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im_thatoneguy sends in an account up at Shacknews about Atari's actions to get early reviews of its upcoming game Alone In the Dark pulled from Web sites in Europe. Atari sued the German site 4Players, alleging piracy, and also cancelled an advertising deal on the site, after a pre-release review gave the game only 68%. 4Players posted a commentary (translation) alleging that Atari is doing this bcause the review is unfavorable. Shacknews reports that Atari has also demanded that both Gamer.no and GameReactor remove early reviews — both reviews gave the game a score of 3/10. Kotaku editorializes: "[Does Atari] fear that, because these outlets may have received copies of the game 'early' (i.e. from pirated copies), that they're somehow reviewing incomplete code, which could affect their opinion of the game? Maybe. Pessimists could, however, be forgiven for thinking it's a convenient excuse for Atari to attack negative reviews of the only game they're releasing in 2008 that has any chance of making them some money."

Thanks to GamersWithJobs for its interview with the creators of PC MMO title World Of Pirates, a 2D game (not to be confused with forthcoming 3D MMO Pirates Of The Burning Sea) in which "the basic idea was to recreate the gameplay and feel of Pirates! and put it into an online environment." Topics discussed include PvP ("...one of the basic design premises behind the game. And features such as a bounty being put on someone's head certainly help the competition among the players"), and post-launch plans ("We're going to increase the strategy portion of the game, lending it a Civilization-style touch. We're hoping that this part will become more appealing to those players who want to take a break from or are tired of their pirate career.") In related news, the official World Of Pirates website reveals an imminent change: "After 2 years of closed beta testing... from Monday 5th July 2004, everyone can join the Beta test."