A happy Friday the 13^th to all. It happens to be one of those days riddled with horror movie releases and thoughts of superstition, but we just don't get it. If you're into the whole thing, more power to you. Just don't forget that Halloween is coming up, and it's a much more established consumer holiday. We've got some interesting bits to share with you today. So we're going to kick things off with an interesting announcement from Funcom.

Funcom announces the launch of Clan of Conan

Funcom, developer of Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, announced the launch of its Age of Conan fan club, Clan of Conan. Clan of Conan is a new initiative to reward those who follow the development of the game closely. People who sign up to the fan club will be given a secret and exclusive in-game item, to be announced prior to the game's release. The in-game item will be rewarded to players by King Conan himself (in the game, not in real life silly). Players will need to complete a quest to meet King Conan and receive the in-game item. Prior to the release of Age of Conan they will receive a code for the item via the email account they signed up with.

Other benefits of the fan club include a monthly newsletter containing exclusive content, like screenshots, feature reveals, information about locations, monsters, interviews, competitions and more. There will also be opportunities to enter special contests for Beta spots and other prizes.

The game itself is shaping up quite nicely, becoming a showcase title for Windows Vista (it's a Games for Windows title) and winning multiple awards at this year's E3. Age of Conan features both a single player and multiplayer experience, a huge portion of the world of Conan, the game's Real Combat engine, a full 7.1 surround sound experience and so much more stuff we really don't have the time to list it. For more information on Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, you can check out www.ageofconan.com. The site has the full list of features, videos, a ton of beautiful screenshots, an FAQ and more.

Justice League Heroes ships Oct. 17^th

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment made sure to remind everyone that its action RPG, Justice League Heroes, will be hitting store shelves October 17^th for Playstation 2 and Xbox. The game, which will also have alternate versions releasing for Nintendo DS and Game Boy Advance the same day and a version for PSP in November, features an original storyline from award-winning comic book and animation writer Dwayne McDuffie, who has worked on such books as Justice League, Teen Titans and Deathlok. The game stars Superman, Batman, The Flash, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, Zatanna and other unlockable Justice League characters like Green Arrow, Aquaman, Huntress and Hawk Girl.

In order to better promote the game, Warner Bros. is releasing a free comic book podcast featuring prequel stories to the game. The podcast will be available at the iTunes Store and are viewable on iPods that are photo or video capable. The podcast will be serialized into separate into separate episodes that will be available on the iTunes Store over the course of the month. To learn more about the game, go to www.justiceleagueheroes.com (just make sure the volume on your speakers is a little lower than usual), or to get the podcast go to the iTunes Store at www.itunes.com. Justice League Heroes is set to be available for $39.99 USD and CAD for both Playstation 2 and Xbox and is rated T for Teen. The Nintendo DS and Game Boy Advance versions are set to be $29.99 USD and CAD and are rated E10+ for Everyone 10 and up.

Bone: Out from Boneville now for Mac

We're really excited about this, not because the first act of Bone is available on Mac, but because we didn't even know that there was a Bone video game until today. The game, which was originally developed and published by Telltale Games (the company behind the new Sam and Max episodic games), is being published by Vanbrio Entertainment in partnership with Telltale. The game will be the same as the PC version, and cost the same amount. Bone: Out from Boneville, for Mac, is available for download from Vanbrio at www.vanbrio.com. Full information on the game and its features are available there too, including a Mac version demo. For the PC version of the game, its demo or the next chapters in the game, you can go to www.telltalegames.com. Both versions of the game are $12.99 USD, though neither are rated at the moment.

That's all for this week's News Pop!. Come join us again next week. We'll have some news on the ESA's announcement about next year's E3 and the changes being made to the expo. We will tell you now, though, that the expo will take place July 11-13, 2007 and be invitation-only. We hope you enjoyed this week's New Pop!, see you soon.

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