The year was 2001. Rather than battling evil computers on white-washed spaceships, we were instead still living on Earth playing PC games, and stuck in that awkward phase between the pre-WoW Blizzard and its post-StarCraft efforts.

That phase is perfectly illustrated here in this cover feature in the sadly now-defunct CGW magazine, giving the world its first look at World of Warcraft a full three years before its eventual release in 2004.

Some of the feature is telling, some of it is spot-on, while other parts are downright hilarious given the passage of time, but on the whole it's a fascinating read given the kind of success the game would find when it was actually out.

World of Warcraft magazine revealing from 2001 [Reddit]

Photographers Pamela Reed and Matthew Rader are getting mildly internet famous for their fashion shoots, which instead of using enormous static images instead use animated .gif files.

The pair are also, however, big fans of Nintendo's Animal Crossing series, so for their latest shoot they put down the catwalk gear and instead went full-blown cosplay. Reed and Rader made the images and built the character's heads, while the costumes were made by Aki Maesato.

You can see the full collection at the link below.

Check Out These Awesome Animal Crossing GIFs From Reed + Rader [The Creators Project]

The Gran Turismo Trophy is an honour bestowed by series producer Kazunori Yamauchi. It basically means that he likes somebody's sweet old ride so much that he promises to put it in an actual Gran Turismo video game.

Previous winners include Mary Pozzi's 1971 Camaro, but the latest is this adorable Ferrari 500 Mondial "Pininfarina Berlinetta" (coupe) Series I, one of only two of those particular cars ever made.

Having been sitting in a French château, untouched, for 46 years, it's now owned by an American couple, the Shirleys, who brought it back to show it off in this year's Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance.

Unless developers Polyphony are springing a Vita surprise on us, it's likely the next Gran Turismo game will be Gran Turismo 6. Which we shouldn't expect any time soon.

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Prop creator extraordinaire Bill Doran and his wife, Brittany Sheppard Doran, gear up for DragonCon 2012 in style with a pair of expertly-crafted suits of Mass Effect armor. If that's not justification enough for me to hit up the show this weekend then I don't know what is.

With Bill in his N7 Defender armor and his wife poured into a slim Phantom suit, the power-armor couple is prepared to take downtown Atlanta by storm this weekend, keeping the annual science fiction / fantasy / media / just-happened-to-be-in-the-area convention safe from the Reapers. Well, if they don't kill each other first.

You can check out the creation of this awesome pair (the armors, not the people — hopefully they don't have shots of that — here (N7) and here (Phantom), and for more glorious action shots check out the full gallery on N8Zim Photography's Facebook page.

I'll be heading out to DragonCon 2012 this Saturday, so if you see me there, run. Don't look back.

Having earlier believed that it was Iran's fault gamers in the Middle-Eastern nation had suddenly found themselves unable to access Blizzard's World of Warcraft and Diablo III, it turns out there's another country's government to blame. Namely, that of the United States.

Because the US has imposed trade restrictions and economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic, most American companies aren't allowed to do business in the country. By selling games and subscriptions, Blizzard had been doing business in Iran, and apparently that had to stop.

The publisher issued a statement over the weekend which reads:

What we can tell you is that United States trade restrictions and economic sanction laws prohibit Blizzard from doing business with residents of certain nations, including Iran. Several of you have seen and cited the text in the Terms of Use which relates to these government-imposed sanctions. This week, Blizzard tightened up its procedures to ensure compliance with these laws, and players connecting from the affected nations are restricted from access to Blizzard games and services.

This also prevents us from providing any refunds, credits, transfers, or other service options to accounts in these countries. We apologize for any inconvenience this causes and will happily lift these restrictions as soon as US law allows.

That's some pretty casual language for what amounts to Blizzard having knowingly done business in a state currently under a ton of long-lasting and serious US government sanctions.

Blizzard cuts off Iranian access to World of Warcraft [BBC]

Having earlier believed that it was Iran's fault gamers in the Middle-Eastern nation had suddenly found themselves unable to access Blizzard's World of Warcraft and Diablo III, it turns out there's another country's government to blame. Namely, that of the United States.

Because the US has imposed trade restrictions and economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic, most American companies aren't allowed to do business in the country. By selling games and subscriptions to Iranian residents online, Blizzard had been doing business in Iran, and apparently that had to stop.

The publisher issued a statement over the weekend which reads:

What we can tell you is that United States trade restrictions and economic sanction laws prohibit Blizzard from doing business with residents of certain nations, including Iran. Several of you have seen and cited the text in the Terms of Use which relates to these government-imposed sanctions. This week, Blizzard tightened up its procedures to ensure compliance with these laws, and players connecting from the affected nations are restricted from access to Blizzard games and services.

This also prevents us from providing any refunds, credits, transfers, or other service options to accounts in these countries. We apologize for any inconvenience this causes and will happily lift these restrictions as soon as US law allows.

Blizzard cuts off Iranian access to World of Warcraft [BBC]

Hey, it's another book-themed off-topic! This time around we've got something particularly musty, and particularly cool. Flavorwire has assembled images of the first-edition covers of 25 of the most famous classic books of all time.

Man, look at Lord of the Rings! And Brave New World! I feel like I'm not alone in that when I look at these images, I can practically smell 'em.

How many of these have you read? Do you find, like I do, that between games, TV, movies, comics and novels, that there are just too many different kinds of things to take in? How do you balance it all?

Feel free to discuss that (sorry those were some kinda stressful prompts!) or whatever else, here or over in the Talk Amongst Yourselves forum. Have good chatting. I'll be over here reading…. ths crafting guide for Guild Wars 2.

The First Edition Covers of 25 Classic Books [Flavorwire via The Onion A.V. Club]

French artist Eric Cochonneau, formerly of Killzone developers Guerilla and Electronic Arts, has also worked at Crytek, where around 2008 he helped out on a game called Redemption which was ultimately never released. Or even seen publicly.

Until today.

NeoGAF user miladesn was digging around Cochonneau's portfolio when they discovered the artwork, intended for an Xbox 360/PS3 game that was being developed by Crytek's main German studio.

As you can see, it's no Crysis. The blue skies and green jungles of the company's trademark title (at the time) are nowhere to be seen. Instead, Redemption looks more like Alan Wake, with a moody rural setting and people who look like people, not soldiers/aliens/mutant corpses.

It's impossible to tell what the game would have been like with so little to go on, but at the very least it would have been a pleasant departure for the team, who instead went on to make Crysis 2, and are now working on...Crysis 3.

You can see more of Eric's great art at his personal site (via NeoGAF).

To see the larger pics in all their glory (or so you can save them as wallpaper), right-click on them below and select "open in new tab".

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Of course, he can't come out and say it's Fox News - we live in a world plagued by lawyers - but when Alex Jones, the producer of Capcom's upcoming DMC, says this monstrous video game boss is "one particular American [media] outlet that shall go unnamed", we know who he means.

Dropping the game's hero, Dante, into the fictional "Raptor News Network", the player soon encounters the disembodied, Tron-like head of totally-not-Bill-O'-Reilly, who spews jingoistic vitriol at you while you run around smashing him in the face with your giant sword.

The action then cuts to a scare-mongering "live" news report while leaving you in control, as you play the TERRORIST who has a HISTORY OF VIOLENCE.

Sure, taking pot-shots at Fox isn't exactly brazen satire, nor is it terribly hard, but it's something few games outside the most culturally aware - like Grand Theft Auto - either bother with or are even capable of managing.

So it's nice seeing that, when the rare game comes along that does, it lets you smash totally-not-Bill-O'-Reilly in the face with your giant sword.

Capcom Gamescom Event - DMC segment [Capcom, via Eurogamer]

Video games don't just make for great wedding-proposal material, they can also make their way into the wedding itself.

We've run pictures from a lot of cool video game weddings over the years, and this latest one, sent in by Marvel Sutantio and his bride Christy, is surely up there with the most ambitious of them. It's got it all: A Mario photo station, a heralding squad wielding Minecraft swords, 8-bit invitations and of course, a totally bananas Tiny Tower wedding cake.

The philosophy here seems to be, you're gonna do a video game wedding… do a video game wedding. Congratulations to Marvel and Christy! May you live long, and may the tiny tower of your love grow to be one hundred floors strong.

Here are some of their many pictures: