Season's greetings

Season's greetings from CTD, we hope you have a wonderful festive season this year.

We will be back in the new year, with new content and material from Kremlik, Fatal Impurity and Raksha; as well as some possible new faces.

Happy holidays, happier gaming.

Ratchet and Clank HD Trilogy Delayed

Adding to the stack of HD remakes, Insomniac's Ratchet and Clank is due for it's first trilogy of games to be published on the PS3.

Sadly EU players will be waiting a little longer as over Twitter, Insomniac have just announced that the game will be pushed back till June, no reason or date has officially been given so far, despite the fact the date was accidently leaked back in March.

Ah well I guess it's time to break out the PS2 again...

Interview with Trendy Entertainment's Philip Asher

A few weeks ago I had the glorious opportunity, to interview Trendy Entertainments very own Marketing Director Philip Asher. Trendy Entertainment, as you probably know are the masterminds behind the Tower Defence/Action RPG mash up Dungeon Defenders. During the interview we covered not only Trendy's stance on their DLC marketing, but developing and balancing the ever expanding content.

So for those of you who saunter around with your level 70 mage, destroying wave after wave of orcs, prepare for the inside scoop on this years most exciting Tower Defense title.

Enjoy.

3DS receives free wifi in EU

And soon... THE WORLD! (Maybe, I dunno)

As of the last week, 3DS owners can connect wirelessly through over 25,000 Wi-fi zones all over the EU.

In this unprecedented action, there's no really no excuse not to connect online and kick your friend's butts on games such as Mario Kart 7 or Pokemon Rumble Blast!

Granted, you still need to locate your nearest hotspot in order to do so, which is possible through

the Nintendo Hotspot Finder, Nintendo has endeavoured to place the majority of these hotspots in airports, coffee shops, fast food outlets and various other places of business.

Although there have been complaints online about the latency experienced on these new hotspots, it's early days yet. So hopefully we can expect lower latencies with subsequent firmware updates and growing router support for the 3DS' WiFi.

Ubisoft Announce Anno 2070 Expansion Pack - Deep Ocean

On Monday Ubisoft announced a new expansion pack for their 2011 Real-Time-Strategy game Anno 2070. The expansion is titled "Deep Ocean" which aims to expand the underwater construction features of the main game much deeper (place your Inception memes here).

Some of the more notable features include being able to acquire territory without using military force, underwater globalthermal nuclear power plants and a new "Tsunami" disaster. If you want to read about the rest of the features you can head on over to the German Ubisoft forums.

The release for the Deep Ocean expansion pack is set for Autumn, 2012.

Crysis 3: Gameplay Trailer & DirectX11 Support

EA, publishers of Crytek's futuristic shooter Crysis, yesterday released the first gameplay trailer for the latest instalment to join the Crysis series. The trailer shows the beauty of the game's new engine, Cry Engine 3. Fans of the Crysis series will be happy to know that the super soldier shooter is looking as beautiful as ever.

The game is set to continue with the storyline of the last game taking part in New York City which has considerably changed since the last game with plants and wildlife absorbing the streets of the city. The city itself has been encased inside a "Nano Dome" created by one of the game's antagonists, the Cell Corporation. Not much else is known about the game's mechanics apart from the induction of a new weapon, the composite bow. No doubt that there will be other features to explore with the Nano suit and alien technology taking centre stage in the game's previous iterations.

After the outcry from PC Gamers over the "substandard" graphics that appeared in Crysis 2 the development team wanted to ensure that they didn't upset their primary fan base a second time. In an interview with the website Joystiq, the director of  creative development Rasmus Hojengaard announced that the game would be shipping with support for DirectX11 graphics cards. And admitted that "We’d be pretty stupid not to capitalize on the technology we did for that and utilizing that from the get-go."

Hopefully this will keep fans of the series safe in the knowledge that Crytek are not going to make the same mistake twice.

Crysis 3 is due to be released in 2013.

Server load cripples Diablo 3 beta weekend

So, how many people managed to get into the Diablo 3 beta?

I downloaded the beta client over the course of the weekend and my every attempt to log in were met with the disheartening phrase 'Sorry, the servers are busy.'

This is to be expected, of course. But not once did I manage to get in, to be able to pass an opinion on the game itself. I personally, was left very disappointed. Still, this was but a stress-test for Blizzard to indicate the demand the servers shall have to face come May 15th, so we'll just have to wait and see if things have improved on the day.

This seems to echo how poorly handled other Blizzard beta's have been (such as Starcraft 2), with dismally low server allocations, poor communication from official sources and incredibly bugged matchmaking systems.

GAME acquired then requests de-list from the stock exchange

On Sunday a deal was struck to buy what was left of GAME's 333 UK stores and Gamestation outlets. Out of the three names said to be interested in the buy Baker Acquisitions Limited, an entity advised by private investment company OpCapita, has picked up GAME's UK assets.

The group confirmed that there would be no more closures of stores, but has inherited GAME's 85 million debt owed to GAME Group's syndicate of lenders, led by The Royal Bank of Scotland, after paying what has been reported the sum of £1 for the company

April Fooled

Sunday marked the first of April, which as we all know is April Fools Day, which for gamers and news outlets is normally hell in trying to figure out what is real is what isn't.

Here is just two samples of this years chaos.

Assassin's Creed Kinect almost was convincing enough to be a sales pitch on an idea that could become very real in the future expect showing us the downside of not having a large living room in the first place with some epic fails near the end - plus the 'Creed Wii' girl is definitely part of the bloodline with some very handy customised 'hidden blade' Wii remotes.

GAME officially in Administration, CEO leaves, half UK stores close

Update: The actual number of stores reported closed at this moment is 277 stores with 2,104 members of staff losing their jobs :(, a list of closed stores is over at CVG however Crewe isn't listed still and there are a few others not accounted for, so sadly expect this number to be higher

Original Story: Just a few hours ago GAME entered administration with the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers as its administrator this morning "after careful consideration and ceaseless interrogation of every possible alternative".

Both Game.co.uk and Gamestation.co.uk have been taken offline, as well as reportedly nearly half of the 609 UK stores have been closed or closing, including our local one here in Crewe: Our hearts go out to all the staff effected in this matter, either give these guys a hug, cake or a pint (provided you are over the age limit to drink of course) to show how much these guys have done for us all, despite the higher up issues with the company

World Of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria Beta Sign-Ups Live!

The beta testing phase for the new World of Warcraft expansion pack Mists Of Pandaria is fast approaching. Blizzard have now added an option to Opt-in to the expansion pack's beta testing phase. The beta will be exclusive to Battle.net users and subscribers to World of Warcraft . All you need to do to sign up for the testing by visiting Blizzard's Battle.net beta site. The only requirement is that you need a Battle.net account with at least one game attached to the service. Essentially if you have World of Warcraft or Starcraft II you can go sign up right now!

Although Blizzard have not announced when the Beta will commence they did say that it's "very close".

GAME Group Files for Administration

Today marks the end of UK game retailers GAME and Gamestation as the GAME group has filed for Administration. The news arrives after early this morning the group's board of directors announced that there was "no equity value left in the group". They said that in a discussion with the firm's stockholders that the firm had had not progressed to offer "a realistic prospect for a solvent solution". Last week the game retailer asked for its shares to be suspended saying that the company's value had been "eroded".

It has long been reported that GAME's grip on the UK games market has been slipping. Initially with the evidence of it's huge dive in share prices at the beginning of this year and more recently it's announcement that it would no longer be stocking Electronic Arts titles.

While it's a shame that there will be more widespread un-employment in the UK due to the company's collapse it does show that the presence of online retailers like Amazon and Play.com are taking their toll on the retail game's market. Furthermore with the popularity of digital distribution services like Steam and Direct2Drive ever increasing it could signify the end of physical game distribution permanently. With the current rumours that the next generation of consoles will be disc drive free it wouldn't be surprising if we were to lose all forms physical media for games within the next decade or so.

Walking Dead Video Game Trailer Leaked!

A gameplay trailer of Telltale Game's rendition of the popular comic/television show The Walking Dead was leaked on YouTube last night and it shows footage the first 13 minutes of the game. The gameplay appears to be taken from the Xbox 360 game code or at least someone who was playing with an Xbox 360 gamepad.

I really like the direction that they've taken with the game's art style which reminds me of a mixture between the comic-esque stylings of Borderlands and XIII. The game acts a lot like a classic Point-and-Click adventure much like Telltale's game renditions of the Back To The Future series. Looks pretty good so far!

The game is to be released in episodic segments with the first due to be released in late April, 2012.

Baldur's Gate I & II To Be Re-Released In Enhanced Editions

 Remember that mysterious Baldur's Gate website countdown that we linked to last month? Well it turns out that we're not going to be seeing a new Baldur's Gate game but rather HD re-releases of the first two games. The games are being put into a new version of the original Infinity Engine which will include many graphical and performance improvements.

The development team behind the re-releases are Overhaul Games (A fitting name I might add) which is a division of Beamdog that is run by ex-BioWare developer Trent Oster who was one of the lead designers on the Baldur's Gate games.

Although many fans will be disappointed with the announcement of the two enhanced editions and not an announcement about a third Baldur's Gate game a developer from Overhaul Games recently had an interview with Nathan Grayson of GameSpy and said that a Baldur's Gate 3 was Beamdog's "Long-Term Goal".

No release date has been announced as of yet for the two enhanced editions.

New SimCity Trailer Reveals New "Glassbox" Engine

SimCity developers Maxis have released a new game trailer for their new SimCity game. The trailer shows a short look at the game's new Glassbox engine. The video shows a developer walkthrough of new features and mechanics of the engine such as modular/expandable buildings and resource transportation around a game world. The walkthrough also shows some interesting features in relation to resource location which wasn't a feature in previous games.

SimCity is set to be released in 2013.

Editorial Note: Sorry about our recent hiatus we seem to have been rather slack with the news recently but we're trying to get things back to normal. Bear with us and we hope to bring you more content soon. Thanks.

REVIEW: Munchkin

Raksha is Crash To Desktop’s very own Malkavian, occasionally released from his sanctuary to inflict upon us his mumblings about the end being neigh, or just being out of tea bags. This time it is Munchkin that receives his most deranged visions. So sit back and hold on to your seat, this will be a bumpy ride. - Silverfuge

Munchkin is a card game based on the dungeons and dragons style games, with a sense of humour. Produced by Steve Jackson games, the game borrows heavily from dungeons and dragons, and has a heavy comical influence, making the game much more fun. The art work is done by the same gentle man who brought us the web comic dork tower, giving us art work that fits very well with the humour within the game. The object of the game is to win by reaching level 10 before anyone else in the party, via any way Munchkinable (Raksha sure does like to make these words up so bear with him- Silverfuge).

The game itself comes with one die which is used to determine the turn order, and two decks of cards (the treasure cards and the dungeon cards). The Treasure cards are usually potions or equipment that you can use, trade or sell to level up, and in some cases level up cards. The dungeon cards are monsters and curses, which are the primary tool for the game.

EU PS3 owners finally get Trine 2, Plus owners get it for free

Tomorrow Europe finally gets their hands on the much delayed Trine 2 on the Playstation 3, god knows why it's taken to get here, but after nearly two months here it is.

As an apology from Sony and Atlus for the first two weeks the game gets a rather large 30% off for everyone but even more for Playstation Plus users as it's the game of the month, so it's free, along with the Sly Copper HD Trilogy's first game Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus HD.

Also remember the rather interesting Journey is also released a week early for Plus users, sadly that is not free

Assassin's Creed III revealed

Ubisoft released the first trailer of the third saga of the Assassin's Creed series officially despite the beans being spilled by leaked images last week.

The game features a brand new assassin Ratohnhaké:ton also thankfully known as Connor, a British/Native American fighting during the eve of the American Revolution after his village was sacked. The game also uses a brand new engine called Ubisoft-AnvilNext, which promises "breakthroughs in visual quality, character models and artificial intelligence." .

The game is set to be released on Xbox 360, Playstation 3, PC and Nintendo's Wii U.

DUST 514 PS3 goes free, Vita not so much..

CCP today announced that their EVE Online FPS extension for the Playstation 3 DUST 514 will now be completely free to play for all PSN users. This replaces CCP's original idea of the game being up for sale for a price and then reimbursed the player in Aurum credits, the universe's premium item currency to use for micro-transactions in the store.

The AUR credits will still be available for premium services like character respecs and double skill point boosts but can only be purchased with real money, unlike ISK, which can only be gained via playing, which buys everything else, CCP insisted that AUR will not buy power only 'save time'.

On the flip side of things CCP also announced that the Vita version will not be the full game, instead will be a "companion app," with functionality including this such as character customization, shopping, and setting up "strategies" with other players, all interfacing with the PS3 game. This version 'may' be updated along with PS3 version into the full title as the game goes on.

Assassin's Creed 3 to be set in American Revolution

Ubisoft have confirmed rumours that Assassin's Creed III will be set in the American Revolution after they released images of the game's box art on Facebook. The release comes after promotional artwork for the game was leaked to Kotaku by an employee of Best Buy.

Ubsisoft also announced that they would be releasing more details about the game in a press release on Monday. Stay tuned for that one folks!

Assassin's Creed III launches for all platforms on October, 30.

Bioshock Infinite: Release Date Announced

2K Games the publisher's of Bioshock Infinite have finally confirmed that the release date for the game will be October 16th in North America. Consumers from other regions will be able to pick up the game a few days later on the 19th worldwide release date.

Bioshock Infinite will be avaliable on PC, Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3. And just in case you missed any of the game's trailers check out the one above.

Baldur's Gate 3? Could it be?

Fans of the Baldur's Gate series will be happy to know that a teaser site has been released possibly confirming that a new Baldur's Gate title is currently in development. Although there is no confirmation that there is a new Baldur's Gate game the site certainly offers enthusiasts with something to think about.

Although due to rumours on Game Banshee suggest that former BioWare developer Trent Oster and the fellows at Beamdog are behind the site. A reporter at the site got to interview Mr Oster who stated: "We're not related to the Steam complete edition, I can tell you that much. Other than that, we're hoping to announce something soon." Thus the website remains mysterious, we can only hope that the aforementioned announcement is given soon.

Sim City 5 to be announced at GDC says German games Magazine.

According to German gaming magazine Gamestar we might be seeing a new Sim City game being announced at the annual GDC in March next month. The article was uploaded over on the NeoGaf forums with scanned screenshots so you may be able to read and feast your eyes on the new game tech.

Well we'll have to wait till GDC next week to see if the story is true but if it is it could prove to be very exciting news indeed. The Game Developers Confrence takes part next week in San Francisco from Monday through to Friday.

Vita hits 1.2 million worldwide sales

Sony have just annouced that the Playstation Vita has hit 1.2 million sales worldwide.

All this seems quite impressive considering Sony's infuriating choices just before release to hold back the use of flash and only the Minis with the PSone titles, which will be included in a later update, will only be planned for the format excluding all other PSN titles, despite a resent hack and Sony themselves showing PS3 titles running on the system like a dream. All this leaving  many pre-ordered Vitas still on the shelves in some stores as I discovered.

Of that, as of 19th February, 578,812 Vita consoles were sold in Japan leaving more than 620,000 seemingly sold in the two weeks of the US and EU launches.

Play IGF nominated indie games for free with OnLive

OnLive, sponsors of the annual Independent Games Festival, have released the nominated titles and honourable mentions for both US and UK users to try 30 minute demos from today until 11th March.

Titles include SpaceChem by Zachtronics Industries, Dear Esther by The Chinese Room and Dustforce by Hitbox Team but after playing the titles, everyone can "Like" their favourite via OnLive's official Facebook page with the winner to be announced at IGF.

Starting the day IGF 2012 opens its doors (5th March) OnLive will also be honouring previous IGF winners with a 75 per cent discount.

Saints Row: The Third next DLC sucks: Blood that is

The video below is the official Saints Row: The Third Bloodsucker Pack DLC trailer. THQ announced the pack provides you with a brand new ability to latch onto your captives and regain health from sucking their blood. The DLC also other bonuses to keep you in the game, including VIP bonuses for Cash Boosts, Hourly Income, Respect, and the Scavenger ability.

Priced at $1.99 the DLC comes out next week on Xbox 360, PS3, Steam, and OnLive.

REVIEW: Dragon Age - Dark Fantasy Roleplaying

I wanted to do something myself and Raksha used to do frequently when we first started writing/presenting, and very rarely get to do these days due to real life issues. This is of course a review, in this case Dragon Age: Dark Fantasy Roleplaying, which I must admit to being a quite a fan of.

Now for anyone who doesn’t know, Dragon Age started off on the EA website as a game called Dragon Age: Journeys which spawned Dragon Age: origins (and it's various DLC) then Dragon Age 2. There have also been mentions of an anime coming out soon (we hope). The game is set in a fantasy universe and is considered Dark fantasy, since no matter what choice you pick someone dies.

Killzone 3 Multiplayer goes standalone with unlimited free trial.

Sony have announced on their latest official blogcast  that Killzone 3's multiplayer mode is set to go standalone as a download on PSN with all maps from the disk version ready to play.

It is billed as a free to play title, however it is level capped and players then have the option to unlock the full skill tree for $14.99, this option makes the game more an unlimited trial then a full free to play title.

The single player campaign of course will not be included and there are currently no plans to release it as a standalone title.

Indie Royale: Alpha Collection

Hot on the heels of the recent Humble Bundle Mojam, and coming from the makers and creators of Desura and IndieGames.com, is the latest Indie Royale release: a trio of games, currently in development, and very much playable.

Head of the group is the popular Towns, being developed by SMP from Spain. Here you have complete control over the creation, and running of a town. However, this is nothing like the Sim City of yesteryear, and much more like Dwarf Fortress, with a smattering of Dungeon Keeper and Majesty. The ability to design the town however you like, and then defending it with the heroes that you've raised against the monsters that come to destroy what you've built.

Guild Wars 2 Beta Sign Up

This year's big MMO release Guild Wars 2 is having a beta sign up. All you need to do to be eligible for a key is submit your hardware and your personal information to the Guild Wars 2 beta pool. To submit your name to the beta all you need to do is head on over to the Guild Wars beta page.You can do this here.

Good luck again and remember the beta applications are only available until the end of tomorrow!

Borderlands 2 Trailer and Release Date

Gearbox Software the team in charge of Borderlands 2 have announced the release dates for Borderlands 2 coming in the final part of this year. They also released a swanky new trailer which you can see above. In it you can see all the new characters that will appear in Borderlands 2 in all their glory.

The game's new characters are fairly similar to the old ones with Maya appearing as the new "Siren" class who can phasewalk much like her predecessor Lilith from the series' first instalment.  The soldier class also makes a return through the new character Axton who can set up gun turrets. The much loved hunter class will not be appearing this time around. However, there is an assassin character called Zero who is able turn invisible for a short time and murder enemies with his sword. The melee character also doesn't feature this time around although the new character Salvadore does share a similar physique his speciality is in heavy weaponry.

What the trailer shows is very exciting indeed and you'd do well to take notice of this one. Borderlands 2 will be released in the US on September, 18 and in the EU shortly after on September, 21.

CS:GO Beta Keys up for grabs!

The team of Counter Strike: Global Offensive have just announced how they will be giving out  beta keys to Counter Stike fans wanting to participate in the game's beta testing. The keys will be handed out to players that partake in a Steam Survey that will enter them into a pool which beta testers will be picked from.

The survey itself asks you some questions about your Counter Strike experience and will upload a quick hardware survey to the team's database. While you may be tempted to lie/brag about your skills in the test it is better to be honest because the team are looking for players from varied backgrounds of skill and hardware.

To complete the survey all you need to do is copy this address into your browser: steam://takesurvey/2/

SOE signs new deal with ProSiebenSat.1, splits communities

Ever since, well forever in fact SOE players have had the joy of choosing which region of servers they wanted to game on, well days like that have come to an end.

Recently SOE announced a new multi-year parntership with ProSiebenSat.1 Games Group to license eight of its online games in Europe, including DC Universe Online, EverQuest II, Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures, Free Realms, Magic: The Gathering – Tactics, Pox Nora, the upcoming PlanetSide 2, and the next installment of the EverQuest franchise.

As part of the deal EU players will be using ProSiebenSat.1's service and thus having to create new accounts with them, sadly this has lead to both US and EU players effectively banned from using their counterpart's servers and forcing to move their characters to their respective regions or face loosing their efforts in game.

Both regions of playerbases are already quite angry at this move, and already questions on subscription deals, such has the founders cut price offer for DCUO have been called into question if they will continue to be held by ProSiebenSat.1 after the account change.

With so many big names coming up in the MMORPG area, was this the best time for SOE to banish it's EU fans?

For more information on the deal goto http://forums.station.sony.com/dcuopc/posts/list.m?topic_id=45890

GAME stock woes continue

As many of you are well aware the retailer GAME hit financial difficulties after it lost credit insurance with the banks.

GAME stopped taking pre-orders of certain titles, such as Mass Effect 3, also Eurogamer revealed last week that GAME would not be stocking Tekken 3DS on release, also today GAME also stated that it would not be stocking Ubisoft's Vita launch titles: Lumines, Michael Jackson, Rayman Origins, Asphalt Injection and Dungeon Hunter Alliance.

To make matters worse just moments ago it was reported that the long awaited Wii title The Last Story would not have it's special edition stocked by the retailer, downgrading all pre-orders to the standard version days before it was due to be released.

With yet another blow to the customers trust and the retailer loosing it's iron grip on key titles, it is looking to be a very shaky future for GAME.

The Witcher 2 sold 1.1 million last year

CD Project Red recently unveiled their sales records of The Witcher 2 last year, which despite being DRM free and heavily pirated still totalled 1,110,055 copies.

270,000 were sold on digital distribution platforms, which Steam is not a part of as Valve are still tight lipped on that, but of that large number we know GoG.com took 40,000 sales.

Also in that year the original Witcher title sold 401,543 copies much to managing director Adam Badowski surprise.

"I have to admit, though, that the sales results for The Witcher, five years on from the game's premier, are remarkable, if anything, they prove that the content we put into our games ages well," he commented.

Digital Devil Saga targets EU PSN

More PS2 goodness is coming Europe's way on the PSN this time is in the form of Digital Devil Saga 1 and 2.

The games are spin offs from the Shin Megami Tensei series and siblings of the Persona series, which itself has found a new life on the the PSP and with the Devil Survivor series on the DS, it's never been a better time to check out this very underrated series of game.

No date or price has been set so far, but then again it is Atlus, we rarely know what goes on in their heads.

Spring 2012 gets a Tactical Intervention

Minh Le, (the co-creator of the world famous CounterStrike) is set to run another closed beta for his new game Tactical Intervention, in March 2012. As you can probably gather from the trailer above, the game is very simaler in style and gameplay to Minh Le's huge hit CounterStrike. The changes that we can easily discern from the video however is the inclusion of driving mechanics, attack dogs and civilian NPC's wandering around the battlefield.

How this game will match up against the likes of the bigger budget CounterStrike: Global Offensive (CS:GO), is to be decided, but players must take into account that game is confirmed as a Free To Play title. CS:GO on the other hand will likely be a full retail release, and will be available on multiple platforms such as the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.

The title is being published by OGPlanet in North America, with no word on a European publisher as of yet. Check out the Official website, sign up for the upcoming beta, and then let us hear your thoughts on our Facebook or Twitter.

Epic.EIGHT CSS Final Day roundup

After the group stages of the Epic.EIGHT Counter Strike: Source Tournament have finished, we are left with eight of the ten teams that have entered. Sadly CHICO LAND and Xtreame One were dominated in their matches, (despite putting up a brave fight) and didn't make it into the top eight.

FRAGMASTERS TOXIC despite being top seed, ended up drawing one match and losing another, whereas Visualize Your Enmity and Rasta Gaming, had clean sweeps winning all four of their matches. This has left no clear leader going into the quarter final, read on of the full results of the rest of the tournament.

CoD4 Epic.EIGHT Tournament Grand Final

After completion of both the Upper and Lower Brackets, the two teams that have pulled through to the final confrontation are ESPC and TCM-Gaming. The current favourites coming into this match is ESPC, since they previously knocked down TCM-Gaming in the Upper Bracket Final. Whether TCM-Gaming can step up their game and counter ESPC's strong Backlot gameplay is to be seen, but one thing is certain, it will be an experience.

Cod4 Epic.EIGHT Elimination Stage

The Elimination stage has now begun, with the top 16 rated teams in the group stage, advancing to the Upper Bracket. We've seen laughter, anger and a whole host of other emotions at this event, and the playoffs will be sure to deliver even more tense faceoffs. After dominating their group with a flawless 5-0 record, TCM-Gaming is looking confident to win the Upper Bracket and possibly even the tournament. The big competition for them however is ESPC, who similarly also dominated their group without dropping a single match. ESPC is riding high after their strong 3rd place finish at BenQ Grunex European LAN, so it seems TCM-Gaming will have to give it their all to succeed.

CSS Epic.EIGHT Group Stage

Welcome to our constantly updating coverage of the £2500 CSS Epic.EIGHT tournament. Live from our seats at the event, we'll keep this post updated as it happens, keeping you in the know.

10 teams have entered this tournament, with LiNK Gaming, winners of Epic.SEVEN's tournament absent from this, it leaves the door open for a brand new champion this time around, although FRAGMASTERS TOXIC have been seeded first, can third placed winners of Epic.SEVEN Rasta Gaming secure the top spot?

Join the community and win Trials HD DLC

Tonight we are pleased to announce the first in our competitions while at Epic.EIGHT, all you have to do is join the community.

There are 5 pairs of Trials HD Big Pack and Big Thrills DLC to give away, kindly donated to us by the guys at RedLynx, there are two ways to win:

#1 via Twitter, all you have to do follow our twitter feed and retweet the competition tweet when it appears.

#2 like our Facebook wall and comment on the competition post when it hits the wall.

There will be 3 pairs given out via twitter and 2 pairs given out via Facebook, entries close at 9am GMT tomorrow (18th Feb) good luck.

CoD4 Epic.EIGHT Group Stage

 

Welcome to our constantly updating, live coverage of the £2500 Call of Duty 4 Epic.EIGHT tournament. Coming in straight from the event, we'll keep this post updated as it happens, keeping you in the know.

With 22 teams taking part in this tournament, this is a pioneering event for Call of Duty 4 and is bound to liven the lagging Pro-Gaming scene for the title. The victors of last years tournament fm! Sapphire are here to defend their title, as well as the runners up LANiMALS, who still sore from their defeat last LAN, plan to dominate.

However with 20 other top teams from all over Europe including top teams such as: TCM-Gaming, team Infused, and Epic.LAN newcomers ESPC.LGT from Finland, it's going to be one hell of a battle to the top.

Epic.EIGHT Tournament Fixtures Announced

With the combatants drawing up ready for battle in the CSS 5v5, and CoD4 5v5 tournaments, the group stage fixtures have been revealed. Setting off at 11am this morning for both tournaments, this event should see the clash of some of the UK's premier CSS and CoD4 teams, including last years winners LiNK, and fm! Sapphire.

The lineup announced for the games are as follows:

Counter Strike Source 5v5

Group A FRAGMASTERS TOXIC Visualize Your Enmity Perilous Hyphen Xtreame One

Group B Rasta Gaming MALIK-eSports  Nice Guys arachnid GIANTS Paynt's Fanbois

Street Fighter's Ryu Appears in Asura's Wrath

On first glance of this picture Ryu is facing off with Akuma, but in reality it's Asura from Capcom's next title Asura's Wrath. Does this mean Street Fighter is gaining another character to boost it's roster, as a shameless PR stunt for the game?

No, but.. yes at the same time, apparently Ryu is making a cameo in Asura's Wrath as DLC, we have little to go on but this picture so far, but as you can see the game will be switching to a Street Fighter IV style at some point. This shouldn't seem too far fetched, when the game seems as crazy as any Dragonball Z episode.

Capcom promised to reveal all soon. Asura's Wrath launches in the UK on 9th March.

Good Mornin' Epic.Lan

Well myself and Fatal have made it through the opening night of Epic.EIGHT, despite the beer and chaos.

The opening ceremony was a blast ending with a Rock Band 2 score attack tournament on Tenacious D's Tribute, Epic Radio was first to bat but then got served by the other two teams, one of which Fatal ended up subbing as the drummer. Fatal's team (pictured above) of course won and free beer was had by all, huzzah!

Keep up with the event via this site, and twitter by either directly from us or Epic.LAN

Four fighting fantasy indie games coming with the help of Epic

Commando Kiwi, Derp Studios, Digital Mage and Indigo Jam, four groups founded by members of the Train2game course took part in the the Epic Game Jam competition last year, which the winners win full source commercial Unreal Engine 3 license for iOS - worth a cool $1 million, have now teamed up with Epic themselves to release four games based on the Fighting Fantasy series of books.

The games will release on iPhone, iPad and iPod touch this spring following a reveal at The Gadget Show Live the books chosen are The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, The Citadel of Chaos, Deathtrap Dungeon and Armies of Death.

Valve Release $100 TF2 item.

To coincide with Valentines Day Valve added a new TF2 item in a special Valentines Day update. The item humorously named "Something Special For Someone Special" had better live up to it's name sake given that it price is $100 which is extremely expensive given that it is just a miscellaneous item.

Valve testify that "It's ring-shaped, it's gift-wrapped, it's basically useless, and it's really expensive ($100!). In short, it's the most accurate simulation of an actual Valentine's Day gift ever made available to the public."

The ring itself allows you to pledge your "love" to another player within the game. Simply you propose to another player and if they accept you will receive matching wedding bands to show your lovey doveyness to other players in-game.

The item itself costs $100 USD/ £69.99 GBP / €74.99 EUR