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SAN DIEGO – Stealing a video game is not considered grand theft because of the price. But, as one man learned Tuesday, it’s serious enough that it could cost him a felony on his record.

AMD has squeezed an awful lot out of its AMD64 architecture since it first materialised in 2003, and even the latest K10 core used in the Phenom chips uses basically the same architecture with a different cache system. However, the company says that it’s now looking at a whole new architecture for the next generation of CPUs.

The main source of inspiration for this game was the narration, that’s to say finding the best way to create the perfect narration for this type of game. At Eden we were all addicted to the new TV series like 24, Lost, Prison Break. We thought about this and said, hey, maybe there’s a new way to tell the story in a game. The length of the game is close to 10 up to 15 hours of gameplay and narration and so it’s not the same pace as a movie which is around 2 hours. Lots of games try to copy the narrative structure of a movie, but it fits better with a length of a TV season, so we had the idea to split the game into an episodic structure.

God bless Jon Stewart and The Daily Show, which continue to produce pure comedy gold each week.

One more after the jump.

The game will be coming to PC, PS3 and 360 this year and is being developed by the original Prince of Persia: Sands of Time team at Ubisoft Montreal. It features cel-shaded graphics, and scraps the Sands of Time rewind powers. The gameplay centres on healing a corrupted world in the style of Okami, Shadow of the Colossus or The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.

Creative director Jean-Christophe Guyot told Joypad that the aim was to create a more fantastical game and "more poetic vision" than the Sands of Time trilogy, with which it shares no connection. "The previous trilogy mixed the Arabian Nights in with historical Persia," he said. "We decided we’d prefer to return to the tales of the Thousand and One Nights for something more colourful."

Welcome to the Rumour mill, VideoGamer.com’s run-down of the big rumours currently doing the rounds in the video game industry. Every week we’ll hunt down the juiciest stories and give our opinion on how legit they are. So, whether you want the ridiculous or the plausible, read on.

BioShock not coming to PS3

The Rumour: Contrary to popular belief, 2K Games’ BioShock or its in-development sequel are not coming to the PlayStation 3. They will remain Xbox 360 and PC exclusive. This is due to Microsoft paying for exclusive rights and the extra effort required of a PS3 port.

Verdict: This one comes from rumour blogging legend Surfer Girl and goes directly against the Rumour from EGM that claimed the original game was heading to the PS3.

"BioShock is still not coming to PS3 nor is there plans for a PS3 version of its sequel," reads the blog.

Given BioShock’s huge success on the Xbox 360 it’s perfectly reasonable to expect Microsoft to want it to remain a platform exclusive. With so little known about the sequel, though, it’s a little early to be saying it’s a guaranteed exclusive.

Plausibility rating: 3/5

FireSky has announced today that StarGate Worlds will be accepting closed beta applications. Players will be selected from the applications and be given the chance to have input into the game. Selected gamers will also be able to play alongside the developers.

Valve, the developer of the Half-Life franchise, was one of the pioneers of digital distribution with its Steam delivery service. The company has managed to remain independent in this time of industry consolidation, and kept its focus on PC gaming at a time when some have declared it dead.

GamesIndustry.biz spoke to Valve’s VP of marketing, Doug Lombardi at a recent EA press event, about the challenges the company has faced, the boost it has given to indie game development and the changing PC market.

This in-depth hands-on look at Race Driver: GRiD goes into a lot of detail about the impressive new A.I that Codemasters has developed for the game.

"While racing muscle cars around a San Francisco circuit we spun after going around a corner too fast. An A.I opponent rounded the corner immediately after and veered sharply to avoid a collision, but over-corrected, flew into the wall and disappeared in a cloud of smoke. As the A.I reversed out of the wall, another car came flying around the corner and through the expanding cloud of smoke: it collided with the hidden car, sending the newcomer spiralling into the air to land upside down and half over the concrete wall while the other spun like a top. Both their races look decidedly over - awesome stuff."

Short as it may be, Portal is a fantastic game that should be played by anyone interested in unique, well-crafted gameplay and a witty, whip-smart script. The stand-alone retail release comes with the same price point as the downloadable Steam release, which is about the cost of a night out at the movies. Portal may not last much longer than some feature films, but pound for pound it remains one of the best games on store shelves.