Heavy Rain is honestly the most mature and serious game I’ve ever played, next to Minesweeper (shit gets real when there are bombs involved) and that’s part of what made it such a standout title. You would imagine then that it’s very difficult to find anything funny in all the somberness. You would be wrong as stand-up comedian Kumail Nanjiani expertly proves.

The comedian who I did not know existed until last night has some good material on Sony’s psycho-thriller and even manages to make some commentary on the evolution of gaming as a medium and the spectrum of experiences that it offers nowadays.

Watch him poke fun at what he calls a depressing game.

It’s always tough to accurately portray a warzone. You don’t want to be insensitive but show too little and it may as well be Cold War propaganda but show too much and things very easily become ridiculous and that’s when you start to lose the player. The development team for Spec Ops: The Line has been constantly aware of this according to senior designer Shaun Frison when he recently spoke to RPS.

Frison says that the team has navigated the narrow line between “messed up” and “gore porn” in order to capture horrors of war as best they could although it’s very difficult to keep the scale from tipping to God of War levels of gratuitous violence.

“I think it’s a really fine line,” said Frison. “It’s something that we have really struggled a lot with while making the game. How do you show how messed up all of this is and then moving into gore porn or gun porn. I think there’s less risk of that 20 years ago because people hadn’t gotten so used to it, but it’s become such a huge part of gaming, that it’s fun to make somebody’s body explode.

“It’s difficult to say, ‘This is happening because this is what happens in war,’ rather than, ‘This is happening because it’s fucking awesome.’”

Spec Ops is set in the ruined remains of Dubai following a killer sandstorm and ever since the game resurfaced last year, it has been looking more like a survival horror with clear similarities to Apocalypse Now although Heart of Darkness has also been cited as a source of inspiration. In addition to managing the gore, it’s been tough to set just the right tone and atmosphere for the game.

“We have you joyfully bombing the hell out of people, which gives a sense of power, but then you have to go down and walk through the aftermath of what you actually did, so you get both sides. The fun side and then the regret of what you did. I think the fact that it felt fun makes the impact that much worse.”

Check out the interview up top. Unfortunately, as awesome as Spec Ops looks, it’s been pushed back from it’s April/May release to the first half of publisher Take Two’s fiscal 2013 so that’s any time between April and October effectively. It’ll eventually release on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.

Here, have some screenshots if you really want to see more. Oh and those sacks next to Frison in the interview are filled with PoW’s (Potatoes of War).

ModNation Racers was not too long ago, and that was basically LittleBigPlanet’s equivalent of Mario Kart or Crash Team Racing (so many good memories), except it apparently wasn’t. To all of us that’s what it was with it’s visual style and character designs but now it has been rumoured that we’re actually going to get something called LittleBigPlanet Karting, because the name obviously makes all the difference.

Retailer Future Shop tweeted something it wasn’t supposed to when it posted pics of LBP Karting, which is apparently being showcased at this year’s Destination PlayStation in the US. The title is supposedly in development for the PS3 and being undertaken by United Front Games who just happened to have made ModNation as well.

I’m thinking it might just be exactly the same game but with a different label. There is talk of a Move-compatible wheel as well — which ModNation didn’t have.

In all honesty, looking at the recovered images as posted by Future Shop, LBP Karting has a visual style that’s much closer to the actual games, and has proper Sackboys which is really all that matters.

We’ve been hearing chatter about another major God of War title ever since God of War 3 released, but more so in recent weeks. If a retailer called Future Shop is to be believed then a proper reveal may be imminent at this year’s Destination PlayStation held in Arizona.

For those who don’t know, Destination PlayStation is an invitation-only event where Sony showcases some of its upcoming titles.

Now the spark for this rumour is weak but probably more substantial than the crap we’re expected to chew down about next-gen consoles. When asked on Twitter about the possibility of God of War 4 “as a final maybe?!,” the retailer replied cryptically with “Great Question. (;”.

It’s pretty much nothing, but I certainly wouldn’t mind more God of War. There have been strengthening rumours of a new God of War releasing alongside Syphon Filter IV, where it could even feature some form of co-op. Future Shop has also leaked that Sleeping Dogs is in fact Square Enix’s reboot of True Crime: Hong Kong and that BioShock: Infinite will have 3D support. Moral of the story: these guys can’t keep a secret.

The current Mass Effect story arc ends with numero trios but that doesn’t rule out the possibility of other stories being crafted from Mass Effect’s vast universe.

Speaking in the latest issue of PSM3, BioWare producer Casey Hudson spoke about his feelings regarding the trilogy coming to an end as well as the future of the series. Hudson is “sure” there’ll be more ME and doesn’t think he’ll be all teary-eyed when Mass Effect 3 releases on March 9.

“We’re probably too busy to feel sad it’s over right now,” he said. “I don’t think I’ll be sad. We’re not done yet, and I don’t know what the final experience will be, but I’m pretty sure Mass Effect 3 is the best in the series.

“We had ambitious goals, but to make a whole series that spans recessions, BioWare’s independence, different publishers… Well, we did it in the end.”

So what happens after March 9, then? “We don’t know exactly, but there will be more Mass Effect for Mass Effect fans, I’m sure.”

Earlier this week series fans were urged to keep their ME 3 saves so I’m guessing BioWare almost definitely has at least one more game in the pipeline.

Ken Levine seems to have a new-found love for Sony. At the publisher’s E3 press conference, he showed off BioShock: Infinite’s Move support and then proceeded to whip out a Vita and pledge to develop a BioShock title for the currently struggling little handheld. I can’t wait for said BioShock title to release but until then it’s pretty clear what we all have to do: because Ken is like Jesus to us and we heed his every word, we should all go out and buy a Vita. In fact don’t just stop there, take it to the next level and become a Sony freak. Screw that BB, get an Xperia.

Okay okay, I’m obviously kidding, mostly. Seriously though get an Xperia, they’re shiny.

Anyway, Ken Levine showed some more love for the Vita in the latest issue of PSM3. When asked what he thought about the handheld, he was initially cautious – probably because he wanted to choose his words carefully given the console’s precarious position – but then called the Vita a “really interesting platform,” citing the platform’s ability to preserve the purity of different gaming experiences and genres as a core strength.

“It’s a really interesting platform because, as a gamer, it’s the first platform that really sort of gives of everything. It’s the first time I can play things like shooters on an aeroplane; and I don’t like feeling I’m playing something that’s compromised in any way.”

Levine also believes that in the very near future “there will be whole kinds of games that you wouldn’t have been able to play before on the Vita.”

It may be that Irrational is currently working on BioShock: Infinite and that Vita’s BioShock will be built from the ground up but I can’t wait to see what it eventually looks like given how well Uncharted transposed itself onto the Vita with Golden Abyss.

You’d probably like to say ‘yes’ because this would enable you to take solace in the fact that when the zombie apocalypse dawns, you will have the keen senses to distinguish friend from foe and avoid becoming a walking lunch cart. Apparently it’s harder than it sounds, as the Taiwanese recently found out.

There’s an internet cafe in New Taipei City, Taiwan, that is frequented almost exclusively by gamers who will spend hours on end there, immersed in WoW or StarCraft or whatever RTS and/or MMORPG takes their fancy. That’s all fine and dandy but you’d think they might notice a dead guy in the vicinity.

Chen Rong-yu, 23, died on Thursday 2 February after a 23 hour League of Legends marathon session which is believed to have inadvertently been the cause of death. This is due to a heart condition which Rong-yu had that was aggravated by fatigue, lack of movement and low temperatures in the internet cafe and finally resulted in cardiac arrest.

Not for want of sounding callous but this is nothing new, we hear of (Asian) gamers dying all the time as a result of these marathon sessions. The shocking part is that Chen Rong-yu was deceased for a full 9 hours before any of the 30 people around him even began to realise that he wasn’t just asleep. It’s apparently common for players to take naps regularly so no one thought anything of it.

I was actually driving when I heard this on the radio and zoned out in a moment of utter disgust after hearing this because of the ramifications. It shows that these people were so engrossed in whatever they were playing that they didn’t realise a man had died. Surely a normal human being would notice if someone was having a heart attack at the next work station.

My heart actually goes out to Chen’s family for what they must have gone through given the circumstances and the fact that they hadn’t seen or heard from him for more than a day. It really is unfathomable that something like this could have happened. I know someone has died and this may be very insensitive but the only way to really sum up all the elements of this bizarre story is with this:

Okay, they’re actually just plain gorgeous but I needed a desert hook. Spec Ops was believed to have been KIA until it emerged from the depths towards the end of 2011 and is now looking very promising indeed.

The game has changed its colours somewhat and looks to be tending towards a survival horror rather than the all-out action title it was revealed as back in 2009. The game is set in a desolate and ruined Dubai with sand playing a key role in gameplay. Get a look at the latest gameplay here and if you’re not satisfied, get a load of some more.

The game is sizing up to be very different from other entries in the third-person shooter genre, especially given the relatively humdrum military background of the characters, and should be a unique experience at the very least.

As it is, Spec Ops: The Line is looking fantastic and seems to still be on course for its release on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 sometime in May.

It looks as if Sony is working on a touchscreen handheld controller much like that of the Wii U. It’s a little more sophisticated though as Sony’s controller seems to be intended for use in conjunction with 3D TV’s so that the viewer’s perspective changes depending on the controller’s position in relation to the TV.

It’s called the “Position-Dependent Gaming 3-D controller, and Handheld as a Remote” and below you’ll find a description according to the patent information:

“Methods and systems for using a position of a mobile device with an integrated display as an input to a video game or other presentation are presented. Embodiments include rendering an avatar on a mobile device such that it appears to overlay a competing user in the real world. Using the mobile device’s position, view direction, and the other user’s mobile device position, an avatar (or vehicle, etc.) is depicted at an apparently inertially stabilized location of the other user’s mobile device or body. Some embodiments may estimate the other user’s head and body positions and angles and reflect them in the avatar’s gestures.”

If you hit the link above, you’ll notice that the patent was filed back in 2010 so Sony has had this idea for a while but the real question is whether this is in fact a potential controller for any potential PS4 that may come along between now and 2014 or thereabouts. You should also take a look at this aerial diagram of pretty much how the diagram is supposed to work although it’s a bit technical.

Not much info is given on the device other than that it’s a mobile device with position-dependency. Let the wild theories start flying.

You’ll have to decide for yourself whether there are any real spoilers in the list of Achievements for Mass Effect 3 but here it is for all you Trophy mongers and Achievement whores. We don’t know about you but this list will definitely give Cavie many sleepless nights and a lot of trouble come March 9.

There’s a total of 50 Achievements with a combined total of 1000 MS Points. Get a good look at the list over at Xbox360Achievements.

Naughty Dog’s latest project is The Last of Us, an action title with more than a hint of I Am Legend to it. Check out the debut trailer here, to see what I’m on about. So yesterday we found that this new game really looks to be something entirely different from anything Naughty Dog has done before given that the protagonist is best described as a violent thug, brutal killer and torturer.

Anyway, some new details have dropped for the game and you may want to listen up. Players follow Joel and Ellie as they navigate their own version of post-apocalyptica while scavenging supplies and melee weapons which will break after repeated use. There are boom sticks as well for those who want to hunt for ammo too.

According to Game Informer, Ellie will be a non-playable companion so there goes any hope of co-op. What is mentioned though is that she “managed to keep up, yet stay out of the way.” Now that is something.

Below you’ll see some screenshots, those are apparently in-game not fancy CGI like the trailer.

The Last of Us is scheduled for release in early 2013 and should be something special.

If Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is anything as good as it’s shaping up to be then anyone who picks it up is likely to spend the next few months with it but if you’re a speed freak, you could be over it in just over a week or 200 hours if that’s a better number for you.

That’s a lot of time to spend with any game and it’s got the lead designer from 38 Studios worried that they might have just overdone things a bit. Ideally, the bigger the RPG the better because that’s just how it is with these things but there’s a point where effort turns to overkill. Speaking to Strategy Informer at a recent EA event, lead designer Ian Frazier said that even the QC people who have been testing the game for months now are clocking in at around 8 days to get through all that is KoA: Reckoning.

“That means easy difficulty, skip all cut scenes and dialogue, sprint everywhere that’s sprintable, fast travel everywhere you can, don’t do any combat you don’t need to do… that all took around 200 hours, and that was a speed run.”

The main quest only sets you back between 30 – 40 hours so you’d expect to be getting a great deal of bang for your buck and then some but just hold onto your vale-finding socks because Amalur might not have the steam to keep you going for those 200 hours.

“I think in terms of a selling point – bang for your buck – I think it’s great. It should be on the back of the box. But as a developer I have to look at it and think “did we overdo this?” I really don’t know.”

With any luck, these worries are unfounded but you’ll just have to see for yourself when Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning comes your way next week on PS3, PC and Xbox 360.

So Mortal Kombat is one of the latest high profile titles to be confirmed for Vita alongside names such as BioShock, Monster Hunter and Uncharted (which was out on launch). It sounds like it will be great and NetherRealms’ pledge to make full use of the Vita’s touch functionality should differentiate the experience somewhat.

Here’s a good 100 seconds of gameplay action. It’s cam but decent quality and the Vita’s amazing AMOLED screen makes everything perfectly visible. The game looks like good fun but the wiping blood off the screen thing is almost definitely too gimmicky for its own good. Did we mention that the game will run at a silky 60fps?

Watch it up top. Mortal Kombat will be out for Vita sometime in autumn.

There are pre-order bonuses and then there’s Radical Entertainment’s idea of a pre-order bonus. Those who put their name down for Prototype 2 before the game releases will get what’s called the Radnet Edition at no extra cost. It’s a growing trend amongst developers and publishers but usually amounts to little more than an extra weapon or multiplayer skin and occasionally even an artbook. However, this one’s a bit different.

Those who get it will get a one-time use code that opens them up to 55 pieces of varied additional content. These range from bonus mutations and challenges, to Avatar items (Xbox 360)/ animated themes (PS3) and behind-the-scenes videos and more. The additional content will be doled out over 7 weeks from April 24 when the game releases to June 7. There will also be weekly themed rewards which can be won by achieving a bronze medal or higher and a minimum threshold score in that week’s challenges; those who participate in every week’s challenges will win what Activision has dubbed “the ultimate shape-shifting prize,” which will be unveiled in March.

Read up on the Radnet Edition here or just watch the trailer up top. Prototype 2 is out for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC on April 24. This may go down as one of the better pre-order bonuses, just maybe.

If you haven’t watched the trailer for Resident Evil 6, do it now. Back already? Okay, cool. So if the trailer has your keen to slice up a bunch of nasties then read on because you’ll be able to do just that sooner than you might think.

Those who purchase Dragon’s Dogma when it releases in May will be rewarded with a free demo of RE 6. Capcom has said that the game will come packaged with a redeemable token which allows players to download the demo early.

Those who don’t like fiery lizards will have to wait until July 3 if you own an Xbox or September 5 if you own a PS3. There’s been no communication as to why the PS3 demo releases so much later but that’s still around two months before the game actually releases in November so it’s not too bad.

Dragon’s Dogma is due on PS3 and Xbox 360 on May 22. While you  mull over whether to get this game or not, let me help you with some RE 6 screenshots and a Dragon’s Dogma trailer.

I’m not talking about 2K Marin, the studio that developed BioShock 2 but Hogarth de la Plante of 2K Marin. The studio has been working on an FPS retake of classic RTS, XCOM but we already know about that. What has people intrigued is Hogarth’s resume.

In addition to XCOM, it lists a shady unannounced title as one of his current projects.

It would have us believe that de la Plante is “Art Director on a 5-person director team responsible for defining a new IP for 2K Games based out of the 2K Marin development studio”. He goes on to take responsibility for “pitching it to publishing and generating pre-production creative materials” with the director team.

A lot of people lie on their resume though, right?

Irrespective, you may not be all that happy that his claim to fame is working on BioShock 2 which was effectively a bad case of déjà vu but it isn’t because he actually worked on Irrational’s original BioShock as well.

XCOM seems to have been pushed all the way back to 2013 for now with XCOM: Enemy Unknown – a truer successor that is actually an RTS – effectively taking its place in publisher Take Two’s release schedule.

So, new unannounced game from the people who made BioShock 2, this’ll be interesting.

The PlayStation Vita is by no means an outright failure just yet but that doesn’t mean it won’t be. It’s no secret that Monster Hunter kept the PSP ticking over for quite some time with the series’ huge Japanese following and Vita could follow suit.

It’s no surprise then that a Sony official has told the world that there is a Monster Hunter title scheduled for release on the Vita later this year. He’s made this statement before any official announcement was made but did it in response to the Vita’s slow Japanese sales. He firmly believes that launch sales would’ve been much better if Monster Hunter was there amongst Uncharted: Golden Abyss and those other titles when Sony popped Vita out.

“The games available at launch in Japan do not correspond to the typology of the Japanese public. It lacks a particular game, Monster Hunter, scheduled for the coming months,” said PlayStation France CEO Philippe Cardon. “Had it been there from the start in Japan, the story would have been different.”

I really hope Vita’s sales pick up although Monster Hunter is reputed for causing a console’s Japanese sales to soar. You’re also welcome to take this as an announcement for Monster Hunter Vita.

Short of free porn and comics, what should Sony do to push Vita’s sales up or are you of the belief that the console will eventually find its feet?

EA has earmarked its FIFA Street reboot for a March 16 release on PS3 and Xbox 360 and I’m frankly excited because the game looks honestly good. It will use FIFA 12′s respective engines, feature more OTT skills than ever before and allow players to select their favourite clubs for five-a-side football. Can you imagine the intensity of a five-a-side Classico with no ref to whine to?

The game will also feature something called Street Network. It will be a lot like NFS’s Autolog but with balls instead of gearsticks. I’m not exactly sure why I said that, must be the heat.

Anyway, there’s a new trailer, watch it.

More rumours from more sources “close to the project.” Oh, goody. This time it’s not Wii U or any of those next gen consoles but rather a game and one that we definitely know exists so as far as the recent spate of rumours go, this is a leap in the right direction because we tend to like rumours about games.

A source close to CVG has reported that the next Assassin’s Creed will take place during the American Revolution. Seems like another wild one but there’s some evidence to back it up surprisingly enough.

A while ago a survey was released asking AC fans what setting they’d most like to see in the next game and the American Revolution was on that list. Anyone who played the Da Vinci Disappearance DLC for Brotherhood will also recall the set of co-ordinates that players were fed which pointed to the state of New York. Further more, series lore suggests that George Washington was in possession of an Apple of Eden.

Apparently, Medieval China and Victorian England are still on the cards. I wouldn’t mind a Ninja Assassins (don’t sweat the details, it’s close enough) or a Steampunk Assassin to be perfectly honest but one with wooden teeth isn’t the worst option to go with.

The above speculation aside, another source – this time claiming to be “close to the project” – has said that Ubisoft will give us a sneak peek at the game sometime before the end of March.

Yesterday we reported that Insomniac was done with the Resistance franchise and while many took it as “there will never be another Resistance, ever”, some of you were keen enough to point that there’s another studio currently working on the Resistance title for Vita so they’ll probably take up the mantle and right you were. Congrats, be sure to collect your celebratory glass of bubbly and Noddy badge on the way out.

So while Insomniac has done all that it wanted to with Resistance and taken the series as far as it planned, Sony isn’t quite done with it and has thus handed the reigns over to Nihilistic which is currently working on the Vita title, Resistance: Burning Skies.

Insomniac CEO Ted Price released a video message to clear things up and reassure fans about the series’ future.

“It doesn’t mean the Resistance franchise isn’t continuing,” he assured fans.

“It’s already in the capable hands of Nihilistic and with Sony’s shepherding it will continue to live on and expand. We’re excited, as fanboys, to see where it goes.”

Price also dealt with the big question mark hanging over the studio’s decision to ditch Resistance.

“A question we’ve gotten a lot through the forums and emails is ‘why?’ Well, we believe Resistance has reached the logical conclusion in terms of the story we wanted to tell,” he said.

Insomniac is currently working on four-player co-op title, Overstrike which we’ve seen next to nothing of although it will release for both PS3 and Xbox 360. The studio has even launched a casual and social division called Insomniac Click.

“[We] wish them the best of success on their new project Overstrike,” a Sony representative said.

“Although we have made no announcements on future products we do still have a working relationship with Insomniac.”

I think Insomniac was smart to move away from Resistance. They planned three main releases and stuck to that and now it’s time for someone else’s take on the series. It’d be great to see what else Insomniac can come up with.

You can watch Price’s full message up top.

Pretty much the entire world was disgusted by the vulgarity of the advertisement for SoulCalibur V which gained it the title of BoobCalibur, even Lady Gaga was offended. Well, developer Namco Bandai has done some soul-searching and it would appear that they’ve learnt their lesson.

No more boobs-in-your face ads, no sir. Instead you’ll now get a faceful of ass. God, that sounded disgustingly perverse. In fact, this ad makes the previous one look tasteful and subtle.

Above the be-thonged behind, it reads, “The series’ greatest masterpiece” in Japanese. It gets worse though, much worse. There’s some really bad wordplay in the text with the Japanese word for “series” (シレーズ). The first two letters “shiri” (シリ) have dots over them; “shiri” can mean “butt” in Japanese. But wait, there’s more – “masterpiece” is “kessaku” (“傑作” or “けっさく”) in Japanese, and “ketsu” (“尻” or “けつ”) can mean “butt” in Japanese.

If you haven’t caught on by now, they’re basically calling their game a “mASSterpiece”. The ad appeared in Japanese tabloid, Nikkan Sports. It’s basically like the Daily Voice down here in CT and relishes the chance to put something like this on its pages.

In case you weren’t already made sick by this deadful attempt at advertising, here’s what it looks like a bit further down:

This is disgusting, sexist and I’m actually offended by it. Let us know what you think. In the mean time, you stay classy, Namco.

I’d make a hentai fetish joke right about now regarding the aforementioned tentacles and blood/gore but that would offend Cavie, who is an avid fan of such things, and I just ate so I’ll leave it to you people in the comments.

Anyways, there’s a new trailer for The Darkness II and it’s full of the gory dismemberment we’ve come to relish. It’s only 30 seconds but it is sweet.

The Darkness II will be tearing up a PC, PS3 or Xbox 360 near you on February 10.

You know, when we at eGamer make a mistake, we can just edit the article and it’s all hunky dory. We still proof-read our articles (some better than others) anyway. You’d imagine then that when clearing whatever text may appear on the box of a game there would be an army of people to check that all is kosher and then another army of quality control people to make sure that the first army wasn’t full of degenerates who couldn’t spot the mistakes.

How then did the above faux pa slip through? Resident Evil: Revelations for the 3DS has just been released and people who picked the game were having problems before they even got to the counter. As you can see, the spine of the box reads: “Resident Evil: Revelaitons”.

This pic was snapped by gaming journalist Dan Ackerman who writes for Spin and CNET. Game Informer called Capcom out on this tiny little microscopic error and got a rather interesting reply:

“It has come to our attention that there was a misspelling on the Resident Evil Revelations packaging. We apologize for the mistake, which will be corrected for subsequent productions of the game. We are working on a solution to provide affected customers with the correct packaging. Please visit Capcom-Unity for updates.”

Where’s Homer when you need a “d’oh”?

So Microsoft made a little 2 minute short to promote the release of Star Wars for Kinect and had the humility to call it “hilarious” themselves.

Judge for yourself whether this spoof of the iconic lightsaber duel between Vader and Obi Wan in Episode IV is any good. You may also recognise the dude in the bathrobe but I’m not saying who he is.

The game is set for an autumn release and will give you the power to “unleash your inner Jedi – with no controller in the way” across single and co-op, competitive and duel modes.

Doesn’t it just sound fantastic in every conceivable way?

There’ve been rumours flying all over the place lately but most of them relate to presently fictional consoles and this isn’t one of them.

A job listing by 2K Czech could point to the studio gearing up to get to work on Mafia III. The ad asks for a senior game designer “create designs for game systems and mechanics for the open world city environment.” It also goes on to stipulate that applicants must have shipped at least one AAA release with a Metacritc score of at least 80.

There’s nothing to suggest that this is for Mafia III save that the series is what 2K Czech is best known for. Hopefully it will be a new IP because we weren’t all that impressed with Mafia II.

Well, can you really blame her with a name like that? Crystal Dynamics has made the decision to not bring its Tomb Raider reboot to Nintendo’s new console.

In a recent FAQ on the game, the developer stated that the reason for this is that development on Tomb Raider started long before the Wii U was announced in addition to the fact that the a Wii version would be built differently.

“At this time no,” Global Brand Director Karl Stewart said when asked if Tomb Raider was coming to Wii U. “When we started developing the game we made a conscious decision that it was all about building the game for a platform and making sure the game was specific to that platform.

“Given that we’ve been working on the game quite a while before Wii U was announced I think it would not be right to try and port it across. If we started building a game for the Wii U we would build it very differently and we would build it with unique functionality.”

Tomb raider is set to release later this year for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 and while we may not have a specific date, we know that whatever that day may be, it’ll be global.

It’s always tricky when Westerners try to make a piece of Eastern creativity their own. It doesn’t usually end well because the Westerners in question are usually American and we all know how they are.

That hasn’t stopped Ninja Theory from going full steam ahead with their Devil May Cry reboot and having absolutely no qualms about the fact that the game rejects a lot of the series’ Japanese heritage. In fact the studio has come out and said that it is not apologetic in the slightest.

In an interview with OXM, creative director Tameem Antoniades and Capcom’s Alex Jones waxed philosophical about the mountainous backlash they received from fans over the redesign of Dante.

Antoniades justified it by stating that there are different expectations surrounding Western games while Jones pointed out the different approach that each side takes with character design.

“Japanese style ethos does tend to involve making characters look cool for the sake of looking cool, adding odd accessories, crazy hairstyles and colour, cowboy boots and so on simply because they look cool.

“We in the West tend to be more functional adding things that have meaning and being able to explain that meaning. Why does Dante have white hair? I want to make a little story around that and explain it. And so on for the rest of his design choices.”

Antoniades went on to explain the jumping off point for the design of Dante and DmC as a whole.

“We did a thought experiment [suggested by former Capcom exec Keiji Inafune] early on. It went like this: imagine this game as a contemporary movie. What would it look like? What would Dante look like? We went from there.”

While traces of the Japanese influence are still there, the game draws more from Ninja Theory’s experience on games such as Heavenly Sword.

“We’ve not so much done away with any of the Japanese aspects of the series,” Antoniades continued “But are more building on the foundations of the franchise to develop a game that has a different flavour. We grew up on US and European movies, comics, music and general culture. That’s what we’re tapping into. We’re not pretending we are Japanese nor making apologies for that.”

I don’t mind the game being more Western, I mean what else would you expect from a Western developer. What still irks me is the fact that Ninja Theory seems to have gone into this game with the intention of making it completely different rather than it being their take on the series.

Either way, DmC looks decent at this point and will be available for judgement later this year on PS3 and Xbox 360.

Okay so it’s not exactly the entire nation. It’s just one guy so the rest of Australia can still be considered a bunch of inbred felons who consider Mario Kart as violent and sexually themed. Also these aren’t so much real Pokéballs as they are Photoshopped.

Anyway, Oz artist Barry Wazzy (Christian name?) has served up a gallery of some fine Pokéball artwork. It’s all themed and there are a few that take inspiration from the likes of The Dark Knight, Harry Potter and Dragonball Z.

They are super awesome and are so cool that even James Dean would want a few, if they were real and he didn’t die that one time. Check them out below.

So there’s now a launch trailer for The Darkness II and it’s all pretty and CG. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice trailer but what caught me out is the background music provided by Nine Inch Nails. Specifically Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails since moments before watching the trailer I was listening to his version of Immigrant Song used in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. It’s a great track from an excellent soundtrack from a very good movie.

Anyway, I’m babbling so watch the trailer while I get myself checked for rabies. Normal service will resume shortly.

The Darkness II is out in all its gloom on February 10 for PS3, PC and Xbox 360.

Would you play something called Hitman: Sniper Challenge? Yeah, it sounds a bit arcadey but it would fit if it were a mobile game.

Square Enix has trademarked the aforementioned Hitman: Sniper Challenge which has revived speculation about the next Hitman installment after it was revealed in November that there would be another after Absolution.

Hitman developer IO Interactive is currently at work on Absolution and will likely move on to the third godawful Kane and Lynch game after that. Although the studio’s head Niels Sorensen has said that part of the studio will be moving on to a new IP after Absolution.

Could it be then that the next Hitman will be the maiden title of Square Enix’s soon to be established Montreal studio? It has already been revealed that it will be “a new premium quality game” in the Hitman franchise.

If it is titled Sniper Challenge or even Hitman: Profession, as another trademark spotted by Siliconera would suggest, then it will likely be a spin-off perhaps for mobile platforms or even a Vita title. With a name like Sniper Challenge it could be a relatively small downloadable title.

A new Hitman wouldn’t be a bad thing so long as it isn’t a cash-in spin-off like so many others.

It’s time for another session of “random shit said by nobody in particular about the next generation of consoles”. Today’s victim is the Wii U which we at least know exists unlike the currently fictional Xbox 720 and PlayStation 4. Nintendo has yet to release hardware specs for its new console but claims suggest that it will be “twice as powerful” as the current Xbox.

That’s a big claim but plausible if the Wii U is to go toe to toe with the next gen of consoles from Sony and Microsoft in the next few years. What’s surprising is that this rumour is pretty conservative compared to the one which led us to believe that the next Xbox will be six times more powerful than the 360. Now that is a wild claim.

A report from UK site Develop claims that a Wii U developer speaking under anonymity has revealed the final hardware to be roughly twice as powerful as the Xbox 360. Apparently, other devs believed the console would be even more powerful.

“I’ve heard [a project designer] complain it’s underpowered compared to what Nintendo announced, resulting in people having to de-scale their plans,” the source told Develop.

Unlike the comically large question marks hanging over Sony and Microsoft, Nintendo will be re-unveiling the Wii U at E3  later this year and probably with some of the titles that developers have been working on so we should see what the console is capable of by then.

I quite like the Vita’s design and it isn’t really that bulky given the hardware it has on-board. However, being Japanese means that Takashi Sogabe, the console’s designer, isn’t quite happy with it. In fact, he wanted it to be skinnier.

Sogabe’s resume includes designing the Sony Walkman and he said the following in a recent Sony roundtable (via CVG): “The original design of the PS Vita…was very much thinner than the current retail product. From a designer’s point of view, thinner is better-looking, but the engineers wanted to put all the features in.”

So is a Vita slim on the cards?

“Maybe it will become thinner in the future, but the engineers would have to come up with a means to do that,” said the designer.

Sogabe also wasn’t thrilled about the positioning of the analogues although game publishers eventually won that battle citing that it was the best solution. That wasn’t all, though.

“As a designer, I wanted to use metal rather than plastic, but because there are a lot of antennae in the body, we couldn’t use metal.”

Again, I rather like the look of the PS Vita but a slim version certainly wouldn’t be a bad thing.

No, we’re not talking about that period of time between each Assassin’s Creed game when Ezio has a pose off with his reflection, we’re talking fisticuffs. Well the answer, courtesy of Captain Obvious, is of course Ezio.

So what we actually have is a trailer for Boob, er… I mean SoulCalibur V which showcases Ezio as the guest character in the game. Besides bashing his own brains in, he also tussles with Nightmare, Raphael, Viola, Mitsurugi, and Hilde.

His fighting style is a little different to what you’re used to seeing and blue-lightning will occasionally appear around him but remain calm and look at some of the cool moves players will be able to pull off with him.

That said, the game itself doesn’t look too bad and there aren’t nearly as many genetically-enhanced boobs being shoved in your face as you’d think (or want, if you’re into that sort of thing). Although Namco might have had the good sense to leave that aspect of the game out of the media for now.

Like it or not, SoulCalibur V is out on February 3 for PS3 and Xbox 360.

If you’ve been playing Battlefield 3 lately, you may want to steer away from Punk Buster servers for awhile because some spiteful and frankly infantile hackers have decided to take their hate for the anti-cheat service out on innocent civilians who were simply enjoying some good ol’ shoot your friends in the face gaming.

Innocent players have been logging on to find themselves banned from Punk Buster servers, receiving error messages and being kicked from play.

Hackers on the site Artificial Aiming have declared: “We are bringing back the unerring of punkbuster back for a 3rd season. We have selected ggc-stream as the target since they have the most streaming bf3 servers and makes it very easy to add fake bans,”

“In 2011 we hit them with a mass ban wave and now were are banning real players from battlelog while ggc-stream is totally unaware. We have framed 150+ bf3 players alone,” they add, before receiving universal praise from other forum members on the site.

EA has issued a statement with a fix for the stricken: “We are aware that some Battlefield 3 players are experiencing connection issues with PunkBuster enabled servers. This problem is limited to a small subset of players on PC and will not impact players on PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360.

“We are actively looking into the specifics of this issue and we are confident that we will have a permanent solution in place shortly. In the meantime, if a player’s connectivity has been affected, we recommend that in the interim they join servers that are not running PunkBuster. There is a filter setting for this in the multiplayer server browser.”

These hackers sound like little more than petulant no0bs who can’t go more than 20sec in a match without being pwnd 9 ways to Sunday unless they have their precious cheats. They deserve to be stabbed in the faces, repeatedly.

Rocksteady has cemented itself as a studio capable of extraordinary things and giving us an unforgettable experience in the shoes of some of our most cherished characters. So with Arkham City in the rear-view mirror, what’s next for one of the best studios around today?

You may want to say that another Batman title is the obvious answer and that it was certainly hinted at with that little teaser but that was surely more for the sake of having a point to jump off of in the event that Rocksteady decides to make another. What about a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game? Your answer to this should of course be “hell’s yeah”.

Everybody loves the TMNT and a gritty, hardened version of their world in the style of Arkham City would just be amazing.

If Paul Gale Network is to be believed then the game will be titled ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Manhattan Crisis’ and feature the full quintet of turtles as playable characters. If I need to tell you their names, then we’ll have to sic the eGamer baby otter on you.

Each turtle will likely have a slightly different fighting style since the rumour states they will each carry their own unique weapons in addition to shurikens, grappling hooks and climbing foot-spikes. There are also said to be flashbacks where Master Splinter will be playable and classic antagonists such as Bebop, Rocksteady (so that’s why they want to do this one), Dr. Baxter Stockman, Shredder and Krang will all feature as bosses.

Here’s what else Paul Gale Network had to say:

• The Turtle Van and Turtle Blimp will be present and with them and other gadgets, the Wii U build is expected to have touch screen controls for specific actions.

• Multiplayer is unknown.

• Graphics engine used is that of Arkham City.

• The game is expected to be more dark than slapstick, but the turtles themselves and their interactions with the Foot Clan, bosses, and story characters like April O’Neil and Casey Jones will still have comedy attached.

• Purportedly being in development for Wii U, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3.

• Careful selection of voice actors to bring the universe to life as well as Rocksteady did with their two Batman games.

• Manhattan Crisis shares a similar name to the 1991/1992 NES title, “The Manhattan Project”, but is very much its own title.

This might be a rumour and for now we’ll have to take it as just that and a wild one at that but if true it would be simply fantastic given Rocksteady’s (studio not villain) track record.

A recent job ad from Blizzard hints at several interesting things about the company’s next MMO. That’s assuming the studio doesn’t get destroyed by Diablo III backlash.

Blizzard has revealed that it is looking at including in-game advertisements in its next-gen MMO, codenamed Titan. This would suggest that the game will have a modern setting since Coke posters stuck to trees with arrows or cheeky Durex ads outside the local inn don’t exactly fit.

According to the job ad, applicants must be able to “work with major consumer brands to facilitate product placement and licensing within the world of Blizzard Entertainment’s next-gen MMO that enhances the gameplay experience.”

Also interesting is what Blizzard has to say about Titan. It has been called the “most ambitious thing it has ever attempted” and has the potential to “eclipse” World of Warcraft. That’s a bold claim but at the rate things are going, Diablo III could well be Blizzard’s first next-gen title.

A few days ago we told you about Deadlight, the first title from Spanish indie developer Tequila Works. The game sounds like something worth paying attention to and if the screenshots are anything to go by, it also looks surprisingly high quality for an indie title which is in line with the A-list of developers that the studio has accumulated.

It might not be the gameplay that we’d all love to see but there is a teaser trailer out now for Deadlight and it definitely has me curious to see what this game is all about. Check it out.

Deadlight is due out on XBLA mid-2012.

Friday 20th January marked the third 2upGamers event, and my first. It was thus with excitement and mild uncertainty that I climbed the steps to Friends of Design in the bowels of the Cape Town CBD.

There were in excess of one hundred people there including the regulars such as the good people from El33tonline. Everyone seemed excited to see what the guests from EA South Africa had in store and we were all obviously keen to get some free stuff.

It was amidst this that I took a place at the back with my wingman, Nqaba (whom you all know as sage of the six paths). We the met up with Dean who flatly refused to pronounce Nqaba’s name due to some aversion to clicks in names. Rest assured he redeemed himself later on.

Anyway, the event got underway and 2up co-founder/Xbox Ambassador Glenn Alexander took to the mic to get things running. Things started with a little intro from the generous hosts, Friends of Design, who are offering a course in game design if you’re so inclined. We then had a short presentation from Takealot who gave away three  N7 Collector’s Editions of Mass Effect 3 to lucky gamers, and our own Dean was very nearly one of them (where he was chosen but not marked off the list). Thereafter, El33tonline had a short speech. This was of course all just a prelude to the the guests from EA who verily did not disappoint. And so the anticipation levels were matched only by the ungodly heat, as EA’s guest took to the stage despite being a tad late and a touch Australian.

EA South Africa had managed to rope in Community Manager Brad Pidgeon who oversees the South Pacific, Japan and South Africa as part of his region. We were treated to some great trailers for Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, Mass Effect 3 and Katy Perry’s partnership with The Sims. Although Dean was unlucky with the N7 Collector’s, he did win was a copy of Battlefield 3 (this is where he redeems himself) which he unselfishly gave to me because he already has the game on each platform. True story. Take note, Alessandro.

With the formalities over it was time to mingle, and the mercury seemed to only climb as people began to move about. Several consoles had been set up with titles such as Fight Night, Need for Speed: The Run and FIFA 12. There was even a group of guys who’d brought their own equipment to set up a little fighting game scene, complete with their own arcade pads.

Dean was one of the first casualties of the night after being slaughtered in FIFA (by DieJason) but perhaps he was off his game since I never once saw him touch a drop of alcohol! Shortly after this the pizzas arrived and all hell broke loose, although there was enough to go around.

I then began striking up conversations with a few random people who just happened to be near me — and it was amazing how friendly most of the people in attendance were. Above that, it was great to just be able to talk games to people who are completely on the same page as you, and it was also a fantastic way to meet new people.

I even had a conversation with Mr Pidgeon himself and we shot the breeze about Australia during the World Cup (FIFA not rugby), his experience of the Olympics and our own passions for FIFA. We also spoke a bit about the next FIFA title and what changes people would like to see. He will be going to a meeting in London this week to discuss just that, so feel free to make suggestions via Twitter.

All in all, it was a great experience with some awesome people and fantastic guests. I even got free stuff at my first meet. 2upGamers is taking Cape Town gaming to new levels and this is definitely something I want to be a part of, and you should too. It’s an awesome way for gamers to network and socialise (and win freebies) as well as for all of you to meet some of us from the eGamer team. Dean and I will likely be at most meets in the future and rest assured we will try to rope Azhar in as well, as we’d like to get to know some of the community ourselves.

Below are some arbitrary pics from the night which should give you a broad idea of what the events are like. Unfortunately, my paltry journalistic skills don’t include photographing events which I well and truly suck at, but I’m learning and perhaps next time we’ll actually have some more informative and meaningful shots of the event.

The next meet is on March 2, mark the date.

Maybe you’re eagerly anticipating Star Wars: The Old Republic, maybe the Force Unleashed games killed your love for the franchise or maybe you’re just as indifferent as me but whatever your stance, anyone can appreciate just how convoluted and complex the development process of this game was.

It really was a logistical nightmare according to a retrospective on the game game done in the LA Times. In fact, BioWare co-founder Greg Zeschuck went as far as to say that co-ordinating the efforts from all the parties involved was like “teaching elephants to do ballet.”

According to the article, the Old Republic’s artwork was outsourced to China, Estonia, and Russia; motion capture was filmed in LA and Vancouver; voice acting in English, French and German was recorded in London., New York and Paris; while quality assurance testing took place in Argentina, India and Romania.

As if that wasn’t enough, the game’s technical operations is being run out of Virginia while the customer service centre is out in Galway, Ireland. Surely things would just be even more complicated if they’d outsourced the call centre to India (or Durban) like any normal self-respecting company.

For the express purpose of co-ordinating, there is a shuttle currently running which transports the BioWare Austin team to and from EA’s HQ in Redwood Shores, California.

In the words of the immortally great Clarkson, “it’s a bit of a faff.”

Kudos to BioWare for pulling it off though and here’s to hoping they can simplify it somewhat next time around.

Crystal Dynamics global brand manager Karl Stewart has added a little more meat to the skeletal details we currently have regarding the studio’s Tomb Raider reboot.

Speaking in a recent Q & A on the Eidos forums, Stewart spoke of the developer’s plans to release some behind-the scenes dev diaries. However, details are still scant since the developers “want to give it away right now.”

What Stewart could reveal was a little bit here and there about the game’s combat system which is said to have “a variety of different play paths and playstyles,” which include the various melee, stealth and ranged options in solving the mystery of the island that Lara Croft finds herself stranded on.

“There is a core discovery to be made, and that core discovery will unlock the mystery of the entire island and answer a lot of questions,” he said. “There are items and artifacts that you have to pick up and find around the island, but everything points to this big discovery.”

Interestingly, one of the weapons which has Stewart excited is the bow which Lara will use to hunt in the game.

There will also be “plenty of people on the island” which should provide some diversity to your experiences with NPC’s but don’t expect an island romance anytime soon.

“I’ve read and fed into the script now on many, many occasions, and I can tell you that there is no love interest in this game,” he said. “She is trying to survive. She is busy. Surviving the situation is all she can cope with right now; surviving a relationship would be a bit tough.

“In one of the next releases we could possibly see this ‘more human Lara’ meet someone, but that is way over the horizon.”

There will also be a greater degree of realism with limitations being put on Lara’s movements. For example, players will be unable to “jump off the side of a cliff and hook onto the side at random” in order to free climb.

“The real world doesn’t work like that,” said Stewart. “Like real life you can’t just walk up to a cliff and assume you can climb it. It may be too steep, or too rocky, or jagged. But then there will be other areas perfect for climbing. It will feel organic and natural. The path won’t be screaming at you – no white ledges.”

Though sceptical at first, I’ve really warmed up to this version of Tomb raider and it looks like it could be a great game. E3 should have some great stuff on show as far as Tomb Raider is concerned. Beyond that, the game is scheduled to release towards the end of 2012 for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.

Tequila Works, what a name but then this is a Spanish indie developer from Madrid that we’re talking about.

Anyway, the studio was founded in late 2009 by Raúl Rubio Munárriz and Luz Sancho Rodríguez and the two have managed to amass what appears to be a rather talented team comprising people who have worked on such notable titles as Commandos, Motorstorm, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, Diablo III, Heavy Rain and Overlord II. Assuming these weren’t the rejects that were responsible for those things that you didn’t like in any of these games then Tequila Works certainly has an A-grade group of people.

So why do we care? Well, we promised to cover more indie news this year and this game looks promising if the screens are anything to go on.

Titled Deadlight, the game follows a man named Randall Wayne as he grapples with having “no reason to exist” while trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic 1986 on the American west coast. The word is that the population has been wiped out by some sort of epidemic and surviving has become “much more than a daily routine.”

It sounds like most pitches for a post-apocalyptic game with more than a hint of I Am Legend and 28 Days Later but the screens are promising. Normally you have to take screens with a pinch of salt but these look pretty great for an indie game. Another interesting thing is that this isn’t a shooter or action game but is rather being billed as a puzzle platformer.

Deadlight is scheduled for release on XBLA this winter and should be pretty interesting by the sounds of things.

It’s Skyrim but all the dragons have been replaced by My Little Ponies. Best. Mod. Ever.

Imagine if shouting at the dragon ponies made them hide in a corner and cry. It would be amazing. Watch these videos and your life will be complete.

Did I mention that despite the cuteness, they still breathe fire and all the rest. Allow me to reiterate. Best. Mod. Ever.

As excited as I am to eventually get my hands on a Vita, I’m just as excited for all the games that are coming its way. Not least of which is Mortal Kombat which is even being optimised to make the most of the Vita’s unique features.

For example, the Vita version of the game will have touchscreen fatalities. Speaking to PlayStation Blog, Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon spoke at length about bringing the title to Sony’s handheld so don’t think of this as just another cheap port.

“For fatalities, you can “slash” the screen with the appropriate inputs – say, away, away, up – to execute the fatality. It makes some of the more difficult fatalities easier and it’s fun to slash at your screen to fire off a fatality.”

In addition to these updates, there will also be Test Your Might-style mini-games in addition to tweaks made to the Challengeer Tower mode that should allow it to make use of Vita’s accelerometer and gyroscope. Sadly there won’t be any PS3-to-Vita cross-platform functionality as with Marvel vs. Capcom 3.

Being able to simply swipe out the correct sequence for a fatality should be far simpler and possibly even result in a better game but it’s great to see developers trying to take full advantage of what the Vita has to offer.

Still not sold on the whole thing? Read Alessandro’s review of the new handheld, it made up my mind.

With Yesterday’s delay of Max Payne 3 to May 2012, doubt was cast over the release date of GTA V. It’s unlikely that Rockstar would release two heavyweight titles within a six month period so the earliest we can expect to see the next GTA is around Christmas this year.

However, in the 12 month period starting April 1, publisher Take-Two expects to release Max Payne 3, BioShock Infinite, Borderlands 2, Spec Ops: The Line, XCOM and XCOM: Enemy Unknown. It’s unclear whether the company would like to add another big title to that burgeoning list but it certainly wouldn’t hurt the bottom-line.

National Alliance Capital Markets analyst Mike Hickey told Game Informer: “It seems unlikely that Rockstar Games would launch both Max Payne 3 and GTA 5 in the month on May. Therefore, we have shifted our original expectation for GTA V to launch in May 2012, into the Company’s 2013 fiscal second-half operating period.

“We remain confident GTA V will ship in calendar year ’12, based on an assumption that Rockstar is using a sub 12 month marketing window for GTA V and the company’s fiscal 2013 performance guidance, which would suggest the game’s release.”

EEDAR’s Jesse Divnich said: “[Take-Two] are still saying they will achieve $2.00 earnings per share in fiscal 2013, so Grand Theft Auto V has to come out by March 2013.”

Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter commented: “Although GTA V may still launch in FY:13, predicting the actual release date is difficult due to a crowded pipeline.

“I don’t know if [Max Payne's delay] means a full year gap, but very likely six months. Too bad, as I think Grand Theft Auto V would benefit from giving Call of Duty some breathing room.”

Judging by Max Payne 3′s delay, Take-Two’s crowded fiscal 2013 and Rockstar’s recent obsession with the month of May, there’s really only one deduction to come to here.

So the demo for The Darkness II goes live on January 25 but what if you don’t want to wait that long or can’t be bothered to download it? That’s what gameplay videos are for, my friends.

Behold, the demo in its 27 minute entirety split over two videos. There’s more tentacle action than in Cavie’s favourite hentai and enough violence and gore to make Tarantino a happy panda. There’s even a little imp-like Darkling that helps you out along with the compulsion to feed on your enemies’ hearts.

It looks pretty damn cool from what you see in the demo but I really hope the kill animations become more varied and the controls aren’t as clunky and erratic as they look. That said the visual style is very intriguing and grows on you by around minute 18.

The Darkness II is out in full for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 on February 10.

Okay, not really but 12,000 is a lot of fanboys and that’s surely worth something. The Steam group goes by the name of A Call for Communication (Half-Life) and has accrued exactly 11,675 members since its Inception on December 25 last year.

There’s a fair amount of whinging about how Valve is disrespecting an disregarding its long-time fans but you might find yourself agreeing with a bit of what they say.

“The lack of communication between Valve and the Half-Life community has been a frustrating experience,” says the group, , which has attracted 11,675 members since its formation on December 25.

“While continued support for current and future products is greatly appreciated, fans of the Half-Life series have waited years for a word on when the franchise will return. So, Instead of focusing efforts in a negative and disrespectful way, we have decided to gain Valve’s attention by delivering a basic message:

“Your oldest and longest running fanbase would like better communication. Waiting patiently for over four years is a daunting task, especially when E3 comes and goes without any beat of a Half-Life pulse, time and time again.

“Valve had stated that information was scheduled to be released towards the end of 2008, and we believe that if they have chosen, for whatever reason, to withhold this information, fans should at least be acknowledged in some way, regardless of developmental plans for the next Half-Life project

“The entire trilogy of episodes was supposed to be completed and released by 2007, and if Valve have decided to do other things for the time being, that is fine; all that we ask for is a basic response on the matter, and to let fans know whether or not the current story arc is scheduled to conclude at another point in time.”

The group adds that its goal isn’t to rush the development of the Half-Life series. “In fact, most members agree that Valve should take the time needed to deliver a complete and polished product. If you agree with the above message and statements, please join this group and share your support constructively. Hopefully such attention will be recognized by Valve, and the community’s voice will be heard.”

What’s your opinion – can 12,000 clamouring fans bring about what we all want or is this just so much empty noise that will culminate in absolutely nothing achieved?

Boy is that one loaded headline. Yes, Remedy is pleased with Rockstar’s handling of its IP and yes, said game has been delayed. Max Payne 3 was originally scheduled for a March release but has now been pushed back to May. The console version of the game will now only reach our shores by May 18 and PC gamers have to wait until June 1 to get their hands on it.

The reason for this delay? Rockstar wants to “ensure that Max Payne 3 delivers the highest quality.” That’s what they all say but it could just be that publisher Take-Two loves the month of May and releasing games during its seemingly favourite month. First it was Red Dead Redemption, then L.A. Noire and now Max Payne 3.

It doesn’t make any business sense to delay MP3 though, because Take-Two is now expected to report a net loss for 2012.

“We do not take changes to our release schedule lightly, and this short delay will ensure that Max Payne 3 delivers the highest quality, groundbreaking entertainment experience that is expected from our Company,” said Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Take-Two.

“Max Payne 3 promises to be one of our most exciting releases to date, and we are confident that consumers will once again be amazed by Rockstar’s ability to take interactive entertainment to another level.

“With Max Payne 3 now slated for May, our robust lineup of upcoming releases for fiscal 2013 is even stronger, including BioShock Infinite, Borderlands 2, Spec Ops: The Line, XCOM, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, and other titles yet to be announced for release that year.

“Fiscal 2013 is poised to be one of our best years ever, with anticipated substantial revenue growth and Non-GAAP Net Income of over $2.00 per share. We are well positioned to deliver growth and profitability over the long term.”

I’d cry tears of joy if Take-Two really is forsaking fiscal common sense in favour of putting out a better game.

Amidst all of this, original series developer Remedy, that has since gone on to create Xbox 360 hit Alan Wake, is well-pleased with Rockstar’s handiwork.Despite developing the first two games, Remedy had absolutely nothing to do with Max Payne 3.

“We absolutely love what they’ve done and couldn’t be more proud of where the series is headed,” said Remedy’s “Oskari ‘Ozz’ Hakkinen to Kotaku.

“I mean, they don’t really make shitty games, do they? It’s as if the Rockstar logo has become this, ‘Seal of quality’,” he added.

It’s great that Remedy is in full support of what Rockstar has done with Max Payne 3 but I’m still not sold on it even though Rockstar, as Hakkinen said, rarely turns out a bad game these days.

Developer Mojang has confirmed that indie sensation Minecraft now has more than 20 million registered users which is to say that over 20 million people signed up for the free demo. That is truly staggering for a small developer such as Mojang.

According to Minecraft creator Markus ‘Notch’ Persson via Twitter, 23.3% percent of those users went on to purchase the full game which means that Minecraft has already sold approximately 4.6 million copies.

The first real update for Minecraft was released last week. Update 1.1 fixes a ton of bugs and glitches as well as adding new Bow Enhancement, a Golden Apple recipe and more.

EA once again bangs its head against an excruciatingly painful wall as it continues to try and restore the Need for Speed franchise to its PS2-era glory but that doesn’t mean Need for Speed: The Run is particularly bad. No, it’s just a disappointment and a letdown so let’s break it down to find out why.

If you’re reading this then you either really like my writing (which I highly doubt) or you’re here out of blind curiosity (which is entirely plausible) and you’ll more than likely be wondering why this review is exactly two months late. Well, it was going to be a month and 3 weeks late but I like round numbers and I only received The Run several weeks after it released by which point I was only a couple of weeks post-op after having major surgery so I was not in fighting form to tackle this review. Yes, pity me. Suffice to say, I’m back to maximum strength and am keen to put The Run behind me. So without further ado, Autobots roll out.

Normally I wouldn’t nitpick at the story of a racer because well, that’s like dissecting a porn star’s acting performance but The Run has it coming because of the sheer emphasis thrown on it. The game bills its single-player campaign as thrilling and action-packed. They even got Michael Bay to direct a TV commercial for the game to show just how Hollywood the whole thing was. Ultimately The Run, which is not only the name of the game but also its single-player campaign, is a bitter disappointment.

You play as Jack Rourke, a down on his luck fellow who’s run into some trouble with the mob or something and gets offered a lifeline by a contact called Sara who fronts the quarter of a million entrance fee to participate in The Run – a cross-country race from San Francisco to New York with a $250 million windfall. It’s reminiscent of the old Cannonball Baker races and comparable to the high-profile Gumball 3000. Jack has a talent for racing and so must put this to use in the race of his life. It’s not a bad premise but it never moves anywhere beyond that. For the entire hullabaloo about the single-player they could have at least thrown in a few plot twists that we’d have seen coming from a hundred miles away.

You start The Run somewhere around 200^th place and must make your way to the front of the pack by the time you hit New York with certain targets that need to be met at various cities such as reaching Chicago in 50^th. That’s really about the size of it, there are a few scripted sequences once you hit the cities but it doesn’t amount to anything that can be called a plot.

That said, this scripted, cinematic approach does yield some great sections of gameplay such as one race where you’re fighting off a rival racer on a closed off road when parts of the mountain you’re driving down start getting blown up and you have to swerve and dodge falling debris; or when you have to outrun the mob in Chicago. They are both high-octane sequences that typify what The Run should have been all about but bits like these are few and far between and for the most part you’ll just go from one section to another and it all begins to feel a bit too similar. Mercifully, this feeling never becomes too overwhelming because of the game’s staged layout.

There are 10 stages, each with several sections but what sets each apart is that the terrain, roads and environment are noticeably different in each.  The icy roads of Colorado are very different to the flat plains of the Midwest which are even more different to the twisting mountain lanes of Yosemite National Park.

The stages are made of sections which are all one of three types of races. You’ll either have to do a standard sprint where you need to gain a certain number of positions or you’ll have to make up time in a time-trial. The third is a battle against one, two or three opponents and this is occasionally the game’s attempt at a boss fight of sorts.

Often while a battle race is loading you’ll be given a quick bio on your opponent. You’ve never met them in the game, never seen them in a cutscene but are simply told a bit about them and must immediately regard them as important. These ‘bosses’ are no more difficult to beat than any other opponent in a battle and you could do just as well without the background information. In fact, not a single one of the bio’s should give you any reason to go out of your way to beat that driver or run them off the road. Never once does it say, “This driver plans to use the prize money to build a palace for him and his 200 teen sex slaves.”

Also, Jack himself is the first actual protagonist in a Need for Speed title but he may as well be the faceless set of hands we’re used to seeing grip the steering wheel because his only real purpose seems to be for the QTE’s.  That said, he still has more character than Desmond Miles despite having the shifty eyes of someone suffering from Anatidaephobia. Black Box even went through the trouble of roping in some Sports Illustrated models to play two of the ‘bosses’ who even get their own cutscene where they bend provocatively over their cars’ engine bays but they look awful and move as sensually as Cavie’s Hawke blow-up doll (Sorry Jes, you were going to find out anyway).

That said, the game still has that intense action-packed feel to it. The way the other racers are constantly at your heels or in your face and how you are always kept on your toes makes for an exhilarating experience and it’s a good thing that you can get through the game before lunch – with the single-player campaign clocking in at around 3 hours – because things start to feel a little hum drum by the two hour mark. You get tired of the same type of race sections over and over with no marked increase in difficulty since the AI never really ramps up.

Despite this, The Run is challenging, even on Normal difficulty because you are given minimal margin for error in some respects. Part of it is honest to goodness old-fashioned challenging gameplay but a lot of it is down to sloppy game design and hateful AI. It’s a good thing then that you can choose to restart from the last checkpoint up to 10 ten times in a race. For example, if you don’t brake properly or slow down dramatically on certain bends, you will oversteer and no matter what you do to correct you will run off the road and plunge 200ft to Jack’s death. There are also some frightfully narrow gaps in some of the traffic you need to race through.

Let’s be thorough here and run through everything. Cops will be coming at you and swerve to form ad-hoc road blocks which you must then slow down significantly to avoid. You can be directly behind an opponent trying to draft them and they will pull off to the side only for you to be met with a truck hurtling towards you and no time to do anything about it. The game is also sloppily designed in so many ways. You will often round a fast bend and meet head on with a car that came literally out of nowhere. Traffic also pops up out of nowhere sometimes and there are times when there are cars on both sides of the road and the gap between them is so impossible that you’d be better off trying to  flip your car on its side and drive through the gap like that. The game also has a bad habit of putting traffic right on the other side of a hill crest so speeding over a hill like any self-respecting racer rewards you with a spectacular front-on-roof collision and a restart from the last checkpoint.

All of these issues mean that you cannot play The Run flat out and drifting around every corner the way you should be able to. Instead you have to use heavy-braking and caution over hills as if this were Forza 4. The only difference is that we play Forza for that sort of realistic driving whereas we play NFS for fun arcade driving. The Run’s gameplay is tending a bit too much toward simulator and I can’t fathom out why that is. All that this means is that The Run does more to frustrate and annoy than challenge you.

What about those blasted QTE’s? There aren’t many, for which I’m eternally grateful but they aren’t terrible (although QTE’s should be buried and forgotten). Instead they just feel forced as if they needed something to fill those gaps in the game. It doesn’t help that they serve virtually no purpose seeing as how there is no story to speak of and therefore they amount to nothing more than ‘shit that happens to Jack when he enters a city’.

Let’s talk cars. There are a lot of them in The Run but not a lot of them are available for the campaign. There’s a lot of variety and everything from classic rally cars to imports to hyper cars and just about everything that matters in between. They even have the original Golf GTi. A nice touch is that each car has a handling rating ranging from ‘Easy’ to ‘Difficult’ which is helpful if you’re about to race on say, the icy roads of Colorado where handling is key. During various races there are petrol stations that you can pull into to change cars if you so wish. You can also tune your car which in this game is considered to be choosing the paint colour and maybe one of three or four body kits. I don’t recommend making a stop for pure aesthetics though because pit stops like these will cause you to drop a few places or lose time.

Most of the cars are only available in the challenge series or online (provided you’ve unlocked them). Besides the respective performance tiers, there are three classes of car in The Run: stock, NFS Edition which is a tuned version in NFS livery and Signature Edition which is basically the ultimate version of the car with some stupid name to go with it like Eleanor. Each car feels very different and the handling differences are markedly noticeable. Special mention must go to the Lamborghini Aventador for being completely absent from the standard game. I was sorely looking forward to giving it the beans only to discover that it is only available if you pre-ordered the game or got the collector’s edition or something. I’d understand a special version of a car being a pre-order bonus or something but to do that with a car like the Aventador is simply wrong #dickmove.

I have to say though, The Run definitely makes good use of Frostbite 2 and the game looks great, which demonstrates just how versatile the engine is but surely it could look better. There’s a stark lack of attention to detail on most of the cars and even the environments should look better. Most of it is backdrop so surely it should actually look photo-realistic. I’m not even going to get srated on how hideous some of the cutscenes are for a game that’s been made with Frostbite 2, especially considering that they used facial capture technology. Most of the cars do look great though and crashes are a spectacle to behold. There are however several recurring glitches such as cars in traffic flipping over or disappearing when you reset and the frame-rate chugging when things get hectic on-screen in multiplayer.

The Run works on your typical XP system in which you earn points to level up and subsequently unlock items etc but the way you gain XP is strange. You start off with the basics i.e. gaining XP for overtaking, winning and near misses but have to unlock the ability to gain XP for taking down cops or driving through a roadblock or even just drifting round a bend. It’s a system that makes little sense in this form and is just one of many idiosyncrasies within The Run’s game design.

As for the online multiplayer, it’s much like the single-player in that it has so much potential but is let down by poor execution. Instead of choosing a specific course to race on, you choose from playlists which each have specific theme to them such as muscle cars in the Yosemite national park or sports cars in the city at night. These playlists comprise a series of races which form a race session. Once you’ve chosen playlist, you players can vote to determine other variables such as which class of car must be used etc. New playlists can be unlocked by completing various multiplayer objectives. After you’ve tailored your game magical bonus wheel appears and will spin until it eventually slows and stops on a reward which will go to the winner. This is often a rare car or buckets of XP so there’s plenty of incentive to win.

You can also create a playgroup for you and your buddies which opens you up to unique objectives which will require you to work together in races. A great feature is that you don’t have to wait in a lobby for a game to be created, you can jump straight into a race session and probably won’t finish top since you’ll be placed at the back of the pack but it sure beats the hell out of waiting and some XP earned is better than no XP earned. The issue with this seemingly good multiplayer is that it’s very limited and there’s probably not enough variety to keep you coming back. There are also a few control hiccups that only occur in multiplayer and usually result in you being unable to use your nitrous or brake properly and of course the aforementioned chugging frame-rate.

The challenge series is perhaps the best part of The Run’s single-player and comprises a number of sections each made up of five challenges. There’s a lot of variety here and if you play through the entire thing, you’ll have traversed the full breadth of The Run’s inventory of cars. This is part of what makes it so great, each challenge has certain parameters for example you can only use Nissan’s or Tier 2 muscle cars etc. Unfortunately, the challenge series suffers from the same gameplay issues as the rest of the single-player minus the QTE’s.

The Autolog just keeps getting better and in addition to everything it all already had going for it, it now recommends specific sections of The Run or the challenge series for you to do if a friend has just bested your time and you can receive real-time feeds to show what your fastest friend’s split-time was at that specific checkpoint in a race. You’ll be treated to a more detailed breakdown after the race along with what I assume is supposed to be the sound of screeching tires but sounds more like your car turning transforming into a giant robot. I hate that sound.

If you’re a PC gamer, and I know many of you are, then you should probably avoid The Run because all indications suggest it’s a very poor port. Like most games these days, it was designed for console and so it’s fine there but generally the PC version isn’t too bad, with this game it evidently is. There’s some sort of mic issue when playing online so that you can hear everything from any opponent’s open mic. WTF does not even begin to describe something like that. The QTE’s also don’t properly show the keys that need to be pressed and there seem to be a special set of bugs saved just for the PC version which are particularly annoying. There have also been reports of issues with the controls when using a keyboard that you don’t get if you have a game pad or steering wheel.

Ultimately, The Run had great premise but poor execution in nearly every aspect. The gameplay was lacking, the hyped-up campaign was nothing special and the multiplayer isn’t likely to win many fans. It’s riddled with the stench of lazy or plainly stupid game design in areas and they didn’t let me drive my Aventador.

So someone decided that instead of receiving the super awesome Kevin Butler treatment, the best way to market the PlayStation Vita now that it has launched in Europe would be with some lifestyle shots showing how happy and aesthetically pleasing the average Vita user looks. I don’t know about you but they just look like colossal tools to me.

However, I am but a bespectacled nerd and so do not understand the finer nuances of coolness displayed by these strapping gentlemen.

I guess the only question remaining is which one of these guys most resembles Alessandro? Speaking of which, have you seen his rather cool unboxing of the PS Vita?