NEWS: Saturday Roundup

Welcome to the Saturday Roundup, a (bi)weekly roundup of all the important news going on in the gaming world. If you’re sick of gaming websites' content turning more and more casual, or trying to pass off a single sentence and a link to a cool picture they saw on deviant art as ‘news,’  you've come to the right place. I aim to consolidate and summarize only the stuff that’s most important to gaming enthusiasts. It’s a mix of hard news, interesting features, and other titbits that I feel like you guys would enjoy. Let’s see what’s been going on this week:

• Hi-speed broadband has become essential to modern gaming, and developers Eidos are accusing broadband providers of impeding the growth of video games.With the gradual shift from brick-and-motar stores to digital distribution services, as well as more and more games requiring an always-online connection to a central server, Eidos executive Ian Livingstone says that the broadband providers are holding us back.
  
  ''Super-fast games will drive demand for super-fast broadband, so, ISPs, please do not rest on your laurels.”
  
  Ian's sentiment hits particularly hard on us Aussies, who not only have to face broadband that is slower than our American brethren  but is also one of the few countries in the developed world where bandwith data caps are the standard, rather than the exception.
• The free games included in Windows occupy a special spot in any game fanatic's heart. Desperate for entertainment at a boring office job, Grandma's house or school computer, many of us have turned to the likes of Solitaire and Minesweeper. Windows 8 will feature a completely revamped selection of it's classic Windows games, featuring a number of improvements and additions, with the most surprising of all being Minesweeper's adventure mode. Yes, you read that right.



An adventure mode was the one thing Minesweeper fanatics desperately needed

• Last week, a table of Doritos shook up the world of video game journalism. I am referring  of course, to the controversy surrounding Robert Florence's Eurogamer article, questioning the standards of video game journalists. Forbes magazine has a look at the aftermath of the controversy, and what it means for video games journalists (me) and people who read video games journalism (you). Rock-Paper-Shotgun's John Walker also offers a bit of perspective on what happened, and more importantly, what we need to learn from this.

The leaked GTA V poster

• Is Grant Theft Auto V coming in spring, 2013? A leaked poster discovered by gamingbolt seems to think that yes, it is. The poster looks real enough, and when you consider the game's development cycle, it seems like a logical conclusion to come to.
• As last week's piece on Razer's 'mouse DRM' showed, DRM has become a major part of gamer's lives. This youtube video looks at the history of DRM for video games, from it's humble origins as a quirky way of trying to stop pirates, to it's over-development into a tool that is not only ineffective in stopping piracy, but also frequently punishes paying customers.
• To further highlight the utter absurdity of DRM, developers of quirky indie-game Hotline Miami are actually giving customer support to pirates, posting on popular file-sharing website ThePirateBay with tips on how to fix errors that users were experiencing. Hopefully, more and more developers (and publishers) will start to realize that a pirated copy does NOT equal a lost sale, and invasive DRM is not the way to make more people buy your game.
• Team Fortress 2, a beacon of free-content update hope in this world of paid DLC nickle-and-diming, has released it's forth annual Halloween event update. This year, the update will have you battle a ghost wizard in a specially designed King of the Hill Map and fight off a special zombie wave in Mann Vs. Machine mode, as well as unlock new achievements and items. As always, this update comes to you at the low-low cost of $0.
• The Halo 4 hype-train is going full speed ahead. Microsoft aren't letting the seemingly devastating setback of having the entire game leaked onto torrent sites a month before it's release get to them, releasing a gameplay trailer and detailing the game's DLC season pass - a concept that is becoming increasingly popular. The game is also reportedly the most expensive game Microsoft has ever made. Get hype! 

How will Halo 4 fare without Bungie at the helm?

• Last but certainly not least, Natural Selection 2 has been officially released! You can purchase the standard edition for $24.99 or the 'deluxe' edition for $39.99.  I've written about Natural Selection 2 before, having played the beta and been quite impressed! Check out my impressions for more info on the game

Hey guys. So last week, I told you about my new digs over at non-fiction gaming. I've decided that my weekly Wednesday articles (opinions, guides, reviews) will get published over there, BUT, the Saturday round-up will remain on my blog! The reasoning behind this is that the editing process over at NFG takes a bit longer than I expected, and I can't deliver you the 'Saturday Roundup' if it doesn't get published until Monday.

So that’s the news for this week. Be sure to subscribe to my twitter for up-to-date news and blog updates, and check back here every Saturday for more news!

Previous gamer news.