ANNOUNCEMENT: No article this week!

Sorry guys! This week I'm visiting my friend Kyle up in Hokkaido. I'll still have my regular article next Wednesday over at Non-Fiction Gaming, but I won't really have time to keep up with this week's news!

I'd like to take this time to take in some reader feedback. Are there ANY suggestions you can offer me, for both my Saturday roundup here, or my weekly article at Non-Fiction Gaming? I was possibly considering doing the news in a video format, although that may take longer and mean only one news article every two weeks instead of every week.

I hope you had a Merry Christmas and I'll see you next year for another year of Steve's Game Blog!

Highlights of 2012:

• Sleeping Dogs Review.
• Natural Selection 2 Impressions.
• Hey publishers, want people to pirate your game? Impose region restrictions.
• Diablo III Guide to the Infernal Machine.

NEWS: Saturday Roundup

Welcome to the Saturday Roundup, a 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 tidbits that I feel like you guys would enjoy. Let’s see what’s been going on this week:

• WarZ released on Steam this week. Don't buy it (well, you can't even if you wanted to*). WarZ, the open-world zombie MMO, is a reskin and redesign of Hammerpoint's failed War Inc. designed to ride on the coattails of hugely popular ARMA 2 mod DayZ. The game is still officially in Beta (alpha?), yet the Steam release was incredibly misleading, with the developers blatantly lying about included features. They have since updated the description after popular internet personality Total Halibut called them out on their bullshit, yet at the same time released a patch that that increased the respawn-timer from 1 hour to 4 hours and added a revive button, where you can spend 50GC (real money) to revive instantly. Stay away from this one guys, and instead keep a close eye on the impending stand-alone version of DayZ.
  *UPDATE: Valve has been listening! The game has been removed from the Steam store and Valve are offering full-refunds for anyone who submits a ticket.

Enter the dog.

• The second DLC pack for Sleeping Dogs, The Zodiac Tournament, will be the closest you will get to a game based on Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon. Playing homage to the Hong Kong kung fu flicks of the 60's and 70's, The Zodiac Tournament sees Wei Shen invited to an exclusive tournament on a hidden island, where he must overcome the best of the best  fighters from across Asia and emerge victorious. I really enjoyed Sleeping Dogs, and as I am an unashamed fanatic of Hong Kong cinema, I look forward to picking this one up on December 19th.

• Indie games? Indie games. The Humble Indie Bundle is back! After a brief hiatus helping THQ try and get back on it's feet, the Humble Bundle has gone back to its roots with Humble Bundle 7. The games included are: Snapshot, The Binding of Issac (with the recently released DLC),  Closure, Shank 2, and Indie Game: The Movie. You'll also get Dungeon Defenders and Legend of Grimlock if you play more than the average price (at time of writing, $6.16). It's interesting to note that the average price is actually higher than it was for the THQ bundle, which seems to suggest that gamers value indie games higher than triple AAA titles, at least when sold as a part of a humble bundle.
• Remember RAGE? There's some DLC for it. The Scorchers is the first DLC pack for RAGE, and it's available now across all platforms. The package adds a new clan, new weapons, new areas to be angry in, a new "Ultra-Nightmare" difficulty level and the added ability to keep playing the game, even after the story has ended. Am I the only one utterly perplexed by this? RAGE was released over a year ago, and they are only just now pumping out the DLC? Seems like a case of too-little too-late for me.

 Uhhh, Thanks id? RAGE DLC was just what I wanted for Christmas...

• Good Old Games sells games that are both good and old. They are having a sale to 'celebrate' the Mayan Apocalypse that was supposed to happen earlier this week. You can snag up to 75% off 125+ games, including some of my personal favorites, such as Theme Hospital, Duke Nukem 3D and Sam and Max.
• Just when I start thinking 'Hey, I haven't played Team Fortress 2 for a while,' Valve appeases my hat-simulator cravings by announcing a major update to the game. The Mecha update will add a new map to the popular Mann vs Machine horde-mode introduced a few patches ago. Players will get the fight the latest addition to the Gray Mann robot army: The Mecha-Engineer, as well as play with a bunch of new weapons and of course new hats.
  UPDATE: The update is now live! Enjoy fighting robots!
• Valve also announced a partnership with Adult Swim this week, to bring a whole bunch of new hats and misc items to Team Fortress 2. You are now able to dress up your Heavy as Carl from Aqua Teen Hunger Force, or your Scout as a Monarch Minion from The Venture Bros. Previously, TF2 players that signed up for the Adult Swim mailing list received a robot chicken hat.

He solves practical problems.

• The Steam winter holiday sale has begun! As expected, hundreds of games will be up to 75% off, with new daily deals every day, as well as 'flash sales' changing every few hours. There is also a selection of package deals that will be on sale the entire duration of the event. The sale will run until January 4th. Natural Selection 2 will be 40% off for the duration of the sale, which i highly, HIGHLY recommend you pick up!
• iPad user? Interested in Tell Tale Games 'The Walking Dead'? For a limited time only, you can download it 100% free! The Walking Dead is the latest in Tell Tale's series of point-and-click adventure revivals, and is their third foray into an established popular universe, following Back to the Future and Jurrasic Park. I really enjoyed their Monkey Island and Sam and Max games, but I was less than impressed by Back to the Future. I have heard a lot of good things about The Walking Dead though, and I mean... free is free!

So that’s the news for this week. Be sure to subscribe to my twitter for up-to-date news and blog updates, my youtube channel for gaming videos, check out my new digs over at non-fiction gaming for my regular Wednesday article (this week, it's a rather scathing review of Castle Crashers for Steam), and check back here every Saturday for more news!

NEWS: Saturday Roundup

Welcome to the Saturday Roundup, a 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 tidbits that I feel like you guys would enjoy. Let’s see what’s been going on this week:

• Megaman returns in Street Fighter X Megaman. The new platformer will pit Megaman against 8 of Street Fighter's most iconic characters, in place of the usual robot masters. The game is being released as part of a promotion for the 25th anniversary of both Street Fighter and Megaman. Best part? It will be released as a free download for PC on December 17th!
• Last week I showed you how to build your own steambox, but what if you don't have the technical know-how to build your own PC? Don't worry, Valve have you covered, with plans to sell their own pre-built steamboxes. Gabe Newell, managing director of Valve, tells us that "our hardware (the steambox) will be a very controlled environment," and that some people will want a "turnkey" solution for their living room.
• Half-life 2 has been voted game of the decade at this year's VGAs. The game was praised for it's well-paced, cinematic experience that went on to influence countless other games since it's release. Personally, I'm quite happy with this decision as Half-Life 2 is one of my favourite games of all time. How about you guys? Does Half-Life 2 deserve game of the decade, or is there a more worthy contender and why? Let us know in the comments.

• South Park: The Stick of Truth is a game that is being made. I don't really know what else to say about it. You can see a trailer for the game here (skip to the 5 minute mark). The trailer shows all story, and what I'm assuming are cutscenes? I don't really understand how the gameplay is going to work. It seems very... strange, especially considering the last south park game.
• The first piece of DLC for Dishonored has arrived! Dunwall city trials will put your combat, stealth and mobility skills to the test as you make your way through 10 distinct maps that feature a variety of challenges. While I myself haven't played it, Dishonored was generally well-received by critics.
• Is Valve's hit MOBA, DotA 2, coming to tablets? Android Authority seems to think that the developer is suggesting android and ipad versions of the game are being worked on.
  
  “We were working on getting DotA 2 running on some tablets,” he (Gabe Newell) said. “That ended up being kind of a disappointment. But the good news is that tablets are getting faster very quickly, so I think we’ll get the kind of performance we want and other game developers want in the near future.”

I feel like the tablet interface would work well with MOBAs such as DotA 2

• Bioshock: Infinite may have been delayed a month, but that doesn't mean the hype train isn't in full motion! Check out this new trailer recently aired at the VGAs. You'll be able to fight splicers in the sky on March, 2013.
• What is The Phantom Pain? The 'mysterious' trailer was also shown at last week's VGAs. While it is quite a clever piece of viral marketing, fans were quick to point out that it was most definitely Metal Gear Solid V. What do you guys think? Is this MGSV? Do you even want MGSV? Should I be saying MGSV or MGS5?
• I am excited about Aliens: Colonial Marines, so I think this recent hands-on that rock-paper-shotgun had with the PC version of the game is pretty interesting. The good news is that the game seems to hold up pretty damn well, and fans of the old Aliens vs Predator PC games will find themselves right at home here - especially in the multiplayer. The one complaint that the author had was that the game felt a little bit too centred on the Marines themselves, and the Aliens in single player didn't really feel like the Aliens from the films. The game releases on February 12, 2013.

(insert quote from Aliens)

• SimCity is edging ever so closer to it's March 5th release date, so lets have a look at an all-new gameplay video from EA. This video highlights how the new 'multi-city play' feature will work. Even Australia's Financial Review seems to be excited for SimCity, last week publishing a headline that fans might recognize from the original SimCity games
• The Secret World has dropped it's subscription fee. As seems to be par for the course for new MMO's, the company dropped monthly fees in favour of a 'buy-to-play' model, wherein purchasing the retail client grants you full access to all of the games features. Guild Wars made this model particularly popular, proving that you don't need a monthly subscription to have a successful MMO.
• Speaking of MMO's, game update 1.6 is live for Star Wars: The Old Republic. The patch brings six new level 50 space missions as well as the 'Hypergate' PVP scenario. Bioware's MMO recently went free-to-play, though it's obnoxious restrictions for free players caused enough backlash that they are currently revising said restrictions.

Will the Hypergate update bring players back to The Old Republic?

• Want to cash out your TF2 hat collection but are worried about scammers? This week, the developers of the world's number one hat simulator announced the community market.The market allows you to buy and sell TF2 items for funds in your steam wallet. At the moment, it's only available for one-use consumable items (such as keys) and Valve take a small transaction fee from every trade (like Diablo III's real money auction house).

So that’s the news for this week. Be sure to subscribe to my twitter for up-to-date news and blog updates, my youtube channel for gaming videos, check out my new digs over at non-fiction gaming for my regular Wednesday article (this week, it's a Borderlands 2: Mr. Torgue's Campaign of Carnage review), and check back here every Saturday for more news!

NEWS: Saturday Roundup

Welcome to the Saturday Roundup, a 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 tidbits that I feel like you guys would enjoy. Let’s see what’s been going on this week:

• Forget about next-gen consoles that may or may not be arriving soon, build yourself a Steambox for less than $400. TheVerge teaches us how to slap together a budget PC for around $300. Couple this with the newly released 'Big Picture Mode' on Steam, which reformats Steam for use with your TV and game controller, and you've essentially got yourself a media PC that doubles as a home console. With the Steam library growing by the day, and encompassing the vast majority of major console releases, are Sony and Microsoft's console development days numbered?
• On that, to celebrate the release of Big Picture Mode, Steam are having a sale on controller friendly games! The sale lasts until December 10th, and has some fantastic deals, such as Left 4 Dead 2 and Braid for 75% off, the newly-released-on-PC Xbox live hit Castle Crashers and various games in the Lego franchise for 66% off, and some game called Wizorb that I know nothing about but holy cow it's only 74 cents!

Steam's 'Big Picture Mode' brings your Steam library to your living room.

• A League of Legends pro-gamer has been banned from competing in tournaments for a year. Christian Rivera, AKA 'IWillDominate' of team Dignitas was issued the ban earlier this week, for multiple counts of unsportsman-like conduct and in-game harassment. He appeared in the Tribunal, League of Legend's player-participated moderation system, a whopping 9 times and was found guilty for 8 of them. It's nice to see that Riot games don't play favourites, and with this ban issue a firm reminder that even if you are a pro-player, it's not OK to be a douchebag to other players online.
• Pokemon Gold and Silver are often regarded as the best games in the series, and an indie developer has been hard at work recreating it in 3D in a first-person perspective. Players can tromp through grass and battle trainers solo or team up with a friend for some cooperative play via LAN - a feature Pokemon fans have long been asking for. You can download the game for free from IndieDB.

Pokemon 3D

• Skyrim's 2nd major DLC pack, Dragonborn, released for the Xbox 360 this week. The game's plot revolves around the player, thought to be the only Dragonborn around, discovering the existence of another, older Dragonborn, who isn't too impressed that you've been going around kicking the shit out of all of the dragons. PC gamers will have to wait until 2013 to play it, and there's still no word on the PS3 release. I quite enjoyed Dawnguard, the first Skyrim DLC pack, so I'm looking forward to this one. Check out my Dawnguard summary here.
• Bioware is looking to ease it's Star Wars: The Old Republic free-to-play restrictions. Last week I linked a video that detailed the insane, pointless, and downright cruel restrictions that free players had to endure. It looks like Bioware are listening to the fan outcry, and are planning on toning down a lot of the more mundane restrictions.
• Blow the dust off your 3DS, Luigi's Mansion has an English release date! You'll be able to bust ghosts with the younger, less famous Mario brother on March, 2013. I was actually quite impressed with the 3DS when the good games started to flow in. There was a point where I was cycling through Resident Evil: Revelations, Mario Kart 7 and Kid Icarus fairly regularly, but I feel like the console hasn't had a big-name release for too long. Luigi's Mansion could be just what it needs.

Who you gonna call?

• Whether you agreed or disagreed with the ethics behind last week's Humble THQ Bundle, there's no arguing that it was a resounding success, with the bundle raking in over 3 million dollars. There's no breakdown of where the money went (to THQ, charities, or the humble bundle itself), but THQ have seen their share prices rise by almost 40% since the sale began. It's been so successful, in fact, that Titan Quest has been added to the bundle!
• You'll have to wait an extra month for Bioshock: Infinite. The sequel to Irrational Games' deep-under-the-sea RPGFPS will release in March, 2013. This is the second delay for the game, which was originally slated for an October 2012 release date. The delayed was reported to be for 'extra polish and bug fixing'.
• Lastly, what does it mean to be a PC gamer? Robert Gilbert, of Monkey Island fame, discusses this topic with rock-paper-shotgun while talking about his upcoming project The Cave, which he says was developed primarily for the PC. It's no secret that I'm a PC gamer first and foremost, so this kind of discussion greatly interests me.
  
  “To me, making sure that PC game felt really good and natural to play with the mouse – and not just, like, a bad console port to PC – was personally very, very important."
  
  If only more developers would echo Rob's statements, then we wouldn't have so many shoddy PC ports, who's poor sales are blamed on piracy rather that how terrible the porting job was.

The Cave is scheduled for a January 2013 release

So that’s the news for this week. Be sure to subscribe to my twitter for up-to-date news and blog updates, my youtube channel for gaming videos, check out my new digs over at non-fiction gaming for my regular Wednesday article (this week, it's a Hitman: Absolution review), and check back here every Saturday for more news!

NEWS: Saturday Roundup

Welcome to the Saturday Roundup, a 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 tidbits that I feel like you guys would enjoy. Let’s see what’s been going on this week:

• The humble... THQ bundle? The humble bundle team are taking a break from promoting great indie developers and are now using the muscle of a big name publisher to support their charity. You, as a gamer can profit from this, by picking up fantastic games from their library (including Saints row: The Third and Metro: 2033) on the cheap! However, Ben Kucheka of the Penny-Arcade report says that this might be a nefarious step backwards for the humble bundle. The tenants of the bundle have, before now, been: to support indie developers, support charity, and offer DRM free versions of games to fans. Two of those three tenants has been lost with this not-so-humble bundle.
• Bioshock: Infinite will not have a multiplayer mode. Ken Levine confirmed this on his twitter earlier this week. Many gamers felt that Bioshock 2's multiplayer mode was both tacked on, and actively went against the feeling and atmosphere of Bioshock. It's good to hear that this time around the team will focus on what makes Bioshock so memorable - the singleplayer story.
• Star Wars: The Old Republic recently went free-to-play. You may no doubt be wondering how the 'free-to-play' mode stacks up against the unburdened subscriber mode. YouTube user HaasGaming has a look at what restrictions free-to-play players can expect. TL;DR? You get the full 1-50 story experience, but are severely gimped on everything else, with some restrictions (such as decreased XP gain and limited use of transport options) just being downright cruel.

The original Bioshock did not have a multi-player mode

• The 3DS may experience a price cut in the near future. Been holding off buying Nintendo latest handheld? You may want to hold on a little bit longer, as gamingbolt covers a rumor that Nintendo will soon issue a price cut, with the original system dropping to $139, and the XL, while not being reduced per se, is getting a bundle with Mario Kart 7 for $199. The price cut for the 3DS will reportedly come into effect on December 9th.
• Baulder's Gate enhanced edition was released this week. Baulder's Gate is a western RPG standard, and the game that first put Bioware, of Mass Effect and Dragon Age fame into the spotlight. Overhaul games have been hard at work on the enhanced edition, which adds a wealth of new features and content to the original game, and runs in the latest version of Windows.
• Square Enix's Tomb Raider reboot will have a campaign lasting 12-15 hours. This is very good news to hear, as a lot of action games these days are lucky to even break the 10 hour mark for their singleplayer campaign. The bad news? Lara will have the dreaded 'regenerative health' made popular by the Call of Duty games, and won't be able to swim at all. Swimming played a big part in previous Tomb Raider games so i'm a bit sad to see this go. Tomb Raider is scheduled for a March, 2013 release.

Will the new Tomb Raider reboot sink or swim?

• Naysayers claim that PC gaming is dying every few years, yet indie developer Cold Beam Games certainly don't think so, as this week they announced that the PC version of their hit rhythm game Beat Hazard sold more than every other platform COMBINED. Indie developers have long applauded the Steam platform, which with the recently released greenlight makes it easier than ever for small timers to publish their breakout game.

The  Wii mini

• Nintendo announces the Wii Mini. The first redesign for Nintendo's popular console will arrive on December 7th and retail for $99.99. The catch? The console cannot connect to the internet, nor play gamecube games. This cuts it off from the growing library of WiiWare and Virtual console games. It's also, bizzareley, exclusive to Canada, although I'm sure that exclusivity will wane in coming months.While Nintendo are no strangers to redesigns, (the DS had 3 and the 3DS has already received one) it does seem odd to release a revision of the Wii now, so soon after the launch of the WiiU. I have a feeling that many kids asking Santa Claus for 'the new Wii' are going to be in for a shock on Christmas morning.
• Speaking of the WiiU, has it already been hacked?!?! This video demonstrates the homebrew channel, which is used to run numerous homebrew applications, including some that can by-pass region locks and other DRM enforced by Nintendo, running on the system. At this point it's more of a proof-of-concept, but it just goes to show that hackers are always one step ahead of developers.
• Grand Theft Auto V will not be available on PC at launch, but 100,000 (and growing) fans hope to change that. There's a petition going around that implores Rockstar games to release the game for PC. While all GTA games have eventually seen a PC release, the wait is usually quite long, with the PC version of GTA IV, for example, coming out a full seven months after the console releases. Rockstar have stated that there are 'no plans' for a PC version at this time.
• Get your fix of new Battlefield 3 content just in time for Christmas. Aftermath, the game's 4th DLC pack will release on December 18th. As well as a series of post-earthquake themed maps, new weapons and modified vehicles, the pack boasts the new 'Scavenger' gamemode.
  
  "Scavenger mode – an objective based conquest where players must brave the environment armed with only one sidearm, as they try to find more powerful weapons in an attempt to survive with their squad."
  
  It is available for $14.99 individually, or $49.99 as part of Battlefield 3: Premium, which includes all previously released DLC packs, as well as a fifth, unreleased pack. I stopped playing BF3 shortly after Back to Karkand was released, so I'm not sure how much the game has changed back then. Is it worth coming back to? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

The crossbow - one of the new weapons in Aftermath

• To all you Zelda fanboys out there, gametrailers have done a full timeline. Be warned, the episode is 30 minutes long. I'm not the biggest Zelda fanboy (my favourite Zelda game was Spirit Tracks...) but I've enjoyed it from time to time, and you can bet your bottom dollar we'll see a new instalment of the series on the WiiU in the near future.
• Lastly, Minecraft is being used to aid UN regeneration projects. Minecraft is indie gaming's little engine that could, proving that you don't need a big budget publisher to play with the big boys. It's influence has spread from the gaming world to the real world, as the UN are using the build-anything sandbox to model development plans for over 300 places over the world, so residents can see how the landscape will change.

So that’s the news for this week. Be sure to subscribe to my twitter for up-to-date news and blog updates, my youtube channel for gaming videos, check out my new digs over at non-fiction gaming for my regular Wednesday article, and check back here every Saturday for more news!