Portugal probably doesn't spring to mind as a hotbed of video game development, but the strangely named GameInvest is based in beautiful Lisbon and its first title, Sarah's Emergency Room, "revives the time management genre with fun, challenging levels and a frenetic pace with simulation management skills."

The game is being developed for the Nintendo DS, Wii, PlayStation Network, Xbox Live Arcade and PC platforms and allows you to assume the role of a graduate nursing student named Sarah as she moves from California to manage a busy emergency room in Arkansas. There "she discovers that managing an emergency room is a bit harder than she expected." Nothing like gender stereotyping with a female nurse who thinks life is hard. What's next, Sarah's Lunch Rush Hour where she runs coffee and waffles?

When we first heard that Bethesda was working on a Fallout 3 game we made a pledge to ourselves that we were going to stay completely spoiler free, that we'd go into the experience fresh, with no knowledge of what surprises awaited and what mysteries we would unearth. Sadly, it didn't take long for us to remember that we worked for a video game site, and trying to remain willfully ignorant of a major title was misguided at best.

But it's not too late for you, dear reader! You can avert your eyes right now. You don't have to read this exhaustive Q and A with Bethesda wherein they discuss everything from drug use and child murder to Fallout 3's inventory system! You can still ... you already clicked on it, didn't you?

There have been a bevy of tower defense games in the past months, none of which were able to usurp the king (of our hearts) Desktop Tower Defense 1.5. But Game in a Bottle and Armor Games' new offering GemCraft ... well, it still doesn't, but it does some interesting stuff that we think is definitely worth talking about.

The best way of thinking about the game is a Puzzle Quest-ian take on the TD genre. You're trying to protect your base from oncoming hordes with varying strengths and weaknesses, but instead of building different types of towers, you use mana to create different gems that are placed in towers. Each color has different qualities and if you're willing to spend more mana you can create stronger versions of each, creating a risk/reward question of building a weaker gem or waiting to build a more powerful one.

There's another layer on top of that, though. As you complete stages, you earn experience that you can use to buy more starting gems, a lower mana cost for gems, quicker mana regeneration, etc. And each time you beat a level with more experience, the difference is added to your total. That means that while it may be easy for you to beat the opening stages, if you don't work to get the best score you may not be powerful enough for some of the final conflicts.

There's a lot going on here, some of it working better than others. But who cares what we have to say about it? What's your take on GemCraft?

For another look at the Freeware scene, check out BigDownload's Freeware Friday series.

In case your appetite for voice-controlled strategizing hasn't been whetted enough by the bountiful beta leaks, an Ubisoft Forum Manager has announced that you can get "access to the exclusive Stress Test" (i.e. early playtime) for Tom Clancy's End War by pre-ordering the game at participating retailers. More details are said to be forthcoming; a stress test registration page has been unearthed on the End War website that lists July 8 as the opening day.

[Via Damngamer]

Electronic Arts is looking to take on the biggest Scrabble clone on Facebook with -- what else? -- an officially licensed version of Scrabble. A free online edition of of the bombastic board game is available now on Pogo, with a Facebook version coming "later this month," according a press release. The application would go up against reigning champ Scrabulous, which despite litigation threats is still alive and kicking.

The press release also confirmed that "many more Hasbro game properties in development and slated to launch on social networking sites later this year." Boggle knockoffs, beware!

Max Schaefer, co-founder of Flagship Studios, admits that things didn't go exactly as planned with its first title Hellgate: London; however, he believes the developer's sophomore effort, Mythos, is coming together much better. Schaefer tells Eurogamer (via GI.biz) that Flagship was "probably biting off too much" as a new developer with Hellgate and was rushed at the end, but with Mythos it's focusing on core features and taking time to polish.

Schaefer hopes Mythos can "put a dent" into some of the big MMOs out there and he believes the free-to-download-and-play model of the game -- with item sales bringing in money -- gives the developer a chance against the boxed subscription-based MMOs.

Just a friendly reminder that today (July 7) is Bungie Day, which means free Bungie-related gamerpics and themes available on Xbox Live today (and only today). Additionally, the new Halo 3 map Cold Storage is also available free of charge for today. As for that announcement that was teased over the weekend, we've heard nothing so far. Trust us, though, if and when Bungie announces something, we'll let you know.

[Via X3F]

So, see if you can wrap your brain around this one. In the fall of 2007, EA released a boiled-down version of The Sims on Wii and DS called MySims, which went on to sell 1.5 hojillion copies. Now, perhaps looking to push it to the 2 hojillion mark, EA announced today that on October 27 of this year MySims will be coming to the PC ... so, does that make it a "boiled-up" version?

Yes, to be fair, the PC will be getting some new characters and new online features like the ability to play Tag and share your creations with friends. But you know what else the PC will be getting at some point? Sims 3. Just saying.

Listen, we're excited by this week's biggest new release Civilization Revolution, but it looks to us like it's going to play pretty fast and loose with the truth. How can we tell? Well, let's take a look at the box art. It looks fine, right? Until you realize that Napoleon is towering over Genghis Khan!

Napoloean, as the less educated among you (and Firaxis) perhaps do not know, was 2-feet, 4-inches tall, so the thought of him being taller than anyone, let alone some of history's greatest leaders, is an affront to logic itself. The only thing we can imagine is that Lincoln is on his knees and Napoleon is standing on a apple crate of some sort, in which case we can only suggest that Honest Abe needs new representation.

We would love to get excited for the upcoming video game adaptation of the sixth installment in J.K. Rowling's wildly successful series of books -- unfortunately, our ambitions of striding through Hogwarts' hallowed halls have been sullied by previous lackluster Harry Potter titles from Electronic Arts. To make sure Half Blood Prince is as faithful and entertaining as it can possibly be, we've written up a quick cheat sheet for the game's developers to inform them which elements from the source material should be included when the game hits store shelves in November.

• Epic wizard duels -- Awesome.
• Magical puzzles -- Entertaining.
• Exciting quidditch matches -- Compelling, if handled properly.
• Collecting "Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans", "Chocolate Frogs", "Fizzing Whizbees", or any other form of magical confection -- About as enjoyable as catching a faceful of Avada Kedavra.
  

In our interview with Diablo 3 lead designer Jay Wilson, it was explained that there were no plans to bring the long-awaited title to any platform other than PC and Mac. However, in the six days that have passed since said interview, a couple of Blizzard higher-ups weren't quite as dismissive of the possibility of the dungeon crawler making an appearance on our primitive gameboxes -- though the language used to describe this possibility hasn't exactly given us high-apple-pie-in-the-sky hopes.

When asked about a console rendition of the third entry in the Lord of Terror-slaying franchise, Blizzard COO Paul Sams gave an inconclusive "I don't know yet," though Vice President of Game Design Rob Pardo suggested a console port was "theoretically possible," as out of all of Blizzard's franchises, Diablo would be the most console-friendly. We guess a theoretical "yes" is better than an actual "no", or a metaphorical "maybe", but we're still not holding our bated breath for a non-compy version of Diablo the Third.

Those who enjoyed the economics-meets-explosions gameplay of Pandemic Studios' Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction will no doubt get a kick out of the latest trailer for the title's upcoming sequel. The three ExOps personalities we came to know and love in the first Mercs are making a comeback, and in the above video, Mercenaries 2: World in Flames lead designer Scott Warner gives us a sneak peek at how these well-trained operatives, you know, operate.

The gameplay looks solid, but for those of us too busy to watch a five-minute video on a Saturday afternoon, we'll briefly break it down using A-Team archetypes: Jennifer Mui is Templeton "Faceman" Peck, Mattias Nilsson is "Howling Mad" Murdock, and Christopher Jacobs is an amalgam of John "Hannibal" Smith and B.A. Baracus -- only he doesn't pity fools. He hastily shuffles them off this mortal coil using their own grenades.

This may have been a holiday week but we were extremely busy anyway with tons of original content and features along with some great new downloads. Here's a look at the highlights.

Exclusive Features

• Hands-On Space Siege: We get to play with a late build of the sci-fi action-RPG from Gas Powered Games and Sega
• Hands-On Bionic Commando: We swing to new heights with this preview of the third person action game revival from GRIN and Capcom
• Hands-On Civilization IV Colonization: We check out this (sort of) remake of Sid Meier's classic strategy game from Firaxis and 2K Games
• Hands-On American McGee's Grimm: We play through the first portions of this episodic action game that's coming from Gametap.
• Preview: Call of Duty World at War: We check out a live demo of the upcoming WWII shooter from Treyarch and Activision.
• Interview: Strong Bad's Cool Game For Attractive People: We chat with members of Telltale Games to find out more about their upcoming episodic adventure game.
• Alone in the Dark: We compare the PC version of the Atari survival horror game to its Xbox 360 counterpart in our latest Big Versus article and go more in-depth with the game as well.
• Guide to TF2 Pyro Achievements Part 6: We have the final part of our series of articles looking at the new achievements for the Pyro class in Team Fortress 2.
• Big Ideas: Our new weekly column on gaming's major themes takes a look at story in games.
• Freeware Friday: Our weekly look at free games talks about the scrolling shooter rRootage
• Big Iron: Our hardware column takes a look at the new 4800 series of Radeon graphics chips from AMD/ATI
• Mac Monday: Our regular look at Mac gaming takes a look at the Mac exclusive arcade game Neon Tango
• BigCast: Members of Big Download chat about the week of PC games in our latest podcast.

Oh yes, we got to play Spore. The entire thing. With Will Wright providing backseat commentary. We also got some time with the Wrath of the Lich King's Death Knight, and DS Fanboy decided to play Homie Rollerz (so you don't have to). Check out all of our impressions and reviews from the Joystiq Network this week:

PC

• American McGee's Grimm (hands-on)
• Spore (the whole thing) (hands-on)
• Wrath of the Lich King (Death Knight hands-on)

Whether calling it out for being too colorful or even too conservative, Diablo 3 naysayers have certainly not lacked for ammunition to sling at the action RPG since it was made all official like late last month. Now pessimists can add another rock to the pile, with Blizzard poster Bashiok writing on the official World of Warcraft forums that the Diablo 3 devs are working to discourage online skullduggery, and that multiplayer will focus primarily on cooperative play.

Explained Bashiok, "We have a large focus on cooperative play for Diablo III, and the mechanics and design decisions related to multiplayer are likely going to be based on supporting and encouraging it as much as possible, and not breaking it down." However, PvP will apparently have its place in the game, as Bashiok baited forumers by adding, "That doesn't mean that PvP won't have its own focus, but those are details and features we aren't yet discussing." So for now it looks like PKers will need to find another outlet for their griefing ways, perhaps by venturing outside into the sunlight for a rousing game of Freeze Tag.