After last week’s useless teaser here is the full official trailer for Batman: Arkham Origins. The game is all about a younger Batman facing off against a number of assassins on a snowy Christmas Eve and the trailer captures that perfectly. It may just be a CG trailer but it packs quite a punch and we get to see some good Deathstroke, Deadshot, Batman action.

Think about the sort of things you usually see on display in parking. Anything come to mind? Maybe you thought of something along the lines of cars, prostitutes and maybe even drugs but probably not a gaming console, right?

Well Ouya is keeping it classy and will be showcasing the Android-powered console in the parking lot at E3. Out of a truck no less. I jest but there is actually sound reasoning behind this. Ouya wants to make console available top the public for demo and showcasing and more importantly they want people to be able to experience the console free of charge.

So between 11 and 13 June Ouya will at the parking lot across the road from the convention centre where E3 is held and it will be completely open to the public consoles  controllers, TV’s and even snacks and refreshments.

I have one question regarding this though, surely most people around the convention centre who might be interested in an Android console would be there for E3 and thus have a pass to get inside so why not have a stand inside the centre? There may be some curious passers-by but I can’t see this representing any significant numbers. That’s just me though and I get that the idea here is more the statement of making it open to the public.

I very nearly typed Deadpool instead of Deathstroke, had I not noticed this I suspect a fist would actually push itself out of my monitor and punch me square in the face. Anyway, many of you might not know who Kevin Conroy is but you will recognise his voice.

Conroy is the best known voice for Batman, after perhaps Bale’s gravel mouthed growl. He’s voiced the Dark Knight since the animated series back in the early 90′s and is still going strong today with roles in both preceding Arkham games. It was rumoured that Conroy would not be returning as Batman and this sent fans into something of a furor because I mean this is the definitive voice of Batman after all. However, it seems there was nothing to worry about although Conroy isn’t getting younger and Arkham Origins is supposed to depict a more youthful Dark Knight.

“I can talk about it now,” he said during a panel at Dallas Comic Con. “We’ve been working for about nine or ten months on the next Arkham game. We all signed contracts so we weren’t allowed to talk about it. The studio likes to completely control the rollout of any product, so they don’t like us to talk about anything, but it’s now been announced.

“It’s an unbelievable game, I still can’t say anything about it, and you don’t want me to anyway because it will ruin it for you, but it’s amazing. It’s a huge, huge cast, and a big story. It took almost a year of writing to put it together. They’ve been working on it a long time.”

Now, what’s this about playing as Deathstroke? It’s a very interesting prospect considering he will e one of the game’s key antagonists judging by all the promotional media released thus far. Playing as Catwoman in Arkham City gave us something a little different from Batman but she was still effectively one of the good guys. Deathstroke is rather firmly on the dark side here so it should give us a chance to play both sides. However it’s pre-order exclusive DLC on Amazon. That’s the part that sucks. That said, there is always the chance of this pre-order bonus being expanded to other retailers and possibly becoming available to the public post-release.

Batman: Arkham Origins is due out on October 25 for current-gen consoles and PC.

[UPDATE]

Well this is rather awkward and confusing but it seems as if Kevin Conroy won’t be the only one voicing Batman in Arkham Origins. IGN reports that Roger Craig Smith, who has voiced Ezio and Chris Redfield in recent years, is set to play the Dark Knight. However, Conroy’s statement made it quite apparent that he is still involved with Arkham Origins in some regard just not the role we initially believed him to be playing. As if that wasn’t enough, Troy Baker will be voicing Joker now that Mark Hamill has officially relinquished his role as the Clown Prince of Crime. Who is Troy Baker? Why he’s Booker deWitt from BioShock Infinite.

Conroy has now confirmed that he will be voicing a character in an Arkham game this year but it isn’t Arkham Origins. Does that mean Rocksteady is working on something else or is he perhaps involved in the Vita tie-in to Arkham Origins?

How can I best sum this week up? All the series finales, the new Xbox may have a name, online passes die, our podcast officially goes weekly and some other stuff that I’m too lazy to type out. Also, Dean considers himself a ‘lipstick gamer’. I can’t think of a clever way to spin that into a joke.

Columns

• Life, The Universe, And Gaming: Ludonarrative Dissonance
• Abyssal Pixels: The Good Old Days
• Experience Points: Violent Games Help Us
• Quest Updated: ‘Watergate’ Is Fun, Unfortunately

Reviews

• Review: Dead Island: Riptide

Previews

• Deadpool Is Breaking The Fourth Wall

Features

• 5 Games Still Enjoyable On The Most Difficult Setting
• Show Us Your Gamer Tats!
• Hall Of Fame: Star Wars: Republic Commando

On Youtube

• Let’s Play: The Plan | I AM A FLY IN THE SKY
• Let’s Play: Luminesca | MORE RELAXING THAN MUSCLE RELAXANT
• Let’s Play: SCP 087-B | I AM TERRIBLE AT THESE GAMES
• Let’s Play: Among The Sleep | Alpha Demo | BABY IN A HAUNTED HOUSE

Exclusives

• Interview: 2K Marin On The Bureau: XCOM Declassified
• How Much Do Game Covers Really Matter?
• Where Metro: Last Light Demonstrates A Case Of Bad Publisher Practice
• When ‘Game’ Meets ‘Play’
• Psy-Gaming?
• Lipstick Gamers, Nerds And Hipsters
• Unboxing The Cooler Master Centurion 6 Chassis
• This Week In Indie: Trailer Update On TBT: The Black Tower, And Sanctum 2 Is Out!
• The “Overrated” Argument
• Getting Into Gaming: Text-Based Adventures

Interesting News

• Nvidia’s Shield Finally Has A Price, And It Isn’t Pretty
• EA Officially Kills Its Online Passes – Is Something Worse Coming?
• EA No Longer Developing For The Wii U
• New GTA V Screens Show Scuba Diving, Driving And Hijacking
• Apparently Game Piracy Isn’t As Bad As They Say It Is
• Oh Dear, Nintendo To Claim Ad Revenue For User-Created YouTube Videos
• The Elder Scrolls Online “Gathering And Exploration” Footage Surfaces
• LulzSec Hackers Get Record Jail Sentences
• Why Are Gamers Being Charged For The “Ultimate” Last Light Experience?
• A Handful Of Batman: Arkham Origins Screens Emerge
• A Lesson On Microtransactions
• A Dishonored Developer Explains His Job To His Mother
• Where To Next For The Mass Effect Series?

Article Of The Week: 5 Games Still Enjoyable On The Most Difficult Setting

Podcast: eGamer Podcast #31: Do The Awkward Turtle

I’d like to dedicate this week in comments to nobody in particular. Live long and prosper. Actually I’d like to dedicate it to whoever doesn’t win a title because that seems like the kind of thing people like to see being done. Next week’s one will be dedicated to the homeless for no reason other than that they have no internet and will almost certainly never see the dedication.

• Hulk Smash — You won’t like me when I’m angry! Always posts rage comments.
• TRoLoLoL — Everything is a joke.
• The Fanboy — BioWare is MINE!
• Consolefag — PC Sucks, etc.
• PCbitch — PC is legacy. PC is the best.
• The Elitist — I’m better than all of you. Don’t type to me in that tone of voice.
• The Spammer — Cannot. Help. Myself. Must. Comment.
• Gandalf — Loves long walks on the beach and philosophy. Also, types long comments.
• Most Valued Commenter (MVC) — Everyone takes interest in what you have to say.
• The Parasite — It’s everywhere!
• The Hater — Nothing is good enough!
• Mr/Mrs Likable — Most Likes on a Comment

There’s a great chance that we’ll add more as we go. Perhaps you have some ideas of labels we should add. Let us know in the comments.

Every week we’ll leave one title out. It’ll be your job to suggest a winner in the comments.

On the next page, you’ll be able to find the winners.

I very nearly mentioned how I rarely ever log onto Facebook anymore or interact with people on it. That would’ve been a bad idea, right? I’m so glad I didn’t.

Here’s what happened on the eGamer page this week.

5 — Halo At Its Finest

We dedicate this one to Cavie.

Link to thread.

4 — Lag Love

I enjoy watching people suffer, it’s almost as satisfying as setting things on fire. I almost definitely have a number of undiagnosed mental ailments.

Link to thread.

3 — FPS In A Nutshell

If you combine all three it’s a game about violent hat wearing babies in tents. It’s about hillbilly infants!

Link to thread.

2 — CoD Hand Signals

By altering your facial expression and exposing a number of poorly done tattoos these can double up as expletive gang signs.

Link to thread.

1 — Gaming Weather

Today was a good day for gaming and so was yesterday and the day before that and the day before and the day before and the day before that and…well, you get my point.

 Link to thread.

DriveClub is Sony’s very good looking driving simulator for the PS4. We don’t much about it but here are some screenshots of it. If the game looks this good and isn’t a bore to play, which the trailer might suggest, then who needs Gran Turismo 6?

One of the more interesting features announced for the PS4 is the fact that you can start playing a game while it downloads. Pretty cool, right? Although if your connection isn’t too fast then things may not be all too fun. Anyway Naughty Dog has revealed that The Last of Us will give us an early taste of this feature.

The survival horror will release digitally on June 14, the same day as for retail. Naughty Dog’s creative director Neil Druckmann and The Last of Us game director Bruce Straley told Game Informer that thanks to Sony the game will be playable once the download reaches 50%. This isn’t as amazing as downloads on the PS4 which have been promised to be playable almost instantly but it is still something special.

Here’s a teaser for the first trailer of Batman: Arkham Origins. In case you just got back to Earth here’s the deal. The game follows Batman early on in his career and features Black Mask as the key antagonist along with numerous DC assassins who have been contracted to bring the Bat down. It all takes place over the course of Christmas Eve.

The game is developed by Warner Bros Montreal and this is perhaps the most boring teaser trailer in awhile. It gives me no urge to go see what happens in the full trailer when that releases on May 20.

Anyway the game is out later this year and I am excited for that, just not this trailer.

I love Soviet Russia jokes and I actually have no idea why but when you think about it, Soviet Russia during the Cold War was a pretty shitty place. Living conditions back then make student life look like something out of The Great Gatsby. Metro: Last Light may not be set during the Soviet era but it is set in Russia and it would seem the developers at 4A Games had no shortage of inspiration for the dingy rundown and desperate environments of the game given the studio’s working conditions.

Former THQ president Jason Rubin recently spoke to GamesIndustry about Metro: Last light which the now defunct publisher formerly owned the rights to. He describes the work environment at the Ukranian developers offices as despressing and hails the game as the triumph of an underdog with 4A having produced a good game with amazing attention to detail with far less resources than most Japanese or Western devs.

“4A’s staff sat on folding wedding chairs, literally elbow to elbow at card tables in what looks more like a packed grade school cafeteria than a development studio.”

Now, Rubin’s description of the situation at 4A is pretty sad but perhaps it is just an exxaggeration based on what he’s used to seeing – the sort of spacious and colourful studios of companies such as Ubisoft. A video has been released depicting a bit of the actual studio and while it does look a little dingy and tiny, it isn’t nearly has backroom or Soviet as Rubin seems to think. Then again perhaps the entirety of studio is not apparent from the video. Personally it looks more like a university computer lab or an internet cafe.

There are also rumours which suggest there were times when the studio had to go without electricity or water during development.

Be your own judge and watch the video. Skip to about 1:30 to see the studio and ignore the Ukranian or Russian being spoken, unless of course you understand it. Either I have much respect for 4A for being able to produce such a quality game in conditions that by all appearances most major developers would scoff at.

There are two things in that title which I really like – Just Cause 2 and the Steampunk design aesthetic. Possibly also the letter A. I loved the crazy over the top openworld fun of Just Cause 2 despite it having a number of flaws and shortcomings. I don’t really need to explain the Steampunk obsession but it is why games like Dishonored and Thief get me excited.

So my interest was naturally piqued at the mention of a Steampunk openworld game by the people who made Just Cause 2. The game may be on hold for now but it’s still there, perhaps while the studio finishes off Just Cause 3.

Speaking to Edge, chief creative officer Christofer Sundberg explained an interesting image he posted to Instagram recently.

“They were from a steampunk-style game we had in development that we put on ice,” he said.

“I really love that art style, and to combine it with sandbox gameplay is a dream of mine. Fortunately, being an independent developer I can control my own destiny and we’ll make something in that world sooner or later.”

Sundberg was coy on what Avalanche is in fact working on at present and rumours of Just Cause 3 will still persist despite the fact that the above image from the Steampunk title was initially believed to be connected to a third Just Cause game.

“We are developing for both current and next-gen, but the earliest we’ll be able to talk about it and go into any detail is after the games we are working on are announced,” he said.

“We’re also announcing new, interesting tech development that we do internally, but that is not until later this year.”

Openworld action, Steampunk and the promise of lots of fun? Hopefully this game gets made soon.

EA South Africa may have just shut its doors but DICE LA is about to open their own. DICE is best known for creating the Frostbite Engines in addition to Battlefield titles. The real news though is that this LA branch of the developer will be tasked with creating the next Star wars game now that EA has the rights to produce Star wars titles for Disney.

According to the WSJ, “Electronic Arts, fresh off announcing it cut 10% of its workforce to trim costs, is investing in a new Los Angeles studio for its Stockholm-based DICE game developer with the goal of poaching talent from rivals like Activision Blizzard”.

DICE as a whole will apparently play a big role in EA’s handling of the brand and all the IP’s it could spawn. DICE’s general manager Karl-Magnus Troedsson told the Wall Street Journal, “There is an extreme talent pool over that we want a part of. It’s no secret that our main competitor is there,” in reference to Activision studios Treyarch and Infinity Ward.

Troedsson went on to say that the LA studio hopes to add 60 employees by the end of 2013 and has already stolen some employees from medal of Honor studio Danger Close.

While it’s inconclusive to say the least, Troedsson added that EA is considering whether to start afresh with Star wars or continue with existing IP’s.

here’s the third video in the ‘World Series Racing’ video series for GRID 2. It focuses on drifting events and by pure co-incidence the video is also about drifting. If Tokyo Drift taught us anything it’s that the Fast and the Furious franchise can always get worse but also that white guys from Texas are amazing at drifting.

Anyway, watch the video.

Back when Assassin’s Creed II came out I used to love watching the developer diaries and seeing all the history that was poured into the game. Granted that history was mixed up with a cocktail of creative freedom and Templar vs Assassin intrigue but it was amazing nonetheless. My interest in Assassin’s Creed may have waned in the past few years but I still like the way they re-invigorate the history with their own flavour and in a time period as robust as the golden years of pirating, this seems like a perfect match for the AC writers.

The above dev diary isn’t quite the same as we may be used to  but it still discusses the historical setting, the pirate influence in general and names plenty of the big players on the high seas at the time.

2K Marin’s XCOM shooter has been re-revealed, rebranded and redesigned since we last saw it. The game is now a third person shooter called The Bureau: XCOM Declassified and here’s the first bit of official gameplay to gaze upon.

The game takes on a very tactical squad-based approach to gameplay which is a departure from most titles in its genre. As is expected, the aesthetic is somewhat BioShock-esque and so too is the UI in places. Not a bad thing certainly.

The Bureau is due out in August on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC.

You know what one of the hardest parts of my degree is? explaining to old people what mechatronics engineering entails. I usually supply them with the cop-out answer of “I’m studying engineering” with no elaboration. Now imagine trying to explain to your aging family members that you develop video games for a living.

Yesterday was Mother’s Day and here’s Arkane Studios’ Seth Shain, who worked on Dishonored, as he tries to explain what he does for a living to his beloved mother.

Do you love achievements, stat-tracking, leaderboards, game invitations and more on your mobile games? Of course you do. Much like Apple’s Game Center, Google Play Games allows mobile gamers to interact with each other on a socially competitive level by sending each other invites, vying for top spot on leaderboards, tracking your own achievements and more.

It functions exactly as you’d think it would and the invites system even has match-making for when you don’t have any friends. Something really interesting is the cloud saving functionality which lets you have synced game saves across all your Android devices. Of course, there’s also some Google+ shoved in but we’ll choose to ignore that.

Hit up Android Police for a more detailed and in-depth explanation of all that’s at work with Google Play Games.

Many are hailing Watch Dogs as something revolutionary for open-world games but perhaps we should reserve such wild claims for after the game releases. Don’t get me wrong, I’m as intrigued and excited by the game as the rest of you but I’m being careful to keep my expectations in check.

Above is some uninterrupted gameplay featuring protagonist Aiden Pierce purchasing weapons and items, infiltrating enemy outposts and using even more of his awesome hacking abilities.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the relevant people, actually you accept the well-wishing if you really want regardless of who you are. This week saw our podcasts go weekly as well as feature a guest in the shape of Peloma, the new Xbox has a name (possibly), a new Wolfenstein was announced, EA is making all the Star Wars games and I can’t really remember much else.

Columns

• Wolf’s Wicked Words: Escaping Reality
• Peaception: Parents Do Your Job Before Your Child Kills Me
• The Fifth Column: It Is Not The Video Games

Previews

• GRID 2 Focuses On Pure Racing, Bringing Across Each Car’s Personality

Features

• The 10 Commandments Of Gaming

On Youtube

• Let’s Play: Surgeon Simulator 2013 | Full Game | KIDNEYS FLYING AROUND IN AN AMBULANCE
• Let’s Play: Kraven Manor | Part 1 | A FREAKY BUT AMAZING HORROR GAME!
• Let’s Play: Kraven Manor | Part 2 | OVER THE TOP CREEPY, IT ENDS HERE
• Let’s Play: 1916 – Der Unbekannte Krieg | DINOBOTS IN THE TRENCHES
• Let’s Play: Fez | IT’S SO CUTE!
• Let’s Play: Surgeon Simulator 2013 | Full Game | HARVEST ORGANS IN SPACE!
• Let’s Play: Surgeon Simulator 2013 | Full Game | FIRE EXTINGUISHERS ARE LETHAL, AMBULANCE BRAIN REMOVAL

Exclusives

• Confessions Of A Noob
• What Happens To The Wii U When Next Gen Arrives?
• This Week In Indie: Play DayZ With Dinosaurs In Stomping Land, And Monkeys With Guns
• Promotional Copies Are The Real Limited Editions
• Has EA Shot Itself In The Foot?
• Next-Generation Could Set The Gaming Industry’s Problems Straight
• Dead Space 3 Has Officially Failed, Poses A Potential Issue To Us
• The Ultimate Catch-22 Of Being A Gamer
• The Rumour Mill Is A Nasty Creation And You Should Not Listen To It
• The Grim Reality Of The Video Game Violence Situation, Looking At Two Kid Killers
• The Best And Worst Time Of The Gaming Year
• Good Graphics Is More About Quality Than Quantity
• More DBNGamers Events Like This One, Please!
• An Organic Headcrab Brainteaser

Interesting News

• The PlayStation 4′s Share Button Can Be Blocked By Developers – Poses Some Issues
• Google Mysteriously Appoints A Chief Game Designer
• Local Pricing For The Walking Dead Revealed
• EA Secure Exclusive Star Wars Publishing Rights
• The Sims 4 Is Coming, Internet Not Required
• GTA V PC Version Outed
• Xbox 720 Now Rumoured To Work Offline
• Assassin’s Creed Creator Fired From Ubisoft…Again
• EA Promises A “Great Reveal” At E3, 11 Major Games To Come In Fiscal Year 2014
• See A Robot Dinosaur In These Wolftenstein: The New Order Screenshots
• Ubisoft Didn’t Fire Just One Assassin’s Creed Dev Yesterday
• A Dozen Fresh GTA V Screenshots For Your Eyes
• Just Guess What The New Xbox Might Be Called Now

Article Of The Week:The 10 Commandments Of Gaming

Podcast: eGamer Podcast #30: It’s The Worst Of It

Comments, more than last week so at least that’s an improvement. I feel like our comments are starting to develop character arcs, we could weave our own little complex narrative.

• Hulk Smash — You won’t like me when I’m angry! Always posts rage comments.
• TRoLoLoL — Everything is a joke.
• The Fanboy — BioWare is MINE!
• Consolefag — PC Sucks, etc.
• PCbitch — PC is legacy. PC is the best.
• The Elitist — I’m better than all of you. Don’t type to me in that tone of voice.
• The Spammer — Cannot. Help. Myself. Must. Comment.
• Gandalf — Loves long walks on the beach and philosophy. Also, types long comments.
• Most Valued Commenter (MVC) — Everyone takes interest in what you have to say.
• The Parasite — It’s everywhere!
• The Hater — Nothing is good enough!
• Mr/Mrs Likable — Most Likes on a Comment

There’s a great chance that we’ll add more as we go. Perhaps you have some ideas of labels we should add. Let us know in the comments.

Every week we’ll leave one title out. It’ll be your job to suggest a winner in the comments.

On the next page, you’ll be able to find the winners.

Allow me to share an anecdote with you. My Twitter account got hacked so I deactivated it. The end. Not much of an anecdote, huh? Well it seemed like an appropriate waste of characters seeing as I couldn’t think of anything else to say and this article is all about Facebook.

Here’s what happened on the eGamer page this week.

5 — Do Not Feed The Gamers

Give your growing gamer the competitive edge with Gamer Food. Now available in three exciting new flavours: noob tears, your mom and victory.

Link to thread.

4 — Mother’d Day

Happy Mother’s Day to all the female parentals out there. Here’s a gift for the mother who likes to shoot first (before her teenage son shoots her).

Link to thread.

3 — One Button

That’s what she said.

Link to thread.

2 — The Worst

Go ahead, name it. See if we care. I’m sorry, that was heartless. Where on the wallet did it touch you?

Link to thread.

1 — Gamers Will Know

That looks suspiciously like Cavie’s backlog of games which we saw quite some time ago.

 Link to thread.

Sony Santa Monica is best known for God of War and, uhm…not much else. They don’t produce anything else and that’s frustrating considering God of War: Ascension was an unnecessary prequel and the studio’s talents could be put to better use than milking a franchise.

A few job listings posted by the studio suggests a departure from their comfort zone in pursuit of something more open-world. The listings, posted to Gamasutra, seek designers with experience working on “open world” games, as well as vehicular combat and third and first person shooters.

Meanwhile, the listing for Senior Combat Designer seeks those able to assist with “character and boss designs from concept to implementation.” Experience developing or designing vehicle combat is considered “a plus”.

It sounds like something definitely not God of War related and it will be interesting to see what Santa Monica has to offer if the rumours of an E3 reveal are true.

Think of the craziest person you know, now imagine a game designed by them and scripted in a language they don’t understand. Then picture jumping out of a window with said friend while high on cocaine and singing Mariah Carey songs. You’re about 1/10th of the towards Saints Row levels of crazy. The last game had a dildo bat, ‘nuf said really.

Behold, seven minutes of the upcoming Saints Row 4. It’s a developer walkthrough which shows plenty of the weapons that players will wield while defending the country as the PotUS. Highlights include a dubstep gun and a mech suit. Oh and there are superpowers. If ever there was a time to say it, now is that time. America, fuck yeah!

GTA V is looking to be the sprawling open-world menagerie of action, activities, sights and sounds that gamers have been hoping it would be. With pre-orders already flying off the shelves (is that even possible?) Rockstar is getting the hype-train up to full speed in preparation for E3, it’s starting small with things such as this batch of screenshots.

They show off quite a varied cross-section of the game and show just how much there is in this game.

EA recently signed a deal with Lucasfilm giving the publisher the rights to produce ‘core’ Star Wars games over the next few years. Sure, nobody likes EA all too much but it might not be such a bad thing if studios such as DICE, Criterion, BioWare and whoever else EA has in their stable really set out to make some great games.

Technically the deal was struck between EA and Lucasfilm parent company, Disney but haggling over details is for fishermen and architects.

Fusible has spotted multiple new domains filed by Lucasfilm on May 6, including:

• gunganfrontier2.com
• starwarsalliance.com
• starwarsrebels.com
• starwarswolfpack.com
• wolfpackadventures.net
• wookieehunters.com
• order67.net

What these domains represent is unclear. They could refer to a single game or multiple titles. They could be mobile or console games. It’s anybody’s guess.

Anything involving some combination of rebels, alliances and Wookiees sounds good to me though. I’m not so sure about a wolf pack advneture though, that sounds a lot more like a bad Hangover licensed game.

inFamous: Second Son may be the third game in Sucker Punch’s highly successful franchise but it’s starting from zero and going with a new protagonist, new setting, new powers, new mechanics, new everything really. It also looks so good you’ll want to marry it. Okay, time to bury my inner fanboy and get down to business.

The latest issue of Game Informer offers up fresh details on the PS4 exclusive. the game will follow Delsin Rowe, a 24 year old street artist with the obligatory anti-establishment outlook. Rowe can control smoke and absorb the powers of enemies which come in the form of the Department of Unified Protection.

The DUP is a government defence branch created to control conduits, people with powers. In Second Son all conduits are regarded as bio-terrorists and highly dangerous. Anyone else getting a Nazi Germany/genocide feeling yet?

Like Cole from the first two games, Delsin will be able to manifest his powers in many different ways including smoke projectiles, fiery smokeballs, smoke dashing and more. Of course no set of smoke powers is complete without a smoke-screen which can be sued to distract and confuse enemies. These powers will be replenished by absorbing smoke from chimneys and wrecked cars.

This game game is starting to sound like the biggest pro-smoking campaign since the Marlboro man was around.

Delsin will traverse a slightly altered version of Seattle created in the developer’s own image and will get around via a network of airducts. Second Son is due out at the end of 2013 and I’m pretty excited or at least I would be if there were any degree of certainty over whether I’ll have a PS4 by then or not.

Of late, there’s been much talk about Microsoft’s new Xbox and the possibility of it being always-on but it’s been nothing more than wild rumours and speculation and in fact there are now rumours suggesting the console will function just fine offline.

Sony, not being one to shy away from the opportunity to make their console look good has now come out saying that a persistent internet connection requirement was never considered during the PS4′s development.

“Did we consider it? No, we didn’t consider it,” said Sony worldwide studios president Shuhei Yoshida said when speaking with the GameInformer, snagged from the magazine by GameEverything (via EG).

“The main reason being that many countries don’t have robust Internet connections,” he explained. “It makes sense for people to have Internet connections to play online games, but for offline games there are many countries that we saw do not really have robust Internet.”

While this is good news and perhaps in-line with Sony’s vision of making PS4 great for gamers and developers alike, Yoshida’s statement is clearly intended to spite Microsoft. However, is he saying this based on the abundant rumours or does he perhaps know something for certain?

Up till now rumours have persisted that Microsoft’s will have an always-on internet connection similar to some games linked to a DRM-type system. Long story short, this puts our ability to game at the mercy of Microsoft’s servers and their consistency and reliability which is something not many are keen about but now there’s a new rumour that the public can rally behind.

There’s also a rumour suggesting that the next Xbox will shoot fire at nearby PS4′s. Actually I made that last one up. Rumours are fun.

So this new rumour cites a leaked internal memo as stating that the next Xbox (codenamed Durango) will function just perfectly offline for things that you’d expect it to such as singlepayer games. The memo was reportedly sent out to full-time Microsoft employees working on Durango.

“Durango is designed to deliver the future of entertainment while engineered to be tolerant of today’s Internet,” read the memo, according to Ars Technica.

“There are a number of scenarios that our users expect to work without an Internet connection, and those should ‘just work’ regardless of their current connection status. Those include, but are not limited to: playing a Blu-ray disc, watching live TV, and yes playing a single player game.”

I don’t know which rumours to believe but I do know which ones I’d like to believe. Personally, I can’t see Microsoft having any justifiable reasons for creating a console that requires a persistent internet connection.

GTA V is looking like a mighty fine game but one thing that it’s certainly missing is a PC version. How can a game this big with the potential for so many great mods just not release on PC? Seems like a travesty and a bad move on Rockstar’s part, right?

Listings on pair of German retail websites suggest that there will in fact be a PC version. Is there something they know that we don’t? The last time the Germans were in the habit of withholding information people were dying, quite a lot of people. Amazon Germany and GamesOnly have both listed the unannounced PC version of the game.

GamesOnly also had a listing for a special edition of the game which contained the following:

• SteelBook with exclusive artwork
• World map
• Stunt-planes challenges
• Online-store concessions
• Bonus outfits
• Bonus tattoos
• Special abilities booster
• Exclusive weapons

Sounds pretty standard for a special edition, could just as well be a wild guess but the listing was promptly taken down nonetheless.

Despite the listing being pulled, a GamesOnly employee did the existence of a special edition to a member of a GTA fan site known as GTA-extreme.de.

“We can confirm that the content, as it is stated in the item description is correct” read the statement.

GTA V is due out on September 17 and will be amongst the last big hurrahs for the current console generation.

Tomb Raider is essentially a non-stop roller-coaster affair where the only constant is Lara Croft suffering and getting beaten around pretty badly. It’s no surprise then that when picking out their top ten moments from the game, Crystal Dynamics maintained that theme too.

Check out the video below and be warned SPOILERS AHEAD!

Respawn Entertainment is the product of former Infinity Ward leads, Jason West and Vince Zampella, who also masterminded the Modern Warfare series and the rebirth of Call of Duty. If sources are to be believed, and they often aren’t, then Respawn’s first game could well be an Xbox exclusive destined for next-gen.

The aforementioend sources claim that the game will be a futuristic online multiplayer shooter. The game is described as a battle of Davids and Goliaths. The Davids are heavily-armed foot soldiers. The Goliaths are the giant exosekeltons — Titans — that these soldiers can pilot. These Titans are big mech-style walkers that move with an agility not seen in games like Mechwarrior or Steel Battalions.

To avoid balancing issues, the number of Titans is reportedly restricted and soldiers on foot will be sufficiently armed to take out a Titan. Earlier last month Respawn in fact trademarked the word ‘Titan”.

One thing that seems certain is that the game is destined for Xbox although no mention has been made of other consoles and oddly the game is said to run on a modified version of Valve’s Source engine rather than any internal EA engines. Respawn is under EA’s umbrella so this comes across as peculiar. The game is said to look good on Durango (codename for the next Xbox) and that this is the only version Respawn is working on with another studio set to be picked to develop an Xbox 360 port.

Oh and those always-on rumours surrounding the next Xbox? They pop up here again with sources saying that the multiplayer game will be always-on which by extension suggests that the console may be as well.

It’s interesting for sure and come E3 or Microsoft’s may 21 Xbox 720 reveal I’ll be curious to see if Respawn has anything to show us. That said, other rumours insist that Microsoft is six months behind on game development for Durango with its internal studios. Not a good sign if it’s true.

Over the last few years Google has been looking to cut in on a number of markets from Android to Google+, Google Glass and many more that are not readily available to my mind. Perhaps I should hit up Google to refresh my memory. The company has its hands in plenty of pies and it looks as if the megalith is about to muscle in on gaming too.

Google has hired Noah Falstein, a man with a long history in the gaming industry, and given him the title chief game designer. That’s all we know – there’s a man and he has a job. Anything beyond that would be speculation. Falstein confirmed to Gamasutra that this is all true, but he couldn’t say anything else.

“I can confirm that the title and job is accurate. Can’t say more at this time, sorry!”

Falstein has worked with companies like LucasArts, 3DO, and Dreamworks, but lately his focus has been on his consultant work with his company, The Inspiracy.

I’m thinking Google is ready to take the leap with augmented reality gaming using Google Glass. At least, that’s what I hope.

Something something something, Dark Side…something, something…punchline. That’ll do just fine. So besides Star wars day, we also had Free Comic Book Day (on the same day) which is like the planets aligning by nerd standards. There was also Iron man 3 which I really enjoyed and some unimportant gaming stuff too.

Columns

• Life, The Universe, And Gaming: Core Gamer Retirement
• Abyssal Pixels: Has Gaming Reached A Limit?
• Experience Points: Damn Straight, Games Should Work At Launch
• Quest Updated: Coinage, Robin Hood, Rosebud?

Reviews

• Review: Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon

Features

• 6 Games That Will Have A Tough Time Trying To Age
• May 2013′s Game Releases

On Youtube

• YouTube Highlights Week 3 (21-26 April 2013)
• Let’s Play: Cry of Fear | Part 2 | COMBAT MIDGETS
• Let’s Play: Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon | Part 1 | EVERYTHING IS SHINY
• Let’s Play: Surgeon Simulator 2013 | Full Game | CRAZY AMBULANCE HEART TRANSPLANT
• Let’s Play: Surgeon Simulator 2013 | Full Game | ULTIMATE KILL COMPILATION

Exclusives

• Should Video Games Have A Shared Continuity?
• Interview: Shadowshifters On Huntsman: The Orphanage, A Captivating Indie Horror Game Without Blood, Gore Or Guns
• Confession: I Quite Enjoy Military Shooters
• Getting Into Gaming: Sim City
• What If We Were The Bad Guys
• Why We Need More Local Tournaments Like Gears Of War: Judgment
• How A Watch Dogs Trailer Got Us Talking
• This Week Indie: Get That Metroidvania Fix With Chasm, And Indie Jam 2 Bundle
• Questionable Developer Practices And Why You Should Always Wait For Reviews
• Comfort Zones And Lots Of Blood

Interesting News

• Watch Dogs Dated, Special Editions Unveiled, New Trailer Released
• One Hour Of GRID 2, It’s As Exciting As You’d Expect
• What We’ve Seen Of Killzone 4 Is The Real Deal
• Cross-Generation Call Of Duty: Ghosts Revealed
• The Inevitable Has Happened — Sega And Gearbox Face Class Action Suit For Aliens
• Catch A Glimpse Of Call Of Duty: Ghosts
• Fresh GTA V Details And Screenshots
• Next-Gen Xbox Promises Broader Achievements And More
• Feel The Christmas Spirit In Batman: Arkham Origins – Screens & Details Inside
• Activision’s CEO Can Earn As Much As Nintendo’s Profit

Article Of The Week: Questionable Developer Practices And Why You Should Always Wait For Reviews

Podcast: eGamer Podcast #29: A Zombie Named Fred

As I write this intro, there are very few tabs open in my browser which means there were not that many articles containing comments for me to peruse. If I was a father I would, well…probably sit in the dark drinking from a bottle…of iced tea while sobbing. Yes, I’d be the lame version of Max Payne. Anyway, onwards to the comments.

• Hulk Smash — You won’t like me when I’m angry! Always posts rage comments.
• TRoLoLoL — Everything is a joke.
• The Fanboy — BioWare is MINE!
• Consolefag — PC Sucks, etc.
• PCbitch — PC is legacy. PC is the best.
• The Elitist — I’m better than all of you. Don’t type to me in that tone of voice.
• The Spammer — Cannot. Help. Myself. Must. Comment.
• Gandalf — Loves long walks on the beach and philosophy. Also, types long comments.
• Most Valued Commenter (MVC) — Everyone takes interest in what you have to say.
• The Parasite — It’s everywhere!
• The Hater — Nothing is good enough!
• Mr/Mrs Likable — Most Likes on a Comment

There’s a great chance that we’ll add more as we go. Perhaps you have some ideas of labels we should add. Let us know in the comments.

Every week we’ll leave one title out. It’ll be your job to suggest a winner in the comments.

On the next page, you’ll be able to find the winners.

We’ll just call this Star Wars week, because we all know Disney will start doing that at some point. We may have slacked a little bit on Facebook this week so instead of a top 5, this week will comprise the top 4 posts along with a bonus one. That still makes five but I’m an engineer in training, we like our mathematics complex.

Here’s what happened on the eGamer page this week.

4 — Soldier Flipping

For those times when flipping a table just won’t cut it. Or tables just aren’t readily available.

Link to thread.

3 — Always-On

Incentivisation is a strong ally of the Dark Side. Also, why do Americans love pepperoni so much? It’s just sausage, right? Big deal.

Link to thread.

2 — May The 4th

Star Wars Day, in celebration of the day the Rebels took down the Empire.

Link to thread.

1 — Gaming Accessories

I heard McDonald’s is now offering gaming peripherals with their burgers.

Link to thread.

Bonus!

Crazy Yoda with a knife, he must’ve gotten into Han’s cargo hold.

Rockstar recently showed off a look at the expansive world of GTA V behind closed doors, what we have here are the new details revealed as well as a number of screenshots from said preview. Expect a public glimpse to come out at E3 in June.

Below is a full (very long) list of details detailing character transitions, character abilities and traits, treasure hunting, multiplayer, the detailed sprawling environment, heists, weapons and a few random bits here and there.

• Rockstar claims its goal was to create the ultimate open world
• The transition between the three protagonists is smooth; the camera zooms out to a Google Earth view, the screen fills with static, the camera moves across the city and zooms back into your chosen character
• The closer characters are, the quicker the transition. During missions where they’re all together its instantaneous
• Each character is rated in a series of skill categories: Stamina, Shooting, Strength, Stealth, Flying, Driving, Mechanic, Lung Capacity.
• Each character has a ‘Special’: Franklin is an adrenalin junkie and can slow down time while driving; Trevor has a frenzy mode, where he’s does double damage, takes half damage, and has a unique melee attack; Michael has his own version of bullet time
• Specials are governed by a meter, it drains after use and recharges slowly
• Other skill categories are shared and can be improved by completing missions, side missions, activities and more
• Trevor will always be the best pilot, Franklin will always be the best driver but each can improve their proficiency a little
• One of the skill categories is stealth, suggesting players will be able to take different approaches to missions
• The wave physics are some of the best we’ve seen in any game this generation
• Although weather wasn’t shown, it’s easy to see how they’d work in the game
• Some boats will include gear such as wetsuit, flippers and tanks for diving
• An underwater ecosystem exits, “the sea is teaming with fish and sharks”
• Treasures can be found underwater, but NPCs will be looking for them too
• GTA 5 rewards exploration, there’s no signposting underwater, so you’ll have to find the treasure the hard way
• Dives won’t offer massive payoffs, but will “help grease the wheels”
• The character selection wheel is split into four triangles: Franklin, Trevor, Michael, and your multiplayer character
• It seems there’s a closer relationship between single and multiplayer. Simply pressing Down on the d-pad will drop the play in and out of MP.
• Rockstar has said it will reveal more on multiplayer in the future
• Michael’s is miserable: his wife hates him, he has no relationship with his kids, he spends his drinking whiskey and watching old action movies
• There are subtle differences in the way each character moves to reflect their personalities; Michael is slower and deliberate.
• Rockstar says there will be five times as many pedestrians in GTA V as there were in Grand Theft Auto IV
• The game is a “massive” technical step up from GTA IV, the team has nailed the look of LA
• There’s a “crazy level of detail”: Tourist buses can be boarded for a tour of celebrity homes, film posters are plastered on the walls, men in comedy costumes try to corner you outside the Cathay Theatre, including the Superman-like Impotent Rage and Master Chief riff, Space Ranger.
• iFruit, the game’s new phone, can be used to snap pictures and upload them to Rockstar’s Social Club or your own our social media page. Recording videos seems likely.
• The phone also has apps. In addition to the camera there is internet, contacts, social media, a calendar, and a replay missions app. There are three more Rockstar hasn’t yet detailed.
• Michael’s obsession with classic films translates into in-game set pieces based on real world movies. In the demo the three characters mount a heist very similar to the one from Heat.
• ‘Mini heists’ are used to teach the player about preparation. Players must secure vehicles, outfits, masks, the getaway vehicle and locations for dumping potentially damaging.
• These build up to a bigger heist where the execution must be flawless. They’ll require the right crew and players will have to decide on the cheap option, which results in less skilled people, or paying more for skilled crew members that will a larger cut.
• You can switch between Franklin, Trevor and Michael during a cutscene, manually, or automatically when the AI takes control for you
• Each character has a job to do, how much you switch yourself in or let the computer do, is entirely up to you
• If you die the game reloads to the last checkpoint, even if two other characters are alive
• Although it’s up to the player when they switch, dialogue will suggest ideal moments. For example, when Michael and Franklin are being overwhelmed by snipers, Michael might ask for Trevor’s help.
• A combat roll has been introduced for moving between cover
• There is a wider field of vision, and players can run-and-gun
• Pay N Sprays can also mod cars with paint jobs, new wheels, window tints, grilles, spoilers. Upgrades to suspension, engine and brakes can also be made.
• Weapons can also be customised with laser sights, scopes, silencers, and high capacity magazines
• You can customise yourself with haircuts, new clothes, and tattoos
• You can pick up hitchikers, do stunt jumps and flying challenges, take part in yoga, golf, tennis or bike races.
• You can buy property too; houses, garages and businesses can all be purchased for extra revenue sources.

Well of course it’s still relevant, it’s a cautionary tale (one of many) about the dangers of annualising a great series and making it a cash cow rather than a hallmark of gaming excellence. Perhaps my opinions are not the most neutral.

That said, Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag creative director Jean Guesdon defends the annualised franchise stating that it is still very relevant. He does admit that it’s not quite at its pinnacle yet and has some way to go.

Speaking with OXM, Guesdon said, “I think we have proven that this franchise is relevant, and that it has a long way to go. Our job as developers of this new opus is to surprise players and bringing fresh, different ideas, while at the same time ensuring that what makes AC such a stand-out franchise remains intact.

“With the scale and scope of the world we are building, the completely new setting, the new gameplay mechanics, and our new characters (both our hero and his supporting cast), we are definitely on track to get the job done and avoid fatigue altogether.”

When asked if his team feared competition from fellow sandbox games GTA 5 and Ubisoft’s own Watch Dogs, Guesdon replied, “We are actually really excited to play those games – both of their universes offer something fresh and different! But when it comes to what we’re doing, we believe our promise and setting are very different from both of those games.”

Personally, the series jumped the shark a long time ago. It is still somewhat relevant in the gaming world, about as relevant as a historically-themed game series can be, but it certainly has garnered a massive following. Is it time to re-invent the hidden-blade as it were?

Disregarding titles such as DC Universe Online and Injustice, DC heroes have had a poor showing in video games and certainly their singleplayer outings have been few and far between; often quite mediocre or worse when they do come. The best DC has had would certainly be the Batman Arkham series in the same way that DC hasn’t had a good movie in a while apart from the Nolan trilogy.

Batman: Arkham Origins developer, WB Montreal, may be looking to expand DC’s gaming universe and possibly produce some quality games for heroes such as Superman or Green Arrow given the popularity of the character since the start of his own TV series.

While the studio is still unproven and will definitely have to deliver in order to be trusted with any other DC properties, a recent job listing asks for a creative director with experience in ”next-generation AAA action/adventure games”. the ad goes on to say that the candidate will join a team ”responsible for expanding the DC Comics universe in the interactive space”.

It certainly suggest some sort of next-gen superhero game, possibly even a Justice League title. For now, let’s keep our eyes focused on Arkham Origins and see whether WB Montreal can come good on that first.

Call of Duty: Ghosts has officially been announced and to get speculation up to maximum levels, Activision has released a teaser trailer which tells us absolutely nothing, is live action and will almost definitely be parodied by tomorrow.

The only real nugget of information is that we’ll get our first proper look at the game during Microsoft’s unveiling of the Xbox 720 on May 21. Read a little more on Ghosts at our original reveal article.

There’s often a disparity between what developers show pre-release and what finally makes it onto your TV/monitor in the final version. We’ve seen it most recently with BioShock Infinite where numerous gamers have noted that there were abilities and sequences shown in trailers and gameplay videos which simply weren’t in the final game. Admittedly, it didn’t stop the game from being absolutely amazing but Irrational still changed things.

An older example is Killzone 2, the supposedly live demo which Guerilla showed at E3 2005 prior to the release of the PS3. It looked great but it was not what players go in the final product. With Guerilla revealing Killzone: Shadow Fall at the PS4 launch drawing parallels was inevitable.

The developers are well aware of that and came out assuring us that what we’ve seen of Shadow Fall is in fact legit.

“That was one thing where we went ‘Okay, next time around we’re going to be on a stage we’re going to make sure it’s real,’” Guerrilla co-founder Hermen Hulst told Edge.

“We actually made a point of not even claiming it was real, it was as a matter of course that it was real,’ technical director Michiel Van Der Leeuw added.

“I think everybody was onboard with that, there was so much drive for people to make things real. We were working with central in London and the guys in Japan, fixing the firmware to make sure that the Facebook upload would work. It doesn’t get much more real than that.”

They were even bold enough to not bring a back up of the demo in case of technical difficulties.

“We fixed three bugs in the last day that were very, very rare and only happened like once in a hundred playthroughs, but we knew that three of those bugs were in there. So theoretically, there was like a three in a hundred chance of a crash,” Van Der Leeuw said.

“I was very nervous seeing Stephen playing on stage and a lot of coders here in the Amsterdam office watching live-stream were also really, really nervous. But we made it through.”

Any thoughts on this and the probability of developers selling us a lie? Well, perhaps I’m exaggerating but developers are certainly getting more involved in marketing the game and making it look attractive than simply showing off all their hard work.

In addition to its odd, ultra-glossy aesthetic, Killer is Dead seems filled with the sort psychotropic machinations that make any Suda51 game stand out. In addition to that, there’s also a fair bit of the bizarreness that we see in some Japanese titles. Expect karaoke and the like. The game’s third trailer however focusses on the gigolo missions wherein our protagonist, Mondo, must seduce women.

Don’t believe me, watch the trailer. People will probably look at you funny if you get caught watching this. Discretion is advised.

A series of irrelevant and unintelligible thoughts led me to think about the Avengers and that idea of a shared continuity in films just like you get in comic books. Except when they do alternate realities, ret-conns, clones, spin-offs and pretty much all the other stuff that goes with comics. So, what if games had a similar shared continuity?

Don’t know what shared continuity is? Basically, you have all these different stories involving all these different characters but they’re all happening within the same universe, on the same world even. Just as with the various Marvel movies which culminated in The Avengers last year.

I can’t begin to imagine what it would be like or how it would work but what if all of Sony’s PS3 exclusives took place in the same world, inFamous would co-exist with Uncharted while all of Rockstar’s games took place in the same universe, same for Square Enix or Capcom. Just think about it for a second.

Nico Bellick may be out on the sea in his yacht (stolen) when some asshole named CJ flies past in his jet kicking up a tsunami of spray. Or perhaps Barcelona is playing Man Utd in PES when all of a sudden a cardboard box starts shuffling across the field.

The possibilities are quite endless, do you think shared continuity amongst all of a publisher’s properties is a feasible idea? Probably not but it would certainly be fun. Maybe even just across a certain developer’s games. What’s the best shared continuity scenario you can come up with?

Where to begin? My mind is telling me to start at the end so down below you’ll find some really awesome new screenshots for Batman: Arkham Origins. There’s also some artwork in between and while you’ve seen some of it before, there’s plenty of new pics to ogle.

Okay, now onto the main attraction. In the latest issue of Game Master (a publication whose existence had eluded me until now) WB Montreal throws out some new details about Arkham Origins. They also discuss their approach to the character of the Dark Knight and features which didn’t make it into the final game. Most interesting among these is the storm indicator which would alert Batman to impending snow storms.

Below is a full summary of the exclusive coverage:

• Batman: Arkham Origins is the story behind “how the unrefined, rough-around-the-edges, early career Batman” becomes Dark Knight
• Batman and Captain Gordon meet for the first time during the events of Arkham Origins
• Senior producer Ben Mattes says there are elements to the story that they will never discuss before the game has shipped
• Batman in Arkham Origins has the moves and the abilities, but hasn’t faced the challenges that shape him into the Batman we know. Arkham City Batman is described as Batman 5.0, while Arkham Origins Batman is 0.9.
• It’s “year two” of Batman’s career, roughly speaking
• WB Montreal has been given everything Rocksteady had, from engine tweaks to concept art.
• It plays exactly like Arkham City
• At one point the HUD included a storm indicator. Since Origins takes place during a snowstorm, it provided warning of incoming wind blasts. However, it negatively impacted the freeflow combat as “enemies stand around waiting for you to punch them” and “you’re swinging wildly because you don’t know where they are.” The feature was cut.
• Another cut feature is the enemy quad-rotor drone which would patrol rooms in search of Bats. The drone “broke the richness of the predator room, which is in giving the player the power to play the way they want.”
• Detective mode has been overhauled, as has the gadget upgrade progression tree.
• Goons will be able to “take advantage of the verticality” of New Gotham
• Legends of the Dark Knight was the “single most inspirational piece of media”
• “Making Batman scary again is important”
• WB Montreal believes it has made “the coolest version of Deathstroke. He’s a wonderful counterpart to Batman”
• Northern Gotham is the area that became Arkham City, it is a mix of low-rent residential and industrial buildings. Referred to as the Brooklyn of Gotham.
• New Gotham is described as the ‘Soho’ or ‘East Village’ of the city. It is a brand new, upmarket area, borderline financial zone of the city. Focus is tall buildings, catwalks and walkways here.
• The GCPD is corrupt, so Gotham’s swat teams are out to get Batman too
• No mention of Joker yet.
• A ‘Most Wanted’ mechanic offers a selection of mini-campaign side-stories centered around other major villains.

I’m quite keen to get Batman involved in some vertical gameplay in New Gotham. I’d like to see what the new Detective Mode brings to the table as well as how WB Montreal handles the growing relationship between Batman and Gordon. In other news, Batman and Joker will be voiced by different actors. This strikes me as odd because while it’s understandable that Mark Hamill won’t reprise his role as Joker after retiring, Kevin Conroy just voiced Batman in Injustice so what’s up?

Beyond: Two Souls is the first game to be invited to the Tribeca Film Festival, how awesome is that? Anyway, Beyond is a very long game by all accounts from the developers and so I’m sure this 35 minute video shown at the film festival (yes, it’s almost as long as an episode of a prime-time TV drama) shouldn’t spoil much. In it you’ll see our protagonist do incredible things such as play the guitar, answer a phone and cry.

Sounds awesome right? Watch it now and probably get some popcorn ready before you do.

Wow, quite a lot has happened since we last did one of these. So much in fact that very little of it comes to mind. We’re on YouTube now though so expect plenty of regular videos and once we’ve established ourselves we’ll start producing some of the more hardcore videos Dean has planned.

Columns

• The Fifth Column: Going Hard Core
• Peaception: You Have Done What To My Mother?
• Wolf’s Wicked Words: A Certain Game Is To Blame…

Reviews

• Indie Review: The Bridge
• Review: Injustice: Gods Among Us
• Indie Review: Surgeon Simulator 2013

Previews

• The Last Of Us Aims To Provide Gamers With Trouser-Soiling Atmosphere

Features

• The Evil Within Is Great For The Gaming Industry

On Youtube

• Let’s Play: Lumber Island | A GIANT WITH A HATCHET
• Let’s Play: Cry of Fear | Part 1 | BIGGEST JUMP SCARE OF MY LIFE!
• Let’s Play: Gravi | Part 1 | THE ART OF MITOSIS
• Let’s Play: Gravi | Part 2 | GETTING MORE INTENSE, PROFESSIONAL LUCK
• Let’s Play: Into The Dark | Part 1 | A VERY STRANGE ZOMBIE GAME
• Let’s Play: Paranormal | FIRE IN THE HOUSE, ALCOHOLIC GHOST, CREEPINESS
• Let’s Play: SCP Containment Breach | HORRIFYING, I SCREAM, I CRY, I DIE

Exclusives

• This Week In Indie: Return To PS1 Days With TBT: The Black Tower, And Lost Spirits Of Kael
• Call Of Duty: Ghosts Is Great For The Gaming Industry
• Microsoft Better Play Their Cards Right
• Confession: Unlocking Achievements Is How Some Games Never Bored Me
• The Ultimate Zombie Game
• Gaming’s Biggest Enemy Isn’t Cost, It’s Time
• How Has The Bargain Bin Made You Happy?
• The Importance Of Being Earnest
• Violent Couch Co-Op
• BioShock Infinite Caption Competition Comments Compilation

Interesting News

• MWEB’s Mad Catz Super 8 Black Ops 2 PS3 Ladder Tournament
• So, Skyrim’s Legendary Edition Is Actually A Thing
• Even More Layoffs At EA
• Call Of Duty: Ghosts Suddenly Appears
• Cerny: PS4 Launch Lineup To Be “Stronger Than Any Prior PlayStation Hardware”
• Oh No, Nintendo Is Skipping E3 This Year
• Mark The Date, The New Xbox Will Be Revealed On May 21st
• Even Activision’s Own PR Team Steals From It
• MWEB’s Dota 2 Online Championship Will Ultimately Lead To A National Team
• Grand Theft Auto V Goes Full Viral In This New Trailer
• Razer Accidentally Offered 90% Off All Their Products
• FIFA 14 Foolishly Targets CoD Crowd
• Darksiders Has A New Home, But It’s Not At Crytek

Article Of The Week: Call Of Duty: Ghosts Is Great For The Gaming Industry

Podcast: eGamer Podcast #29: A Zombie Named Fred

Well this is what you guys have been waiting for, the return of CotW. Now as much as I’d like to comb through three weeks of comments to deliver a bumper edition of this article I simply don’t have the time, energy or severe mental depravity to sift through 150+ articles. Let’s pretend I did though and that this week just blew the other weeks out of the water.

• Hulk Smash — You won’t like me when I’m angry! Always posts rage comments.
• TRoLoLoL — Everything is a joke.
• The Fanboy — BioWare is MINE!
• Consolefag — PC Sucks, etc.
• PCbitch — PC is legacy. PC is the best.
• The Elitist — I’m better than all of you. Don’t type to me in that tone of voice.
• The Spammer — Cannot. Help. Myself. Must. Comment.
• Gandalf — Loves long walks on the beach and philosophy. Also, types long comments.
• Most Valued Commenter (MVC) — Everyone takes interest in what you have to say.
• The Parasite — It’s everywhere!
• The Hater — Nothing is good enough!
• Mr/Mrs Likable — Most Likes on a Comment

There’s a great chance that we’ll add more as we go. Perhaps you have some ideas of labels we should add. Let us know in the comments.

Every week we’ll leave one title out. It’ll be your job to suggest a winner in the comments.

On the next page, you’ll be able to find the winners.

Look which erratic set of articles is back, for this week at least. Time has allowed me to sit down and do this week’s Sunday articles, usually I’m swamped in work and/or tired by the time the site is back up. By the power of Thor’s beard I vow to never miss another set of Sunday articles. Disclaimer: I tend to lie a lot and make promises I can’t keep. Enjoy it while it’s here kiddies.

Here’s what happened on the eGamer page this week.

5 — Pumpkin Patch

Everything can be an achievement, even achieving an achievement. By virtue of this, you can be awarded an achieving for being awarded an achievement for being awarded an achievement for achieving something.

Link to thread.

4 — Need For Speed Mentality

We all do it from time to time, pretend real life is like a video game. That’s pretty much why people commit suicide, they think they’ll respawn with fresh ammo and better perks or something. The joke is on them.

Link to thread.

3 — Big Daddy

Remember that Adam Sandler movie? From the days when he was still funny? Good times. Wait, you didn’t think this was going to be a BioShock tangent did you? Maybe I do that in an alternate universe.

Link to thread.

2 — Angry Brits

Is there any chef more aggro than Gordon Ramsay? I bet he tenderises his steaks by yelling insults at them.

Link to thread.

1 — Gamer Life Lessons

Only 6 of those are true for me, can you guess which one’s they are?

Link to thread.

The only part of the PS4 which we’ve seen thus far is the controller – the all-new chunkier DualShock 4. That will probably change when E3 gets here but for now we’re stuck with promos for the controller.

Sony worked very closely with first-party developers to create the PS4 and all that comes with it, the above video features a number of Sony developers talking about the new controller and its features. Scott Rohde, senior VP of product development at PlayStation US, claims it will “make your gameplay experience much more dynamic”.

My recently mended PS3 took strain, the five year old but still quite functional Sixaxis controller in my hands creaked with each furious barrage of button mashing, the plastic casing threatening to split in two. These were the conditions under which I played Injustice: Gods Among Us and it certainly was a fun experience in the briefest of descriptions.

Now, the Sixaxis nearly fell apart because I was not playing a calm and slow-paced stealth title or a reserved shooter but rather a manic brawler filled with intense hard-hitting fights that really do test a fighting noob such as me. Even aficionados seem to find the learning curve steep. The PS3 was not taking strain because of the game’s graphical demands, we’ll get to this a little later on, but rather because shortly after its return I thrust it into a world of abuse with prolonged exposure to Tomb Raider and BioShock Infinite.

Enough waffle, time to start meleeing my keyboard and pummel a review out. Now, when you think about a fighting game involving characters laid on top of a Mortal Kombat foundation, most people shudder and remember the best left forgotten Mortal Kombat Vs DC Universe. This game was a poor attempt at aping Marvel Vs Capcom and it failed. That was when anything associated with MK was bad but since then we’ve actually had a very good Mortal Kombat game come along so surely a game which builds on that can’t be too bad. To be succinct and answer that unspoken question, it isn’t bad but Injustice does do a lot to separate itself from a brother whose initials can be mistaken for a South African music channel.

Straight off, Injustice attempts to set itself apart from contemporaries by aiming to have an engaging narrative. Sure, there’s a narrative and it’s even of the sort that you’d see across the pages of a comic book but it is so silly that you can barely keep a straight face. The notion of Superman losing faith in humanity and what happens subsequently is certainly interesting and I always like a good multiverse story (I’m not trying to give too much away here) but the characterisation and key plot points are banal and tedious. NetherRealms did manage to get most of the cast of the Justice League animated series involved though so Kudos to them. This does add some familiarity to the characters and also explains why all the voices seemed so natural for those characters.

Typically we wouldn’t give the story in a fighting game a second glance, all you need is a basic premise really and as far as I’m concerned “he said mean things to me” is reason enough to start a cross-country battle royale between two dozen people. The developer claimed they were focussing on creating a good driving narrative and yet here we are with disappointment on our faces. As a semblance of a premise it’s great though and does well to enact a Marvel Civil War type of affair where you have villains teaming up with heroes and vice versa in favour of a greater cause. There’s also a justification given for why characters such as Green Arrow can go up against Superman without having their spine broken but it’s not exactly something anyone with a pair of synapses would buy into so your best bet is to suspend belief. Truth be told, I was usually having too much fun to care about the fact that Batman really shouldn’t have survived that last grenade launcher to the face.

How it works is that the story mode takes on an interactive movie type of format, similar to the recent Mortal Kombat. Every situation that can lead to a fight eventually does and it’s great hopping from one hero/villain to the next and fighting your share of opponents before moving onto the next character. Each character plays differently, has a different fighting style and as such needs to be utilised in a different manner to succeed. There’s certainly no shortage of variety on that front and the character specific gameplay mechanics just add to the depth and diversity of it all. It does get a little tiresome though when the whole alternate universe facet of the story spawns more self vs self fights than anybody cares to have in a game. It’s like masturbation but with fists. Wait a minute…

Moving on, the game lacks a proper tutorial for novices and so it took me a bit of time to truly figure out what I was doing but once I did, the controls are intuitive and simple but that doesn’t mean Injustice is easy. It is in fact a challenging beast to master, even for the hardcore amongst you. This is thanks to a chasmic depth to the various gameplay mechanics and the tactics required in managing one’s meter.

Each character plays very differently, Aquaman relies heavily on speed and close-range attacks while someone like Green Lantern or Batman can succeed by keeping some distance and using their tools wisely. Characters vary greatly in terms of strength, speed, use of environment and their most effective attacks so it takes some time to truly master each one. This also means that fights are diverse and thanks to the MK DNA these same fights are intense, hard-hitting affairs that are often a spectatcle to watch.

There are around 24 DC characters comprising all the names you’d expect such as Green Arrow, Wonder Woman, Batman, Superman, Joker, Lex Luthor, Flash and more. It’s a packed roster but it must be said that many of the default costumes are not too great. They’re meant to be armoured up versions of the normal costumes but come across as weird looking and there is a special place in my heart for the hate I carry towards the Earth One Superman’s costume. There are tons of unlockable skins including Batman Beyond and the Arrow TV series costume but many of these can only be unlocked by playing the unashamedly pay-to-win iOS version of the game. A real shame indeed.

With regards to controls and finer mechanics, the game uses a three button system where different face buttons deliver attacks of varying strength and directional blocking allows for quicker counters and faster cross-ups. The game sticks to its MK roots but improves greatly. Combining any combination of attack buttons with directional inputs produces a dizzying multitude of attacks for any situation and the staccato chaining system of combos is as satisfying as it is bone-crunching.

Each character has traits specific to them based on their abilities and this changes the way they deliver even the most basic attacks while the fourth face button is for character specific mechanics which allow for even more variation. Superman gets a stats boost by effectively going Kaioken while Wonder Woman switches stances between lasso and sword. It’s all very specialised and interesting to see how NetherRealms has incorporated each character’s traits in terms of fighting mechanics.

Each time you land an attack which utilises that character’s special abilities, throwing a gas canister while fighting as Joker for example, your meter fills a little more. Typically this would only be used for ultra moves but in this case your meter can either be used to activate those character specific mechanics, be spent on a wager in a Clash (combo breaker) or you could let it fill and then unleash your ultra attack on your opponent. These are often a spectacle to behold.

In addition to all this, the environments are littered with interactive objects which can be triggered or thrown at opponents and each environment is multi-tiered. To get to the next tier you simply have to initiate a level transition which is not only fun to watch but deals a great deal of damage to your enemy. The trouble here is that level transitions cannot be blocked and so an ultra attack followed by a level transition could be an insta-kill. This is not the only balancing issue. On the whole, each character’s strengths and weaknesses come together to form a diverse brawler rather than a game where everybody only wants certain characters and the rest are all useless. That said, one or two characters, Green Lantern in particular is overpowered while Wonder Woman seems pitifully weak.

Despite this, the fighting system feels rewarding, especially when you’re chaining combos together and get to cap it off with a spectacular finisher such as Superman’s where he sends his opponent into space before pummelling them back down to Earth.

The game also comes laced with a few bitterly dull and tiresome QTE’s but they’re a small price to pay for a title that offers so much. There’s the STAR Labs challenges which provide you with hundreds of tasks under unique conditions. Then there’s Battles which serves as your standard arcade-style ladder with unlockable tiers that apply different modifiers to fights such as time constraints or having to fight with a random character. There are also character specific endings for this mode. Of course there’s the run of the mill versus mode and of course a very solid multiplayer as it borrows very much from Mortal Kombat.

You can have up to 8 players in either King of the Hill or Survivor. The key difference being that in the latter a player’s health does not instantly regenerate after each fight. Spectators can also vote on the fight taking place as they watch on while a lobby facilitates some social interaction between players before they beat the crap out of each other’s virtual self. There’s also good ol’ 1v1. The online mode comes complete with a host of fun facts such as the number of capes destroyed and other such valuable nuggets of information.

Briefly, the game looks great and well detailed during fights but it suddenly becomes terrible during cutscenes. Facial animations are animatronic, Wonder Woman looks like a man and textures rise and fall like a teenager’s moods. It’s shoddy to say the least but at least the game looks good when it counts.

It may be far from perfect but Injustice is a good fighting game with plenty of variety and it certainly tries to do a lot, succeeding pretty admirably in most areas. The mechanics are sound and with a fighting system this deep, hardcore fighters could pore many hours into mastering characters. At face value though, it is great fun and a thoroughly satisfying experience to play as your favourite heroes and villains bashing each other to kingdom come.

Earlier this week there were rumours of the XCOM shooter from 2K Marin (BioShock 2) seeing a revival and now it’s been revealed that the game is still in development and will officially see a re-reveal later this week. Possibly even today, who knows?

According to a 2K Games post, the ”squad-based tactical shooter in development at 2K Marin” will be shown again and almost certainly part of 2K’s E3 line-up in June.

The game will, as rumoured, release sometime before March 2014 but do we need (or want) an XCOM shooter? We already have the well-received RTS from Firaxis. The real question is whether after a lengthy delay the game has been rebuilt for next-gen or not.