Many of you may not even know of the existence of our Hall of Fame feature, and that’s basically because the last one was all the way back in May last year, and there have only been three of them so far. For those who don’t know, our Hall of Fame feature is all about taking a look back to remember what we, as well as many other gamers out there, consider to be incredible and unforgettable gaming experiences that will always stay with us year after year. For this entry, we’ll be focusing on none other than Unreal Tournament 2004, which released back on PC in, you guessed it, 2004.

That’s right. We’re bringing the nostalgia, along with history’s greatest gaming legends.

Unreal Tournament 2004

It's just unreal how good this game was. And yes, I'm aware of how painfully lame that pun is.

If you’ve been around recently, then you may have noticed that in my 7 Of The Best FPS Games feature, I didn’t include Unreal Tournament 2004, much to the outrage of some humans. Well, UT2K4 is undoubtedly in my top 10, so I feel that it’s fitting to give it what it deserves right here in the Hall of Fame. Also take note of the fact that I’m not featuring the entire series here, but only UT2K4, because I feel it’s the best game in the franchise, and the most memorable. Now that we’ve gotten that random business out of the way, let’s take an in-depth look at what made UT2K4 the bees freaking knees.

Firstly, to be Captain Obvious, it’s one of history’s greatest ever arcade shooters, and was one of the best FPS multiplayer games for the PC back in the day. I can fondly remember the hours upon hours I spent playing it on weekends when I was still at school, and it was so damn good that I actually spent all my time playing it completely on my own, because back then my internet connection was much too crap to play online. So what exactly was it that set UT2K4 apart from all of the other games in the franchise? I mean, it was a sequel after all, and had a number of games before it. Well, fortunately back then sequels were subject to dramatic change, unlike today, and as honestly as I can put it, what made the game so amazing was absolutely everything. The game introduced significant changes to the gameplay mechanics and graphics, as well as added major new features to the game that made it feel almost entirely fresh. It was a groundbreaking turning point for the franchise, as well as the pinnacle of it.

The game was actually developed by multiple studios, which included the likes of leaders Epic Games and partners Digital Extremes, Psyonix and Streamline Studios. Each brought a number of significant elements to the table, but before taking a look at that in detail it’s important to realise that UT2K4 was built with Unreal Engine 2.5 and already included the content of its predecessor, Unreal Tournament 2003. Furthermore, the game addressed nearly all of its predecessor’s shortcomings and succeeded in almost doubling the amount of content available right out of the box. Epic Games handled a large bulk of the work, which included introducing enhancements to the game modes, the new UI, voice over IP and bot voice command support. They also upgraded the engine and introduced many optimizations, and worked on improving the single player and community features. Epic Games also made sure of the thirty-one new playable characters, a classic sniper rifle, an Onslaught map, AI support for the Onslaught game mode, 16 new Deathmatch maps, 5 new Capture the Flag maps, 2 new Double Domination maps and a new Bombing Run map. They also brought back the Assault game mode.

Epic Games’ Lead programmer Steve Polge detailed the work of the partners as well. Polge revealed that Digital Extremes were responsible for 3 new Deathmatch maps, 6 new Capture the Flag maps, 2 new Bombing Run maps and 3 new Double Domination maps. They also brought 2 new playable characters to the table, as well as the new HUD design and new weapon models for three weapons, including the Assault Rifle, Shock Rifle, and Link Gun. Psyonix took credit for the Onslaught game mode design and implementation, and the 6 new vehicles and 4 new weapons that it brought, namely the Grenade Launcher, Spider Mine Layer, AVRiL and the Phoenix target painter. The Energy Turret and a new model for the Translocator was also included in their credit, in addition to the seven Onslaught maps they created. Psyonix and Streamline Studios worked together on the popular map called ONS-Torlan. Finally, Streamline Studios worked on the the single player introduction movie and the Assault map AS-Confexia as a demo for ONS-Torlan, and it was released for free.

It’s easy to see from the above that for its time UT2K4 was a massive project. And now that you’re aware of what role each of the developers had in bringing this game to life, we can go into the actual gameplay and what made this game so incredible to play, and arguably so much better than what came both before and after it. Undoubtedly amongst the biggest new additions to the game was the inclusion of vehicles and the new Onslaught game mode. The latter is still for me one of the best multiplayer modes I’ve ever played. For the first time in Unreal Tournament, players were able to engage in vehicle combat, both on the ground and in the air, and the Onslaught mode provided the perfect launch pad for this, as it was specifically designed for large-scale battles. However, the talent behind this game designed the game and maps so brilliantly that vehicles fitted right into UT2K4 with ease, and instead of causing the game to lose its identity or change in a way that fans didn’t like, it completely evolved it. The gameplay was just pitch-perfect, and the introduction of vehicle combat and the Onslaught mode breathed so much more life into the game, making it feel completely fresh and exciting.

The game was just bursting with content, variety, value and appeal and for its time it was just a game you could seemingly never get bored of. It was fast, action-packed, dynamic, tactical and exhilarating, and was just amazing in every mode and style it attempted. Again, for its time it was the perfect example of a complete package, and it was a rare and extraordinary achievement in this regard. And the grand cherry on top was that, despite all of the new game-changing additions, the developers ensured that UT2K4 was expertly balanced and an absolute blast to play, staying true to everything that made Unreal Tournament what it was. It was just everything fans dream a sequel to be, and it was polished to a level that made it masterful. And the fact that it featured fantastic graphics and a lengthy single player mode only made things infinitely better. For its time it was a gorgeous game, packed with detail and rich with flare and personality. It’s pretty safe to say that it was a rare game that had it all, and served as a shining example as to why PC gaming will always be unbeatable for many gamers out there.

But what made this sheer behemoth of a multiplayer game so much better, or rather perfected it, was a feature that gets all PC gamers giddy with excitement. Yes, if you guessed mod support then you’d be completely right. UT2K4 included extensive mod support, which allowed users to easily create new maps, models and game modes as well as introduce various other additions. The modification system was highly flexible and open, seamlessly blending custom user content with the core game content, allowing users to both appreciate the Unreal experience as well as build their own. They were also able to easily tweak the game to their liking with the “mutator” system, and ultimately UT2K4 was just a pure game made for gamers. Mods support is definitely no small extra, as it provides the platform for users to significantly extend the lifespan of a game, tailor it to their liking and even craft their own experience out of it and share their ideas and creations with the rest of the community. For many it’s actually what defines the experience, and fans couldn’t have asked for more from UT2K4 at the end of the day.

In the end, Unreal Tournament 2004 was in many ways the very best of what the genre had to offer at the time. It showed excellence on all fronts, and was a dream to play and experience. It’s actually the only pure multiplayer game I can remember where I could only play the single player modes and still love it absolutely. Perhaps that’s because I was a much younger gamer back then, but the point still stands. It’s revolutionary games like this that makes PC gaming and multiplayer what it is today, and I don’t think it can really be challenged that this game deserves its spot on the Hall of Fame.

Keep an eye out for the next entry in the Hall of Fame.

One of video game history's finest. A true legend.

Ubisoft has announced that the closed beta for the upcoming PC exclusive Ghost Recon Online will begin on March 5. In case you’ve forgotten, Ubisoft announced the cancellation of the PC version of Ghost Recon: Future Soldier back in November of last year, revealing that PC gamers would instead be getting a downloadable, free-to-play online game, due to piracy and burnt potatoes.

That last one might not be so relevant to Ubisoft, but hey. Head on over to the official website if you’re interested in signing up for this. There’s also a new trailer detailing the classes and some of the weaponry in the game, so you can check that out up top. It doesn’t look too bad.

But really, Ubisoft can go eat an electrical toxic jellybean as far as I’m concerned.

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).

According to a tweet by Future Shop Gamer, who attended the Destination PlayStation event, Square Enix has lifted the lid on Sleeping Dogs, a new game due to release in August for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.

If you’re a little in the dark about this, then let’s backtrack to just about over two weeks ago, when Square Enix filed a trademark for the title “Sleeping Dogs” and we were speculating that it had to do with a new Kane & Lynch game. Turns out, that’s not what it is. Fortunately.

Back to the present, Future Shop also put out an image for the game, which has quite a resemblance to True Crime: Hong Kong. If you’re unsure of the significance in this, well, it’s the game Square Enix took control over after Activision left it about halfway into its development.

Sleeping Dogs is currently in development by United Front Games, with Square Enix London Studios acting as supervisors. The latter would be the same office that saw to Batman: Arkham Asylum and Just Cause 2.

Due to the fact that Square Enix didn’t buy the rights to the IP, the game had to be renamed from True Crime: Hong Kong before it sees the light of day.

“When we first saw and got our hands on the game we fell in love with it,” said Lee Singleton, Square Enix London Studios’ general manager, last year.

“When we met the team at United Front Games it was a done deal in our eyes – we instantly recognised the huge potential in the game and the team.

“UFG is an incredibly talented team, who have individually worked on some of the biggest games in our industry, and this talent shines through from the moment you walk in the door.

“It’s one of those games where you don’t want to put the controller down; it’s what we call ‘sticky’.”

Then all the way back in February of 2011, Activision Publishing boss Eric Hirshberg said the following about the project after it was cancelled:

“Even our most optimistic internal projections show that continued investment was not going to lead to a title at, or near, the top of the competitive open world genre.

“In an industry where only the best games in each category are flourishing, to be blunt, it just wasn’t going to be good enough.”

It will be very interesting to see the outcome of this now, all things considered.

The last we saw of The Amazing Spider-Man was a screenshot that had a similar visual style to Mirror’s Edge, mostly with the city’s white and blue colour scheme.

Now, The Amazing Spider-Man’s lead designer revealed some new details to fans on the game’s official Facebook page. First on the list was a confirmation of the game’s return to its open world setting, despite the fact that the announcement trailer already made it pretty clear.

The developer said: “Our game brings back free-roaming in Manhattan, where you guys will be able to swing around and discover a variety of side missions, challenges and mini-games in addition to the main storyline.”

And when asked about any new Spidey abilities, the developer touched on one of the game’s new mechanics called “Web Rush”.

“We introduce an all-new gameplay mechanic called the Web Rush, which gives players real-time navigational and combat choices,” they said. “Web Rush can be triggered on the fly, at any moment and immediately presents you with a variety of situational choices, letting you pull off Spidey’s signature moves like never before.”

I guess all we can do is wait for more gameplay footage.

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.

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.

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.

Finally, after years of waiting, Remedy has at last confirmed the release date for the PC version of Alan Wake.

The official announcement for the PC version came in December of last year, and since then fans have been eagerly anticipating it. Now, we’ve been given the exact date. You’d better mark February 16, 2012 on your calenders, because that’s when Alan Wake will arrive on PC, but there are some complications surrounding that.

A recent Q&A provided a lot of information, but the most important things to keep in mind is that the PC version will come with both the game’s downloadable content packs, namely the The Signal and The Writer.

As for the complications, well, the game will arrive first on Steam for $29.99 (about R231.44), which is a good price. It will eventually make its way to Origin as well. However, the actual hard-copy retail version will be coming “soon”, and no specific date has been given yet.

Remedy chief technology officer Markus Mäki commented on the PC version, saying: “We’ve done our best to do justice to the PC version and do things the way they should be done for PC. The PC version looks absolutely beautiful. We’re bringing the game to life in a whole new way.

“With our history of PC titles, such as Max Payne, Max Payne 2 and Death Rally, Remedy has always wanted to bring a PC version of Alan Wake to the gamers’ fingertips. Now we can!”

The key features for the PC version are:

• Experience Alan Wake’s Pacific Northwest in higher resolutions and higher fidelity than ever before
• Fully configurable mouse and keyboard support (or if you prefer to play with the Microsoft gamepad connected to your PC, you can do that too!)
• A wide selection of customizable graphics settings and support for 4:3, 16:9 and 16:10 aspect ratios
• Multithreaded engine that takes advantage of quad core CPUs
• Additional features our fans have sought after, such as field of view adjustment as well as “hide HUD”.
• Works with AMD Eyefinity 3D 3-screen mode
• Works with NVIDIA NVISION2 Stereoscopic 3D

I’m definitely looking forward to this. Finally, is all I can say.

‘The Cat that Got the Milk’ is a simple and short game, in fact, the most complicated part of the game is the title itself. If that puts you off however, let me assure you that despite its simplicity this game is a whole bunch of fun.

The Cat that Got the Milk is a charming, almost puzzle-like game where the player directs a small object as it moves from the left of the screen to the right. Moving the cat (I guess it’s a cat) up or down prevents it from moving towards the right; letting go of either direction means it continues on its incessant journey to the right. As the cat moves, it’s the player’s job to direct and avoid any objects in its way; any collisions will mean a return to the beginning of the current stage. And that’s it really, well Ok, some of the obstacles move and some are quite difficult, requiring a bit of patience, but that’s about it.

Now I’m sure you’re all familiar with how addictive simplistic gameplay can be, take Peggle for example, and ‘The Cat that Got the Milk’ doesn’t fail to deliver, making sure to keep you playing until you’ve finished every stage. That’s not always a good thing when some of these zombie state games can go on for hours and hours; happily though, The Cat that Got the Milk (I keep wanting to say ‘that got the hat’) his actually short and sweet. To compliment this, the game uses abstract art to represent the level and obstacles that need navigating and create a very pretty looking game in the process. Just look at the screenshots and tell me you aren’t attracted by the looks of it. If anything the game is even more aesthetically pleasing when viewed as you play it, though the encouraging and enjoyable audio track certainly helps.

Heed my advice; The Cat that Got the Milk will test your reactions. Not your speed or reflexes but the way you would normally play a game of this nature will almost certainly cause quite a few collisions. If you’re not exactly sure what I mean, play it and you’ll begin to understand. It requires a quick yet more relaxed sense of play and as a jumped up (and easily frustrated) individual I found the change of play style enjoyable.

All that’s left to say is download and enjoy it, here’s the link, have fun.

Bethesda has released update 1.4 for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and you can download it through Steam.

The patch will introduce various general performance enhancements, and also contain the usual bug fixes and quest tweaks. Also keep in mind that Bethesda said last month that this update will address the lag issue on the PlayStation 3 version of the game, which is great.

The full list of changes is down below.

General

• Skyrim launcher support for Steam Workshop*
• General optimizations for memory and performance
• Optimized bookshelf script in player-owned houses that would occasionally cause active scripts to lag and also cause an increase to saved games filesize (PS3)
• Improved compiler optimization settings
• Memory optimizations related to scripting
• Fixed crashes related to pathing and AI
• Fixed crash in Haemar’s Shame if player had already completed “A Daedra’s Best Friend”
• Fixed rare crash with loading saved games
• Fixed issue with accented characters not displaying properly at the end of a line
• Fixed issue where quests would incorrectly progress after reloading a save
• Fixed issues with placing and removing books from bookshelves in the player’s home
• Fixed issue where weapon racks and plaques would not work correctly in player’s house if player immediately visits their house before purchasing any furnishing.
• Fixed issue where the player house in Windhelm would not clean up properly
• Fixed crash related to giant attacks and absorb spells
• Fixed issue with ash piles not cleaning up properly
• Fixed occasional issue where overwriting an existing save would fail
• Fixed memory crash with container menu
• Fixed infinite loop with bookshelves
• Fixed issue where traps in Shalidor’s Maze would not work properly in French, German, Spanish and Italian versions
• Fixed issue where transforming back to human from werewolf would occasionally fail
• Bows and daggers will display properly when placed on weapon racks

Quests

• The Unusual Gem inside the Thalmor Embassy is now accessible after finishing “Diplomatic Immunity”
• In “Breaching Security”, the quest token is no longer required to receive a fortune reading from Olava the Feeble
• Fixed issue where Galmar would not complete Joining the Stormcloaks properly if “Season Unending” was an active quest
• Fixed issue where starting “Season Unending” after finishing “Joining the Stormcloaks” would prevent “The Jagged Crown” from starting properly.
• Fixed issue progressing through “Message to Whiterun” while “Season Unending” was still open would block progression for both quests.
• In “Arniel’s Endeavor”, fixed issue where a quest journal would trigger multiple times
• In “Forbidden Legend”, the amulet fragment can no longer disappear after player leaves a dungeon without taking it
• Fixed rare issue in “Forbidden Legend” where killing Mikrul Gauldurson while sneaking would make his corpse unaccessible
• In “The White Phial”, the phial can no longer disappear if player leaves dungeon without taking it
• “The White Phial” will now start properly if player already has a briar heart in their inventory
• Player can no longer get stuck in Misty Grove after completing “A Night to Remember”
• Fixed issue where leaving Riften during “A Chance Arrangement” would prevent quest from progressing
• In “Darkness Returns”, a door in Twilight Sepulcher will properly open if the player leaves the dungeon for an extended period of time before completing the quest
• In “Revealing the Unseen”, if the player leaves the Oculory for an extended period of time after placing the focusing crystal and returns, the quest will proceed correctly
• “Onmund’s Request” will now start properly if player has already found Enthir’s staff before receiving this quest
• Fixed instance where Tonilia would stop buying stolen items and also would not give Guild Leader Armor
• “Repairing the Phial” will start properly if player already has unmelting snow or mammoth tusk in their inventory
• Finding Pantea’s Flute before speaking with Pantea no longer prevents her quest from updating
• In “The Break of Dawn”, fixed rare instance where a quest object would spawn incorrectly on the Katariah during Hail Sithis
• Fixed rare issue in “The Mind of Madness” where player is unable to equip the Wabbajack
• Fixed issue in “Pieces of the Past” where Mehrunes Dagon’s Razor will not trigger properly if player leaves the cell for extended period of time before activating it
• “Blood’s Honor” will start properly if you visited and completed Driftshade and an extended period of time passes before starting the quest.
• Fixed rare issue where “Dampened Spirits” would not start properly
• Fixed issue where killing guards in Cidhna Mine would block progression for “No One Escapes Cidhna Mine”
• Fixed numerous issues with “Blood on the Ice” not triggering properly
• In “Blood on the Ice”, Calixto can now be killed if player owns a house in Windhelm
• In “The Cure for Madness”, killing Cicero then resurrecting him no longer impedes quest progress
• Fixed rare issue in “To Kill an Empire” where an NPC would fail to die properly
• Clearing Knifepoint Ridge before starting “Boethiah’s Champion” no longer prevents quest from starting.

The launch trailer for Big Huge Games’ highly anticipated action RPG, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, has recently been released by EA and 38 Studios.

If you’re interested, you can check it out above. As for the actual game, it will be released on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox360 on February 10 in Europe and here in South Africa.

Be sure to read up on our hands-on preview of the game if you aren’t too sure what this game is about. On the other hand, if you’re eagerly anticipating it, you can try your luck in our competition and stand a chance of winning it on the platform of your choice. The competition ends on February 8.

Electronic Arts has confirmed that BioWare’s epic MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic, has sold over 2 million copies since its launch in December of 2011.

The Old Republic currently has a massive 1.7 million active subscribers not only registered, but playing it for around four hours each day. What makes these statistics all the more impressive is that the game is exclusive to PC.

In case you’re wondering, the other 300,000 owners of the game have either not played it yet or have already “opted out” of their subscriptions, according to EA.

This “makes Star Wars: The Old Republic the fastest-growing subscription MMO in history”, EA boasted during a recent financial call.

Eric Brown, EA’s chief financial officer, commented in the financial call that BioWare’s MMO was “more successful than we anticipated”, and that server stability is also doing better than expected.

EA did its part in pointing out that The Old Republic’s huge sales have not been fully reflected in recent sales reports. The reason is because around 40 percent of the 2 million sales were actually digitally sold through the publisher’s Origin service, and those sales are not tracked by third-party data firms.

The PC version of Prototype 2 has been frustratingly delayed by a full three months and, to make matters worse, no specific reasons have been given whatsoever.

Gamers looking forward to Radical Entertainment’s Protoype 2 on PS3 or Xbox360 will get to see it release on April 27, 2012, but unfortunately PC gamers will have to wait until July 24, which is very disheartening.

The developers made this announcement on their Facebook page, literally giving no reasons at all for the delay. The post reads as follows:

“Hey all, we just wanted to let you know that the PC version of PROTOTYPE 2 is unfortunately going to be delayed until July 24th. Radical Entertainment has always been extremely dedicated to all our fans, and we just wanted to make sure you heard the news from us FIRST. We’ll share more details with you soon.”

I guess we all know the reason is probably piracy. I mean the game is being published by Activision after all. But that doesn’t really make the pill any easier to swallow.

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.

Warner Bros. Interactive has announced the opening of the public beta for the PS3 and Xbox360 versions of Gotham City Imposters, which is a Batman-themed multiplayer FPS for those who don’t know.

However, despite entering open beta, access codes for the game are still limited, so if you’re interested and you own an Xbox360 you should go over to the game’s official site and register to stand a chance of winning a code.

On the other hand, if you’re a PS3 gamer, you can enjoy the fact that there are no keys for this version, so you can go over to the PlayStation Store and download it now. Although you might need an American account set up for that.

The last bit of important information we heard about this game was its delay from January to February, so let’s hope that extra time and the beta bodes well for the game.

SOL Exodus is here, Freelancer fans it’s time to rejoice… well I mean there’ll probably be a sequel to look forward in the future, and that’ll be cool right. SOL Exodus says it’s a current-gen ode to past greats like Wing Commander and the aforementioned Freelancer, but who really believes what it says on the can. Maybe I’m being a bit unfair, SOL Exodus does promise, well at least the developers promise that, SOL Exodus:

SOL: Exodus is the first downloadable, 3D space-action game that leverages the power of modern graphics technology to deliver epic space battles featuring enormous capital ships, hordes of spacecraft, and beautifully rendered planetary battlegrounds in an action-packed, cinematic presentation reminiscent of TV shows and movies.

So I’ll give it a fair chance and compare the game’s presentation to its supposed promise.

Well the first part mentions that SOL Exodus is the first game to offer beautifully rendered visuals and modern graphics. I assume then that Seamless Entertainment (that’s the developer) hasn’t heard of X3 because well, I’m sorry to tell you this but they use modern graphical effects too and are a lot better at it. The game’s textures aren’t half bad but are nothing to write home about. The rest of the game’s aesthetics are quite good for an indie game but not quite good enough to warrant such a rave write-up about them. The biggest problem by far is that this attempt to do such detailed graphics, as an indie team, means that the rest of the game suffers.

To SOL Exodus’s credit (it’s kind of annoying to use caps lock for ‘SOL’ every time), it does make a genuine attempt to be cinematic and action-packed. If this was 2002 then it would most certainly be exactly that; however, this is 2012 and SOL Exodus really doesn’t cut the mustard. The cinematics are full of simplistic scenes and cheesy one-liners, it just feels like an old game and the story doesn’t really help. The story tells the tale of a Commander trying to save humanity; sounds very Master Chief or Commander Shepard-like doesn’t it? Well the problem is it’s all very generic and has no defining detail to separate it from every other space game ever invented. You’re supposed to be saving humanity with the aid of an A.I. I can’t remember, so I’m going to call her Cortana, and as Commander What’s-His-Name you use your fighter craft to defend against and thwart the efforts of COD (a concept I’m sure Azhar will approve of). COD is a fanatical religious group and I know COD stands for something but well, I don’t really remember that either. It’s all quite forgettable and I just don’t feel like I want to save this version of humanity. Religious fanatics (who I’m going to call the Chaos Space Marines rather than COD) are too overused and only really work if done well and let’s just say these particular Chaos Space Marines aren’t exactly winning SOL Exodus any prizes.

Gameplay wise, SOL Exodus isn’t as action-packed as I was lead to believe, this seems to be a trend now. There’s nothing wrong with the controls and the whole shooting-enemy-fighters mechanic seems solid and polished enough, but that’s again as far as it goes. The game doesn’t distinguish it in any way, it’s just fly to ship; shoot ship; change target; shoot next ship; rinse and repeat. There’s almost no variety in weaponry and the upgrade system is very limited offering only to give you a couple extra missiles or hull integrity for each point invested. It seems like Seamless Entertainment tried too hard to get what they thought an arcade space shooter should be like and forgot to make a game we’d love and enjoy instead. There is a hacking component to combat against the larger enemy ships where you can disable or change the target of their own arsenal or things like engines. The problem is it isn’t fleshed out enough and seems tacked on rather than integrated into the entire experience.

There is one aspect to SOL Exodus that remains completely faithful to the statement made by the developers, it is downloadable. Unfortunately, and in a year so full of AAA titles that they’re literally leaking out of my ear, I really can’t suggest such a generic indie game to anyone. Don’t get me wrong, there are some upcoming indie games to blow the pants off many AAA’s, like Torchlight 2 for example, but this is certainly not one of them. I don’t like to be mean about any game, that’s Azhar’s job, but I certainly can’t say anything nice about SOL Exodus either.

A side note to this is the hacking mechanic of SOL Exodus is called torchlight, and well as I heard torchlight I kinda wanted to play that and not play this. I wonder, is it fate?

As mentioned in yesterday’s article, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning will come with an online pass that will reward players who purchase the game with the House of Valor faction quest, which includes seven missions.

Those who choose to get it secondhand will have to buy this content, and this aspect of the game has been subject to criticism from the gaming community due to the single-player nature of the game. After all, gamers are more accustomed to online passes restricting multiplayer features, and not tampering with single-player content.

However, 38 Studios boss Curt Schilling has defended the decision for the online pass, writing on the game’s official forums that the quest itself is just day-one downloadable content that serves to reward those who purchase the game.

“DAY 1 DLC, to be extremely and VIVIDLY clear, is FREE, 100% totally FREE, to anyone that buys a new copy of Reckoning, ANYONE,” Schilling wrote. “If you don’t buy new games you buy them used, and in that case you will have to pay for the Day 1 free DLC content the new copy buyers got for free. It’s clear the intent right? To promote early adopters and MUCH MORE IMPORTANT TO ME, REWARD fans and gamers who commit to us with their time and money when it benefits the company.”

Schilling then went on to talk about how profit leads to the development of future games, and that things like online passes are a stepping stone to that.

“That’s just how business works. We MUST make a profit to become what we want to become,” Schilling wrote. “THE ONLY way we do that is to make games you CANNOT WAIT TO BUY! If we do that, and you do that, we want to reward you with some cool free stuff as a thank you. You can TOTALLY disagree with this and I am sure many do, so we’ll agree to disagree. This is not 38 trying to take more of your money, or EA in this case, this is us REWARDING people for HELPING US! If you disagree due to methodology, ok, but that is our intent.”

Well, what do you think about that?

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning will release here on February 10 on PC, PS3 and Xbox360.

If you’re a fan of Final Fantasy VII and have a copy of Fallout 3 lying around, then brace yourselves for a mod of pure epicosity. Mako Dawn is an ambitious mod that uses Fallout 3 to place you in one of the most fantastic worlds ever created, well at least according to me and Final Fanatasy VII’s hardcore fans.

Read this and imagine how cool it will be when it’s finally finished, if it’s ever finished.

“Set just prior to the events of the original game, this total conversion aims to recreate the Shinra tower as shown in the 1997 RPG Final Fantasy VII in full 3D. Take any object, use any weapon, interact with anyone. Work to gain access to each floor and unravel company secrets as you ascend – or destroy – the corporate hierarchy.”

And despite the relatively few pictures so far, to which they’ll only really make sense to Final Fantasy VII fans, I’m really excited, can’t wait.

A new Hero’s Guide trailer for Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning has been released, showing off more of the large open world. It’s pretty intriguing to watch if you’re looking forward to this game.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning will release on PC, PS3 and Xbox360 on February 10 in Europe and South Africa. While it may be a highly anticipated title, it has been met with a little bit of controversy recently, because of the somewhat buggy demo and the news that the game will have an online pass for the unique Mass Effect armour as well as an entire quest-line that contains seven missions.

Time will tell how this game performs, but for now be sure to read up on our hands-on preview if you haven’t already. You can also enter our competition to stand a chance of winning the game.

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.

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.

If you had to dig inside the head of your typical Sega fanboy and remove every memory of Sonic in all of the games that were released featuring the speedy blue hedgehog, you would get something of a better idea of exactly what Sonic Generations is attempting to achieve.

The game is more of a celebration than anything, of the last twenty years of Sonic games — at least, the good ones — but with a fresh high-definition coat of paint slapped on. It is an amalgamation of the core concepts of both the 2D-platformer worlds of the classic games, and the 3D-platformer worlds of later entries into the series.

This game is basically a mash-up of all things Sonic, and as such is a must-buy for every fan of the Sonic series who ever dared to appreciate blazing rapidly through levels as a little blue, humanoid animal.

But what about the rest of the world?

As with most of the recent entries in the Sonic series of games, Sonic Generations does in fact have some story behind it; Sonic is cheerfully celebrating his birthday with friends but it all goes to shit as an inter-dimensional rift opens up and swallows everything whole. Sonic later awakens missing his friends and must seek them out by racing through and restoring various familiar levels that featured in previous titles.

That’s not all though and as an added twist, the inter-dimensional rift happened to also swallow a different version of Sonic, effectively meaning that there are two versions of the blue hedgehog from, let’s call them parallel universes, that must seek out their friends and then save them from the clutches of– we’ll get to that in a bit.

The two Sonic characters, Classic Sonic and Modern Sonic as they’re known in the game, have very distinct play styles that both centre around excessive speed, but diversify in execution.

Classic Sonic keeps things traditionally 2D with all levels strictly side-scrolling, and pretty much as you would remember them from way back when, be it the enemies, the rings, the powerups or the methods of navigation. It’s all very much an ode to the old. For some reason this Sonic is also shorter, slightly lighter, and for the most part a mute.

Modern Sonic is stylistically similar to recent entries in the Sonic series in that his levels are 3D for the most part with you running ‘into the camera’ as it were, but there are also parts where you end up side-scrolling through the level as well. Definitely the more interesting of the two even if a bit more frustrating to play, Modern Sonic’s levels will go from 3D to 2D and back again, with the lock-on controls and jump pads that you know from the modern forays. Modern Sonic is also taller, a darker shade of blue, and able to communicate with actual speech.

The game world consists of what could only be described as an extra-dimensional limbo of sorts where various levels from the previous Sonic games are featured as areas that must be restored, first by travelling through and completing the initial stage — basically the level in its entirety — and then through various challenges that range from using one of Sonic’s powers to achieving a certain goal within some time limit.

Completing each of the initial stages will save one of your friends and unlock the challenges for that area. Upon completing one of those challenges, a key will be unlocked for you to collect. For every three keys you collect, you unlock a story-related boss fight that unlocks new stages for you, and the cycle repeats.

There are also various miscellaneous boss battles not related to the game’s story that you may play through.

Since there are two Sonics this time around, each stage has two Acts associated with it, forcing you to switch between Sonics in order to clear every challenge for that stage. While this does mean that you would effectively have to complete each challenge twice, the actual challenges for each Sonic differ in their execution and the levels themselves are varied enough that you end up actually looking forward to doing so in any case.

Apart from that, there is a tonne of unlocks available for either version of Sonic that includes but is not limited to artwork, music and various power-ups, some that allow you to call in friends to help you out in stages.

There is a lot of ‘game’ to be found in this game, and a fan of Sonic series would be quite at home with this title. For the rest of us, it would depend on how much you enjoy arcade-like platformers.

Don’t get me wrong when I call it arcade-like. There are many, many hours to be lost in this game, completing all the challenges and unlocking everything, but Sonic Generations is most certainly not going to win any awards for story-telling or cinematics. I mean, inter-dimensional rifts that bring together two different kinds of Sonic that must then work together to save both dimensions from an evil time and space traversing enemy that threatens to destroy all of space-time? It’s almost laughable.

See, this is basically Sega finally keeling over and giving in to the rage from Sonic fanboys who have longed for a return to the ways of the classic games in the series, but at the same time offering up a means of showing said fanboys that the classic can be mixed with the modern in a way that works for all.

Whether they actually managed to achieve that depends on how much of a fanboy you are, but all for intents and purposes it certainly seems as though they have, with seamless integration of both perspectives in all the modern stages, and enough of the classic stages to keep the rest happy anyway.

The game also looks great. As it should, being a title released for the current generation of consoles. Be it the classic or modern levels, everything looks pretty and aesthetically delightful, with crisp textures and excellent character animation abound. The contrast between the classic and modern versions of each character and level is also a neat touch that really shows off the polish of the game.

The music is suitable to the arcade nature of the game, with many tracks being very upbeat and ‘happy’ for lack of a better word. It’s a Sonic title, so you expect as much.

There is an online component of the game, but it is limited to ranked scoreboards and speed-runs, and as such it still keeps things strictly singleplayer but allows you to compete with friends for times as well.

Sega have really pulled no punches with this game, and offered up a title that really cannot fail at pleasing everyone. It’s not the perfect Sonic game by any means, but it’s pretty much the best of the series for a very long time.

It’s equal parts challenging as it is entertaining, and a proper throwback to the days of old where running through Green Hill was all you needed to enjoy yourself. Sonic has finally got a game that everyone should play. And it’s about damn time.

In more news that may lead us to never seeing this game release until we’re fossilised, game director Jay Wilson has confirmed some of the huge changes planned for Diablo 3. It was only a few days ago that we were told of these big changes, but now we’ve gotten some details.

Wilson admitted that Diablo 3 is “not quite there yet” as far as being finished is concerned, but reassures gamers that “no one will remember if the game is late, only if it’s great.”

As true as that is, it unfortunately doesn’t make the wait any easier. Or do much for our frustration levels.

Wilson recently spoke out on the Diablo 3 blog, saying: “In addition to finishing and polishing the content of the game we’re continuing to iterate on some of the core game systems.”

“We’re changing some of the systems we’ve gotten the most feedback on both internally and from the beta test, including crafting, items, core attributes, and inventory.”

“In addition we’re working on major changes to the skill and rune systems that we’re not ready to talk about, but I promise you we can’t possibly ship without a finished skill and rune system.”

If you’re interested to read more then head over to the Diablo 3 blog for the full set of details, but if you want a summary then know that the biggest changes on the list are to do with a revamped character attribute setup. As in, the Defence, Attack and Precision stats have been removed and replaced by a different core set of stats, namely Strength, Dexterity, Intellect and Vitality.

“This change makes the stats more intuitive and fixes some of the itemization issues we were running into,” says Wilson.

“Our hope is that by embracing our iterative design process in which we question ourselves and our decisions, Diablo 3 won’t just live up to our expectations, but will continue to do so a decade after it’s released.”

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.

If you were hoping to see Diablo 3 in the next few months, then unfortunately I have to burst your bubble, as it seems like there’s still a long way to go until the game is finished.

Blizzard’s lead designer Jay Wilson explained to fans in a recent update that, after receiving tons of feedback from the beta of Diablo 3, the studio will be taking another in-depth look at the game’s core systems.

It’s exactly your worst nightmare come true, as Blizzard will basically be returning to the now ancient drawing board regarding some of the finer game details that players have been testing for months in the beta. This ultimately means fans have to wait quite a bit longer for the game to arrive. I mean, the way this looks my initial prediction may come true, and we really will only see Diablo 3 release when we’re all fossils.

To elaborate, it looks like Blizzard is removing items like Scrolls of Identification, which were designed to identify mysterious weapons and armour. They’re also giving the boot to the Cauldron of Jordan and Nephalem Cube, so you can forget selling items from anywhere and breaking them down into raw materials. Lastly, say goodbye to the Mystic Artisan, who was an NPC that served to enchant items.

So, how far exactly is Blizzard willing to go with this large reevaluation? Well, it seems like Blizzard is even taking out some of the character stats, and scrapping alternate solutions. Furthermore, so-called major features considered to be innovations for the game have gone bye-bye. Reason being is that, according to Blizzard, some of these innovations detracted from the much-loved gameplay that makes the series so addictive and awesome. All of this seems quite massive for a game so far in its development, and in actual fact a game that was scheduled to release in the first quarter of this year.

Jay Wilson explained on the official site: “There’s a lot of work left to be done, though. We’re constantly tuning and making balance changes; it’s a massive task.”

“We want Diablo III to be the best game it can be when it launches,” Wilson continues. “To get there, we’re going to be iterating on designs we’ve had in place for a long time, making changes to systems you’ve spent a lot of time theorycrafting, and removing features you may have come to associate with the core of the experience. Our hope is that by embracing our iterative design process in which we question ourselves and our decisions, Diablo III won’t just live up to our expectations, but will continue to do so a decade after it’s released.”

Be sure to read more on the game’s official site if you’re interested.

Tower defence has been made popular by its many mapped iterations within Warcraft 3. Since then, a horde of clones and wannabes has moved in to make a quick buck off of that success, subsequently creating a tower defence genre in itself. From mods, to maps to games in their entirety, I have always been a fan of the tower defence genre. That being said, it’s one of those genres I don’t get to spend a whole of time rummaging playing. As such, I usually find myself playing the first couple stages of any tower defence I come across, then, and if it’s a decidedly addictive waste of a few weeks, well I keep playing.

Unstoppable Gorg is a tower defence genre that pays homage to the 1950’s and all the wacky black & white sci-fi that ensued from that period. The theme is executed well and employs old school aesthetics to drive it home. The 1950’s styled audio track is a charming attempt that suits the brightly styled visuals really well. I must point out that the audio track is used a little too often, though it never quite managed to get on my nerves. The cinematics between each stage is done as a black & white news report, the kind you’d expect from the period. I especially enjoyed all of the special effects I would imagine occurred, like the clear use of models held up by string for ships and space stations. Gorg himself, the alien overlord set on destroying all of humanity, makes the odd appearance and I’ve laughed a couple times at the whole presentation, and believe you me, a chuckle a day keeps the nerd at play.

So it looks and feels good, but in a genre defined by a singular game mechanic, that of tower defence, Unstoppable Gorg needs to do this well for me to bother with the purchase. In this regard I’m happy to report, Unstoppable Gorg’s claim to be revolutionary as a tower defence game is done very well and I found myself thoroughly enjoying it. I feel I should explain what makes Unstoppable Gorg so revolutionary. Rather than be another standard, run of the mill tower defence, Unstoppable Gorg, rather brilliantly, has added the ability to place your towers (or in this case satellites) on specific points within the orbits around the space stations you’re protecting. Once the towers are placed on these points, you are able to freely rotate those orbits and so reposition your towers to best suit the changing routes of the attackers. Moreover, each tower is able to continue shooting while being repositioned, thereby allowing the player to keep towers continuously focused on specific enemies. Finally, the enemy attackers are able to attack your towers and so towers need to be switched and repaired, or need to move to avoid fire altogether. It’s not overly complex but the ability to rotate your orbits, and so move your towers, puts a demand not only your strategic ability but your quick thinking tactical side. Because of this, and rather enjoyably, Unstoppable Gorg has a relentless pace at times, an enjoyable change from the usually slow approach to standard tower defence games.

On top of the revolving orbit style of play, Unstoppable Gorg gives the ability to place other support styled towers that aid by collecting research points and additional cash. Research points allow the player to upgrade towers before the start of play, upgrades that can make quite a difference if used correctly. The other enjoyable addition is set challenges within each stage of play. Completing challenges, like don’t let your home space station take damage, grants you with the opportunity to better any stage you’ve already attempted as well as unlocking new challenge levels that will test you even more. This adds to an essential aspect of any tower defence, replayability.

All in all, Unstoppable Gorg is a thoroughly enjoyable tower defence that has become one of my favourites alongside the likes of Plants V.S. Zombies and Defense Grid. If you’re looking for a tower defence game, Unstoppable Gorg is it. There are a couple that are just as good as Unstoppable Gorg, but none of those have the charm or quite frankly, the awesome 1950’s theme to them. Emperor Gorg is like one of those evil bad guys from Power Rangers and he wants to destroy you, so buy the game and show him what’s what.

Vigil Games’ general manager David Adams recently talked about Darksiders II, particularly the weapons that will be made available to the player. Now the new protagonist, Death, may feature a scythe as his weapon of choice, but he will have plenty of other options as well.

“He’ll pretty much use any weapon that’s made available,” Adams said.

“You can get big axes, you can get crazy cool claws, big iron fists – he’ll even shoot guns. He’ll use anything.”

It seems like combat variety must have been a priority for the game, as even Death’s primary weapon will be flexible.

“Death’s primary weapon is a scythe – it’s kind of a unique one, it’s sort of a multi-purpose, Swiss Army scythe,” Adams added.

“He can use it with two different blades, he can attach it together to form the more traditional reaper scythe, he can use it as a pole arm.”

“His weapon is more Interesting [than War's],” director Marvin Donald said. “He can dual wield or use a single heavy weapon, depending on your play style.”

Death’s combat style will also be very different to War from the first game.

“Death is the most-feared – he’s one of the oldest horsemen in the fiction. They look at him as a big brother,” Adams continued.

“He’s feared just because when he really gets down to business, he is the death dealer. That’s his trade. That’s his business. He takes people down.”

Darksiders II is scheduled to release in June on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox360, while a Wii U version is also in development, but details are thin on that one.

As we all know, Valve is currently seeing Dota 2 through its closed beta phase, and for many it’s one of the most anticipated games of 2012, as it’s expected to be the true successor to arguably the most popular mod in the world. Now, I’ve been an avid player of the original DotA for quite a number of years, probably over six, and after personally playing a solid 116 hours of Dota 2, marking around 101 games in total, it’s pretty safe to say that I’ve built my complete opinion of it. This article will not only give you that, because I know how you all love my trolling opinions, but also present you with a complete introduction to the beta so that newcomers can see exactly what to expect from the game.

Welcome to Dota 2

Of course, this would be the title screen. It may not be the most pretty thing in the world, but it’s simple and clean, and that’s exactly what I like about it. From here, you’ll basically have access to everything you need, whether it be chatting to our fellow South African players (or some Asians, Russians and other lifeforms), joining a party, searching for a game, creating a practice match, spectating a live match, learning the heroes, reading the changelogs and changing your user settings. If you’re wondering about cheating through spectating matches, then don’t worry because Valve has addressed that, and spectating a match puts you about two minutes behind, so you won’t be of any help to the people playing. Now, the awesome part is that we South Africans have our own channel, which you can access by clicking the plus button next to the chat-room name and scrolling down the list for our country. Secondly, hosting single player games through Warcraft 3 to try out the latest map or going online to read changelogs is a thing of the past, because that’s all been incorporated here.

Valve has done a great job at making things easily accessible. I’m sure you can see the “updates” button, which gives you all of the latest changelogs at a click. In addition to this, another cool feature of Dota 2 is that you’ll be able to host private practice matches and populate them with both your friends and bots with adjustable difficulty settings, so that you can get used to the game and try out anything you want. Regarding servers and delay, if you look closely, you’ll see that “Europe” is highlighted in the Active Regions section, and that’s naturally because it would be our server of choice to get minimal delay. Fortunately, Dota 2 is a blast to play, and with my 4mb connection I barely get any delay whatsoever. Now, I’d like to draw your attention to the “learn” tab, as it’s one of my favourite features.

Simple, but effective, the learn screen will introduce you to every hero currently in the game, complete with a summary of their moves, lore, portrait and primary function in the game. For example, the obnoxious Spirit Breaker is listed as a Ganker, while Lifestealer is naturally a Carry and someone like Axe is described as an Initiator. It’s a nice touch to tell newcomers at a glance what they should be doing with each hero in the game. Valve has done its duty to make sure that newcomers to Dota 2 get a decent introduction to the game and easy access to important information, and of course you can’t go wrong with practice matches, where you’re free to experiment with whatever you wish.

The best thing about Dota 2 for me, functionality wise, is the awesome party and buddy system. In the original game, Battle.net sometimes made it a mission to get three or four spots for friends in a game, as well as keep track of what all of your friends are doing. But with Dota 2′s party system that’s never a problem. Firstly, through your Steam friendlist you’re able to, at a glance, see exactly what all of your friends are doing, whether they’re online, playing a game, spectating or simply hanging around in the main menu. The one problem is communication though, because Steam’s messaging system isn’t exactly the most comfortable thing to use, and I feel Dota 2 probably needs a “whisper” function much like Battle.net had, where you can privately and directly send messages to other players who aren’t necessarily on your friend’s list. Moving on to the most important feature, you’re able to make a party of friends up to a maximum of five players including yourself, and from there you’ll be able to chat directly to them and begin searching for a game, guaranteeing spots for each member in your party.

However, before moving on it’s time to explain another great system the game has. See, the game not only keeps track of players’ win-lose ratio and most played heroes, but also takes note of the amount of games you’ve abandoned or quit, if any. Now, Dota 2 does have the awesome reconnect feature, where if let’s say your connection crashes and you get booted out of the game, you’ll have five minutes to reconnect to the game and resume playing without penalty. If, however, the five minutes expires, you’ll gain a “quit”, and the game will become safe to leave for the other players. However, if the other players resume the game and finish it, then win-loss ratios will be affected. If all players on a team leave, the game ends and the other team instantly wins, so there are no more rage quits without penalties. So what does your quit count do? Well, the more games you’ve abandoned, the longer it will take for you to find a game as your priority will go down firstly, and secondly you’ll get put in the same pool as other players with abandons, so you could end up playing lesser games with the ragers and quitters. I doubt that’s a fate any player would want, so it’s solid incentive to have a good track record.

So, back to the party system. Let’s talk about how it works. Firstly you’ll get an invite from your buddies. Or do the inviting yourself, if you’re the one creating the party. Let’s assume it’s the former.

Then you’ll get all your friends together, and wait for them to be ready.

From there, it’s as simple as clicking “Play” and pressing the button to find a game. Make sure you have Europe set as active though. Once your game is found, your speakers will explode as a giant Dota 2-styled “Fus Ro Dah” will emit from them alerting you to click the accept button.

After all players have accepted, the game will begin. If a player declines or takes too long to accept, then they will be booted from the list and you’ll once again find yourself searching for a game except this time with much higher priority, so you’ll find a new game much faster. Either way, once the game starts you’ll get past the loading screen and into the player waiting screen, with all of your friends.

Finally, once all the players in the game have loaded up, you’ll get sent to the hero selection screen, and then you’ll be ready to play. Unfortunately, for some reason at this point in time the beta doesn’t allow you to repick your hero or swap with another player, so be careful when you decide to random. It’s pretty cool though that there’s a dedicated pre-game screen for the hero selection process, and you’ll get to chat to your teammates for about a minute to decide on your strategies and picks.

Now that the introduction to the beta and how it works is finished with, let’s get down to real business. The actual game, and how it’s doing so far. Well, there’s plenty to talk about, and right now the latest update for Dota 2 has just incorporated all of the changes from the original Dota’s 6.73 update, except for the new heroes. It did however add Silencer and Spirit Breaker to the game, and there are plenty more updates on the way as the game heads towards its eventual open beta stage.

Dota 2 Beta Impressions

There are currently 66 heroes in Dota 2, spread across the two factions with 33 heroes per side. Naturally there are still plenty more to come to reach the original game’s roster, and we’ll be seeing more heroes get added in as the game continues to be updated. While the original Dota’s Sentinel and Scourge teams have been replaced with the Radiant and the Dire respectively, all of the heroes have retained their original titles and skill names. Additionally, most items in the game have their original names, except for the ones trademarked by Warcraft III. Now, what I absolutely love about the new Dota is that once you get used to the interface and how things work, which should take you a couple of games, you’ll discover how great the experience really is. I believe this is what most of us envisioned a true sequel to Dota to be like. The same game, but with better graphics and without all of the things that held the game back due to its rigid and old engine. I think Valve has achieved exactly that.

The first thing you’ll notice from the screen above, if not the pretty, clean visuals, is the new shop. No longer are there multiple shops to navigate through to get the items you want, and you don’t need to spend a few precious seconds reading recipes anymore. Now, there’s only one shopkeeper in your home base. Don’t worry, the two secret shops are still there of course. But with the new system, for every hero you’ll get a basic guide of what to get under Suggested Items. Here the game will helpfully inform you of starting, early game, core and situational items. Once you get used to it, you’ll see how comfortable and fantastic the shop is to use. All items are arranged in simple categories, but if you don’t want to browse through the shop you simply have to type the name of the item in the search bar and it will instantly reveal the item you’re looking for. Even better, is that you’ll just need to left-click on an item to see what you’ll need to build it, and from there it becomes easy to get what you want.

All players will have their own personal stash in the home base that holds up to five items, while a courier can hold anything else you need. For some reason purchasing a courier automatically shares it with the entire team, so you can’t be selective in this regard and as such you’ll have to make sure you’re playing with decent players or your friends, for the safest option, so that no one ruins things for you, especially if you’re the solo for instance. What’s really great about Dota 2 is the clever inventory and shopping systems. If you have enough money for a full item, for example, you don’t have to buy every invidual item that makes it up, but you can buy the complete item straight up. Another example is that if you have parts of an item in your inventory and the rest in your stash, it will automatically build once you get within range. From this it’s easy to deduce that Valve has really made the experience of Dota 2 much more free-flowing by removing some unnecessary haggles that previously slowed down gameplay. All of these features are exactly what the original game missed and couldn’t have.

The game’s visual style is actually exactly what I wanted it to be, personally speaking. It’s clean, and definitely not overly busy, and the design is excellent. The heroes and skills look amazing, and what’s great is that they don’t distract or get in the way and make players unable to see what’s going on once you get used to them after one or two games. Dota 2 is actually beautiful to look at, and the experience is really fluid and easy on the eye, which is again exactly what most players of the original game wanted when thinking of the game’s upgraded graphics and utilisation of the Source engine. I feel Valve has done a spectacular job, especially considering the amount of work they had to do in trying to replicate an ancient engine and the original game’s mechanics with their own engine. Lastly, the audio is great and most of the heroes have fantastic voice work, and for me it’s pretty awesome to see their dialogue take on a more comical and lighthearted approach, as opposed to a serious or “cool” one.

Truthfully, there’s nothing new to be said about the gameplay that you won’t already know from the original. After all, it’s the same game, and that’s exactly what we wanted Dota 2 to be. Just a whole lot better in terms of functionality, and that’s what we’re getting. The interface is simple and clean, and will probably get a few tweaks as it gets updated. You’re able to set your own hotkeys and shortcuts, but the default settings will use the “QWER” system for hero abilities that third party applications like Dotakeys use, and the numpad will be assigned to your item slots. However, you can change this in the options menu. The mini map has some pretty cool functionality, such as allowing players to hold the alt key and see little portraits on the map of visible heroes, so you can see who’s around and who you’re dealing with at a glance, rather than by matching the colour to the hero. You’re also able to draw on the mini map by holding control and left-clicking, and this is for showing routes to take and places to be. The drawings fade after a few seconds, and can really be tactically helpful. Lastly, just like in the original game, holding alt and clicking on the map will “ping” a location, alerting your allies to places of interest. It’s pretty sweet that the pings show up in-game as well, on the ground, and pinging structures will tell your allies to defend them or attack them, wrapping them in shield or sword icons on the map.

Overall, when it comes to the core gameplay, Dota 2 is played exactly like the original, and in my opinion it’s definitely the sequel we’ve always wanted. In all honesty, after spending so much time with Dota 2, I just can’t play the original game again. I haven’t gone back to it. I absolutely love Dota 2, and it’s just a blast to play. Sure the heroes aren’t all in there yet, and it’s definitely going to take quite some time to be completed and get to the same level as the original, but I personally feel that Valve has simply nailed it, and I can’t wait to see how the game develops from here on out. I know I’m full of praise at this point in time, but seriously, aside from a few minor things here and there, I can’t say that there’s anything I don’t completely love about the game. It really is coming along amazingly, and it’s just great.

In conclusion, I hope this article proved useful to you if you’re a newcomer to Dota 2 and haven’t yet gotten your hands on a beta key. Hopefully now you’ll have a solid idea of what to expect from it, and can be all the more excited to play the game. For those who have already played it and are currently doing so, I definitely hope you’re loving it as much as I am right now. As far as I see it, Dota 2 is speedily moving in the right direction, and I want to be along for the ride. It’s just awesome.

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.

Hitman: Absolution’s lead producer, Hakan Abrak, was recently asked what IO Interactive wanted to achieve with the highly anticipated sequel, and in the short interview he highlighted improved AI among other things.

“We’ve been developing this game for a long time, and it’s very much linked to the technology, especially creating more complex, more believable artificial intelligence,” Abrak told the US PS Blog.

“Early on, we knew we couldn’t achieve our ambitions with the older Glacier 1 engine, so we decided to create Glacier 2. It’s a huge challenge to create new game technology, but it brought a lot of benefits.”

Hitman: Absolution will provide the player with the freedom to be a silent assassin or deranged mass murderer, and Abrak touched briefly on the experience you’ll have depending on your choice.

“Voyeurism has always been a key storytelling focus in Hitman, and we still have a lot of these small stories peppered throughout the game. It’s where a lot of the replayability comes in, actually,” the producer noted.

“If you go into the game guns blazing, you’ll get a unique experience…but if you’re stealthy and explore more thoroughly, you’ll learn a lot more about the world and characters by overhearing conversations and the like.”

Regarding stealth, in addition to the new Instinct ability and upgraded disguise system, IO has also brought in a warning system to alert the player when they’re being noticed.

“When you’re making a stealth game, it’s important to find new ways to build tension. We built a lot of prototypes for Hitman: Absolution, and we learned that creating a ‘Giger counter’ effect was a very effective way to communicate that the player is about to get spotted — you’d better move,” Abrak said.

“In earlier games, it could be frustrating because you didn’t know when an enemy was about to spot you. And that ‘Giger counter’ effect has the bonus effect of making you squirm when you play, it builds more tension. I find myself saying ‘ooh! ooh! ooh!’ when I’m sneaking around.”

Hitman: Absolution is expected to release somewhere in 2012 on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox360.

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.

Electronic Arts has announced that a co-op demo for upcoming Starbreeze-developed first person shooter, Syndicate, will be released at the end of this month.

The demo will be released on PlayStation Network and Xbox Live, and will allow for up to four players to team up through one of the game’s nine co-op levels.

Syndicate will be released on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox360 on February 21 in the US, and on February 24 in the UK and here in South Africa.

Take a look at the trailer above.

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.

BioWare has revealed some of its major plans for the MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic, and it turns out that the developers have been planning for not just the immediate future, but for way beyond that as well.

Firstly, regarding the upcoming big update 2, game director James Ohlwn said: “Game Update 2 is much bigger in scope [than Game Update 1].

“It’s further out from launch, so we can have much more of the team focussed on it. There’s Part 2 of Rise of the Rakghouls, a brand new planet called Denova which has an 8-16 man Operation and a new Warzone. So that’s three big pieces of content.

“We might also be able to get some new space game missions into it. In addition to that we have single player content that you’ll be able to go through as well.”

Furthermore, BioWare said that it has teams working on bringing in the Legacy system of alt management, guilds, and PvP gameplay.

It isn’t just the next update that’s exciting though, as Ohlen revealed that BioWare isn’t thinking only for the short term – or small in any way.

“We have people working on content that won’t be showing up in the game until 2013,” he said.

“We have writers already finishing off content for that, so I can already play through stuff from 2013 content – just not with voiceovers.

“We’re planning really far ahead, and we have to do that because our content is more complex than your typical MMO content. It requires voiceovers, cinematics and all that.”

That’s quite impressive actually, and hopefully all BioWare’s plans for the game turn out successfully.

Remember that Dark Souls petition which requested that publisher Namco Bandai release a PC version of the highly popular RPG? Oh how we gamers love petitions.

A Namco Bandai forum administrator had something to say about the petition after it attracted nearly 66,000 in a single week. They’d be foolish not to take notice of this since the petition currently has over 76,000 signatures.

The forum admin said: “I honestly wasn’t expecting such a massive support. My boss(es) even came to talk to me about this, after it explodes all around the world. If you wanted to have the attention of Namco Bandai Games, now you have it.

“The future is in your hands, and I hope you will keep supporting this. I make a personal objective to make sure every relevant people in Namco Bandai Games is in touch with this formidable effort.

“Great Thanks!”

It’s great to see a petition for an awesome cause actually get noticed and supported. Personally, I’d be overjoyed to see Dark Souls on PC, so hopefully we’ll hear more about this soon.

BioWare has said that Commander Shepard will be a far more human character in Mass Effect 3 with the writing taking us deeper into who Shepard is and what’s going on with him on an emotional level.

Mass Effect 3 lead writer Mac Walters said in the latest issue of BioWare Pulse (check it out above) that the team wanted to take “that next step” with the storytelling in ME3 to further immerse the player and improve the game.

“One of the things we wanted to do in Mass Effect 3 was deepen Shepard as a character, so you really get to express what your Shepard is feeling and going through, throughout the war,” said Mac Walters, lead writer on the Mass Effect franchise.

“We wanted to take that next step with the story telling. Yeah, it’s a war, yeah it’s got giant robots we get to shoot in the face, but there is a human side to the story. You are role-playing, and you are role-playing as a human. Why shouldn’t that human have an emotional component throughout the game?”

Obviously with this being the third in the series, Mass Effect 3 is bigger than its predecessors and Walters says that the writing reflects that.

“The emotion, and depth of writing that we have in there, has also gone up another level,” he continued. “When a video game can make you feel something but also be fun and entertaining, then I think we’ve done our jobs.”

Mass Effect 3 is out in March and should be amazing by all indications.

In former Hitman games, there was the right way to do things and the wrong way. The right way was silent, efficient and left virtually no trace of you being there. The wrong way was typically the option that had your evading gunfire or ultimately dying from said gunfire.

Basically, if you wanted to do it right, you had to go in stealthy but that’s changing in Hitman: Absolution. If you want to be more Timothy Olyphant than Mr 47 then IO Interactive is just fine with that.

What you have to remember is that 47 is no longer doing hired hits in Absolution, he’s on his own mission and is subsequently free to tackle it however you choose. This means that players get to decide how to progress through the game by choosing between stealth or action modes.

“First and foremost, what we’re trying to convey is that Hitman is still very much about stealth,” the game’s lead producer Hakan Abrak told Joystiq. “If you liked that in the earlier installments, you’re definitely going to get that here.

“But we also want to present compelling action, if you’re that type of player.

“In earlier installments, if you went into action, every enemy would come after you – you felt like a failure, like you had done something wrong. We really wanted to do that differently here, so if you play action, we think it should be a compelling experience and we think we’ve achieved that. If you want to switch between stealth and action, you should have the freedom to do so.”

The feeling of the game will change when you perform various actions by triggering a more “dramatic and suspenseful experience” regardless of how you’ve been playing up till that point. In essence, you could still get that action hero feeling by doing something gung-ho even if you’ve been playing the entire game on tippy toes. This allows you to see your playstyle is “reflected in how the game presents the world” to you.

“If you go in guns blazing, we know how many NPCs will go into combat mode or send out hunting parties for you, if you run away,” producer Tore Blystad told RPS. “The music will listen to all these things and give you a dramatic and suspenseful experience regardless of how you want to play the game.

“You can seamlessly go back and forth between all these different states. And this is how to show off without trying it out and seeing how my play style is reflected in how the game presents the world to me. This is the biggest challenge we’ve had, to feel linear but not be linear.”

Fear not though amidst all this talk of action because Absolution will stay true to the series’ stealth roots. The name of the game here is accessibility so that those who can’t appreciate a stealth game and just want to whip their gun out every 10 seconds will have something to enjoy. It’s not a bad thing, I just hope that IO hasn’t sacrificed some great content in favour of making the game more accessible because the best stealth scenarios are not always the best action settings. Mind you, Deus Ex did a damn good job of balancing the potential for those both stealth and action in its level design.

Hitman: Absolution is due out later this year for PS3, PC and Xbox 360. What will you be going for when it lands, stealth or action? Did I mention there’s a handful of crispy fresh screenshots below?

Geocaching is probably the closest any of us will ever get to an actual treasure hunt and with that in mind, Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics has come up with something truly awesome.

For the uninitiated, Geocaching is location-based treasure hunting in the real world using GPS co-ordinates and exploration. Crystal Dynamics is putting their own Lara Croft-esque spin on it.

“Through several initiatives over the coming year, Crystal Dynamics and Geocaching.com will team up to create a series of unique location-based adventures embodying the spirit of Tomb Raider and Lara Croft’s drive to become an explorer. To develop these adventures, Crystal Dynamics will use both the traditional Geocaching.com treasure hunting format as well as Groundspeak’s latest photo-based adventure project, Geocaching Challenges.”

There are no details beyond that so we’ll just have to wait and see what these challenges are all about. Tomb Raider is due out for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 late in 2012 so there should be plenty of time for treasure hunting.

Do you remember us reporting on Skyrim’s lag issue on the PlayStation 3, back in November of last year?

Well, many gamers are still having the same problem. Personally speaking, I don’t really have it since the last few patches and my playtime is sitting around sixty hours.

However, to those that unfortunately are suffering lag, there is some good news. This month, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim will be patched to version 1.4, and Bethesda has claimed that it will address the lag issue on the PS3.

A post on the Bethesda Blog Twitter account confirmed this, when the developers responded to a question, regarding the issue of the PS3′s Skyrim lag, with the following brief statement: “We’re addressing that in the 1.4 update planned for this month.”

Let’s hope that Bethesda has plugged this problem once and for all.

Say what you want about Max Payne 3 (I know I have) but Rockstar still puts a fair amount of effort into their games and this one’s no different. You see, Rockstar actually went over to Brazil to do a bit of on-the-ground research for their upcoming game.

As you can imagine, Rockstar is being very modest about the effort they’re putting in and would much rather have gamers experience it rather than hear them drone on about it which is exactly why the studio is releasing a series of posts detailing the development of Max Payne 3 and the effort put in. Seriously though, the effort is cool and the posts are pretty good. No, really, I mean it.

In this first post you’ll get to read all about how Rockstar pounded the pavement with actual police and criminals in São Paulo, the setting of the new game. It’s a different setting to what we’re used to despite still being urban so it’s great that Rockstar has taken the time to try and capture its atmosphere and experience accurately.

I’ve been sceptical about Max Payne 3 since day one but I’m beginning to like it and playing through a favela district should lend itself to a fantastic experience.

Word on the digital streets is that a common problem experienced by players of Star Wars: The Old Republic at this point in time is a noticeable decrease in performance while players are roaming indoor areas.

The reasons for this aren’t yet known, but BioWare seems to be aware of it and working on a fix for the issue as we speak. This comes from a post on the official SWTOR forums, which says that players suffering from this will need to be patient until it gets sorted out. The post also says that a “detailed blog post” should be arriving soon.

However, while the wait is on, BioWare suggests that players turn their graphical settings down a notch, especially the bloom, shadows and shaders options.

So, I guess with The Old Republic we finally have a game that promotes being outdoors then?

Okay, I admit that might have been in bad taste.

You know those moments in life when someone raves about something that is old news to you and everyone else even though it’s the second coming of sliced bread to them? Yeah, this is a little bit like that.

Anybody who played at least a few hours of Prototype would be abundantly aware of the fact that protagonist Alex Mercer was a cad, an unredeemed brute and quite simply a bastard. He’d get all introspective about his violent nature and what he’d become and then swiftly follow that up with a frenzied slash ‘n dash through the park.

You, as the player, found it very difficult to empathise with this guy and the patchwork story-telling didn’t do him any favours. Believe it or not, Radical actually noticed these dreadful shortcomings amongst their game’s long list of issues. They may a bit slow on the uptake but they’re definitely realising this just in time to make things right in Prototype 2.

Design director Matt Armstrong recently spoke to Gamasutra about the Activision dev team’s re-evaluation of the first Prototype:

“It was clear from the outset we needed to tell a story more people could understand, ideally with a protagonist that was more relatable as well, with a motivation clearly understandable to the player,” he added. From Prototype 1, the team learned it had to present mission challenges in better context. “There was a massive missed opportunity to take the world that we’ve built and start to give it a lot more in the way of personality.”

I personally loved Prototype because of just how much fun it was and Radical really seemed to nail that fun factor but there were numerous points for improvement not least of which were the visuals and story-telling which were both poorly done and lackluster. That’s why I’m glad they’re taking another stab at it with Prototype 2. There’s a great concept in there and the gameplay mechanics are great, it just needs to be refined and perfected with some of the other elements brought up to scratch.

BioWare has recently released Game Update 1.1 for Star Wars: The Old Republic on the public test server.

According to BioWare, the update introduces a great many changes, such as “a new Flashpoint, Kaon Under Siege, and four new boss additions to Operation: Karagga’s Palace,” in addition to “changes to Open World PvP on Ilum”. If you’re a fan, you’ll know what all this means.

Furthermore, various “high priority” bug fixes have been implemented. “We have corrected the issue that prevented some Jedi Knights from progressing in Kira Carsen’s affection conversations, made some previously inaccessible Datacrons reachable, and have made many fixes to various issues in Flashpoints and Operations,” explained BioWare.

We’re still awaiting details on when the patch will be released properly in its final form, but it’s a start. The full changelog for the update can be found through the official site link down below.

Blizzard has reduced the price of two expansion packs for World of Warcraft by quite a considerable amount.

First up is Wrath of the Lich King, which now costs €19.99 (about R208.38) as opposed to its original price of €29.99 (roughly R312.62), so that’s noteworthy.

Then there’s Cataclysm, which had its price decreased from its original €34.99 (R364.74), to €29.99 (R312.62), which isn’t a whole lot, but it’s something.

If this interests you, then you might want to take a look at the Blizzard store, which is where you’ll be able to grab both expansions at their new prices.

It’s been teased on and off but it’s always great when you finally get confirmation of something. Warner Bros. Interactive has announced Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes. In addition to Robin, Superman and Batman we’ll also get Wonder Woman and Green Lantern. Unforgettably, there’s no word yet about the inclusion of Flash or The Martian Man-Hunter.

The miniature guardians of Earth with painted-on expressions and 300-style abs will be teaming up to stop Lex Luthor and Joker from doing decidedly evil things to Gotham City.

The game will focus on the same co-op build & destroy gameplay that has characterised the series and made it so popular. The inclusion of all these characters could lend itself to a pretty interesting multiplayer component which developer Travelers’ Tales hasn’t implemented in any of their previous Lego games.

Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes will be coming to PS3, PC, Xbox 360, DS, Wii, 3DS and PS Vita this winter which coincides with, you guessed it, the release of The Dark Knight Rises.

This reeks of a movie cash-in but I have faith in Travelers’ Tales although I’ve never been a fan of mixing Batman with the Justice League. It should still be good fun irrespective.

According to Forbes, developers City Interactive have allegedly delayed Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2.

The delay is for all platforms, namely PC, PS3 and Xbox 360, and will push the game beyond its original March window into the second quarter of 2012, so that the game can get a bit of extra polish and more global marketing.

The global marketing over there will be handled by a US advertising agency called The Ant Farm.

We’ll have to wait a bit longer before we get an exact release date, but when we do you guys will be the first to know!

Microsoft’s Flight Simulator has been on the way for a long time now and is perhaps overdue to be grounded so that a sleeker, shinier and faster model can take to the skies. Well, it’s finally happening. Microsoft Flight will be out for Windows PC’s this autumn, but your wallets are safe because the game will be absolutely free of charge. It’s crazy, but let’s not frog march a gift horse to the dentist or anything just yet.

The new game will pick up where the old one left off with highly detailed and ultra-realistic controls that will please any hardcore fly-boys while also making itself more accessible for rookies.

Downloading the game gives you unrestricted flight around Big Island, Hawaii. Sign in with your Games for Windows Live account and you get bonus content such as extra missions, a Boeing Stearman plane and access to Achievements. After the game releases, Microsoft will start offering paid additional content such as new aircraft and areas.

Curious? Maybe you should hit the link and sign up for the beta. Alternatively, there’s always that little trailer up top.

EA has whipped up a new trailer for the re-imagining of the classic RTS Syndicate. The trailer focuses on the various arms you’ll have at your disposal in the game. There will be 19 guns with 87 attachments and 25 upgrades. That’s enough by my standards.

The trailer gives you a perfect look at close-quarters and ranged combat.

It may be nothing like the original but this game sure is looking fantastic.