Martian Manhunter delivers justice in Injustice

J'onn J'onzz AKA The Martian Manhunter has been announced during the Evo 2013 tournament in Las Vegas as NetherRealm's fifth DLC character for Injustice: Gods Among Us.

Manhunter is one of the most requested characters by the fans to date, and from the trailer (found below) he seems to be voiced by none other then Carl Lumbly, the voice actor for J'onn in the Justice League TV series. Also in the trailer reveals a new skin for the Green Lantern, that of John Stewart, who featured along side J'onn in the TV series. John seems to be voiced by Phil LaMarr his series voice actor, who also voices Aquaman in Injustice.

If NeverRealm are doing a Justice League run of DLC, Doctor Fate? Maybe? Please?

Release dates, prices and if this DLC will be included in the season pass are unknown at this point, however here is the trailer below

Square Enix cooks up a storm with Lightning Returns Cloud Strife based DLC

Square Enix announced today that there is a new pre-order bonus for Lightning Returns, the third game in the Final Fantasy XIII series, based on Final Fantasy VII's lead character Cloud Strife.

The package includes the SOLDIER 1st Class Uniform and Soldier Band as equipment, including the iconic Buster Sword as Lightning's weapon. Not only that also included is Cloud's victory pose and for the first time in the XIII series the classic Final Fantasy victory fanfare, Square Enix's official trailer can be found below.

New Warhammer 40K MMO announced

The ashes of THQ still burn hot for many gamers, none as much as the Warhammer 40k fanbase; who lost their hope at a series of 40k based titles from the publisher. One title that got axed with the closure of THQ included the multi-faction MMORPG Warhammer 40,000: Dark Millennium, created by Darksiders creators, Vigil Games.

Hope returns today as Games Workshop and Behaviour Interactive announce Warhammer 40,000: Eternal Crusade, a third person MMORPG set to be released currently at the end of 2015. Not much is known at the moment, but by heading to the Warhammer 40k: Eternal Crusade website you will see the site is on the first of 9 phases, with the press release found below.

Montreal, 10th June, 2013 – Behaviour Interactive and Games Workshop® proudly announce a new online game in the Warhammer® 40,000® universe: Warhammer 40,000: Eternal Crusade. Behaviour Interactive has obtained the rights to create a wholly new MMORPG persistent war experience for PC, PS4 and Xbox One set in Games Workshop’s universe of the 41st Millennium. In the game, players choose aWarhammer 40,000® race and fight directly as one of their warriors in massive conflicts for territory. It will be up to each faction’s community to determine their own destiny as they vie for control of an entire planet.

The developer Behaviour Interactive is known for creating a host of cartoon/movie tie in titles as well as the games Wet and Naughty Bear.

Blizzard re-spawns Spawning into Starcraft 2

Blizzard has reintroduced a very old friend back into the Starcraft fold, a process known as 'Spawning'. What this was is players were able to boot up a copy of Starcraft 1 on their PCs after their friend had on their PC with the same CD - hence giving a 'free' version of the game to their friend while they play.

Just announced Blizzard has brought back this process to Starcraft 2 in the form of allowing members of the party to freely 'upgrade' to the highest level expansion that a member of the party currently has. For example a player with the Starter Edition (found free on Battle.net itself) can party with a player with the current Zerg expansion Heart of the Swarm, both players then are classed as 'owning' HotS as long as they remained partied.

Doing this will unlock Multiplayer (ranked and unranked), all custom game maps, Vs. AI and the Arcade in the highest level of content the party members have, those with the Starter Edition will only be able to play the race currently playable in that version (at time of writing that is Terrain), and have limited access to social features, for example Clans are locked out to those not currently owning HotS. However the limit of players allowed to do this is the current party cap, thus 14 of your friends can benefit from your purchase.

To celebrate this new feature, Blizzard have added a new Achievement and Portrait to the game for players Spawning in new players or are the ones being Spawned at this current time. The release date of this is right now, however globally it may take until the end of the day to become active in your area.

For the full information watch the following Youtube video below the divide.

The Good The Bad The Ugly - Xbox One

Welcome to the inauguration of a new format here at Crash To Desktop. With The Good The Bad and The Ugly we will bring you a weekly review of the latest in gaming and tech, introducing you to the great and the downright rotten.

Firstly let me say I love my Xbox 360, not the PS3 and I will most probably own an Xbox One within a year or two of launch. I will, however, be buying a PS4 on the launch day and will be signing up for a pre-order after E3.

I’ll admit, I have not been playing many games recently and I did not watch the Xbox One announcement live. I have watched the full video and honestly I'm feeling very underwhelmed by the whole announcement.

Thats not to say that I am not interested in the console.

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.

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