I bet that header is confusing the bejeezus out of you, isn’t it? Well, it would make some sense if Treyarch was still making WW II games because then we’d have a German team who dominated the entire time and looked stronger but lost it in the end to the English and their allies; but I digress.

Anyway here is the new trailer for Black Ops 2 which aired during Saturday’s Champions League Final. It’s basically everything you’ve seen already int eh debut trailer but with a few added scenes. Black Ops 2 is out November 13. By the way, the game’s tagline seems to “The Future is Black”. Cue obvious racial jokes.

So I recently watched the video game episode of Community and that got me thinking. We might not all like the same shows – except for Game of Thrones, everyone loves that – but at some point in our lives we have all thought what it would be like if our favourite series got made into a game. I know what you’re thinking and please, just hear me out. Yes, a number of series’ have already been made into games that were ‘meh’ at best and that’s the cold reality of life but eGamer exists in a realm outside of reality where potatoes are kings, drunkards are praised like knights and you are not confined to the constrictions of life as we know it.

We’ve already got less than favourable video games out fan favourites such as Prison Break and LOST and more recently we’ve heard talk of a Family Guy game and even a South Park RPG. there’s even a Game of Thrones game (hehe) which just released. Admittedly, the last one is based more on the books than the award-winning TV series they have spawned but we’ll still count it regardless.

The problem with most of these games though is that they are rarely ever handled by a developer capable of doing the series any justice, as is almost always the case with licensed games. Besides that, even if the game does turn out somewhat favourable, it doesn’t always capture the series effectively and that’s rather disappointing.

It is thus that we have brought you to the wondrously whimsical world of eGamer where dreams do come true and you are only limited by your imagination. So, while here you have a chance to think about which of your favourite TV series’ really deserves a video game made in its image. You might even like to specify what genre game it would be and possibly even go into specific detail about gameplay or story or just the general setting for this game.

Personally, I’d love to see a properly done Heroes game (even if the series imploded worse than the WTC) or possibly even a Nikita video game because while the series really boils down to little more than hot girls and good action, it’s got some pretty hot girls and really good action. No, seriously it lends itself to a rather cool Splinter Cell sort of game. Because 3 is my lucky number, here’s a third choice. I’d also like to see a game based on the current Sherlock mini-series but which takes on an episodic style and expands on the series by drawing from other classic Sherlock Holmes stories and possibly even from some of the more obscure ones.

So what about you?

Note: Please keep your hands inside the carriage at all times and please note that the whimsical world of eGamer is a no-smoking zone but feel free to shoot up or take a sip from that hip-flask. Enjoy the ride and be sure to visit the gift shop on your way out.

Is there any reason not to love Witcher 2 developer CD Projekt? They made arguably the best RPG of 2011, gave back to the community with free bonus content and are just all-round nice guys. And now, they are also with us in the anti-DRM movement and feel that pirated games are not satanic aberrations that steal company revenue.

GOG’s managing director, Guillaume Rambourg, has revealed that while the GOG version of The Witcher 2 was of a DRM-free variety, it was in fact the retail version which did ship with DRM that was more pirated. Rambourg and CD Projekt CEO Marcin Iwinski believe that this is with the reputation gained from cracking a title’s DRM.

“Most people in the gaming industry were convinced that the first version of the game to be pirated would be the GOG version, while in the end it was the retail version, which shipped with DRM,” Rambourg told Forbes.

“We were expecting to see the GOG.com version pirated right after it was released, as it was a real no-brainer,” added Iwinski. “Practically anyone could have downloaded it from GOG.com and released it on the illegal sites right away, but this did not happen. My guess is, that releasing an unprotected game is not the real deal, you have to crack it to gain respect and be able to write: “cracked by XYZ.” How would “not cracked by XYZ, as there was nothing to crack” sound? A bit silly, wouldn’t it?

“The illegal scene is pretty much about the game and the glory: who will be the first to deliver the game, who is the best and smartest cracker. The DRM-free version at GOG.com didn’t fit this too well.”

At the end of last year, Iwinski estimated that The Wicther 2 had been pirated over 4.5 million times and that number has probably gone up by quite a bit since then but he was not rushing to burn down internet cafes or launch a witch-hunt or just flatly stop developing for PC.

“It really puzzles me how serious software companies can consider each pirated copy to be a lost sale,” said Iwinski. “Maybe it looks nice in an official report to say how threatening pirates are, but it is extremely far from the truth.

“I would rather say that a big part of these 4.5 million pirated copies are considered a form of trial version, or even a demo. Gamers download [pirate copies] because it’s easy, fast, and, frankly, costs nothing. If they like the game and they start investing the time, some of them will go and buy it. This is evident in the first Witcher, where the total sales are 2.1 million units at present and the game is still doing well, although it is already five years old.”

Iwinski went on to say what all of us have been saying since DRM was first shoved in our faces and that is that the system “does not work.” He also added that it is useless because the DRM is hacked within hours and does little more than simply make the experience worse for the gamer who actually went out and bought the title.

“DRM, in most cases, requires users to enter serial numbers, validate his or her machine, and be connected to the Internet while they authenticate – and possibly even when they play the game they bought,” he explained. “Quite often the DRM slows the game down, as the wrapper around the executable file is constantly checking if the game is being legally used or not.

“That is a lot the legal users have to put up with, while the illegal users who downloaded the pirated version have a clean–and way more functional–game. It seems crazy, but that’s how it really works.”

Usually, I’d have a lot to say after such a lengthy extract from something a developer said but really, everything I’ve been saying about DRM and the anti-piracy insanity has already been said above. I guess in the end, the only thing left to add is fuck you, Activision, Ubisoft and EA. Fuck you all for DRM and your barbaric, totalitarian anti-piracy methods.

It would seem that everywhere you turn, there’s a developer talking about the next-gen of consoles and what tech they’d like to see or we hear about a dev starting work on its next-gen projects and so on and so forth. However, Heavy Rain creator David Cage doesn’t really care about any of that for now. He believes that we should stop obsessing over the technical side of gaming and work on improving the creativity in this industry.

Talking with Develop, Cage said that his ideas could still work on the current-gen hardware.

But to be honest, I’m not that interested in technology or the next generation of consoles. If we could continue with PlayStation 3 for another five years it would be fine with me. I think the main challenges are on the creative side than on the technical side.

Are there technical things I can’t do on PS3? Honestly, no. The limitation is much more about the ideas we have. When you look at the past, you realised that the technology evolved must faster than the concepts we rely on.

I tend to agree with what Cage says. Developers have become too obsessed with making technically good games that look great and can take 128 players online without lag or a drop in frame-rate but they don’t seem to care for making imaginative, creative games that would be good with or without the shiny coat of paint.

He is also suggesting that the current etch be used more intelligently and that makes sense since the current consoles have certainly not been pushed to their limits yet.

God Almighty, I hate that name. It sounds like one of those titles from the NES days when the more adjectives and nouns you slapped onto your name, the better it was supposed to be. Nonetheless, PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale is Sony’s take on Super Smash Bros. The last time they stole an idea from Nintendo was for CTR where they took inspiration from Mario Kart but came out with something that was just better.

Now, I really don’t much care for what I’ve seen thus far of the game but the latest bit of news may just sway me. Kevin Butler – yes, the Kevin Butler – has been listed as a cast member on the game’s IMDB page.

His real name is Jerry Lambert and he appears alongside obvious inclusions into the game such as David Hayter (Solid Snake) and Nolan North (Nathan Drake). It’s not confirmed yet but it seems like a sure thing regardless. How epic would a Butler vs. Snake fight be? Or Drake vs. Crash?

The Amazing Spider-Man movie is no doubt going to be something spectacular however, very little is being expected from the tie-in video game as these things are usually atrocious. Strangely though, the game is being developed by Beenox who handled the last two Spidey games and it is looking pretty decent thus far.

Enter the latest trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man. It focuses on a key mechanic called Web Rush which is supposed to make swinging around New York a much better experience than anything you’ve had before, supposedly even better than Spider-Man 2. It is also meant to add a bit of depth to combat while also making it more intense. Think of it basically as bullet-time for Spider-Man.

The game hits stores on June 29 for PS3, 360, DS, 3DS and Wii.

The Unreal Engine 3 has powered some very pretty games, from Batman: Arkham City to Gears of War 3 and many more. That said, it’s time to make way for the powerhouse that is Unreal Engine 4. Epic Games will demo the new engine at E3 in June but until then, here are some eye-poppingly gorgeous screenshots to stare at.

The demo was built in less than 3 months by a team of 14 engineers and will be showcased in all its glory in June.

Ubisoft has revealed that it will run a console-only (and the PC hate runs ever deeper) beta for Far Cry 3′s multiplayer and it will run for two weeks some time this winter, probably around July seeing as the game is out in September.

There will be six available classes, 16-player matches, dozens of weapons, hundreds of various upgrades and customizations, and will take place across several maps and modes. The catch though is that to access the beta, you need to buy Ghost Recon: Future Soldier be a GameStop PowerUp Rewards Member and then use the code you’re given to get your Far Cry 3 beta.

It’s all very elitist and I’m surprised Ubisoft hasn’t made this a more international affair but surely a beta will be made available to the rest of the world too. Anyway, far Cry3 is out on September for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3.

The Harley Quinn’s Revenge DLC for Batman: Arkham City comprises mostly story-based content which follows on from the ending of Arkham City. In preparation for it, Warner Bros. has released a new trailer for the DLC and in it you’ll not only only see a lot of Robin doing some ass-kicking but also how Harley has come full-circle from slutty nurse to trashy leatherette chick to this final form of psycho emo bitch.

The DLC will be out on May 29 on XBLA and PSN at a cost of $9.99 (R83.46). Incidentally, that’s the same day that the Arkham City Game of the Year Edition releases and that’s going to include the Harley’s Revenge DLC along with all other previously released DLC (Catwoman Pack, Nightwing Bundle Pack, Robin Bundle Pack, Challenge Map Pack and Arkham City Skins Pack).

That’s all from me so you go ahead and enjoy that trailer now.

You may remember the awesome style of Batman: Arkham City’s concept art where you had the characters in a very stylised black and white with little bits of highlighted colour. I may be describing it like shit but just look at these of Two-Face and Nightwing, they were awesome.

Anyway, Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes (aka the Lego Justice League game) has treated itself to some of that concept art coolness. There’s artwork for Bane, Lex Luthor, Green Lantern, Superman, Wonder Woman and obviously Batman.

Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes launches this summer for 360, Wii, PS3, PC, DS, 3DS and Vita.

Today we have for you a selection of assorted artwork and screenshots from Crysis 3. EA has released 14 images of Crysis 3, some are super pretty screenshots while others are rather beautiful specimens of artwork. There’s not much more to say so ogle away. If you have trouble processing still images, here’s the gameplay video.

Bungie is done with Halo and so the mantle has been taken up by 343 Industries who will develop the next three games, titled the Reclaimer Trilogy. The studio’s Frank O’Connor says that the trilogy has been outlined to release over a ten year span.

Speaking to Game Informer, O’Connor admitted that some of the macro details have been mapped out but the stories for later games are a lot more flexible at present due to the possibilities that may come with new technology and certainly that makes sense since we should see the emergence of the next generation of consoles within the next 2 or 3 years.

“Story is funny because I’ve been thinking about where the Halo story goes for ten years. And even as a fan, I wonder, ‘what’s gonna happen next?’,” said O’Connor.

“We have things mapped out pretty far, probably about ten years, but they’re pretty vague, they’re big plot points. We think that X will happen, we think Y will happen, we think they should go visit Z. There’s a danger that you’ll get granular in your planning because if this was a novel, you could just write an end. But it’s not a novel.

“New technology appears and give you new opportunities, pieces of the sandbox end up being less or more popular than you might have expected. And so the constant shift in reality, never mind the technology of the gameplay content, should be the thing that defines your gameplay universe.”

Halo 4 will be out for Xbox 360 on November 6 worldwide and yesterday we got a glimpse of the game’s box art.

It’s been a very, very long time (almost a year) since we’ve heard anything at all about Tomonobu Itagaki’s Devil’s Third from Valhalla Studios and frankly we thought the third-person action game which takes inspiration from Ninja Gaiden was actually dead and buried. Well actually, I just forgot about the game but that’s not good manners.

Apparently though, THQ is having discussions with other companies regarding Devil’s Third. The men in suits didn’t go into too much detail in their latest earnings call yesterday but enough was said.

“The profitability profile for Devil’s Third no longer met our internal threshold and we are currently in discussions with third parties regarding the future of this title,” CEO Brian Farrell said.

THQ provided addition information on the call. “There were a couple of unforeseen events that happened in the development of Devil’s Third,” Farrell explained. “One was the company that Valhalla was using for the engine went out of business so we had to assist Itagaki-san and the team with a new engine and it took a fair amount of time and cost a fair amount of money.

“There’s also been a substantial appreciation of the yen against the dollar. Those increases in development costs just reduce the profitability when we ranked all of our product releases when we underwent our restructuring; the profitability of Devil’s Third was not competitive with our other releases.”

Farrell added: “We think it’s an excellent franchise. We’ve really enjoyed working with Itagaki-san. We’re going to explore other alternatives with both him and others to make sure this product comes to market.”

So it looks like THQ is looking for a cheaper alternative because Itagaki-san is running them out of house and home. Frankly, nobody has seen enough of Devil’s Third to say whether any of this is worth it but the game definitely looked decent and worth making.

Yet another fresh, steaming hot rumour straight off the mill. A few Volition Inc employees’ CV’s seems to have spread multiple rumours all at once when said employees listed Saints Row 4, an unannounced XBLA title and a supposed next-gen project.

David Payne’s is currently lead prop and weapons designer over at Volition and his LinkedIn profile lists both the XBLA title and Saints Row 4 as “current”. A second LinkedIn page belonging to Ariel Gross lists a project for “the mysterious next generation of consoles.”

Saints Row: The Third has been a success by all accounts with over 11 million units sold and the game is fun as hell to boot so it seems logical to put out another game. As for those other two titles, that’s all just hot air right now.

The forge at the rumour mill still burns hot with the impression of the latest bit of gossip to be produced, and it might just help keep the doctor away. Rumours suggest that Apple is poised to acquire TV manufacturer Loewe AG for a sum of $112 million.

This would cement Apple even further as an omnipotent entity in the electronics realm while also paving the way for that supposed Apple TV which will apparently emasculate other televisions while rendering our quaint PS3′s and Xbox’s redundant. We’ll see about that.

There may be a sliver of truth in all of this, seeing as how when Develop rang up Loewe AG to inquire about the rumours, instead of receiving a definite “no” or even a simple “no comment”, the person on the other end just hung up without so much as a word.

EA has released a collection of new screenshots for FIFA 13 and mercifully, they aren’t as Messi-laden as the last batch but rather take an obsession with Serie A, specifically Juventus and Milan which I personally don’t mind seeing as how they’re my favourite Italian Quidditch team.

EA Sports claims to be using some new Dimensional Imaging software which makes players more realistic than ever but screens only tell us so much, now don’t they?

EA has also detailed some new gameplay features which should make things a little bit different. FIFA 13 should be out sometime between the end of September and the first week in October, as per usual.

So Ubisoft has been doing this thing where they get celebrity gamers to promote Ghost Recon: Future Soldier by joining Team Ghost. Thus far they’ve roped in NBA All-Star Kevin Love and NFL player Justin Blackmon but you might be a little more interested in the latest addition to the team.

Now, we’re used to seeing Ice-T linked with games, he even voiced a character in Gears of War 3 but what about his wife, Nicole Austin (aka Coco)? Bet you didn’t know she’s a gamer (apparently) and a gun-nut.

Well, Coco ‘gets her guns out’ to promote the new Ghost Recon, calling it “badass” and adding that she “loves shooting guns (in real life).” Watch the video to find out what assets she brings to Team Ghost and what she loves about the game.

A proviso: Yesterday we asked you, the community what you want us to change about the way we do things and one gentleman made a call for more boobs, specifically Cavie’s and there was mention of a shoe fetish but that’s not important. What matters is that we heard those pleas and your prayers have been answered. Maybe giving the people what they want isn’t always the best idea, now is it? Then again, boobs is the breast marketing tool, right?

Ghost Recon: Future Soldier hits our shores on June 15 for PC and May 25 for PS3, Xbox 360.

We’ve come to expect the same engine to be used for Modern Warfare but surely things were going to be different with Treyarch after they made Black Ops, right? Nope. Call of Duty games have used the same engine since 2005, just slightly modded each time.

According to Treyarch studio boss Mark Lamia, the engine still has enough life to work 7 years later, thanks to extensive improvements made to its “foundation” so expect more of it in Black Ops 2.

“People always ask me, ‘Is this a new engine?’ I liken it to people who live in an older house that has been remodeled. Just because you’re remodeling the house and it will look new or it will have a new kitchen, you don’t tear out the foundation, or break out some of the framing,” said Lamia.

“Engines, each time they get touched, they change. The creators alter them; they don’t modify what they don’t need to, and then they alter what they need to. You can’t make a competitive product if you’re not upgrading that engine along the way.

“I think what people are asking for is for us to push. They want us to make a better-looking game,” he went on.

“We asked ourselves that very same question – we wanted to advance the graphics. I think the questions are valid. The answer may not need to be an entirely new engine, but you might need to do an entire overhaul of your entire lighting system.

“The trick is, we’re not willing to do that if we can’t keep it running at 60 frames per second – but we did that this time. So this is the Black Ops II engine,” said Lamia.

Sure, you don’t need to build a new engine  but they could certainly afford to considering that Call of Duty is the highest grossing franchise of all time. It would just make the game a bit fresher, especially considering how we’ve been encountering the same textures general visual quality since CoD 4. Then again, it’s a great idea if your business model is to make the most money with the lowest cost possible. That really is what CoD development meetings must be like – a series of flow-charts and some business models where they extrapolate and derive the most most-effective way to make even more money.

That’s just my opinion but all I saw when reading Lamia’s bit was a series of excuses for laziness. Then again, Black Ops 2 might not even happen so there’s that.

Now that Witcher 2 developer CD Projekt has gotten the game’s Xbox version out of the house, it’s time to look ahead to the studio’s next endeavour and so it is that the developer has begun hiring for its next game.

A whole host of new job openings have shown up and CD projekt has even added a new post to its blog saying, “We’re looking for people who would rather work on an entirely new and different IP.” The project will fall under the bracket of “complex, non-linear and mature RPG games,” whatever that may mean to you and will surely build on the developer’s pedigree. The post continues with, “no matter if it’s with guns or swords, we’re just having a good time here.” So the next game might not even be a fantasy title?

We’ve still got a long wait ahead of us for CD Projekt’s next title but in the mean time you can see how they did in bringing their current title onto the Xbox 360 in Caveshen’s very, very extensive review of the Witcher 2.

Jade Raymond’s creativity and the work she did on the original Assassin’s Creed makes her one of my personal favourite developers and her opinions aren’t too bad either. Lately, she’s a bit upset about the way most in the industry are too frightened to take any sort of significant risk and ultimately just end up copying games that sell well (see: Call of Duty etc.). She believes that the industry would be in a far better place if more developers took those risks and tried something different.

Speaking in an interview with Eurogamer, Raymond said it “takes a real belief in the medium,” for a company to be willing to step outside its comfort zone, but at the same time, “whenever you see a big success it’s because somebody took a risk.”

This isn’t the first time she’s made a public appeal for the industry to step up. Last month, Ms. Raymond told CVG that it was “time for our medium to grow up” and move past the blockbuster mentality (see: popcorn entertainment). You’re probably wondering whether she’s practising any of what she’s preaching and you’d be right to question her but as GM of Ubisoft Toronto, Jade Raymond is pushing her team to produce something meaningful and unique.

“I am pushing our creative teams to think about meaning and to say something deeper than at the surface level,” she said. “One thing I am certain of is that the creative teams who occupy the top spots in our industry should be taking the greatest risks.

“Activision has the recipe and all of the money. I’m like: ‘You guys mess with it a bit!’. I am going to get a phone call from Bobby Kotick now…”

Basically, she just called Activision out on what we’ve been accusing them of for a while now and while we demonise Kotick, he isn’t alone in this. Ubisoft themselves are guilty of it to a degree with the last few AC games and the clear milking of the franchise. I bet Raymond has more than a few things to say about what they’ve done to the series she helped start but that’s probably a story for another day.

“More and more people come to me at Ubisoft and say: ‘I love games. I came into this industry with so many ideas. But I can’t continue to make shooters over and over again. I’m not even in line with the messages’,” she said. “I have that meeting a lot these days. Yeah, it’s time to give our teenage medium a kick in the balls.

“I think it can help to look at what’s been big in media over the past 12 months. Interesting topics that have been in the news include the Arab Spring, internet freedom, the growing class divide. I think games could explore religious beliefs in a fascinating way. For example, imagine a game in which death or save games are aligned with the Hindu belief in reincarnation. Perhaps you could retry levels as animals, or humans with different skill sets upon death?

“Beyond that? What about the way the way the system is stacked against the poor? If you lose your job, especially in the States where there’s no healthcare, your debt can grow out of control very quickly. It’s remarkably easy to become homeless. That meta-gameplay loop could easily be brought into a game I think. Sexism, too. That could easily be brought into a franchise like Call of Duty. If you could play as a woman you could bring in some perspectives to what that might be like.

“I don’t know when we decided as an industry that in order to sell five million copies of a game you have to make a Michael Bay film. There are other options.”

After reading all of that, Jade Raymond must sound like some bright-eyed optimist filled with hope and faith in humanity but she is only too aware pf the reality that the bigger companies view innovation as a “luxury”. This can largely be attributed to the increasing costs of developing a game. She is still hopeful that the industry can move forward and believes that it is the only way for gaming to thrive long-term. Besides, what’s the point if the focus is solely on money and innovation is a distant second? Oh wait, we’re pretty much there already, aren’t we?

“Ultimately, if we are not moving things forward then why are we working here? If you’re going to create something then you have to go above and beyond what’s gone before,” she said.

“It’s the only way.”

Honestly, I respect Jade Raymond even more as a developer after reading this because she literally just said what myself and certainly many of you have been saying for a long time now and that shows that she gets it. She shares our sentiments and is trying to be the change she wants to see in the industry. I did not see this article ending with a line from Ghandi but hey, it could’ve been worse. I could’ve ended with this quote from General Pinochet: “I’m not a dictator. It’s just that I have a grumpy face.”

Ubisoft revealed Beyond Good & Evil 2 around 4 years ago and then the game dropped off the face of the planet like Captain Jack Sparrow and since then, we’ve been told every now and again that the game is still in development and most recently we were told that the game has not been scrapped but was just put on the backburner for a bit. Reassuring stuff, really.

We might finally get to have a look at the game if these leaked videos are in fact legit. There’s not much in it and it’s spurious at best but at least it’s something, right? Unseen64 claims that this is prototype footage of the game’s environments. It looks pretty detailed and interesting to be just a hoax.

Is a Beyond Good & Evil sequel even still on your mind after all these years or have you just put it behind you? By the way, there’s some really sad Indian music playing in the video above, try not to cry. Below is a video of a police helicopter revolving and it too has been linked with BG&E 2.

News has been scarce on Resistance: Burning Skies but we know enough to set you up for this here trailer. It’s a Vita title that takes a slightly different path by putting players in the boots of fireman Tom Riley on the first day of the Chimeran invasion of the USA and of course, the game will be set in NYC.

What makes this game special is that the Vita’s capabilities and dual analogues allow Burning Skies to be the first fully-fledged handheld shooter so it is certainly a leap forward for the genre in handheld terms.

The game is out on May 30 and if you’re so inclined, do check out the Trophies list here.

The PS3 has had an internet browser since day one and the Xbox 360 has coped pretty well without one but is Microsoft about to finally give the console one? It’s a funny thing to do, especially when the console is supposedly nearing the end of its lifespan.

According to The Verge and various other cited sources, Microsoft is going ahead with it and will include the browser in some future update but wait, there’s more. While it won’t be mandatory, it will have Kinect functionality for voice and gesture controls. Now, which browser will Xbox people be getting? Well, I’m personally partial to Firefox while others prefer Chrome but of course Microsoft only wants the best for its console and so went with the no-brainer option of Internet Explorer (cue mass vomiting and reliving of repressed IE memories).

Yeah. So if MS went ahead with this, would you ever use it? Then again, do we even need browsers on our consoles when we have tablets, smartphones that will probably be better for browsing considering they won’t be running Internet Explorer. RRoD will certainly be the least of your worries after that ill-fated update.

Remember when that domain name avengersbattleforearth.com appeared and linked Ubisoft to a potential game to tie-in to the movie? Well, it turns out that Ubisoft and Marvel are in fact teaming (Dynamic Duo?) to produce an Avengers game in which Earth’s mightiest heroes will battle against the evil forces of the Skrulls but the game won’t be based on the awesome movie that we all got to see a week before those Yanks. Although the Tratari were basically Skrulls but couldn’t be called that because of the unique way in which Marvel licenses its IP’s.

According to the Washington Post of all places, the game will be based on the Secret Invasion storyline from the comics and will feature over 20 playable characters from the Marvel universe.

And now for the deal breaker. The game is being developed for Wii U and Kinect. Yeah, all hope is lost. We thought it might at least be a fun little title but that’s probably not gonna happen. Maybe they’ll draw inspiration from the first-person Avengers game that got cancelled?

There’s no release date yet for Battle for Earth but chances are we’ll see more of it at E3 next month. This’ll probably be a terrible game but who’d you like to see make it into that final 20-odd characters anyway?

It’s an action-adventure title from Capcom and it has dragons in it, what more would you want to know about Dragon’s Dogma? Okay, a lot more actually so here’s our preview of it. Today, we’ve got the launch trailer for the game. It’s filled with plenty of action, giants, an ‘evil-eye’ and a giant flying chicken!

It also showcases a bit of the Ur-Dragon, an “asynchronous, ongoing online encounter” in which players take on the dragon and their combined efforts work towards the worldwide goal of slaying the beast.

Dragon’s Dogma is out for PS3 and Xbox 360 on may 25.

Besides hearing about a few arrests here and there and one silly little threat around April Fool’s, Anonymous has gone somewhat quiet since in recent months. Well, it couldn’t last for long now could it? Come to think of it, we’re approaching one year since Anonymous slayed PSN so they were about due for another big act of cyber-terrorism in the name of a community that doesn’t necessarily support them.

First, a bit of background. You’ve surely heard about The Pirate Bay being blocked in the UK by Virgin Media with other ISP’s Sky, Everything Everywhere, TalkTalk and O2 following suit. Anyway,

Virgin is thus one that started this and so Anonymous obviously went for them and attacked by hacking the ISP’s website which Virgin was forced to take down and it is still offline at present. Anonymous also claims to have targeted TalkTalk but the network refused to comment on the validity of the claim.

Twitter feeds associated with Anonymous announced (via the BBC): “Virgin Media – Tango Down #OpTPB”.

Virgin Media said in a statement: “As a responsible ISP, Virgin Media complies with court orders but we strongly believe that tackling the issue of copyright infringement needs compelling legal alternatives, giving consumers access to great content at the right price, to help change consumer behaviour.”

Is it just me or does Anonymous come across as a group of petulant and spoiled brats with too much time and super-inflated egos? They might have some good intentions but go about their business like oafs. Also, there is a fix for that Pirate Bay blocking.

What about you: Team Anonymous or Team Rational Thought?

Gosh but I seem to be doing an awful lot of Assassin’s Creed III news lately, maybe it’s because the game is starting to take the shape of something that’s not utter shit or maybe it’s just because fate seeing as how my head will be shaved if AC III can match the splendour and fresh experience that AC II offered.

AGB has found some artwork which displays the pre-order trinkets available for those who purchase through Gamestop or Best Buy. Why do we care here on the Southern tip? Well because chances are that our trusty BT and other local retailers will offer some variation of thase bonuses for pre-ordering with them.

Gamestop is offering the Lost Mayan Ruins solo mission and Sawtooth Cutlass. Presumably, there are other similar weapons available in game. With regard to the Mayan Ruins, that sounds like it could be AC III’s version of the Assassin’s Tombs from AC II and will likely provide solid platforming sequences. Also, I hope this mission isn’t anything too significant since it does involve the Mayans and the overarching plot of AC does hinge on that whole 2012 apocalypse deal.

Best Buy offers the Ghost of War solo mission and Pontiac’s War Club which is basically a really cool stick with spikes on the end.

AC III is due out on PS3, PC and Xbox 360 in October so there’s plenty of time to get your pre-orders in. What are your thoughts on these here bonuses and the fact that the Mayans are definitely factored into Assassin’s Creed’s story somehow?

Valve’s free DLC for Portal 2 titled Perpetual Testing Initiative is now available for PC and Mac. For those who don’t know, the DLC is basically Portal 2′s own level creator and will allow players to “easily create, share, and play Portal 2 puzzles.” Is it not simply awesome?

In other news, Portal 2 has just reached 4 million in sales figures which isn’t breaking any records but does show that what is one of the best games of 2011 and certainly amongst the best of all time is actually selling in volumes somewhat worthy of its status.

By the way, I’ve added the video from when the DLC was announced, as narrated by the one and only Cave Johnson.

It’s something that we have in common with the US and many other parts of the world: a history of slavery. We can all agree that it’s the fault of the British that the concept of slavery existed in the first place so there’s a reason to bomb that puny island but I digress. Assassin’s Creed III will take place in the colonial era of the United States and certainly long before Honest Abe and his anti-slavery notions.

So, mere days after telling us that we’ll see the more boisterous, philanderers side of Ben Franklin in AC III, Ubisoft is laying down some more history on us with the announcement that the game will also deal with the issue of slavery to some degree.

Assassin’s Creed 3writer Matt Rurnerhas told OPM UK: “It’s something we’ve been very aware of. Everybody had slaves at that point; the first groups who rallied around emancipation didn’t come around until 1787 – largely driven by Benjamin Franklin funnily enough. That was very much after our game and slavery was maintained in culture.”

Of course, the story is supposed to revolve around the period manifestation of Templars vs Assassins but Ubisoft doesn’t want to take the easy route and avoid the issue of slavery altogether. Instead, they look to be tackling it head-on.

“We feel that kind of a subject deserves a certain amount attention because it’s so serious and it needs to be treated with utmost respect,” said Rurnerhas. “We’re definitely not going to shy away from it in terms of not showing it.

“We’re going to focus on telling it like it was, we’re going to show what was there and what people did in that time but we want to be careful with how that’s covered and how much of it is there. It’s an important topic. We won’t be afraid to show that it’s there but we’re not going make it the focus of our game.”

So our new protagonist Connor is not only a half-English half-Native American but he also has powerful friends such as Ben Franklin and he’s tied to the slaves somehow. And the you have Desmond Miles who is podgy looks like Adam Sandler and who’s greatest achievement is being the descendant of all these cool assassins.

Seriously though, Ubisoft loves their historical accuracy when it comes to AC, specifically in recreating the atmosphere and feel of the era. Perhaps colonial USA wouldn’t be the same without a focus on slavery but Ubisoft has definitely chosen to cover the issue and make it a part of the game. Is this a rehash of BioWare’s decision to make Shepard canonically gay or is Ubisoft doing something truly worthwhile and meaningful here?

There’s a big Hitman Absolution announcement coming on May 10 but what could it be?

The news was conveyed via a poster which appeared on the game’s Facebook page and  depicts Agent 47 standing atop a building with a sniper rifle in hand. Could this mean that 47 killed Kennedy from a skyscraper two miles away? Is that the big twist in Absolution or maybe 47 is Batman and that’s why he’s on the rooftop?

Whatever the news is, it better be worth advertising it with a poster. Hitman Absolution will be out later this year on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. Feel free to let your inner conspiracy theorist run wild with just what IO Interactive is planning to announce.

In the good old days, before glittery vampires and Modern Warfare there were no Trophies or Achievements and by that definition there was no Caveshen. Just kidding but seriously, he’s a whore for Achievements. And that’s just the thing, before these perfunctory token rewards came along, we played games for the fun of it and the bragging rights came in being able to tell your friend that you flew through this and that level with minimal fuss. You felt satisfaction when you finished a game or when you beat it on hard difficulty.

That still exists today and sure, a lot of us still play for the fun of it but why are some people so obsessed with Trophies and Achievements? I like to call them Trophy mongers and Achievement whores. Sure, Achievements build up your Gamerscore but does it actually mean anything unless you need to compensate for a ludicrously small penis? Kidding, please don’t stab me.

Maybe games are too easy in general and the only way to actually draw any challenge out of the experience is to attempt these arbitrary tasks? Boy, there sure are a lot of rhetorical questions here. I can understand trying to get all the Achievements/Trophies in a game so as to prolong the experience but when did we start needing to go out of our way to accumulate more Achievements/Trophies. To cite an example, our resident oddball, Caveshen is obsessed with Achievements to the point where he played the Green Lantern licensed game for them. I personally don’t care much for these things but he takes his Gamerscore very seriously and that’s something he’s passionate about, fair enough.

My beef is whether this is a fad we’re going through or whether the habit of going out of your way to get every single Trophy/ Achievement in a game is here to stay and whether it is worth the effort because after all, what are you really achieving?

All thanks go to Yashaar Mall for once again providing this week’s Question of the Week.

We’ve seen plenty of screenshots and we’ve seen a cinematic or two but what everyone has desperately been waiting for to pass judgement on Assassin’s Creed III is a good look at some gameplay. Ubisoft has promised a lot but then so do presidential candidates and it definitely didn’t help Mr Sarkozy at all. No, we need to see the game in action to decide whether this one has a chance of succeeding or will just drown in the series’ own stagnant pool of redundancy.

What you see above is merely a brief teaser to the actual gameplay video which Ubisoft wants you to work for, the pigs. Basically, someone didn’t show the entire Ubisoft staff enough love and now they feel neglected so it’s up to you to go here and make them feel important or at the very least validated by liking the page and then sharing, posting or tweeting about it.

Do it now, for those morbidly depressed souls at Ubisoft, every share and tweet makes them feel more human! Once the grand total number of tweets, shares and posts hits 1,776,000 not only will the Ubisoft team be all sunshine and rainbows but you’ll even get the full AC III gameplay trailer as a reward.

Do what you must for the greater good.

2upGamers the 5th Round took place on Friday the 4th of May. We were asked to do a presentation regarding eGamer, as we needed to introduce ourselves before introducing a new addition to 2upGamers. Sticking with our approach to be different, we decided on a video presentation. Not only would this be shorter than an entire sleep-point-presentation, it would also be a little bit more interesting.

Whenever a video is being shown, the possibilities of what one can do are somewhat endless. Naturally, we took full advantage of having an audience of 120+ people. With all eyes on the screen, they were sitting ducks.

The video above shows our presentation, and ultimately, how we Rick Roll’d 120+ people at 2upGamers.

You’re welcome to hate us. And sorry about the video size.

About 2upGamers 5th Round

It was with excitement, apprehension and a beanie that I walked into the hall at Rygersdal Sports Club for the 5th 2upGamers event, flanked by Azhar and our good friend Nqaba (you may know him as Sage of the Six Paths). Let me explain. The excitement is obvious, the apprehension was due to eGamer doing something special this time around but also because we were late and so feared a beating from Dean for not being there to help set our special thingy up. The beanie was present on account of the cold weather.

Anyway, proceedings eventually got underway with a record crowd of over 120 people and 2up extraordinaire Glenn embracing the fighting theme of the night with an entrance reminiscent of Rocky. After needing help to remove his boxing gloves (he really went all-out on this one) Glenn announced that due to various corporate witchcraft, 2upGamers would soon be going national and is now an NPO which means that what you pay at the door will go to charity. It’s just one more reason to get your ass down to these events. More good news came when he announced that Hylton, 2up’s other frontman, was expecting a child with his wife and was appropriately attempting a Darth Vader cosplay (this was Star Wars day after all). Mazel Tov to Hylton and his wife and here’s hoping they don’t call the kid Luke or Leia.

Next up was Nizar from Readers Den Comic Shop who came to invite us all to his store in Stadium on Main for Free Comic Book Day which takes place on the first Saturday in May every year. For the record, I attended it the next day and was completely blown away by just how big the event was. I also got my hands on a copy of Watchmen and Batman: Year One which was awesome.

Friends of Design was up next to introduce Springleap’s new venture in game and app design competitions. For those unfamiliar with Springleap, they regularly host design competitions for advertising, apparel, and prints. They sell some pretty damn cool t-shirts as well. Springleap will soon host competitions for game and app design which should really produce some great stuff given the raw talent in SA.

Perhaps one of the most interesting things of the night was Friends of Design’s competition in conjunction with Springleap. The prize was a game-design course voucher from Friends of Design and one of 10 sweet tees from Springleap. The means by which you’d win that double prize was far more imaginative though. 20 members of the audience were chosen, including myself. We were split up into Sith and Jedi with me finding myself on the Dark Side. Fortunately my Yoda tee was concealed by my eGamer one, or things would’ve been strange to say the least.

How it worked was that we would take part in one on one lightsaber duels (with a green and red pool toy respectively). The winner of each duel would walk away with a tee and a voucher. I fought valiantly and even sustained some battle injuries but alas, the Force was strong with my opponent.

At some point in the proceedings, eGamer stepped up to have our say. We Rick Roll’d everyone present and announced that we’d be hosting a 2-v-2 FIFA 12 tournament on the night, but more on that later.

Following that, we also had the people from a new energy drink, called Ozone, talk to us about their product. Unfortunately, there weren’t samples for everyone, but the privileged few who did get to try said it tasted “like liquid fizzer” and “wasn’t as sweet as other energy drinks but was more refreshing”. Ozone has already already pledged allegiance to ZombieGamer and Xbox clan High 5, as well as 2upGamers which they will also sponsor with drinks from July.

One of the highlights of the evening was local actor Vince Andrews making an appearance. You may not know him by name, but you’ll remember him from the Prototype 2 live-action trailer. Not everyone remembers the trailer fondly, but it’s not his fault — the director was French. He shared some behind-the-scenes photos with us, and amazed us with not only the fact that he’s a homegrown Capetonian but also that the live-action trailer was shot in downtown Jo-burg with parts of it being shot in Soweto. We know, your mind is blown. Bet you didn’t know that tons of Indian movies are filmed here either but I digress. Tuns out, Vince is actually a really nice guy and even came in, mostly, full costume. He said that he was angry in the trailer because of a harness he had to be in for 4 hours, which gave him a wedgie of note.

Then, it got a little interesting when the Indian Alex Mercer cosplayer (he likes to go by Abduragman) showed up, but luckily Vince was having too much of a good time to beat him to a pulp.

The food arrived and all hell broke loose as 120+ people scrambled for some delicious pizza. Not really, but the pizza was still yummy.

Did I mention that MWeb had a dance-off competition to win a golden ticket to the Diablo III launch?

Okay — that’s all of the formal stuff out of the way, now we can talk about the eGamer tournament. Our tournament rocked. After the pizzas were consumed, we opened up sign-ups for the tournament where we had to deny two teams entry, to end off with 8 teams. The flavour of the night was 2-v-2 FIFA 12. It was a standard knock-out tournament but with the semi-finals taking on a UEFA Champions League style two-leg approach that relied on aggregate scores. The losers of the semi-finals faced off in a 3rd place match and on that note, well done to Jason (you may know him DieJason) and Ricky who took 3rd.

The final was a heated encounter between Rayaan and Taufiq’s Manchester City and BMT eSports’ Rohan and Francois who were controlling Real Madrid. Without going into too much detail, it was a tight but entertaining game which saw the BMT boys ultimately win 1-0 with a 2nd-half goal. Congratulations to Rohan and Francois on winning the tournament, and we’re looking forward to seeing you guys again next month.

The top 3 teams will be getting prizes courtesy of EA, but of course all thanks must go to Glenn who made it all possible. He pretty much organised everything for us, as we only needed to bring the banners and ourselves. We really appreciate everything you’ve done for us. We plan to make the eGamer tournament a regular fixture at 2up.

If you’re wondering why I’m the only eGamer team member in some of the pictures below, it’s because Dean doesn’t want photographic evidence of his existence for undisclosed reasons and Azhar’s sugar addiction means that he can’t stand still long enough for flash-photography — unless you have a high-end SLR camera. Thus, I was nominated as the face of eGamer and simultaneously branded as a hipster by Dean.

2upGamers 5th Round was definitely a knock-out blow, where the event doesn’t seem to be showing any signs of slowing down in growth. We hope to see everyone again at the next event.

The Legend of Zelda is one of the longest running and most cherished series in gaming so it makes sense that it would have many, many fans. Some might get themed tattoos, others may name their child Link or Zelda but one man decided to make it a goal to get LEGO to produce Zelda sets.

At the end of 2011, Michael Inglis, the man who made the awesome LEGO video you see above, set out to achieve this and is now one step closer to finally achieving it. At present, over 10, 000 people have shown support for his concept at LEGO.com. You can also see his designs at the link provided. As it happens, 10, 000 is the magic which LEGO deems as enough support to officially review your concepts for production.

Of course, with Zelda being licensed under Nintendo, they will also need to greenlight this endeavour if LEGO like what they see. Would you like to see this become a reality or maybe there are other games more deserving of the LEGO treatment?

You may not remember that first-person Avengers game which got cancelled but it actually looked pretty cool and it is sort of a pity that the Avengers won’t be getting a licensed game to tie into the movie even if it wouldn’t have been great. Or will it?

Enter the newly registered the domain avengersbattleforearth.com which clearly points towards some sort of Avengers title. It was registered my Marvel Characters but appears on Ubisoft’s servers so what does that tell you? No, it doesn’t mean that Ubisoft is making an Avengers game that focuses on Black Widow complete with jiggle physics but it does mean that Ubisoft is clearly involved in some sort of Avengers-related project.

Surely this isn’t a movie tie-in or it would’ve shown up on our radar some time ago. Perhaps it’s a Facebook game, which would suck. With luck, Ubisoft is actually working on a standalone Avengers game that we pray to Odin won’t suck.

Up top is the leaked footage of that cancelled Avengers game.

A few days ago, Ubisoft revealed some early concept art for the original Assassin’s Creed and while a lot of it showed stylised versions of what we’d already seen, some of it showed things that were ultimately scrapped from the game like wielding two daggers or female assassins (playing as them, not wielding them).

Now we’ve got a concept video which takes it all a step further. It’s pretty cool and you can see that the general style that Altair has in his movement and combat was there from the beginning. Pay close attention to Prince of Persia: Assassins and you’ll see a bit of the link between the two franchises.

Watch it, you’ll like it. I promise. Warning: the beginning is a tad arbitrary but stick through and enjoy the narration from Aku, the shape-shifting Master of Darkness. What you’re looking for is at around the 1:30 mark and the rest all just flotsom really.

We usually expect the likes of Notch, David Jaffe, EA, Activision or some other such expressive and uninhibited individual to take potshots at other developers, rivals etc. but surely not Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto? Nope, not even he is above it.

Nintendo’s living legend claims that while the Vita boasts some good hardware, the handheld “a very strong product.” In a recent interview with EDGE Magazine, Miyamoto spilled on his low opinion of the console.

When asked his opinion of the Vita, he said, “It’s obviously a very high-spec machine and you can do lots of things with it, but I don’t really see the combination of software and hardware that really makes a very strong product.”

He added, “But I can’t really say.”

It’s a bit too late for that but maybe you can still redeem yourself.

He’d be an idiot not to acknowledge Nintendo’s own launch problems with the 3DS, which eh duly noted.. Miyamoto said, “When we launched the 3DS hardware we didn’t have Super Mario 3D Land, we didn’t have Mario Kart 7, we didn’t have Kid Icarus: Uprising. We were striving to have all of these ready for the launch, but we weren’t able to deliver them at that time.”

The 3DS started off slow as well and perhaps Sony didn’t get Vita off the ground with the right launch titles but there’s certainly no shortage of awesome titles coming its way over the next few months and sales should pick up soon just as they did in the early months of the 3DS.

When it was revealed that several key historical figures such as George Washington and specifically Ben Franklin people immediately thought back to previous Assassin’s Creed games with their portrayal of Machiavelli, the Ottomans and specifically Da Vinci. You can see where this is going, right?

Everyone figured that our protagonist, Connor, would pop in to Ben’s workshop from time to time to upgrade his weapons or something but that won’t be the case. Mr Franklin will not be your glorified inventor but will instead use the game to display his little-known philanderous nature.

the game will somehow find a way to work in Franklin’s “love of women” according to the game’s creative producer Alex Hutchinson via Penny Arcade Report.

We all know about uncle Benjy and the post office and electricity and all that but he was also fond of writing what some might term softcore adult novels. Yeah, Ben was  a horny bastard who often wrote about his sexual escapades with his mistresses.

You don’t get that kind of information on the History Channel. In addition to Franklin’s sexcapades, it was also revealed that the goal with AC III is to not just have some historical figures but to make every single target a person who existed in reality.

Fuck, this game sounds like it is going to be amazing. Farewell oh luscious head of hair.

Talk is cheap but not so much really when you’ve got really awesome looking gameplay clips to go with it. United Front Games has released a video in which they discuss the level editor in LittleBigPlanet Karting as well as the driving mechanics. There’s also a little bit said about bridging the gap between traditional LBP and a karting game and how that actually allowed the game to have elements and gameplay that you’d never expect to see in a racer.

You’ll see basically just how amazing this game looks while also getting an inside look into how United Front worked to make this a truly unique karting experience. You’ll also glimpse rocket-powered boxing gloves as vehicles at some point. Does it get any better than rocket-powered boxing gloves?

LittleBigPlanet Karting is out in October for PS3 and may eventually find its way onto Vita. Strong with this one the force is.

When LittleBigPlanet Karting first surfaced it was inevitable that people would wonder what the difference would be between it and ModNation Racers since the games share a developer but then we saw the trailer for the game and sceptics weer silenced by the cutesy awesomeness.

Turns out though that the two games will have some commonalities. Racing in both games is the same in terms of the way the karts handle and the feel of driving. At least, that’s according to a preview on Shack News.

“Racing is identical across both games,” it says, “from the sense of speed, to car handling, to drifting. Replace the Mods with Sackboys, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what to expect.”

LBP Karting will however offer a much greater, much deeper customisation system true to the other games in the series and will utilise the signature Popit system that makes modding so effortless. Besides crafting your own tracks, karts and characters, LBPK will also let players take a stab at creating their own custom weapons.

“If you don’t like the weapons that ship with the game, you can alter them. You can alter their behavior, their look, the frequency of those weapons,” design director William Ho told Shack. “You can even make your own entirely custom weapons using the objects that we ship with the game.”

As an added bonus, even the AI can be tweaked if you’re not happy with it.

Call me a fanboy but this game simply sounds amazing but then it is LittleBigPlanet is it not?

The original Deus Ex is regarded as one of the greatest PC games of all time and with good reason considering that this is a game from some years ago where players can either gun their way through each stage or go stealthily through the game without killing a single person.

A rating by European classification body PEGI suggest that the classic might be finding its way onto consoles after all these years with a release on PS3 – most likely as a classic title for download.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution is one of the stand-out games from 2011 and yet it is still eclipsed by the legend of its predecessors so this may be great news provided the original game gets a slight HD makeover and a good port of the controls.

As rumours go, this one’s a nice one that you just have to hope comes true.

Below is the actual rating from PEGI. Yes, the date is a wee bit in the past but then age is just a number that we can easily overlook, right? Or is that just paedobear’s motto along with YOLO?

So Mortal Kombat is now out for the PS Vita  or at least it is in the US, we only get it on Friday, and in its honour we’ve got a launch trailer. It’s got suprsingly little gore and not nearly enough brutal finishers but it does show off all those little extras that the Vita version gets like the mini-games. There’s also a brief cameo from Kratos if I saw right.

Enjoy, responsibly. Not for sale to persons under the age of 18. Hey that might actually be true, what about that?

We usually applaud FIFA as a series for always trying something different each year in a bid to improve itself. meanwhile, Pro Evolution Soccer has just spent the past few years advancing itself to narrow that gap with FIFA and make itself more appealing to players. It’s no surprise then that PES 2013 is loaded with lots of new features.

Konami has slated the game for its usual September/October release with the publisher’s Digital Entertainment president Tomoyuki Tsuboi saying that the game has been shaped “in part, by the vocal PES community”, and went on to say that he’s “excited to take Pro Evolution Soccer back to its roots, which is all about freedom and control”.

The key features of PES 2013 are to be FullControl, Player ID and ProActive AI. Some of the new features are already found in FIFA while others are just the sort of thing you’d expect from PES. The new game seems to be getting its own version of Precision Dribbling and the Impact Engine along with boosted player AI.

Behold, the official list of features straight from Konami themselves:

The first element, FullControl (PES FC), offers a level of control that has never before been used in a soccer game. The features of PES FC include:

• Total Freedom of Control: Pro Evolution Soccer introduced the concept of freedom of movement. The new ‘PES FC’ in Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 goes further with total freedom over ball control.
• Dynamic First Touch: Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 introduces subtle ways to receive the ball, from traps to gently lifting it past an attacker to run on to or a variety of other moves. First Touch is everything, and players can trap the ball using the R2 button, killing the speed of a well-hit pass and bringing it instantly under control, or using the momentum of the pass to turn a defender.
• Full Manual Shooting and Full Manual Passing: Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 offers fully manual passing and, for the first time ever, manual shooting, allowing users to determine the height and power of each. Long, low passes can be sent skimming across the pitch. While shooting, the user has total control over where the shot is placed. Skill and precision are needed to master these, but passes can be made into open areas, allowing lone strikers to thrive, while offering an unrivalled variety in ways to score.
• Dribbling: The speed with which a player moves with the ball has been slowed in line with real matches, but using R2 allows players to add various styles to their close control. Players can vary the speed of their dribbling and cushion the ball as they move freely within a 360-degree circle. The new system allows players to knock a ball past a player and collect it, nutmeg them, or hold up play by shielding the ball as teammates find space and make runs.
• Full Manual One-Two: Active one-two passes can be made, with the second player being moved in any direction, facilitating various tactical movements.
• Response Defending: Countering the attacking options the new dribbling system offers, is a beautifully-balanced defense system. Players can use R2 and X to slow an attack, with a double-tap of the X button prompting a perfectly-timed challenge. Full 360-degree control means that players can check runs and steal the ball from a parallel position, while the individuality element will see world renowned defenders using aerial dominance of physicality to win the ball.
• Goalkeepers: Even the game’s keepers benefit from more control. Their distribution is more precise thanks to the addition of a power gauge when they throw the ball, creating opportunities for new, quicker counter attacks.

The second key element of Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 is the Player ID, which focuses on the individual characteristics and movements that each player boasts. The components of the Player ID include:

• Player Individuality: The very best players in Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 will be instantly recognizable via signature attributes, skills and tricks that bring them to life. The way they run, turn, trap and move the ball, shape to shoot, and even celebrate will be noticeably different during play.
• Individuality to Goalkeepers: Goalkeeping has been totally invigorated via new animations and play styles. New varieties of saves and reactions have been added to ensure the game’s keepers are in line with the efforts of real shot stoppers. This level of realism also extends to the game’s top-rated goalkeepers, with their moves to close attacks down, fling themselves to tip a shot past the post, and in-goal acrobatics benefiting from all new animations and AI.

The third element is the ProActive AI, which unites the control and realism, with players that will respond and find space as befits those at the top of their games.

• Balance of Play: The development team has worked closely with the Pro Evolution Soccer fan base to eradicate any illogical elements to the way players move and run in Pro Evolution Soccer 2013, with the ‘ProActive AI’ system enhancing the speed and balance, resulting in a more realistic game experience.
• Enhanced Goalkeepers: Improvements to the goalkeepers was voted the key advancement football fans wanted to see in Pro Evolution Soccer 2013, and the team has worked hard with real life goalkeepers to ensure the AI decision process has been vastly improved. Keepers now respond with better reactions, clear their lines more effectively, and push the ball safely out of play rather than into dangerous areas.
• Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 will also boast better connectivity and atmosphere. The popular myPES application will extend the connectivity and communication between Facebook-using PES fans, while the game’s audio effects are being tied closer to the on-field action to provide the kind of buzz seen at top-tier matches, with crowds growing in excitement as their team starts to exert pressure.

The focus is clearly on offering a greater level of control than ever before while also making it worth the while with some improved player AI. There also seems to be a focus on giving players a more unique, individual experience which should be interesting.

2012 looks to be Man City’s year to overthrow United, is it PES’s turn to do the same and topple FIFA? Probably not (personally) but it’ll likely be closer than ever.

Typically, when one mentions Yakuza your mind thinks of an under-appreciated Japanese take on GTA or possibly that shady group of Asians who will just never be quite as badass or influential as the Triads. You’d be forgiven for thinking that Yakuza (either definition) doesn’t really mix well with Dead Rising/Resident Evil type zombie action and you’d be right. But that didn’t stop Sega from trying. Come to think of it, there’s very little that could get in Sega’s way when they put their minds to it. The developer is a bit like that kid in primary school who always won the perseverance award, mostly because they couldn’t win any of the others. Anyway, we’ve ended up with Yakuza: Dead Souls and let me tell you right now it is a confused and oft bipolar mess of shoddy design, obscurity and downright stupidity.

Okay, my job here is done, time to collect my paycheck from Dean (haha) and we can all be on our way. Oh, you’re still here? Well, I guess I could give you something to read while you wait for your porn to buffer/download.

Yakuza: Dead Souls takes the familiar city of Kamurocho and throws it into the deep end of a zombie outbreak. However, this being Japan, it is contained so quickly that the zombies are restricted to a small quarter of the city while the rest is free to continue life normally. In fact, the containment seems to have happened so quickly that most of inhabitants of the safe part of Kamurocho either don’t know about the vicious and brain-thirsty zombies on the other side of the walls or simply don’t care but you never really get the feeling that part of the city is under lock-down because the living dead have taken over it. Maybe it’s an Asian thing?

There are four playable characters in YDS (I wanted to call it Dead Souls but that doesn’t exactly work now does it) namely Shun Akiyama the loan-shark, “Mad Dog” Goro Majima the psychotic yakuza and construction company owner, Ryuji Goda aka The Dragon of Kansai who has woken from a long slumber and finally Yakuza series mainstay Kazuma Kiryu who is stoic as ever. You’ll be familiar with all of them if you’ve played previous Yakuza titles since they all appeared in at least one at some point during the series.

Each has their own little personal story as well as a contribution to be made to the overarching plot. Or at least that was the idea. In reality, none of the character’s stories really get wrapped up properly nor do they tie in to the main plot all that well and while we’re at it, the main story itself is so empty and void of any meaningful moments that it ultimately resolves nothing and ends with little more than an anticlimactic *poof*. None of the characters are really tied to each other either so you just hop from one to the next without any real meaning or purpose behind the transition. The story feels like it was designed to be that meaningless since it’s non-canon but at least wrap it up nicely if you’re never going to revisit it.

Also, with the exception of Goro Majima, the characters are rather flat and dull. Part of this is down to the fact that some dialogue has been recorded, mostly for cutscenes but a lot of the scripted dialogue is simply delivered to you via text boxes at the bottom of the screen which is funny because I didn’t know this was a Gameboy Colour port. As a result, you either read through all of it like a moron or skip it and forget about the plot which really is the favourable option given the distinct lack of any plot worth following in this game.

You can explore both the infected and safe zones of Kamurocho with players being able to enter/exit the infected zone at will unless they’re in a mission of course. There are several ways to get in or out but one of the intelligent ways in which this game was designed is that you can go through any of them to explore the infected zone but once in there, you can’t access a story mission if you entered through the ‘wrong’ way in. You then have to finish exploring, go out and then back in through the entrance they want you to. A slow clap for the genius who came up with that.

You’ll also notice the jarring juxtaposition between the two areas gives the game a very bipolar outlook. On one hand it’s trying to be a Dead Rising style zombie shooter while on the other it is trying very hard to be a normal Yakuza game with lots of side missions and things to do in the living part of Kamurocho. It’s a bit like shooting your mother in the face while petting your Siamese cat.

The infected zone also requires lots of back-tracking which becomes tiresome in the relatively claustrophobic environments that you are often presented with. The side missions and extra content are what you’d expect from a Yakuza title with casinos, bars, hostess clubs, Club Sega, bowling alleys, golf courses and more. Of course it all feels more out of place than a prostitute in a mosque where all the men know her name but none will acknowledge that fact. Especially when you were juts gunning down a hoard of zombies 2 minutes ago.

There’s a good variety of side missions too but they really shine in their humour, or at least Majima’s side-missions do. There’s one where you help a group of pervs rescue a woman who is apparently helpless and nude. There’s another where you convince a clan leader to dress up as a girl in order to attract zombies due to the rumour that they target couples and it is even complete with some authentic karaoke.

The game even takes pots shots at the hackneyed zombie genre with one side-quest where you have to predict the order in which a bunch of clichéd zombie movie characters will die. There’s even a zombie rights activist group that appears in-game. Yes, this game actually has some good moments and humorous ones at that but they are not enough to save this pathetic game.

Maybe talking about the gameplay will calm me down. The first thing you’ll notice is the camera which has at least several minds of its own and rarely points where you want it to, especially when you’re in the middle of eliminating a group of zombies. The frame-rate chugs every time you tap the analogue too hard even though the game looks well below par. Controls are clunky and awkward, even if they do work on a Rainman sort of level. This isn’t fucking calming me down at all, I guess deeper into the ground you go, Yakuza: Dead Souls.

YDS favours gunplay over previous Yakuza titles’ bare-knuckle brawling combat style which had a melee focus. There’s still melee in this game but it’s so ineffective you may as well hurl insults at the zombies for more of an impact. Yo momma’s so fat, her combined IQ’s pushing 3000. No? Okay.

There’s a variety of zombies and mutants for you to shoot at but they’re all enemies that you’ve likely seen in other zombie games. For example, there’s a carbon copy of Left 4 Dead’s witch and really there’s just a complete lack of originality with the zombies. It could also be the fact that every time you’re introduced to a new one, there’s a 99.76% probability that they will be spammed so hard all over the place that it becomes more than routine to gun them down. The boss monsters are a decent enough challenge but the rest of the game is piss easy which is actually a God send. Why? Because aiming in this game is so temperamental and useless that blind faith would serve you better and that’s precisely what Sega seems to have realised so the idea is that you point in the vague general direction of the group of zombies you want to shoot and your character will take them all out. Zombies also have a tendency to wait for you to kill their dinner buddy before trying to attack you which is thoughtful.

The upgrade system isn’t bad and allows you to level up a character’s melee combat, health, armour, skills etc and the nice thing is that upgrades carry across characters so it doesn’t feel like you’re starting from scratch each time you move onto another character. However, this generosity of game design seems to have made its own problems since every character plays and handles exactly the same as a result. They didn’t have to but that’s just the way Sega did it. Thumbs up to those guys, seven thumbs up in actual fact.

Before I forget, let’s talk guns. There’s a great variety of them in this game and all the kinds you’d expect but you can really get through the game with only a pistol and some small amount of effort given that every character’s pistol has unlimited ammo.

What I really love about this game is how Sega tried to avoid criticism from people like me and fans alike by billing the game as a light-hearted title and non-canon. New flash: it didn’t work, bitches.

Bayonetta was an instant controversial success with its OTT hack ‘n slash action and highly fetished and sexualised female protagonist but then that’s what drew a lot of people to it. It may not have sold in vast volumes thanks to other titles such as God of War III simply existing in the same time-frame but it got a big enough following to justify a sequel.

Apparently developer Platinum Games was in fact in the early stages of doing just that but publisher Sega pulled the plug due to some restructuring. Spong reports that the sequel was on the radar at the very least with a new protagonist believed to be a member of the US military.

The report claims that the title was canned as a result of Sega’s ongoing restructuring in an effort to stay solvent. The publisher predicted an “extraordinary loss” earlier this year which was followed up with a wave of lay-offs and rumours of projects being cancelled en-masse.

Unfortunately Bayonetta 2 seems to be amongst the casualties and yet Sega green-lit projects such as Yakuza: Dead Souls which really doesn’t have a reason to exist and it is even allowing Platinum Games to resurrect a game which Kojima Productions tossed aside in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. Is anybody else still wondering why Sega is in financial trouble?

Sometimes I have random thoughts and most of the time I keep those random thoughts to myself because they would freak the bejeezus out of most people (Yeah, I’m weird like that). But today I decided to share a thought with you people, and fingers crossed no one dies.

If by some obscure series of events and a cruel twist of fate you found yourself on a random flight — let’s call it Oceanic flight 815 — and the plane you were on happened to crash land on some totally random island which we’ll call The Island, you would be pretty damn bored after a short while of being deserted on an island. Now, assuming that you had access to some power source that was only sufficient for powering a gaming console and nothing else, what game would you play?

You can choose one game to take with you to this island and one game only. I realise there are many holes in this scenario but trust me I’m (studying to be) an engineer. Remember, this game is for the rest of your life or as long as it takes the two men who have taken control of the group of survivors to find a mysterious hatch. It has to be something that will occupy you for a long time but also something that has excellent replay value and that’s always fun whenveer you fire it up. I’m torn between Just Cause 2 and Assassin’s Creed II for the job, personally.

Also, anybody caught poking holes in my pretty little postulation will be shot. That is all.

It’s not long now until Ghost Recon: Future Soldier releases and some of you will surely be enjoying the beta but for those of you that aren’t, we have a preview that’ll make you feel better (probably not). Ubisoft has released a new trailer for the online shooter, this one detailing the Specialist class.

The Specialist is described as “a master in electronic warfare equipped with Blackout, an energy boost which renders the enemy useless and disoriented as well as A.E.G.I.S which creates an impenetrable shield upon yourself and your surrounding teammates. His job? To tilt the tides of battle.”

Don’t you just wanna be a Specialist so bad right now?

The lid’s been blown on Sony’s Super Smash Bros. knock-off and while it may be too early to tell whether this is a quirky cash-in or a champion, we can at least inform you with some basic details.

The game is under development at SuperBot Entertainment with a little input being given from Sony Santa Monica (God of War).  You may not have heard of SuperBot but t’s staff seems up to the challenge, comprising people who have worked on UFC and Mortal Kombat. It is also worth mentioning that the name is absolutely ridiculous and Sony could’ve done themselves a big favour by simply calling it Title Fight which was one of the considered names.

At present, there are six confirmed characters namely Fat Princess, Parappa the Rapper, Kratos, Sly Cooper, Sweet Tooth and Colonel Radec. Expect to see others such as Solid Snake, Nathan Drake, Cole McGrath and more though.

There will likely be a variety of stages with the design for each drawing inspiration from two games – one for the background, the other for the foreground. Currently, we only know of four stages along with their respective influences:

• Metropolis (Ratchet & Clank / God of War)
• Sandover Village (Jak & Daxter / Hot Shots Golf)
• Hades (God of War / Patapon)
• Dreamscape (LittleBigPlanet / Buzz)

Each character will also have Super Attacks which are comparable to Ultras or Supers from Street Fighter, as their special meter fills the attack becomes more potent.

That’s all for now but perhaps you’d like to watch the debut trailer and have a look-see at what this title is all about?

Usually shorts based on games are strange little live-action bits and some are good while others are weird and the rest are billed as major cinematic releases that should never have seen the light of day, ever. WE don’t see many animated movies based on games though and I can’t really recall one until now with the upcoming animated short film based on Portal.

It’s not done yet but is called Companionship and is billed as a “tale of love, loss and cubes.” What’s got me interested though is the fact that it is being worked on by Alex Zemke whose name probably doesn’t ring a bell to anyone but his resume will resonate with you. He’s a professional animator who has worked on Uncharted 2 and 3 as well as the Smurfs.

As far as anyone can tell this is not an official thing but rather a project of love for Zemke so a release date could be two months from now or two years.  Either way, what seems clearly apparent from the above shot of the work in progress is that it has a very intriguing Pixar-esque art style. Let’s hope everything else about it is as good.

She may not be making an appearance in the upcoming movie (which will be awesome) but Black Cat will definitely be making an appearance in the tie-in video game from Spidey’s new developer of choice, Beenox.

This is the studio’s third stab at a Spider-Man game and it looks like they might make some headway towards a good game this time around. At the very least, they seem to understand the basic underpinnings of Black Cat’s character i.e. the cleavage needs to be disproportionate on an anime level and it needs to be sufficiently visible. Even if those glasses don’t really work. There are even some screens for you to oggle over. Enjoy and that goes double for you, kluchy.

The Amazing Spider-Man will be out on 3DS, DS, PS3, Move, Wii, and Xbox 360 in late June with time to spare before the movie releases.