Ubisoft holds PSN sale

This year marks Ubisoft’s 25th Anniversary and to celebrate the publisher has dropped a sale on PlayStation Store running  from November 30th to December 7th

Deals include 50% off Outland, 33% off From Dust and 55% of the full Price of Persia Trilogy

Check out the full list after the break line.

PSN sets for 12 deals for Christmas

Sony has revealed a set of new Christmas deals for the PlayStation Store.

Each one will only be available to redeem from PlayStation Store for 48 hours, meaning that you will be able to get hold of some great deals during December and up until Christmas Day.

Each of the 12 deals will start and stop at 12:00pm (GMT) on the following dates:

• Christmas Deal 1 – 1st to 3rd December 
• Christmas Deal 2 – 3rd to 5th December 
• Christmas Deal 3 – 5th to 7th December 
• Christmas Deal 4 – 7th to 9th December 
• Christmas Deal 5 – 9th to 11th December 
• Christmas Deal 6 – 11th to 13th December 
• Christmas Deal 7 – 13th to 15th December 
• Christmas Deal 8 – 15th to 17th December 
• Christmas Deal 9 – 17th to 19th December 
• Christmas Deal 10 – 19th to 21st December 
• Christmas Deal 11 – 21st to 23rd December 
• Christmas Deal 12 – 23rd to 25th December

Source: ShopTo News

Half Life Origins Relives the Original Opening

This live action video relives the opening moments of the first Half Life game

This short but sweet footage was from the same team behind the excellent Beyond Black Mesa released earlier in the year.

Source: PC Gamer

Skyrim 40/40 by Famitsu review - a western first

The Elder Scrolls V : Skyrim becomes the first ever western title to gain a perfect score with Famitsu's four
reviewers, according to Andriasang.

The long running video game magazine has only offerws 40/40 to 16 other titles like, New Super Mario Bros Wii, Final Fantasy XII, Bayonetta and the original 40/40 Zelda: Ocarina of Time have only made the list.

Skyrim is due out in Japan on the 6th December

Source: Andriasang

FF: Type 0 sequel already being worked on

Originally Final Fantasy Agito 13, Type 0 already has a sequel being worked on despite now haven't a confirmed western release.

All this is due because sales were 'very good' of the original title in Japan, selling half a million copies since it's release in October, so the 'framework' was already put into place by Producer Hajime Tabata.

This isn't the only sequel being planned, the PSP title The 3rd Birthday is one of Tabata's other requests be have a sequel.

Source: Eurogamer, Andriasang

Go Mad for Magicka: The Stars Are Left Now

The long awaited  Cthulhu inspired second expansion to Magicka has just popped up on Gamersgate at a tidy price of £3.95 and assuming  it will be on steam tonight Steam tonight

The main features of this new pack are:

• All new adventure including several levels steeped in Lovecraftian lore
• 2 Challenge maps
• 2 new robes
• 2 new bosses
• New achievements
• Several new enemies
• New Items and Magicks
• Innovative and dynamic spellcasting system with thousands of possible combinations
• Up to four player co-op in all game modes as well as single player option
• Experience the parody and satire of a cliché fantasy world

Read more to view it's trailer

SW:ToR beta opens - long wait ahead

Starwars: The Old Republic has just opened it's doors to it's massive beta weekend...

Once you get past the around 20GB  download and managed to patch it - as with all betas don't get your hopes up - up to 8 hours of waiting is required ATM just to get in the damn game - best bet is to dual screen and play Skyrim or whatever you buy from the Steam, Gamersgate and Black Friday sales.

IF I manage to get online expect a first impressions from the beta from me later on

Within Temptation challenges it's fans to COD:MW3

Dutch rock band Within Temptation today over Facebook and their site challenged it's fan base to game against them on the PS3 version of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.

On their current Unforgiving Tour the band have been given a PS3 to take long for the ride, so naturally they want to game during their downtime - If you own the game and a PS3 by adding wtblokes to your friends list you get to game with band members Jeroen, Mike, Stefan or Ruud as your opponent.

This isn't the first time the band and gaming collided: The band supported and wrote the track The Howling as part of the promotional material for the MMORPG The Chronicles of Spellborn

Source: Within Temptation

Gears 3 DLC maps given away for free

Looking on Joystiq I found out that Gears 3 has a free Booster Map Pack.

This map pack includes the following maps, two new, Bulletmarsh and Clocktower, and three previously only available for private matches Azura, Blood Drive, and Rustlung.

It appears the last three are from from Horde Command Pack but of course this free pack does not include the updated Horde fortifications, playable characters, or the weapon skins.

The next piece of Gears 3 DLC "RAAM's Shadow," a campaign-based addition, is due for December 13, at 1200 Microsoft Points.

Source: Joystiq

Dizzy gets named and dated for December 9th

Remember how yesterday we found the Dizzy website?

Dizzy Prince of the Yolkfolk is actually the sixth game in the original series reborn in HD on iPhone, iPad and Android, all set to return on December 9. The game is being developed by DNA Interactive with original project director Paul Ranson at the helm.

Steam Autumn Sale Begins

Just when your wallet is free from the onslaught of AAA games, and we just get back from i44 with little money - both scream 'NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!' Vader style.

Steam has another sale from today till the 27th near enough everything is reduced and they are doing the normal rotation of offer on the main page: Today sees Portal 2 going for £6.79, all three series of Sam & Max at £8.74, the Oddbox can be netted for £3.24 and another load as well to check out

All these offers change we assume at the normal time of 6pm GMT which gives you as of this posting 17 hours and 9 minutes, don't just read this GO BUY SOMETHING!

Guess who's back? Back Again. Dizzy's back - tell your Yolkfolk friends

http://www.eggcitingnews.com/ was recently registered with as far as we can tell Codemasters containing just this picture above, judging by the image and the URL name, this can only mean one thing:

Dizzy is back.

Now most gamers these days will go 'Dizzy who?' it's not shocking really as his last game was way back in 1993, before then his first apprence was on the Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC,  and ZX Spectrum in 1986 spanning the original consoles and handhelds with 9 games and 6 spin-offs..

Either way it's great to see the old egg back, lets hope his next game isn't a scramble.

i44 Comes to an end...

As the above picture with the one and only Total Biscuit will tell you: the event for us was f*&^&£^ epic..

Expect a full round up of the event sometime soon, there is more pictures and videos to come..

...oh and we have swag, and some of it may be for you.

i44 Starcraft 2 IPL 4 Qualifier Grand Final

The Starcraft 2 IPL qualifiers (at i44) has to undoubtably be the biggest Starcraft related thing to ever make it's way to English soil. We have seen blood, sweat and tears paint the event halls like a canvas, with players like Ryung, TAiLS and Stephano laying waste to all who dared encounter them.

Now we have reached the grand final of the tournament who has the mettle, to take the final step and collect the $10,000 grand prize?

i44 SC2 BYOC Final - Unleash the insanity!

                       

Here we have a rundown of the final match of the i44 Bring your own Computer SC2 Tournament.
256 players were whittled down to 2, and drama ensued. Here we go...

**DO NOT READ ON IF YOU DO NOT WANT SPOILERS!!**

The Cream of the Crop

         



From the 256 player open bracket, 16 have risen above their peers to grab a slot among the superstars of the foreign Starcraft II scene.

These players will compete against such talent as Stephano, Grubby, WhiteRa, Ryung and TAiLS for a single spot in IPL 4. These players are:

Protoss: -
Pughy - Settler - MXfive

Terran: -

Gomas - sunshiNe - Skyda - Jimmy - Slyce

Zerg: -

vOddy - rANDY - Stone - KarMa - Gunnersmate - shibbxyz - XiVol - CLN

Matches are currently underway to determine the seeding of these players, and tomorrow morning their real task will begin - trying to overcome some of the best players in Europe and indeed the world! I will update at the tournament's conclusion with its progression, to show you guys who is top of the heap! GLHF!

IGN Pro League 4 Qualifiers - i44

Fists raised to the sky, the victor’s lungs contract as he exhales. He has made it. Thirty-one lie vanquished beneath his feet, unable to make it to the finish line. But this is only the beginning. He has another war to prepare for. The IGN Proleague. 

Sixteen invited professionals. Sixteen players from a 256 strong tournament. A $20,000 prize pool, and one spot in the 4^th IGN Proleague, one of competitive Starcraft II’s most prestigious tournaments.

The fog of war descends on Telford this Sunday, as the 32-man IPL 4 Qualifier takes place. Cast by immensely popular duo John "TotalBiscuit" Bain and Shaun "dApollo" Clark, the tournament ensures a dramatic and energetic conclusion to a weekend of Starcraft II. 

Roxio launch Assassins Creed Revelations Competition

Starting this Monday (21/11/2011) Roxio and Ubisoft are teaming up to bring a competition whereby you have the chance to win $5,000, or a multitude of other weekly prizes.

To enter just follow these simple steps:

• Enter, visit the Respawn Army Application on Facebook and sign up
• Get a Roxio Game Capture (you can use this exclusive discount) and Assassin's Creed® Revelations
• Claim victory in your greatest mission
• Capture and create a video of your glory
• Post it to the Respawn Army Application "Leave your Legacy" contest page

Unfortunately only those in US can enter the competition, but voting is world wide so take a look! We hope to have a review of the hardware used in this competition (The Roxio Game Capture) sometime soon so keep your eyes peeled.

Source: http://www.roxio.com/enu/promotions/landing/ac-rev/game-capture/contest/default.html?source=acrev_rox_smcon

No Sleep Coming with i44

Tomorrow myself and Fatal will be joining members of G3-Radio at Insomnia 44, as the poster states we may invade both G3's live shows Saturday 7-10pm GMT and Sunday 12-3pm GMT, and unconfirmed as of yet but Teldur (aka Dave) of Blastprocess.com may be popping down Sunday for his show 7-9pm GMT.

We'll be there all weekend, hopefully to snap up some pictures, videos and if we are lucky get some interviews.

New battery technology is 10 times more effective

According to new research published in the Advanced Energy Materials journal, batteries could charge in as little as 15 minutes and last for a week.

A team of scientists have created an electrode for lithium-ion batteries (such as those used in most smart phones), that allows them to hold 10 times more charge and charge 10 times quicker. They have achieved this, by adding silicon layers to the graphene sheets, that comprise an anode of an lithium-ion battery.

Like Tron? Like Racing? Prepare for Nitronic Rush

Our Second Racing game news of the day - this was pushed through my e-mail box this morning.

This Tron-like Racing game is called Nitronic Rush, it's half stunt game half time attack racer, as far as I've seen it's single player only, but has ghosts to download and leaderboards, here is what developers Team Nitronic say about their game

Nitronic Rush is an experimental survival driving game developed by students at DigiPen Institute of Technology. Use the car’s many abilities (including boost, wings, and jump) to avoid obstacles that the city throws at you. Prove your abilities and impress the announcer by performing tricks. In many ways the game is a tribute to racing games of the 1990′s, but with fresh graphics and gameplay.
The entire game (including the graphics, physics, and architecture) was developed from the ground up using C++ for the PC (Windows XP, Vista, and 7) platform. It was not created as a mod or using any pre-made engines such as Unity or Unreal.

Oh did we not say it's completely free? Read on for the download link, images and hardcore mode in action

Get Burnout Paradise for free on PC

Want to get your mitts on the last good Burnout game, for free?

Well Burnout Paradise is currently free on EA's Origin service if you enter PARADISE in the coupon code at the checkout - only works for UK users ATM guys sorry, and we don't know if codes are limited so hurry..

If you are a fan of Origin or not, you can't beat a free game, mainly one that is this good.

Source: Rock Paper Shotgun

Crash To Desktop Invades Replay Expo 2011

With thousands of gaming events happening every year it's hard to keep track these days. In fact the United Kingdom itself has quite the event scene. One of those such events is the Replay Expo which is dedicated to the art (and nostalgia) of retro gaming.

"So what is Replay?"

Simply put, the Replay Expo is a huge weekend long event that celebrates gaming through the ages. The idea is simple and effective, you turn up, you find that one elusive console that you never could quite pin down (in my case the Nintendo 64DD), and you experience what you missed the first time round. With over 100 consoles ranging from the neolithic BBC Micro, to the incredibly rare and sought after Panasonic Q (basically a shiny Nintendo GameCube with DVD player inbuilt), the sheer scope of the gems found here is breathtaking.

Geeks Today: A Tale about Gamers

The following is a guest article by David Jennings (aka Teldur) of Blastprocess.com, they are friends of ours (actual friends as well), go check out their site.
Gamers: An underground species of few number. Typically males, with unwashed hair. People who spend their lives sat in front of a TV, entering unknown virtual worlds, saving the day and defeating the bad guys. They don't need a social life, nor do they require someone to have a 'relationship' with. They venture outside purely to purchase more games, before venturing back home.

That paragraph, of course, is complete rubbish. A statement reserved for the school playgrounds of yesteryear. The image below possibly gives a bolder statement of gamers today:

That image was shot in the small town of Crewe during the evening of Monday 7th November 2011. The occasion? The midnight release of one of the most anticipated iterations of the first-person shooter genre ever, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3. I think its pretty apparent even just by that shot, that more and more people are engaging in videogames as a hobby, or even as part of a social routine. So is it now cool to play games? Read on to find out...

DC Online Adds 1 Million Players to it's League

Since launching it's hybrid Free To Play model at the start of this month SOE reported that they have gained 1  million new players with DC Universe Online, the move has benefited both PC and PS3 servers with an apparent 50/50 split.

"DC Universe Online's transition to free-to-play has been welcomed by the community and gamers with heroic enthusiasm," said Lorin Jameson, executive director of development at SOE Austin,"In just one week alone, 1 million new players have joined DCUO with a 50/50 split between PC and PS3."

DCUO to free to download from their main SOE page, Steam, and the PSN store front.

Soundtrack Released for Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary

Sumthing Else Music Works is releasing the Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary soundtrack, which features re-orchestrated Halo tunes, as a two-disc album.

Originally created by Martin O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori, remade for 2011 game, the disks are $14.9 and gets you two CDs of music. There's also a limited edition green vinyl record for $24.99, which gets you an MP3 album of the music to download as well but has fewer tracks.

Source: Sumthing Else

Eurogamer Warns 360 owners not to Install Skyrim

Looking directly at that picture you wouldn't tell but apparently Eurogamer claim that Skyrim has texture issues if installed to the 360 HDD. The higher resolution textures stall and don't load properly yet running from disk they stream fine, the PS3 version is unaffected however, which required a mandatory install.

Installing to a USB drive also didn't help as they also found out the game completely ignored the drive and tried to run off the the system's drive and DVD instead - removing the  core drive meant the USB drive worked but only for 15 minutes until crashing

Sykrim's official forum was updated with a post

Skyrim uses a lot of dynamic streaming systems, including textures. We've seen a few reports of certain textures temporarily scaling down on the Xbox 360, and not scaling back up. We have verified that this issue does not occur when playing off the disk and when the game is fully cached (not installed).
Skyrim makes heavy use of the Xbox 360 caching system, and caches over the normal course of play while in menus or interiors. This cache can be wiped when other games are played or when the user manually removes it. We're working on a solution in the next title update for those who have installed the game.

Read on to see the other images to compare:

X comes to UMvsC3 - Yet fans still cry

Fans have been screaming at Capcom since the release of Marvel vs Capcom 3 due to the lack of a certain Blue Bomber, they rejoiced when we discovered that Megaman X was spotted in a picture for this week's release of Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3..

That quickly turned to sour milk when Capcom announced that X is not returning as hoped - but as a DLC skin for Zero... People are not happy..

Read on to discover more DLC packs

Oops they did it again.

Hacking major games developers seems to be the new cracking the pentagon for many out there this past year. We've seen Sony hacked multiple times, Nintendo, Sega, Epic games and even our beloved Bethesda and Bio-Ware. Now the latest target is Steam. Many of you may have noticed things have been acting a bit funny for the past 24 hours and the forums are 'under maintenance' yup, hacked.

Valve have yet to give any official statement yet, but luckily for us, a Reddit user  managed to get a screenshot of the forums before they were taken offline. Apparently many Steam users were also emailed the same blurb.  weather or not any account details have been taken are unclear at this time.

Follow on for the picture

Europe to get an exclusive 3DS

Look how pretty... It's a 3DS but Zeldafied.

This is apparently Europe exclusive bundled with a copy of Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, and also comes with a 'double sided sleeve' whatever that means, no prices yet but look out for this in a few weeks on November 25th..

Continue on to look at more of this lovely

Baldur's Gate a Dev's Favourite

The World Gaming Executives network has announced Baldur's Gate an old time favourite voted by 1000 developers, coming a close second was Diablo and Curse of Monkey Island came in third.

Now it's it's fourth year The World Gaming Executives network polled its members (now about 3,000) to produce a top 20 all-time favourites list for its first issue of the WGE magazine, which is out now and free to read.

Read more to find out the list from 4th to 20th:

Working as intended?

It seems to be a growing trend with major releases over the past few months of getting, what can only be described as beta releases for games on Steam. First we had Rage, with lack of proper porting from console to PC (not game breaking), causing the loyal PC gamers to have to manually alter cofig files to get the promised graphics. Then came Might and Magic Heroes VI, a game so full of bugs, many people have shelved it until it's all fixed, which considering the public beta had been active since early this year was a bit of a kick in the teeth, to many fans of the series. All quiet on the forums from the devs though, do you think the fans are feeling a bit cheated right now?

The worst of the bunch? Sword of the Stars 2. A game so rushed, even the developers have had to issue a public apology and admit they hadnt finished the game.

BUT, at least the CEO of Kerberos has had the decency to release a statement and an apology for this fiasco. Let's hope it's fixed soon right?

Free copy of the first game? Go on then. Thanks!

Oh who am I kidding. Skyrim's out soon, surely THAT game wont be broken right? What do you think of the state of these releases lately - leave your thoughts below in the comments.

THQ reports quarterly loss of $92.4m

It seems things are not at all rosy in the THQ camp, as they have just reported quarterly losses of $92.4m with sales of $146m, resulting in a share price drop of $1.32. Whats worse is that this time last year THQ were reporting losses of $46.9m, with revenues of only $77.1m.

It seems most of the money earned this quarter has come from Warhammer 40K: Space Marine along side impressive sales of the uDraw tablet for Wii. It seems that THQ's money will be heavily riding on Saints Row: The Third which is set to become a smash hit.

CEO Brian Farrell optimistically said ""We are encouraged that our second quarter performance exceeded our expectations, particularly in a quarter with a light release schedule,"

"Our two biggest quarters of the year remain ahead of us, and we are focused on execution. In Q3 we are planning for the largest quarter in our history, in terms of sales and earnings, driven by Saints Row: The Third, the uDraw GameTablet, and WWE '12. With UFC Undisputed 3 launching in the fourth quarter, we are well-positioned to deliver a strong second half of fiscal 2012."

Dark Souls hits 1.5 million shipped worldwide

Despite being the spiritual sequel to one of the PS3's unforgiving game and being as equally challenging, Dark Souls has netted 1.5 million undead souls into it's dark world.

North America has the largest amount of copies (620,000), followed by Europe (470,000) and then Japan (370,000), despite Dark Souls being released on PS3 only in Japan which From Software themselves published.

Source: Andrisang

FFXIII-2 rewards players of the orginal

Sadly unlike certain RPG games these days, Final Fantasy XIII-2 will not be carrying over players save data from it's previous game FFXIII instead the game will reward players just for having played the original game.

Watch its Final Fantasy 13 summary without a FFXIII save file on your console and you will get the standard narration, however having the save file unlocks the same footage but with different characters narrating.
Japanese magazine Impress Watch also states there is "almost no difference" between Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 versions - 90 per cent of the cutscenes use real-time rendering instead of pre-rendered video.


Source: Siliconera

Frozen Synapse heads to iPad

Mode 7 has just offically annouced that their epic semi old school 'play by email' indie shooter Frozen Synapse is heading to the iPad in 2012.

"I look forward to flicking my little green men around the place with wanton abandon", said joint Managing Director Paul Taylor. "Not only are we doing this iPad thing, but we are also looking at better ways of updating and supporting the game on its current platforms - expect some new things in the New Year."

The game has sold over 300,000 units on PC, Mac and Linux to date, if you are completely confused about what we are talking about watch Total Biscuit's WTF video of the game after the read more:

DmC no longer a direct prequel apparently

Reported by Siliconera, to add further confusion to the Devil May Cry reboot DmC, it is no longer a direct prequel of the original series despite Devil May Cry 3 taking that role and overwriting the current timeline, but now set in a parallel universe set in the past.

This still means Dante, the one currently staring in Marvel vs Capcom 3, that fans know and love still exists, along with his timeline (meaning Nero still is as well.... sigh). Despite all this Capcom is not keeping the original series to one side just in case this new version doesn't do as well as hoped - it was actually developers of the game, Ninja Theory's idea.

Source: Siliconera

A friendly guide to Warhammer 40K

Warhammer 40,000, or 40k as it is also known amongst its players, is a tabletop wargame played with numerous 6-sided dice. Games usually take about a couple of hours to play through, (for most “average” sized games of 1,500 points per side) and consists of two or more players moving, shooting and attacking with their respective armies.

Bigger games take longer and it is common for games of 4,000 points to take an entire evening - The game itself is played in turns, with each player taking their turn before their opponent does, and each turn is broken up into numerous phases. These phases are movement, shooting and assault.