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.