Kickstarter is making waves in the gaming scene; every week there’s a new indie developer looking for funding via Kickstarter. The great thing about Kickstarter is that it’s a springboard for a plethora of different projects, and every now and then we get some really interesting goals cropping up. For example, there is a Kickstarter campaign for an online web series entitled Tropes vs Women in Video Games.

Anita Sarkeesian is no stranger to analysing pop culture’s preoccupation with presenting women in stereotyped roles. Her original web series, Tropes vs Women, covers mediums like films and books. Her new series will focus exclusively on video games and the how the industry portrays female characters, whether they’re leading ladies or tacked-on eye-candy.

Her Kickstarter has almost reached its goal, which is great news considering the subject matter. While analysing female representation in video games isn’t anything new, judging by her previous work Sarkeesian approaches the subject in a very accessible manner. She’s not trying to make you stop playing certain types of games, she’s merely getting you to think about the type of media you’re consuming. You can read more about the project here, or check out her website for her previous work.

Publisher THQ isn’t having the best run of luck at the moment. They’ve recently revealed that they’re looking to offload that stylishly gory hack and slash game Devil’s Third, which is a total bummer. Hopefully somebody snaffles that up because it was looking like a boatload of fun.

Luckily, Darksiders II is still looking rather healthy. Except for Death I guess, because he’s, well, dead really. Still! The game’s a ton of fun; I played it during a recent trip to Amsterdam, and you can read all about that in the current issue of NAG magazine. Alternatively you can read the interview I did with the game’s director, Marvin Donald, right over here.

To remind us that (in spite of the recent delay) Death lives, THQ and Vigil have unleashed the second part of their “Death Strikes” cinematic trailer. The action in the trailer is reminiscent of the section of the game I’ve played. Fans of Shadow of the Colossus should pay attention. Hit the jump for part 2; if you missed the first part you can find it here.

Rhode Island based developer and publisher 38 Studios (the team behind Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning) looks to be in a dire financial situation. The company was founded in 2006 by baseball pitcher Curt Schilling. The Rhode Island government approved a loan of $75 million for 38 Studios as part of an Economic Development program – earlier this week, 38 Studios defaulted on the repayment to the tune of $1.25 million.

This default on payment has prompted the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation to investigate what’s happening with the studio and publisher. Since then, 38 Studios issued a cheque to the Economic Development Corporation, which was then returned to 38 Studios once the EDC learnt that there were insufficient funds in the developer’s account; the cheque would have bounced.

In the worst case scenario, 38 Studios will be declared insolvent and be forced to close. This will leave Rhode Island taxpayers with the responsibility of paying back 38 Studios’ $75 million loan over the next eight years. It’ll also mean that all of 38 Studios’ intellectual property will belong to the Rhode Island public; the IP will likely be sold off to a different developer or publisher in order to recover some of the loan amount.

Adding to the woes of the languishing developer is the fact that they were unable to pay their staff. A source has also told website Joystiq that all temps and contractors at 38 Studios have been fired.

It’s not looking good for 38 Studios at all. What this means for their upcoming MMORPG based on the Amalur universe is pretty obvious. Unsurprisingly, they will not be appearing at E3 this year.

Source: Joystiq

Naughty Dog is making a game that doesn’t star Nathan Drake! But we knew that already. We also knew that The Last of Us has been keeping a low profile as we head towards the build-up to E3. Luckily, there’s a new clip from the game to remind us just how awesome things are looking.

On top of a new clip, we also get a new Ellie, the young, female heroine who we won’t actually control during the game. When we first met Ellie many people commented on how similar she looked and sounded to actress Ellen Page. The character is, in fact, being played by actress Ashley Johnson.

In an interview with website IGN, the game’s creative director Neil Druckmann claimed that the changes to Ellie were done so as to “better reflect [actress] Ashley’s personality, and also resemble a slightly younger teen more fitting to the story”. Hit the jump to see the clip; it’s some nail-biting stuff!

Source: IGN

Who hunches for hours in front of a PC monitor, cramping their elbows and cultivating haemorrhoids? Not me, that’s not who. Although the keyboard and mouse are pictured here on a coffee table, they are moved onto my lap and a conveniently placed cushion once the real click-looting commences. This arrangement also puts me in range of my Xbox, so I can sign into Xbox LIVE and use the party voice chat because Diablo III doesn’t have it. Improvisation, people.

As you all know, Activision and Electronic Arts aren’t exactly on speaking terms. Activision and former Infinity Ward main men Jason West and Vince Zampella aren’t on speaking terms either. West and Zampella were responsible for making the Modern Warfare series a household name. They were fired by Activision due to alleged insubordination. They then went to work for EA and that’s when things got even messier.

Activision accused EA of poaching West and Zampella – this was due to go to court but has since been resolved. Activision and EA are settling out of court, with the only official wording on the matter saying “Activision and EA have agreed to put this matter behind them”.

As for Activision versus West and Zampella, that bout of litigation continues. West and Zampella are seeking unpaid bonuses and royalties amounting to millions of dollars. Activision is saying that West and Zampella breached their contract and as such are not entitled to anything. Documents have since surfaced that implicate Activision in instigating an illegal hacking attempt into West and Zampella’s PCs so as to “dig up dirt”.

According to the LA Times newspaper, Activision asked a man called Thomas Fenady to hack into West and Zampella’s email accounts, voicemails and files so as to uncover any evidence that would give the publisher grounds for terminating West and Zampella’s contracts. The move even had a code name called “Project Icebreaker” and was allegedly an instruction that “came from the highest levels of the company”.

Fenady refused to do it, and has since testified, which has resulted in these documents being added to the Activision versus West/Zampella case; that case is scheduled to proceed on 29 May. Activision has refused to comment on “Project Icebreaker”.

Meanwhile, the recent out of court settlement between EA and Activision has given West and Zampella’s lawyer (Bobby Schwartz) a boost in confidence:

“We are delighted. This makes our case against Activision even clearer. Activision dragged EA into the case hoping to distract from Activision’s wretched conduct towards West and Zampella. In dismissing EA today, Activision admits that it was never going to convince anyone that EA conspired with West and Zampella to breach their contracts or did anything else improper. And now Activision will have to answer for its misconduct towards West and Zampella.”

Sources: Eurogamer; LA Times; Kotaku

Diablo games with secret levels are nothing new. What is new is Diablo III, and it’s got a secret level of its own called Whimsyshire. The level itself is meant to be a nod to the fan furore that erupted when Diablo III was first announced. Way back in 2008 (wow, we’ve been waiting a while for this game) Diablo fans moaned that Diablo III looked too colourful.

Blizzard has a sense of humour. As such, it doesn’t get more colourful and cutesy than Whimsyshire. The land features “Cuddle Bears”, rainbow unicorns and dancing flowers. It’s a wonderful land – a beautiful land full of cheer and whimsical laughter. But then, some evil demon hunter suddenly appeared and slaughtered the wonderful creatures of Whimsyshire, all the time repeating the mantra “moar loot!” as he/she carved his/her way through the cuddly friends.

If you want to get to Whimsyshire then you better be collecting a few odds and ends that are scattered about the various acts of the game. There’s a full shopping list after the jump, but be warned that there are some very, very minor spoilers as far as names of characters and locations go. There’s also a video, if you want to witness firsthand the genocide of the creatures of Whimsyshire.

The details of what’s needed are courtesy of Battle.net forum user Zerofire who, along with three of his friends, first discovered Whimsyshire.

The items needed:

Black Mushroom spawns in cathedral level 1 ACT1

Shinbone is located randomly in the fireplace in leorics manor ACT1.

Liquid Rainbow is located from the Mysterious Cave in the Mysterious chest in the Oasis in ACT2. You will know its the right place when you save the old man and he opens it up. the spawn point is always the same for the event.

Wirts Bell is sold from one of the merchants in the city on ACT2

Gibbering Gemstone drops from Chiltara in the caverns of frost ACT3(The area where you destroy the ballistae) if you get Ice caverns exit out and start a new game. The mob itself is random.

The plans drops randomly from Izual on ACT4.

Opening the portal I will leave that up to you.

Source: Battle.net forums
Via: Kotaku

I suppose I shouldn’t be disappointed, or even surprised. As a result of bazillions of would-be dungeon trawlers all desperately clawing to get started on Diablo III, Blizzard’s Battle.net servers have been falling over all morning. If you have tried to play Diablo III this morning, you might be familiar with the screen below the break.

Blizzard released this official statement on the Battle.net forums:

“Due to high concurrency the login servers are currently at full capacity.”

The good news is that Blizzard earlier today took Battle.net offline and launched additional servers to accommodate the unexpected masses of gamers desperate to at least crack level 10 on their first day.

Since then things have been better, but server issues continue to be reported across the European Battle.net network, which is where literally dozens of unemployed South Africans are trying to play right now.

Eurogamer made this adorable GIF, which pretty much explains the problem perfectly using guinea pigs.

I’ve never seen so much pizza in one place. It’s like somebody slayed a Level 100 Infernal Pizza Beast in here, and it dropped all this loot everywhere. It’s probably a good thing, though, because the nice people at Kalahari.com have paid up the bar, and all that free beer demands a punishing tummy toll. Pizza for the pizza gods.

Kalahari gaming overlord Ramone Pickover won’t tell me how many punters have actually turned up, but I’d put it at a guess of about a zillion or so. Gandalf’s on Lower Main in Observatory is absolutely packed, and between the dim lighting, the reddened stony walls, and the people dressed up in battle gear, the place has an appropriately hellish ambiance.

First up is local bard Tombstone Pete, who gets things going with the opening lick of AC/DC’s Thunderstruck… on an acoustic guitar. I could totally have joined him on a banjo but nobody asked me to, and I suppose there’s a limit to just how hellish that ambiance should be anyway before everybody runs wailing into the streets outside, ghashing and beating their breasts in despair. It’s a pretty fine line.

Stay a while and listen. YES, I WENT THERE.

Next are the power metal warriors of rock, Strident, who have added a Diablo tune into their set to keep everything on theme and show off how many chords they know. I’m sure many geek tears are shed in the secret dark of the club. It’s okay, I won’t tell if you don’t.

As the band finishes up, Ramone takes to the stage to announce the announcement of a special announcement from Blizzard HQ, and that everybody should move back downstairs to hear what it is. The announcement: Blizzard has given permission to hand out the games at 11 PM already, so everybody can get their stuff, get home, and get prepped for the witching hour. There’s a whole lot of queuing up as everybody gets into the serious business of the night – saving the world. Or at least getting ready to save the world. Queuing is an important part of war too.

And this lucky guy won a Diablo III Collector's Edition and a Steel Series mousemat.

Big thanks to Ramone and the brilliant staff at Kalahari.com for this super event and for treating me like a queen. It’s the first time a South African online retailer has done an event like this, but I do hope it’s not the last. HINT.

Were you at BT Games Fourways Mall last night? Did you enter our competition to stand a chance to win this cool swag? No? Well I’m sorry about that, but Nicole Pireu won’t be, as she was drawn this morning as the lucky winner! Congratulations! Please contact Jacqui Jacobs at jacqui@nag.co.za to claim your prize.

Bonus prize for everyone who didn’t win: here are two of our favourite photos from the event last night:

Following a tedious but mercifully short-lived disagreement over the use of the DotA name, Valve and Blizzard have come to an agreement. Valve retains full rights to using the title for commercial purposes, while Blizzard may only use the title for its community – whatever that means.

As a result, Blizzard has agreed to rename its forthcoming Blizzard DotA game to Blizzard All-Stars.

“Both Blizzard and Valve recognise that, at the end of the day, players just want to be able to play the games they’re looking forward to, so we’re happy to come to an agreement that helps both of us stay focused on that,” commented Blizzard exec Rob Pardo.

“We’re pleased that we could come to an agreement with Blizzard without drawing things out in a way that would benefit no one,” added Valve boss Gabe Newell.

“We both want to focus on the things our fans care about, creating and shipping great games for our communities.”

Valve is currently working on Dota 2, after acquiring the rights to the DotA brand in 2009. Neither Blizzard nor Valve have announced a release date for their forthcoming DotA-style games.

Remember on Monday when a domain registration alerted the world to the existence of a thing called The Avengers: Battle for Earth? It was tied to Ubisoft’s servers and initially outed for Fusible. Fast-forward to today: Ubisoft, along with Marvel Entertainment, have made the whole game official.

Now, remember how we were all dreaming that this would be an Avengers game worthy of the more recent film; the same film that made people’s eyes explode from the military-grade awesome that was pumped into them? It’s totally not going to be anything like that! How do we know based on having not actually seen the game in action? It’s being made for Kinect and Wii U only.

According to Tony Key, senior VP of sales for Ubisoft US: “We are excited to team up with Marvel Entertainment to bring some of the most iconic comic book characters from the Marvel line-up to life in motion-gaming. Fans of the Marvel universe and superhero games are going to love the extensive combinations of characters, motion-controlled moves and competitive gameplay.”

The game won’t necessarily be based on the recent film, but will draw on the “Secret Invasion” story arc of comic books. Twenty playable characters are planned for the final game. If you want to keep up to date on this crushing disappointment upcoming game, then head on over to the official website, which is still very much in “place holder” mode.

Source: Marvel.com

Irrational Games’ BioShock successor was supposed to be arriving in October this year. That’s no longer the case, which makes all of us here at NAG very sad boys and girls. Instead, we can expect to shoot holes in things and run around the sky city of Columbia on 26 February 2013.

Irrational bossman Ken Levine broke the news about the delay, but likened it to a similar delay that the original BioShock experienced: “We had a similar experience with the original BioShock, which was delayed several months as our original ship date drew near. Why? Because the Big Daddies weren’t the Big Daddies you’ve since come to know and love. Because Andrew Ryan’s golf club didn’t have exactly the right swing. Because Rapture needed one more coat of grimy Art Deco. The same principle now applies to BioShock Infinite.”

You see, when he puts it like that, the delay doesn’t seem all that bad, does it? Levine also confirmed that BioShock Infinite will not be making appearances at E3 or Gamescom this year because they feel any public appearance will not reflect the final product. Sounds as if they’re making some serious alterations then. Still, if the news leaves you absolutely devastated then head over here to make yourself feel better.

Source: Kotaku

Before we even tell you anything about this most awesome competition, you NEED to know this: to win you must attend the BT Games Midnight Launch at their Fourways Mall branch in JHB on Monday 14 May 2012. There’s no other way to enter. Right, got it? Good, then let us proceed.

BT Games are giving away this awesome prize to one NAG reader. All you have to do to enter is print out the image above, write your full name on the back of that piece of paper, come to the BT Games Fourways Mall Midnight Launch which happens on Monday 14 May from 9pm – 12.30am, put your “entry” into the box which will be inside their store, and wait for the esteemed Editor of NAG to do the prize draw at 11.30pm. It’s that easy. Aaaand you get to meet the NAG staff, ’cause we’ll be there.

Well, that didn’t take nearly as long as I thought it would; it seems that Ubisoft’s call for people to do its marketing for them was answered by thousands and thousands of loyal fans. The full gameplay trailer for Assassin’s Creed III is now available for you to ogle – it is pretty spectacular.

The trailer is made up of pre-alpha footage. In fact, it’s made up of three separate internal videos that Ubisoft showed us just over a month ago at the game’s unveiling in London. The three different clips were meant to highlight three different aspects of the game: one of the cities (you can see Boston in the trailer); exploring the snow-covered Frontier; and the Battle of Bunker Hill. Some of the most exciting bits of all three clips have been spliced together to give us this debut trailer.

Assassin’s Creed III is the cover feature for this month’s edition of NAG, so if you want to read all there is to know about the trailer you’re about to watch, then grab a copy if you haven’t already. Hit the jump to get a taste of that Rope Dart in action – I can’t wait to use that thing.

Hey, Apogee. “Aardwolf.”

I used to think that putting dinosaurs in your game would automatically makes it awesome. That was a thing, until I played Dino D-Day. The dinos made it better, obviously, but in a similar kind of way to finding chocolate in a bowl of vomit. An oddly pleasant addition, sure, but an altogether horrifying offering.

Thankfully, we’ve got Unreal Engine-powered Primal Carnage incoming sometime in the future, and it hopes to reaffirm my belief in the power that dinosaurs have on gaming. To quote the game’s official site, it’s an “asymmetrical online-multiplayer class-based game of humans versus dinosaurs” – a phrase so beautiful that typing it forced me to let out a few tears. Various class roles will be on offer in the game, allowing you to play everything from stealthy guy/reptile to heavy duty man/rex (and everything in between). If all you really want to do is loose flamethrowers on a pterosaur, there’s that too.

Alpha trailer lies below the break.

Bear in mind that that’s alpha footage right there, and yet it already looks excellent. The only real question is: who’s going to play as the humans?

If this just got you all hot for lizards, there’s always ORION: Dino Beatdown, which recently landed on Steam. I’ve not yet played it so I’ve no opinion on it, but there are certainly dinosaurs in there, and it too looks quite lovely.

Write a review of 300-350 words on any of the 3DS games listed below. Include a summary of your review (up to 40 words), a few short pros and cons, and a score out of 100. Check it twice and then send it through to nintendoreaderreviews@nag.co.za as a Word document (.doc or .docx) or RTF. You need to do this by 12:00 on Friday the 11th of May.

List of games, prizes and competition rules after the break…

• Resident Evil: Revelations
• Super Mario 3D Land
• Mario Kart 7
• Kid Icarus: Uprising
• Tekken 3D Prime Edition
• Super Street Fighter IV 3D
• Dead or Alive Dimensions
• Zelda: Ocarina of time
• Metal Gear Solid Snake Eater 3D
• Splinter Cell 3D
• James Noir’s Hollywood Crimes 3D
• Ghost Recon Shadow Wars
• Thor: The Video Game

The best review will appear in the June issue of NAG and the entrant will receive from Nintendo South Africa three Nintendo 3DS games of your choice (limited to first-party titles), a Circle Pad Pro and Mario Kart 7 wheel accessories. Three runners-up will also be chosen, and each will receive a 3DS game of their choice (limited to first-party titles). Please note that this competition is open to South African residents only. This competition does not constitute a job offer or entitle the winner to any benefits or rights of employment with NAG. Prizes cannot be exchanged for cash.

Late last week we learnt that RTS masters Relic, along with publisher THQ, are bringing Company of Heroes 2 to the PC in 2013. A direct sequel to 2006’s fantastic strategy game, Company of Heroes 2 will see you shifting your focus to the Eastern theatre of war during World War II. You’ll be in command of the Russian army as you attempt to “push back the Nazi invaders and free Mother Russia”.

The game will make use of Relic’s proprietary Essence 3.0 Engine, earlier iterations of which powered previous Company of Heroes and its expansions. According to the official press release, the sequel will see the introduction of Commander Abilities and something else called Dynamic Battle Tactics. We’re guessing these are buzz terms to keep an eye on as development continues.

Line-of-sight will play a much more prominent role in CoH2. Instead of the usual fog of war obscuring your Russian eyeballs, your units will have to have proper line-of-sight on targets, otherwise enemy units won’t appear on screen at all. With continually shifting tactics a cornerstone of the franchise, we’re pretty excited to see what effect these new features will have. You can check out the newly launched and official website here.

In February this year, EA reported having a subscriber base of 1.7 million people for their MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic. That figure is now sitting on 1.3 million after just three months. This news comes via EA’s most recent earning statements issued to investors.

EA was expecting subscriber numbers to drop after the first 30 days of the MMO’s release, seeing as all new copies shipped with a 30 day subscription. We’re now almost half a year away and numbers are continuing to decline. That being said, EA’s Frank Gibeau admitted that the 1.3 million active subscribers is made up of “core MMO users”. He went further to explain that the 400, 000 subscriber loss was likely due to the “casual” market deciding to hang up their Jedi/Sith robes after going “through a billing cycle and decided not to subscribe to the game”.

It’s not all depressing news however, as Gibeau reiterated EA and BioWare’s intentions to expand the MMO and increase subscriber numbers. There are a number of developments in the pipeline that are aimed at keeping higher level players around for longer, thereby appealing to Gabeau’s “core MMO users”.

Source: Bothans from Eurogamer (who are still, thankfully, alive)

I hope that everyone reading this has played The Binding of Isaac. If you haven’t, you should go buy it right now. Seriously, you’ll thank me later. Its shmuppy roguelike charms still have me occasionally loading it up every once in a while to warily guide Isaac through what is possibly the most deranged basement in all of existence, giddily pissing on any and everything that I find in the hopes that it’ll somehow reward me with coins to spend on epic items and a better chance to defeat mom. True story.

I still find it hard to believe that access to the many hours of madly addictive joy that this game offers costs only $4.99 ($5.98 if you want the sountrack as well, which I recommend that you should, as it’s superb). Anyway, it looks like I (and hopefully you as well) will be spending a lot more time getting back into the game very soon, as the long-coming expansion, subtitled Wrath of the Lamb, will be available on Steam at the end of this month. It promises more of everything, and that’s just perfect.

Move past the jump for more info. And a trailer!

Edmund McMillen (one half of the game’s development team and whose name might ring Super Meat Boy bells) has handed over a useful list of shiny newness that can be expected of the expansion. It’s a lot of stuff for just $3. I’d pay $3 just for the extra music tracks. Here it is:

• 100+ new items
• 5+ new chapters
• 20+ new enemies
• 25 new achievements
• 15+ new bosses
• 6+ new room types
• 6+ new mysterious item drops (eternal hearts, playing cards, dimes and more!)
• 5+ new music tracks by Danny B
• A new item type, Trinkets
• A new challenge mode with 10 unique challenges (that unlock more content)
• A new unlockable character, Samson (The Beserker)
• A new final (final) chapter and boss with new endings
• Tons of new random happenings, curses, blessings, npcs, fortune tellers and more
• Also more super secrets than you’d probably expect… good luck finding them all.

If the promise of all this new stuff to discover and scrounge for in The Binding of Isaac: Wrath of the Lamb excites you as it does me, then keep the 28th of May in mind, as that’s when you’ll be able to snag the expansion via Steam. And now, a trailer.

There are pros and cons to be a gamer at this point in time. The pros are obvious: multi-million dollar games, increased likelihood of your favourite title getting a sequel, amazing visuals. The cons are just as glaring: DRM, always-on Internet requirements, your favourite title getting a sequel (after sequel after sequel), and publishers forcing you to do their social media marketing before they’ll give you trailers.

Ubisoft is doing just that! If you would like to see the world premiere gameplay trailer for Assassin’s Creed III, then you have a bunch of things you need to do. You’ll need to Like the Facebook page, obviously, but it doesn’t stop there. You’ll need to Tweet with the #AC3 tag; post things to your timeline, and piss off your friends by “recruiting” them to the cause. Collectively, all of this has to happen 1, 776, 000 times before Ubisoft will unleash the entire trailer. The strange number probably has something to do with the date 1776 – when the Colonies formally gave the British the finger and formulated their United States Declaration of Independence. The irony of this date isn’t entirely lost on me considering the context in which Ubisoft is choosing to highlight it.

Hit the jump! You know you want to, because despite it being 30 seconds, it’s still the first you’ll see of the game…

So, are you going to shed your customer independence and become Ubisoft’s marketing mule, or will you just sit back and let everyone else do it? You can head over here if you want to start doing some viral marketing.

Via: Kotaku

Tom’s Hardware recently benchmarked the game and as expected, the engine scales well for users of cheaper and older graphics cards. If you’ve got an ageing HD 3870, you’re still in the green for hours and hours of pure questing bliss. They started by testing the game at minimum details. Its recommended you start off with at least 1GB of RAM, although 512MB is also acceptable if you lower your settings. Performance scales incredibly well with increased resolution, and the Geforce GTX 550 Ti should be the baseline for gamers looking for acceptable performance in Diablo III.

Moving onto maximum details, once again the GTX 550 Ti is the default baseline for gamers looking for a great experience, even with AA enabled. It looks like the game’s engine scales up according to the number of shaders present on a graphics card’s architecture. It favours neither NVIDIA nor AMD, but rather presents the kind of performance you’d expect at the price point you bought the card at. Quite simple, and I applaud Blizzard for this approach.

Now here’s where things get interesting. It seems the game is heavily GPU-biased, as there’s no discernable benefit playing it on a octocore FX-series processor as opposed to a 3.1Ghz Core i3 setup. The game requires a dual-core processor as minimum, and doesn’t even scale according to clockspeed. This is great news for those guys running an APU setup, since you’re guaranteed to get playable frame rates even on 1080p screens with high settings. AMD’s FX processors also perform well, but are all beaten by a low-end Pentium dual-core based on the Sandy Bridge architecture.

For those of you using an older Radeon graphics card from the HD 2000 or HD 3000 series, you’ll have to play the game with Catalyst 12.3 installed, lest you want to tear your hair out with multiple glitches and graphical hiccups. That the game runs at all on these old cards is a big enough feat. This game is definitely a day 1 buy, guys. Don’t miss out!

Source: Tom’s Hardware

Discuss this in the forums: Linky

Fun fact: before Ubisoft gave us their most successful franchise ever, it was going to be a Prince of Persia spin-off. Originally dubbed Prince of Persia: Assassins, the game later went on to become Assassin’s Creed. I’m glad it did! Somehow I can’t see a spin-off having been nearly as successful.

This has only recently come to light thanks to a demo reel put together by a sound designer who used to work for Ubisoft. The reel itself contains clips for a number of games, but the Assassin’s Creed bits start at about 1:30 or so.

As you can see by what’s in the clip, the game hasn’t actually changed that much. Sure, it’s clearly a very early prototype, but the basics are there. Even Altair’s outfit didn’t change that much. Also, it clearly shows that Assassin’s Creed guards were taking injuries to the knee way before anyone in Skyrim.

Source: Eurogamer

Ok, so technically this isn’t exactly gaming news, but judging by how Team Fortress 2 and Battlefield 3 rule the lives of many NAG readers, we’d be remiss in not sharing.

Clever YouTube users JackFrags and friends have decided to show us what would happen if the folks over at Mann Co. built a teleportation gateway to another gaming world. That gaming world happens to be Battlefield 3.

You can pretty much guess what happens when both sides from Team Fortress 2 invade another competitive multiplayer game. It’s a very well made mini movie that has, for me, highlighted a glaring omission in video games: we have fighting game cross-overs (Street Fighter X Tekken) so why not FPS game cross-overs? Team Fortress 2 Vs Battlefield 3 would be awesome. Don’t believe me? Hit the jump.

Thanks: Mr. Mullany! (@eXpZA)

Do you know what’s awesome? The Avengers movie that came out last week, that’s what’s awesome. Do you know what’s odd? The fact that the obligatory, multi-million dollar movie-to-game tie-in didn’t materialise. History will tell us, however, that this is probably not a bad thing; I can’t think of a single movie-to-game title that was actually any good, and previous Marvel movie video games (Ironman, Thor, Captain America) were eye-gougingly awful.

It looks like we might be getting a video game of the more recent Avengers film after all, as the super-sleuths over at website Fusible have uncovered a domain registration for avengersbattleforearth.com. The domain was registered on 3 May 2012, and is currently listed on Ubisoft’s servers.

Keep in mind that there’s nothing else to go on other than this registration. While we all sit here dreaming about an Avengers video game with the same amount of polish as Rocksteady’s Batman games, we might be getting the generic movie-to-game crap that we’ve been disappointed by for as long as movie-to-games have been a thing.

Source: Fusible
Via: Joystiq

Friday, 4 May. Or, more properly, May the fourth, which is like a Sith lisping which is why Dumidu “onelargeprawn” Surasinghe is dressed up like a Jedi with a pool noodle dressed up like a lightsabre. It’s not actually as complicated as it sounds.

More than 100 people turned up for 2upGamers’ 5th Round at the Rygersdal Sports Club in Rondebosch – 80 of whom signed up within the first two hours or registration opening two days previously – and it’s kind of incredible to think that just a few months ago, only about 40 people attended the first event. Some gamers were driving in from as far as the northern suburbs, which is basically the other side of the planet by Cape Town standards.

That's the power of 50 pizzas.

The big news on the night was that, going forward, 2upGamers will now be attached to Glenn Alexander’s 4.elements Gaming Festivals company, and proceeds from future events will go to charity. Real gamers making a real difference. Sniff.

Guest speakers included Reader’s Den comic shop manager Nizar Abrahams, Prototype 2 live action trailer star Vince Andrews, Springleap boss Eran Eyal, the eGamer and Ozone South Africa teams, MWEB’s resident brony Reinhard “Chocs” Rheeder-Kliest, and as always, the Friends of Design bunch who had attendees pool noodling each other for one of ten game design course vouchers.

"They're not pool noodles, they're lightsabres."

"Search your balloon, you know it to be true."

Eran gave out free T-shirts. Everybody loves free T-shirts. Meanwhile, Friends of Design's Philipp Schmid jealously guarded his balloons.

With the intervention of 2upGamers' Glenn Alexander, Alex Mercer and James Heller were able to put their differences behind them just long enough to take this photo. Then they tore down the building with giant tentacles. They didn't really, but that would have been awesome. Also, is that a bit of curtain on Mercer's arm? Mom's gonna be so mad.

Ozone South Africa took the opportunity to announce a new clan sponsorship initiative, featuring console gaming clan High 5, headed up by Nicholas "Holden ZA" Holden and Franco "dastrix550 ZA" Undisclosed-Surname, who presumably has a real surname but wouldn't tell anybody what it was.

Holden ZA is also the tallest man alive, although you can't really see it in this photo.

Chocs being Chocs.

Some NAG Online forumites doing their best impressions of normal people. Paul's still working on it.

The next 2upGamers is going down on Friday, 1 June. Make sure to follow @2upGamers on Twitter or keep hitting their official site or Facebook for more info. In the meantime, here’s a photo dump from Friday’s event – spot yourself and win a surprise prize*!

*The surprise is there’s no prize.

Remember a few weeks back, when every developer under the sun released ridiculous April Fool’s gags for their games? Man, that day was awesome – even though there were some really good jokes that many of us wished were true. Turns out one is though!

Volition announced an expansion for Saints Row: The Third (a game with an already monumental amount of absurdity) which they jokingly dubbed “Enter the Dominatrix”. The April Fool’s shenanigan was based off the premise of an alien invasion of Steelport during which the leader of the Third Street Saints is trapped inside a virtual world so that he or she poses no threat to the invading hordes. The fake DLC mentioned gaining super powers ala Neo from The Matrix; it also made mention of ridiculous weapons like the “sphincter-stretching Alien Anal Probe”.

Fortunately, if you were one of the many who read THQ’s fake press release on 01 April and sulked knowing it’d never come true, you’d be wrong. THQ has confirmed that Saints Row: Enter the Dominatrix will be released during our spring time as a standalone product. The game will be released as a physical product at retail with a $30 price tag – expect to pay about R300 for it then. Good news indeed!

Source: Shacknews

Cape Town. Thursday, 26 April. Technically it was actually, like, over a week ago already but technically, we’ve had some technical issues on the website so technically, technically and also technically, and then Dane hired kittens to lick it better with itty-bitty kitty tongues.

Anyway, the Protoptype 2 launch event – technically actually a post-launch event – was hosted by Cape Town gaming event superstars 2upGamers and South African gaming distribution superstars Megarom, although other technical issues prevented a scheduled uplink to the event in Johannesburg, and all these technically technical issues are clearly adding up to something much bigger than this. The release of a virus genetically engineered by a military organisation as a bioweapon? Maybe, or maybe a megakitten.

Now I want a megakitten. :<

In the meantime, though, here’s what happened.

2upGamers' Glenn Alexander dressed up as Alex Mercer and made all the girls scream.

Blackwatch operatives were deployed to make sure there was no funny business. Wait, no, that's just Janrik "Uberutang" Oberholzer, pretending to be a Blackwatch operative.

That's a real gun, though. A real paintball gun. It's also really heavy, which is why I didn't manage to steal it.

People. And Hadlee Simons.

IM IN UR SPORTS CLUB PLAYIN UR GAEMZ.

There is a lot of info coming out of NeoGAF today, and now we get a second squeee-inducing game reveal. Magazine PC Gamer has revealed Company of Heroes 2 as its cover story for their latest edition.

Company of Heroes 2 is being developed by RTS legends Relic Games. Anyone who played the previous Company of Heroes will know just how exciting this news is. The game will focus on a Russian campaign in Eastern Europe. We can expect loads of snow that will change the way you approach each mission.

The game is set to launch in 2013. Publisher THQ has confirmed that more information will be shared shortly. We’ll keep a look out and bring you up to speed as soon as we know more.

Source: NeoGAF
Via: Joystiq

Game Informer magazine, the industry’s favourite stage for unveiling long-rumoured games, is at it again with the worldwide reveal of the next big thing in MMORPGs. The June cover reveal of the magazine officially makes The Elder Scrolls Online a thing, and it sounds like there’s an emphasis on the “massively” part in MMO.

The game has been in production since 2007 by Zenimax Online Studios, and will be barrelling its way onto PCs and Macs in 2013. The game is being directed by Matt Firor, who previously worked on Dark Ages of Camelot with Mythic. According to Firor, “The entire team is committed to creating the best MMO ever made – and one that is worthy of The Elder Scrolls franchise.”

The game is set 1, 000 years before the events of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The entire world of Tamriel will be open to explore: Black Marsh, Morrowind, Elsweyr, Cyrodiil, Skyrim and more. In other words: holy shit.

At present, not much else is revealed by Game Informer’s website, but a poster over on NeoGAF has dumped a ton of information that is presumably from the magazine. Take with a pinch of salt, but that info includes things like:

• The game will be fully voiced
• You play from a third-person perspective
• There will be hotbars to activate skills – most MMO players will be down with this
• The game is using the Hero Engine, which is the engine used for SWTOR
• There are three player factions to choose from: the Ebonheart Pact (Argonians, Dunmer, Nords); the Aldmeri Dominion (Altmer, Bosmer, Khajiit); and the Daggerfall Covenant (Bretons, Orcs and Redguard)
• There will be no player houses, but you will have a mount (non-flying mounts only)
• There will be loads of cities and towns to visit
• The game is trying to keep The Elder Scrolls fantasy of “everything you see can be explored”

There’s more than this revealed on NeoGAF so head over there if you want some more details to soak up. Game Informer has teased a debut trailer and screenshots for later today, so we’ll update this as soon as those are out.

Source: Game Informer and NeoGAF

Miklós already posted the official reveal trailer, the sneaky bugger. What the trailer reveals: Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 is a direct sequel which takes place during the fictional second Cold War in the year 2025. You play as David Mason, son of the previous game’s protagonist Alex Mason.

But there is much the trailer did not reveal.

Fans of the series have their expectations: they want a huge, bombastic single-player campaign full of explosions, firefights and interesting characters. They want a rich, deep and rewarding multiplayer experience that’s easy to learn but difficult to master. They want the guns to feel good, responsive and weighty. True fans want the game to run at 60 frames per second, because anything less is an unacceptable compromise.

It’s not hard to say that Call of Duty fans are some of the most loyal in the industry, but at the steep price of being possibly the most demanding.

Last month Activision  invited us to visit Treyarch Studios in Los Angeles for an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, and we saw much, much more than the trailer highlights. Branching plotlines, real-time strategy “Strike Ops” missions where you control multiple squads and vehicles in a sandbox environment, and a detailed look at what goes into designing the concept behind a franchise that has to meet and exceed the high expectations of its fans.

When a franchise reaches the kind of success Call of Duty enjoys, people become jaded towards it, thinking that success equals not having to innovate anymore. Black Ops 2 is a clear shout of defiance at that idea, creative in ways nobody expected.

What we saw at Treyarch Studios was an incredibly passionate, dedicated team that loves what they do, is proud of what they have accomplished, and cares about its community and fans. You’ll be able to read all about it in the upcoming June issue of NAG Magazine.

If you listen carefully, you can hear the sound of a thousand corporate suits all yelling at each other about boring patent litigations. Ordinarily we wouldn’t care whether Apple hates Motorola or Samsung hates LG, but when a German court in Mannheim rules against Microsoft and orders them to stop selling the Xbox 360 and Windows 7, we can’t help but pay attention.

That’s pretty much what’s happened. In Germany, Microsoft is no longer allowed to sell the Xbox 360 and Windows 7 OS thanks to a court ruling in Motorola’s favour. According to the ruling, Microsoft has infringed upon a patent that deals with video compression; that patent belongs to Motorola. While Microsoft and other companies are arguing that Motorola has been over-charging for this patent, Motorola is demanding $4 billion in annual royalties.

The good news is that a Seattle-based court has granted Microsoft a preliminary injunction, which essentially prevents Motorola from following through with the German court’s ruling. For now, Xbox 360 consoles and copies of Windows 7 will remain on German store shelves. It’ll be interesting to see how this pans out, especially because Microsoft isn’t the only company that uses Motorola’s video compression patent.

Source: Reuters
Via: Kotaku

In case you are one of the three people who missed the reveal trailer for Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, here it is for you to get a) excited about, b) despondent about or c) angry about. A few days ago, I was somewhat disparaging about the not so surprising announcement of an announcement regarding this reveal. Now if you’d kindly hand me that bowl over there that’s full of my words, I’ll start eating them because for the first time in pretty much ever, I’m rather excited about a Call of Duty game.

Black Ops 2 is set in the near-future, which means we’ll be playing with all sorts of hi-tech military toys designed to kill people with less effort. That’s great news! What’s also great news is that there will be diverging plotlines based on player decisions, which is a first for the Call of Duty series and an indication that Treyarch looks to be putting more effort in for the single-player campaign.

Oh yes, and controllable drones! And a new game mode called “Strike Force”! And female soldiers wearing revealing outfits while fighting zombies! Wait, what?

The below image was dropped via the official Call of Duty Twitter account. It’s a teaser for the return of the ever-popular Zombie Mode.

Source: Twitter
Via: VG24/7

For those of you who have been keeping track, the final character video in the “Darkness Falls. Heroes Rise” series should come as no surprise. We’re talking Wizards this time, so don’t confuse this character class with Diablo II’s Sorceress, even though there are some familiar spells peeking through. Glad to see that awesome Hydra spell is making a return! I loved those little, flaming bastards.

We’ve got less than two weeks before Diablo III wrecks actual human relationships across the world, once it’s done decimating Internet Service Providers’ fault-log inboxes that is.

Hit the jump for the last video; head over here and here for the rest of them. Good luck deciding on which class to play as first – I’m kind of torn between the Wizard and the Witch Doctor.

Late last week, EA and Crytek unleashed a teaser for the trailer you now see perched above this very post. The teaser was a whole 15 seconds of gameplay and scarcely worth sharing even with the most diehard Crysis fanboys and girls. This trailer right here, however, is squee-worthy.

New York looks amazing, nestled quietly under its nanodome. If the trailer is anything to go by, then Prophet’s mission objective seems pretty straightforward: get in; kill everything that isn’t human; make things explode in glorious detail; make use of hi-tech gadgets and suits; don’t step on any cute little frogs; punch aliens in the face.

Incidentally, those mission objectives are exactly the same as the prerequisites I have for all FPS games.

Source: Twitter

Still trapped in the box, and you can still kill him with your mind. No really, I'm not kidding.

 For those of you not familiar with the theory of quantum computers, I’ll start with the oft-mentioned experiement known to physicists as Schrodinger’s Cat (also the most annoying one). Erwin Schrodinger theorised in 1935 a basic experiment that would solve the problem poised by contemporary theories of quantum mechanics in his era. Imagine you’ve gone and stuck a cat inside a sealed box (that poor cat!) along with a vial of deadly, lethal gas. That gas could, at any moment, become inert and completely harmless to the animal, or it could also be in its lethal state, ready to kill. Lets say that vial breaks when the cat’s tail brushes against it and knocks it over while inside the box.

Pictured: Erwin Schrodinger. He doesn't like cats.

Okay, so you might now have a dead cat. It could have exploded from the inside out, spilling guts and gore everywhere. That furry feline has gone to Jesus, and you’re left with the remains of a cruel experiment!… Or the gas could have been inert, and the cat lives on. Which is it?

Quantum states allow the cat to be alive and dead at the same time, and without knowing the fat feline’s true fate we can only assume both possibilities are true. This is the basic, school-boy version of quantum mechanics as best can be described without pulling in some very advanced mathematics, LSD and some very smart people into the same room. Why did Erwin come up with the idea? Contemporary theories only tried to quantify the fate of the cat after a certain period of time. Erwin’s theory required that the cats fate be ambiguous immediately once it entered the box and the box was sealed off.

Its a perplexing thought for some. Trying to quantify which fate the cat has is quite difficult without opening the box. Once you do, the state of the cat is quantified and one of the possibilities are true. While death is extremely probable, the cat still has a chance of survival, even though its statistically a lower one because we’ve seen what lethal gases can do. It still has a chance of revenge. 

A quantum computer doesn’t actually kill any cats. It uses the states of molecules called quibits to perform analysis on a data set that needs to be analysed. There are computers based on traditional binary mathematics that use non-deterministic and probability theories to do the same thing, but a quantum computer reaches the finish line far quicker than both.

You know that old fact that you can’t divide by zero? Well, you can’t do that on a normal binary computer. A traditional computing model can’t actually figure out the answer because dividing by zero actually gives you two things – zero, which is a real number, and nothing, which is actually quantifiable using special relativity theory. Which one you land up with is an easy answer for us: you get both states. But binary information can’t exist as both 0 and 1 at the same time. Its the best kind of paradox you could ever give to an artificially-intelligent train that knows tons and tons of riddles and wants to commit mass suicide with you.

A typical scientist. A real one.

But I’m going off-track here (and so did the train) and we need to get back to the breakthrough researchers made this week. Quantum computers use molecules called quibits to generate data and feed that data off into an answer to our calculation that we’ve given to the computer. A quibit is the quantum manifestation of an atom with electrons around it and the computer is composed of dozens of these quibits in order to reach the answer scientists seek in the most reliable fashion. With quibits, scientists had the problem of reading the states of those surrounding electrons without very quickly losing that information. Quibits have the same problem as the cat in that we can’t quantify its state without opening the lid and looking inside.

If you read your science texbook properly, electrons lose their energy states very quickly. You’d have to keep them constantly charged with electricity (thus, information) in order to not lose their information and thus complete the quantum calculation. Previously a few clever white coats who may or may not have perfectly trimmed beards and carried crowbars around threw some nuclei into the mix. Nuclei are extremely slow compared to electrons, but can preserve energy states for far longer.

The nuclei absorb the same energy states of the electrons, allowing us to reach the end of the calculation without bothering the quantum state of the charged electrons. Up until now, quantum computers operated using an Unprotected quantum gate – with a direct link to the environment, it would be the equivalent of having a window in the box the cat died in open for all to see during the experiement. Trying to complete the quantum calculation would be impossible when reading the electron’s state, causing information loss.

Previous decoupling attempts resulted in information loss

But last week in their labs, the U.S. Department of Energy had a breakthrough in their Ames laboratory. Using electrons and nuclei together, they were able to take the environmental factor out of the equation and preserve the quantum state of the molecules, enabling the calculations to take place with more precision than previously capable. This was a major stumbling block in the past for adoption of quantum computing into the modern idea of the computer.

Previously it was demonstrated how quantum teleportation and coupling could allow for super-fast transfer of information between hardware over varying distances, eliminating the lag introduced using electrical circuits. With the decoupling of quibits without a loss of information, quantum mechanics and science can now team up and use the tech for the next generation of solid-state devices designed for enterprise and home usage. Only time will tell when the tech reaches us or our walk-in hardware stores, but for the moment its an interesting branch of science and definitely warrants some late-night Wikipedia browsing.

Source: Tom’s Hardware, Wikipedia

Discuss this in the forums: Linky

How many of you spent the weekend abusing your mouse’s buttons during the Diablo III open beta? How many of you had hoped to spend the weekend abusing your mouse’s buttons, but soon realised that when Blizzard said they wanted to “stress test” the Diablo III servers, they really meant it? I fall into the latter group, which is to say I managed to play about two to three hours of the beta before losing connection. Par for the course for an online beta though!

Here are the latest two class videos in the “Darkness Falls. Heroes Rise” series of trailers Blizzard has been spitting out. I have to admit, after dabbling in all five of the available classes over the weekend, these videos are far more interesting – they show off the potential of each class, which is something I barely scratched the surface of.

The two latest trailers (after the jump) talk about the Monk and the Witch Doctor classes. If you missed the earlier videos that talk about the Barbarian and the Demon Hunter, then you can head over here to catch up.

Rumoured since earlier this month, the Harley Quinn themed single-player DLC for Batman: Arkham City will be released on 30 May. This will be the “final chapter” in Arkham City’s already expansive set of single-player missions.

The DLC will continue straight from where the main game ended so a word of advice for those who have yet to finish it: either finish the game ASAP or dodge any further DLC discussions to avoid a big spoiler. There are already DLC screenshots floating about that will ruin the end of Arkham City for you if you’re not careful. No spoilers in the rest of this post, however.

In the DLC, you’ll be switching between Batman and Robin as the two head back into Arkham City to take on Harley and her new band of thugs.

The DLC will hit the PlayStation Network for around the R95 mark ($9.99) and Xbox LIVE for 800 MS Points on 30 May, adding two hours of single-player content.

On top of the DLC announcement, it’s been revealed that Batman: Arkham City will be getting a Game of the Year edition. The GOTY edition will include the game and every item of DLC to date, including the new Harley Quinn DLC. The definitive Arkham City edition will be released on 29 May in the USA, but for us in South Africa we’ll have to wait a few months more as it’s scheduled to release on 7 September in EU territories. There’s also been no mention of a PC version. Batman: Arkham City Game of the Year Edition trailer bellow.

Source: Eurogamer

Of course, there’s a lot of debate on whether Valve’s approach to business is the best way for the company. Lots of people think it’s be like a marathon run of Survivor, but the company has yet to fire anyone for making a mistake.  Not having bosses or managers might be a bad thing in many companies and corporate environments because things won’t work that way, but for Valve it brings out the best in the people they hire, and it clearly works for them.

Read on to see how they manage it in the Valve Handbook for New Employees. One of the things I’ve taken from it is the moving desks idea – I am totally having that in my office one day.

Also worth a read is a write-up on the design process and behind-the-scenes work done by the company during development of Half-Life. Ken Birdwell was a designer on the Half-Life team, and gives an interesting perspective on game design within the company and how things work for them there, when it would fall apart everywhere else.

Source: Kotaku

Discuss this in the forums: Linky

Pictured: Another wolf in a bland outfit

I have to admit, smartphones of late have been boring. Only after we saw new designs at MWC from the likes of Huawei, HTC and Sony do I have some renewed hope that people will start experimenting again with touch screen devices, choosing to add some form into the bland slates that stare back out the windows of phone shops these days. While the Xolo looks more or less like a generic Android handset, what it represents is something different.

The Xolo ships with Intel’s Atom Z2460, a single core with Hyper-threading at stock speeds of 1.6Ghz (yes, being an Atom-based design, you can overclock it, too). Graphics are courtesy of a Power VR GPU running at 400Mhz. It sports a 4″ LED-backlit LCD screen with 1024 x 600 resolution which we’ve seen in netbooks for years. Also standard is a 8MP camera at the rear with LED flash, 1MP at the front and ships with Android Gingerbread. yes, there’s no Ice Cream Sandwich, but Intel promises an update in the future.

Everyone and their moms are going on about how this is only another hardware choice and bla bla bla. Clearly no-one sees how Google’s stock standard Nexus handsets are the ones being picked up by enthusiasts who prefer a phone that always receives updates first before other manufacturers and always ships with the naked, un-skinned version of Android, perfect for customising everything the way you want it.

We’ll never see the Xolo on our shores but we might see a Medfield-based phone in the form of the Lenovo K800 landing here sometime this year. Pricing and specs of the handset aren’t finalised, but its going to be very similar to the Xolo I’ve shown you here.

Source: Tom’s Hardware

Discuss this in the forums: Linky

As for what I think they’re doing to the Galaxy III, here’s how I think it’ll pan out:

“Where a galaxy fits perfectly into your hand” – We’ve seen curved glass and even curved phones from other manufacturers in the last few years. I’m going on a limb here and going to bet that the Galaxy S III will feature curved edges and sides, allowing for one-handed use even though the phone will be large.

“Your view of the world grows ever wider”  - In spy shots we’ve already seen that the successor will sport a much larger screen, similar in size to the Galaxy Note but small enough to still pocket comfortably – 4.7 inches diagonally. It will be a 720p screen, but this leaked video shows a resolution of 1184 x 720p. It might not be the final screen in the test hardware, but the strange resolution certainly points to a special LCD unit.

“As you gain power to explore it freely and swiftly” - In benchmarks which just popped up this morning, the S III breezes past the iPhone 4s and Galaxy II and rules the roost with only the iPad 3 to worry about. Other sites that have leaked benchmarks point to a dual-GPU configuration with a quad-core processor that could be running at 1.4Ghz. RAM’s not certain, but it should be set at 2GB for these high-class devices.

Set your calendars for the third of May, its going to be interesting!

Source: GSM Arena

Discuss this in the forums: Linky

Whew boy, are you sitting down? I mean, I’m not entirely sure how to break this news to all of you, but it looks like American TV channel TNT will be airing the Basketball Playoffs on 01 May. I know, the news is absolutely mind-blowing, especially in light of what happened during last year’s Basketball Playoffs (I have no idea what happened during last year’s Basketball Playoffs).

Strangely enough, this announcement came via the official Call of Duty website, but why Activision would be marketing TNT’s sports programming is beyond me. Anyway, if you’re dying to see the Playoffs, then you can head over to callofduty.com to gaze longingly at a count-down clock. Good times!

Other than that, there is pretty much nothing more to see here – there’s basketball (which I’m told is pretty cool to watch on TV), there’s a channel showing the Playoffs, and there’s a date. Yep, pretty much nothing else that’s out of the ordinary and warrants discussion.

Source: CallofDuty.com

The front panel has a set of alternating LED lights and multiple layers of clear and painted acrylic to capture the light further and make the case glow more. Many parts of the chassis were cut out and white acrylic inserts were glued in to make the white panels you see on the Corellian Corvette Defender-class gunship, which the design is inspired by. LED mods were made to the fans and lights to create a white-blue hue reminescent to the afterburner trails you see on many spaceships in the Star Wars universe.

What makes this build such an achievement? All of the red and white mini-panels were painstakingly glued together to create the bulkhead on the top of the chassis that is meant to resemble the cockpit of the Defender gunship. More LEDs were placed in the top of the chassis inside the cockpit and can be controlled through software.

Source: Tom’s Hardware

Discuss this in the forums: Link

Earlier this month, an online questionnaire surfaced that gauged people’s opinions on a title for Sony’s long-rumoured equivalent to Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. Originally the game was known by its codename of Title Fight, but it looks like a final name has been decided on thanks to this recent domain registration.

PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale. Not exactly a title that flows off the tongue, is it? This possibile title first made an appearance in the aforementioned survey, but has made a second appearance in the domain registration of playstationallstarbattleroyale.com.

This registration was picked up by website PlayStation Lifestyle, who have since added that Sony has also registered a shorter address: playstationallstars.com. PlayStation Lifestyle also makes mention of a new Sony IP reveal coming this Thursday on GTTV. Sony has already officially unveiled the new God of War: Ascension, so this reveal will likely be for PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale.

Source: PlayStation Lifestyle
Via: VG24/7

A dinosaur now, but a force to be reckoned with back in the day.

Since then, even with Nvidia’s G80 family taking over once again (and the 8800GT still widely in use today in older machines), AMD/ATi competed on the basis of a better price/performance margin and offered more to consumers who had less cash to spend. Sure, that didn’t stop them from charging top-dollar for cards such as the HD4870x2, but that’s because they simply could. Those of you who still own these cards are going to be chopped out of future driver support, though.

AMD is going to discontinue official driver support for these ageing titans and will completely drop support for the HD4000 series as well, even though they do well enough for modern titles. Starting with Catalyst 12.6, driver support by AMD will only be for graphics cards set over three generations. The company usually only releases a new family each year, so by the time your graphics card is three years old you should be looking at a replacement already, warranty notwithstanding.

However, there will still be legacy support in the form of a special driver package that Windows and Mac users will be able to download that includes driver improvements and bug fixes that have been implemented due to requirements by enterprises who still use the cards daily. Linux users will be out of luck and they’ll have to use open-source options to keep their rigs up to date from now on.

Source: Phoronix

Discuss this in the forums: Linky

Suda 51’s upcoming zombie-slaughter-fest stars eighteen year old cheerleader Juliet Starling. In the months leading up to the game’s June release, we’ve learnt that Juliet comes from a long line of zombie slayers. In fact, her entire family pride themselves on their ability to eviscerate the undead – a noble trait, no doubt.

When the zombie outbreak hits Juliet’s high school, she won’t be alone in the ensuing blood bath; her two sisters Cordelia and Rosalind will be on standby to lend a hand when necessary. Both sisters will bring their own brand of zombie slaying to the fray, but whether that will alter the gameplay or just add to the narrative isn’t clear as yet.

Hit the jump for the trailer, but mind out for the NSFW language. Also, if you had any doubt as to the target market for this game (seriously?) then let Rosalind’s “Secret Dream” clear up any lingering uncertainty you might have.

Dungeon masters and loot junkies gather ‘round, the mighty Blizzard hath foretold that everyone will be able to dive into the Diablo III beta this weekend.

That’s right, Diablo III is going into open beta, which means you can play it, even if you’re not a trendy hipster gaming journalist like Tarryn van der Byl. All you need is a valid Battle.net account, a Battletag, and the Diablo III client, which you can download right over here.

The beta allows you to play all the way up to level 13, and experience any of the five classes the game has to offer: Barbarian, Witch Doctor, Demon Hunter, Monk and Wizard.

Diablo III is being released on the 15 of May 2012, and the standard edition will retail for a whopping R500.

Neutronized, makers of fine flash-game distractions, have released perhaps their finest game yet: Roar Rampage.

It’s just you (giant space lizard) vs the city (and some army). Using your mighty physics-based punching action, you uppercut buildings, slap down helicopters and block incoming fire. Powerups give you some temporary destructive boosts, while picking up wrecking balls and street lamps let you slap further and harder, as a space lizard should.

Some good news cropped up late yesterday afternoon: Prey 2 has not been cancelled. Sci-fi junkies and fans of open world bounty hunting all got to breathe a collective sigh of relief.

The game’s publisher, Bethesda Softworks (not Bethesda the developer behind The Elder Scrolls – two different entities!) claimed that the delay was due to the project’s development not reaching their “quality standards”. In other words, they’re saying that developer Human Head Studios has dropped the ball and as such little progress has been made “this past year”.

Since this news surfaced, via an official press release issued by Bethesda Softworks, a source has been in contact with website Shacknews which has shed some more light on what exactly happened. It’s now been revealed that the reason progress wasn’t up to scratch is because Human Head ceased all production on Prey 2 back in November 2011.

This, it seems, was in retaliation to a contract dispute between Human Head Studios and Bethesda Softworks’ parent company ZeniMax. Human Head was not happy with the terms of their contract, and so they laid-off numerous people from the Prey 2 team in the hopes that they would re-hire them once the contract was rewritten more favourably.

Whether or not this dispute has since been settled remains uncertain. ZeniMax has refused to comment on this new information and sticks by that which was said in the initial press release. Whether or not Human Head is still working on the project is unknown, but Shacknews speculates that Bethesda Softworks might hand over development to somebody else.

Source: Shacknews