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World Series champion pitcher Curt Schilling has created a video game called "Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning"

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - Electronic Arts has released a much-anticipated "Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning" video game created by an all-star team put together by World Series champion pitcher Curt Schilling.

The title is the first video game from 38 Studios, which Schilling started in 2010 after finishing a baseball career that included World Series championships with the Philadelphia Phillies, Arizona Diamondbacks, and Boston Red Sox.

"I could not be more proud of all of the heart, passion and talent the team has poured into creating the first title in the world of Amalur," Schilling said in a release.

"This is the beginning of a long and fantastic journey," he continued.

"We are deeply committed to the (role-playing game) community and plan to continue to serve up a lot more story-based and action-packed content in the near and long term."

The roster of talent for the Amalur team featured bestselling author R.A. Salvatore; comic book star Todd McFarlane and veteran game designer Ken Rolston.

Game makers created a dazzling fantasy realm where players shape heroic destinies with magic, swordplay and more in a title praised by reviewers for combining rich storyline action with "visceral action combat."

Players customize in-game personae in a world "filled with extraordinary landscapes, mysterious cities, colorful characters and fantastic creatures."

Versions of "Reckoning" tailored for play on Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 videogame consoles or on personal computers powered by Windows software were priced at $60 a copy. The game will be released in Europe on February 10.

More information was available online at reckoning.com.

©AFP/File / Carl Court

Vincent Van Gogh's 1889 painting entitled "Vue de l'asile et de la Chapelle de Saint-Remy"

LONDON (AFP) - Works by British sculptor Henry Moore and Spanish painter Joan Miro sold for record prices at a Christie's sale that also saw a Van Gogh owned by Elizabeth Taylor fetch over £10 million.

The Moore sculpture, an abstract bronze cast of a reclining woman called "Reclining Figure: Festival", sold for £19 million ($30 million, 23 million euros) -- more than three times the £5.5 million estimate.

Christie's said the work, which was commissioned for the Festival of Britain in 1951, was "one of the most outstanding examples of the reclining figure in the whole of (Moore's) prodigious oeuvre".

The highest price previously set for a Moore work was just £4.3 million, for a 1957 bronze cast called "Draped Reclining Woman", sold in London four years ago, a Christie's spokeswoman said.

The record-breaking Miro sale, a 1925 canvas named "Painting Poem (le corps de ma brune)" went under the hammer for £16.8 million -- again soaring over the pre-sale estimate of up to £9 million.

"'Le corps de ma brune' is the finest work from a groundbreaking series of paintings," said Olivier Camu, Deputy Chairman in Impressionist Art Department at Christie's.

"Widely considered the most important of all of Miro's work, the 'Poem Paintings' instigated a whole new way of working that Miro would follow for the rest of his life and was to significantly influence Pablo Picasso."

©AFP/File / Carl Court

Spanish painter Joan Miro's 1925 painting entitled "Painting Poem"

The painting, described by Christie's as "part lyrical free-form painting and part hand-written stream-of-conscious poetry", was sold from a private New York art collection.

The previous record auction price for a work by Miro, who died in 1983, was for "La caresse des etoiles", which sold in New York in 2008 for $17 million.

The London auction house also saw three paintings owned by the late Hollywood legend Elizabeth Taylor, including one by Vincent Van Gogh, sell for a total of £13.9 million ($22 million, 17 million euros).

Van Gogh's "Vue de l'asile et de la Chapelle de Saint-Remy" ("View of the Asylum and Chapel of Saint-Remy"), which had been bought for Taylor by her art dealer father in 1963, went for £10.1 million.

A self-portrait of French Impressionist Edgar Degas and a landscape by Claude Pissarro, also owned by the star, sold for £713,250 and £2,953,250 respectively.

"The exceptional results for these three masterpieces by Van Gogh, Degas and Pissarro are further evidence of Elizabeth Taylor's skill and sophistication as a collector," said Marc Porter, chairman of Christie's Americas.

The British-American star had amassed an extraordinary collection of jewellery and couture as well as art by the time she died last March aged 79.

A week-long auction of her belongings in New York in December drew total sales of $156.8 million (£99 million, 118 million euros). The last of Tayor's art collection goes on sale at Christie's in London on Wednesday and Thursday.

A work by the Spanish Cubist painter Juan Gris, "Le livre" ("The Book"), also sold on Tuesday for £10.3 million.

Described by the auction house as "a key transitional work", it had been expected to sell for up to £18 million.