairness and equality?