343 Industries released an absolute avalanche of statistics and other information recapping the Halo 5: Guardians beta on Thursday, detailing the testing phase which ran for three weeks at the end of December through into early January.

The beta phase was scheduled a little less than a year ahead of the game’s scheduled release date this coming fall, marking the earliest that Microsoft had ever launched a Halo beta in the history of the franchise.

343 Industries was positively blown away by the response it received from the beta, which saw about a million gamers knock out just over 20 million matches over its entire duration. Those millions upon millions of matches — which exceeded the developer’s expectations a great deal — provided the team with invaluable feedback regarding how it could tweak the multiplayer experience to perfection ahead of the game’s official release.

343 executive producer Josh Holmes talked about the philosophy of the team in regards to why exactly the beta was even considered and what the team hoped to accomplish.

“With Halo 5 being such a big evolution of the combat experience for Halo, we wanted to be able to take these new mechanics, the new Spartan Abilities, and put them in the hands of the community and use that feedback to hone the experience,” he said.

Although there were some internal doubts within 343 Industries about whether or not releasing the beta so early was a good idea, Holmes said that the devs now understand just how valuable the beta process was to making an exceptional game.

“Some people [said], ‘Should we really be doing it this early?’ And now, coming out the other side and having all that great feedback and data we can use to inform our development; those same people are like, ‘Yeah, really, really glad that we did this.'”

“I think everybody was nervous and excited to see how fans would react to a lot of the new mechanics, the new ideas, the new modes,” he went on. “A combination of excitement and nervous energy, and maybe a little bit of exhaustion as well because there’s just so much work that goes into packaging something up, getting it ready for release, releasing it, and then supporting that throughout the process of the beta.”

And now, let us dive headlong into the deliciously delightful world of the Halo 5 beta stats and planned gameplay tweaks.

Ready? Let’s roll!

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HALO 5 BETA STATS & TWEAKS

STATS:

• Total Number of Player: About 1 million
• Total matches played: nearly 20 million
• Total gameplay hours: 2,539,847
• Total Kills: 181,389,366
• Total Assists: 92,245,468
• Total Ground Pound Kills: 565,902
• Total Spartan Charge Kills: 1,286,085
• Frag Grenade Kills: 11,529,664
• Plasma Grenade Kills: 1,104,218
• Total Shots Fired: 6,492,761,794
• Battle Rifles were carried for: the equivalent of 207 days
• Most popular power weapon: Sniper Rifle – 6,606,200 kills
• Most Medals Earned: 24,998 (SSlCK)
• Killpocalypse Medals Earned: 1 (Omnipression)
• Total hours watched on Twitch: 44,693,800
• Most minutes watched on Twitch of a single gamer: 7,852,300 (Ninja)
• Gamers with the most unique viewers on Twitch:
  • Ninja: 437,960
  • Walshy: 348,460
• Red vs Blue Win Percentage: Red: 47.45%, Blue: 52.55%

CHANGES:

Spartan Abilities:

• Don’t like Sprint in your Halo? You’re in luck, as 343 will allow you to toggle off Sprint and all other Spartan Abilities in custom games.
• Increase base speed (faster base movement)
• Increase strafe acceleration (faster, more responsive strafing)
• Reduce top sprint speed (narrow the delta between base movement and sprint)
• Modify Ground Pound controls to prevent conflicts w/ crouch jumping
• General tuning & bug fixes for all Spartan Abilities (Thrusters, Clamber, Ground Pound, etc.)

Weapons:

• Goal is to balance all weapons to be equally effective both in and out of zoom while continuing to respect the function of each mode.
• 343 is changing the Hydra weapon to make it more effective when not zoomed so that it feels like a true power weapon.
• Sniper Rifle: improve scope experience to making it less “clunky” and faster to scope in
• DMR: adjust position of the scope to improve visibility
• Bring back the SPNKr Rocket Launcher as a legendary version of the weapon
• Reduce bonuses for automatic weapons in Smart-Link & w/ headshots
• Remove grenade detonation in mid-air based on weapon fire
• Ability to turn on/off vibration feedback for weapons
• General tuning and bug fixing for all weapons

Presentation

• Remember those intro and victory sequences, when Spartans would chest-bump and high-five? 343 now thinks that doesn’t quite fit with the game’s tone. As a result, you can expect the final sequences to feature considerably fewer chest bumps and high fives.
• Post-death replay: this will become an opt-in feature. After death, players will see a traditional follow-cam and have the option to view a replay of their death from the killer’s perspective (as long as the feature is enabled within the playlist)
• Medals: decrease frequency and number of medals displayed in the medal feed
• Spartan chatter: players will have the option to turn this on or off in the settings menu
• Adding highlights to placed/dropped weapons to make them easier to see
• General tuning for announcer and Spartan chatter to reduce the frequency of events and focus on the information that matters most to players

Competitive Skill Ranking

“Our skill rating system is one of the pillars for competitive play of Halo 5: Guardians and we’ll be continuing to refine it throughout development. The focus for our team coming out of the beta includes:

• Improved skill detection during placement phase
• Improved skill matching
• Improved team balancing
• Prevent skill boosting
• General bug fixing & tuning

Matchmaking

Did you think the Halo 5 matchmaking system didn’t adequately match-up players of a similar skill? Then you’re in luck, friend! 343 Industries stated that it’s tweaking the matchmaking system from the ground up and not only will you get into actual games faster but you’ll also be placed into more competitive matches on a much more regular basis.

Post-beta, the 343 team plans to focus on working on and improving the following multiplayer aspects:

• Much faster matches
• Better skill matching
• Better feedback to players in the lobby and matchmaking experiences
• Allow players to set desired datacenter for matchmaking (may impact matchmaking speed and skill balance)
• Improved party vs party matchmaking
• Hide CSR ranks until in match to de-incentivize quitting
• Punish quitters with CSR penalties and matchmaking bans

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That about does it, though, boys and girls. As if we weren’t already looking forward to Halo 5 the same way we used to look forward to Christmas as a kid, now we’re looking forward to it even more so. Gee thanks 343 Industries!

Leading free-to-play mobile, desktop and social game developer Game Insight today announced an incredible bonanza of Thanksgiving fun, stuffing several of its hit titles full of themed in-game treats, events and items. The bonuses and extras will appear over the Thanksgiving holiday across multiple platforms and app stores including the App Store, Google Play, Facebook, Windows Phone Store, Windows Store and Amazon Appstore.
Some of the smash-hit titles receiving bonuses include The Tribez, Sunshine Bay, Cloud Raiders, 2020: My Country, Airport City and Mystery Manor. Each game will feature a wide array of Thanksgiving related treats including turkey meals, Turkey statues in cities, Thanksgiving- themed quests and collections; there’s also a special appearance of the ferocious Turkinator boss in Cloud Raiders whose flock will leave your base in ruins if you don’t defeat it.
The full list of games includes:

• 2020: My Country
• Airport City
• Big Business Deluxe
• Cloud Raiders
• Flower House
• Legacy of Transylvania
• Love and Dragons
• Mirrors of Albion
• Mysterior
• Mystery Manor HD
• Paradise Island
• Sunshine Bay
• The Tribez

More information can be found at http://www.game-insight.com

The end-of-the-year extravaganza has passed, and now you’ve come into 2013 with a clean slate and an empty backlog, right? (It’s okay, I know your pain).  As the industry readies itself for another console generation, we the consumers are left wondering: what’s next? What more could they possibly do to change how we perceive games? Technology will always improve, but it’s how we interact with the medium that leaves the lasting impression.

Over the last year we’ve seen a number of things that make for a promising future; many of those things are the games themselves, the entire reason we exist as contributors to this industry. Some hope to remove the boundary between gaming as an interactive versus a passive experience, while others aim to build upon a foundation in order to evolve with the standards.  The gaming industry is in dire need of a renaissance, and if we’re lucky, some of these games will be the start of it.

Cyberpunk 2077

CD Projekt RED is perhaps best known for bringing to life one of Poland’s most popular fantasy novels, The Witcher, but what many people don’t know is that they also run GOG.com, a digital catalogue of thousands of classic games no longer available in physical format. When word spread that RED was intent on turning the classic pen-and-paper RPG Cyberpunk into a video game, it just made sense. But not only did it seem right up their alley, it was something sorely lacking in the market. The cyberpunk setting is a road so rarely traveled in the gaming industry that often it feels watered down and underrepresented when we finally do see it on the screen. It’s most known for games like Deus Ex and System Shock, and of course popularized by movie classics such as Blade Runner and Brazil, but it’s about time we started to see the cyberpunk setting really make a name for itself in the gaming world and step out of the shadow of its younger, more popular, albeit less attractive brother, steampunk. And CD Project RED is the perfect studio to bring about that revolution.

Watch Dogs

When Ubisoft first unveiled their radical new IP at 2012’s E3, most people didn’t know what to expect. The vast majority was impressed, but left wanting more. Since then the Montreal-based team at Ubisoft working on the project has remained relatively tight-lipped about the project. The premise centers around the player’s ability to hack into any electronic device in the immediate area: street lights, cell phones, cameras – anything. Not only did the game look stunning, but it showed off tremendous animations and lighting that emasculates anything of recent years. This gadgets-and-gizmos open world game looks to shake the genre up and provide a sandbox experience like few others, and in our modern world consumed with the lust for technology, it couldn’t have come at a better time.

Star Citizen

Star what? If you’re not familiar with this game, educate yourself quickly. Star Citizen is an upcoming space simulation game developed by Chris Roberts, the man behind the Wing Commander series. It is also, to date, the highest funded crowd-sourced project ever. As of November 17, 2012, it has earned over $4.2 million dollars from both Kickstarter and donations via the game’s main website, the latter of which is still ongoing. Star Citizen promises to bring immersion to the front of the table. Taking cues from Demon’s Souls and a little virtual sim known as real life, atmosphere will be Roberts’s top concern, wanting to make a game that not only looks and plays right, but feels right; one that isn’t bogged down by logistics and spreadsheets. If it goes off without a hitch, Star Citizen could quite possibly become one of the most important games ever made.

Dark Souls 2

I admit this is a bit of a personal admission on my part. I hold the Souls series to such high standards; it almost feels unfair of me to include it, near nepotistic. But one cannot deny the impact that this franchise has had on the industry. Demon’s Souls answered one of the most seminal questions that many had pondered over for decades: can a game with absolutely zero mass marketing, with an unquestionable sense of danger and urgency, be a commercial success? The answer was a resounding yes. Dark Souls took the series to another level by introducing a meticulously crafted, interconnected world full of shortcuts, pitfalls, and hidden rooms. Dark Souls 2, helmed by new directors Tomohiro Shibuya and Yui Tanimura, promises to retain the sense of accomplishment in a world fraught with peril that made the first two so genuinely satisfying, as well as the second game’s heightened exploration, all while refining and polishing up some of the admittedly rougher edges (like the game’s ingenious yet fickle multiplayer system, and the obtuse Covenants introduced in Dark Souls).

Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes

The Metal Gear Solid series has always been on the cutting edge of technological advancement. Ground Zeroes hopes to take that precedent even further. The first-unveiled trailer for the game, coming in at near 11-minutes long, boasted some of the most impressive visuals seen in a game to date. Not only that, but the game’s cutscene transitioned seamlessly into gameplay without a pixel of lost resolution or texture quality. This kind of precision engineering is courtesy of the Fox engine, built from the ground up specifically for this game. If Kojima and his team can perfect that marriage of visual spectacle and interactive entertainment, then the future of the industry has just had its bar set pretty high.

In the next article, I’ll examine five more games that have the potential to make a serious dent in the state of modern gaming, but have equal the chance of becoming outright failures.

It’s my favorite time of the year, when opinions clash over what game should and shouldn’t win inconsequential award shows, and when the anticipation for next year’s inevitable disappointments is still in unchecked levels of hype mode. Your favorites are my favorites and my favorites are your favorites, or some such nonsense. Ignore all that. I’m here to tell you what I enjoyed the most from the thousands or so games I managed to play in these last 365 days. (And by thousands, I mean probably 20 or 30, because as we all know, you can’t have a “complete” list unless you’ve played every single game, right internet?)

So, let’s get right to it, shall we?

10. The Darkness II

The original Darkness is one of my top five games of all time, so let’s be clear about this: there was little chance The Darkness II was going to surpass it. The removal of Kirk Acevedo as the voice of Jackie Estacado, and the shift in developers to a more dubious group of individuals set some pretty low standards for this game. But as it turned out, The Darkness II was a respectful continuation of that story that I love so much. And while the ending felt fairly rushed, and the game’s campaign was on the short end, the improvements to gameplay and Mike Patton’s incomparable return as the titular character secure The Darkness II at the tenth spot on my list.

9. The Last Story

Nintendo’s pun-friendly console refuses to die. Last year’s Monolith Soft’s Wii exclusive Xenoblade Chronicles managed to sneak its way up to the second place on my list, and this year, Mistwalker’s The Last Story finds itself on the back-end of my picks. Hironobu Sakaguchi’s love letter to the Japanese Role-Playing Game evokes memories of his first classic, the original Final Fantasy. With no shortage of obvious similarities in title, The Last Story is memorable mostly for its endearing and evolving cast of characters. Sure, the story is fairly typical and the combat is on the frustrating side of complex, but this ragtag group of individuals is one of the most genuine bunch you’ll likely find in any game this year.

8. Assassin’s Creed III

Ubisoft had a tough act to follow after their three-game epic starring Ezio Auditore da Firenze. And while Connor doesn’t exactly meet his ancestor’s charm or charisma, he definitely has the heart. Assassin’s Creed III’s thoughtful take on the American Revolution expands on the time-traveling wizardry of series protagonist Desmond Miles, while also setting up inevitable sequels in the best way Ubisoft Montreal knows how: cliff-hangers. Though the game was marred by a number of bugs, the struggle of Connor and Achilles, and the bonds formed with your Homestead inhabitants are things I’ll remember most fondly.

7. The Walking Dead

Few things can claim total multi-media domination like The Walking Dead. This long-standing comic series-turned-tv-show-turned-video-game franchise has become a household name in the last year alone. Telltale Games’s five-part saga about a convicted murderer, an orphaned child, and a number of other stranded survivors during the zombie apocalypse managed to do something that so many games of a similar endeavor fail at: it treated its source material with respect. Adaptations of licensed products often end miserably, with few exceptions. The Walking Dead series of adventure games is probably (no, definitely) the best use of a licensed property.

6. Far Cry 3

Massive island to explore; intelligent enemy and wildlife AI; the creativity to play how you want to; and one of the most fascinating villains in recent years; Far Cry 3 is everything good and just about shooters and open world games. Ubisoft brings the series back to its former tropical glory and shows us just what’s in store for the genre in the years to come. When you get tired of playing your standard run-and-gun military shooter or your 700^th round of team deathmatch, take a trip down to the Pacific.

5. Spec Ops: The Line

From a shooter willing to push the genre further, to one content to stay in the past. The strange irony is, for Spec Ops: The Line, it needs to feel like your average run of the mill war simulator. That’s the point. Where every other shooter of its ilk glorifies the art of war and killing, Spec Ops demonizes it, makes you question the value and entertainment of it. The genius minds at Yager Deveolpment sought to create a character so conflicted with his ideals about upholding justice and peace, while at the same time feeling overwhelmed by the immense prowess that he exhibits. This bold retelling of Joseph Conrad’s classic novel Heart of Darkness finds its hero, Martin Walker, in search of his own Colonel Kurtz – a once-revered war hero named John Konrad. The result is a game that treats its subject matter with the utmost respect and shows us that war is not a game, and one’s descent into darkness can lead men to do terrible, unimaginable things. Just remember: white phosphorus.

4. X-COM: Enemy Unknown

Oh, how I hate you, X-COM. And yet I love you so. You’re the abusive spouse in my relationship, the one I can’t stand to be around but I’m too afraid to leave. Every second I spent with you was wonderful agony. I lost many friends because of you, whose names are now etched into the hull of my underground headquarters. I vanquished much alien scum, shot down hundreds of UFOs, and researched countless projects. I even fought alongside the legendary Sid Meier in a few battles. I will never forget you, X-COM. But please, stop killing all of my units.

3. Max Payne 3

Max, dearest of all my friends. Rockstar did the unthinkable. They shaved your head. “Doomed!” was Max Payne, they said. They of little faith. You showed them, didn’t you? Unmatched physics, spectacular attention to detail, and the same soul-crushing feeling of self-guilt you were always known for. Sure, you may have toned down a bit on the long-winded analogies, but hey, you’re getting older. I understand. You’ll always have a place on my shelf, Max.

2. Rift: Storm Legion

On first consideration, I didn’t think to include this on my list. It’s just an expansion, after all. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized how irrelevant that sounded. Besides, there’s nothing else on this list (either individually or combined) that I’ve put more hours into besides Storm Legion. They say MMOs are a drug, well let me tell you: they’re heroine. Trion’s sophomore launch didn’t go off without a hitch (unlike the release of the base game last year), but the expansion’s pound-for-pound value make it one of the most jam-packed content updates I’ve had the pleasure of seeing in a long time. With more than triple the size of new real estate, a dozen new dungeons (either raid or party sized), more levels and classes, and the best player housing system seen in any MMO period, Storm Legion is a rousing success.

1. Dragon’s Dogma

You know a game is good when it tries its hardest to make you hate it, and you just can’t. Enter Dragon’s Dogma. Not since Deadly Premonition have I seen a game with such a conflicted sensibility about itself. On one hand, Dogma is a sprawling action epic with hundreds of exciting monsters to kill and miles and miles of land to explore. It has a tremendously diverse class system that allows you to mix and match traits from each one, and one of the most ingenious uses of passive multiplayer I have ever seen. And yet, on the other hand, the game’s quests system was archaic, the amount of on-foot traveling through well-ventured areas was borderline insulting, and the pacing hit a major lull in the second act. Despite this, if there’s one thing I’m most looking forward to seeing more of in the years to come, it’s Dragon’s Dogma. With some major refinements, this potential series could find its way up to my pantheon of RPGs inhabited only by a special few: Final Fantasy Tactics, Demon’s Souls, and Dark Souls. On a final note, Dragon’s Dogma has one of the most thrilling final boss battles – ever. (No, not the Seneschal. The other one).

Notable Absence: Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition

I wanted to include this on my list. I really did. Anyone who knows me personally knows I’d give Dark Souls “Sports Game of the Year” if I could. But as I considered it, I realized it would be unfair to the 10 games I did select to have to remove one of them to make way for a game I had already named as my favorite game of the year back in 2011. Though the Prepare to Die edition offers enough content on its own to merit some sort of recognition, the game, as a whole, was still merely a port to the PC with the inclusion of the downloadable content. In any case, there’s always Dark Souls II.

I recently got the opportunity to enter into the PlanetSide 2 Beta and join the mayhem. Having never played the original, I was diving headfirst into an established name with little knowledge of the concepts or ideas behind the game’s large-scale conflicts.

PlanetSide 2 is a massively multiplayer first-person shooter set on the vast, ravaged planet of Auraxis. You play as one of three military factions: the New Conglomerate, the Vanu Sovereignty, or the Terran Republic. Unlike most traditional MMOs, there are no quest systems, no raids or dungeons, no crafting. The object of the game – the sole purpose – is conquest. Take control of tactical outposts, research labs, and other fortified structures and earn more resources. The resources gained are used for a variety of functions, including spawning vehicles, resupplying certain weaponry, and purchasing upgraded firearms. There is no ultimate end game in PlanetSide 2, no final boss or goal. The fighting never stops.

It’s a game where hours of struggle could persist into the long hours of night. Because it’s an MMO, it’s a persistent world, meaning that you could stop playing while your faction is making a push on a certain base, come back later, and see that they’re still making their assault. The scale of combat in a game like this is simply unprecedented. Up to 2000 players across three factions locked in an eternal struggle for control. PlanetSide 2 will also feature a Day/Night cycle, which will give combat an even greater strategic element. Do you wait until nightfall to assault a base, under the cover of dark, or do you attack in broad daylight? This is the definitive PVP experience anyone could ask for.

The game feels familiar for any fan of shooters, but it’s not the simple run-and-gun kind of gameplay found in a Call of Duty. Combat is more tactical, more strategic. The aid of vehicles – from large assault tanks and transport vehicles to a number of different fighter jets – makes battles on land and in the air equally important. The first night I played, I witnessed a truly awe-inspiring scene. I was playing with a friend, who was experienced with the game and was showing me the ropes. And as we were driving around, an entire convoy of tanks rolled up alongside us and made their way toward the nearest point of interest: nearly forty tanks on screen moving as one cohesive unit to attack the enemy base. You just don’t see that kind of thing in any other game.

Upon creating your character (which is a simple matter of picking a face type, skin color, and faction), you’ll drop right into the game starting as the Light Assault class. There are half a dozen classes in total to choose from, each with a unique special ability: Light Assault has a jetpack that allows them to maneuver vertical terrain more easily, and gives them access to many vantage points; Heavy Assault can engage a protective shield that enhances their existing outer layer of armor for a set duration; Infiltrator can gain temporary stealth as they sneak into bases or find prime sniping positions; Medic can revive fallen teammates, and both heal themselves and others; Engineers can repair damaged vehicles and drop ammo resupply boxes in the field; and the Max is a special class that costs a certain resource to turn into, but they are a powerful unit wielding two automatic rifles and operate inside of gargantuan bipedal mech.

Throughout your time in the game you’ll earn the various resources that I mentioned, each with a specific purpose. But perhaps the most important one of all is Auraxium, gained specifically from defending or capturing bases. Auraxium is used to purchase superior firearms through the in-game store. Because of its difficulty to gain, and because most of the items you can buy with it are fairly expensive, they are usually well worth the trouble when you do acquire them. Players will also gain Certs, or Certifications, while playing, and these are used for character upgrades. You’ll be able to earn weapon attachments, enhanced skills, improved vehicle performance, and more.

There’s certainly a lot to be said about a game like this, which as it stands now is still a ways off from release. PlanetSide 2 has no release date in mind, but is set to launch with the freemium business model akin to League of Legends: the game will be entirely free to play and will feature an in-game cash shop, but the items sold are mostly cosmetic, with nothing there that will give paying players a distinct advantage over others. Further, these same items can also be earned through normal gameplay progression if you do not wish to pay for them.

Although I’m still fairly early in my experience of PlanetSide 2, there’s enough there for me to say that I am incredibly excited about the full product. There’s a particular moment during one of my sessions that I’ll always remember. We, the New Conglomerate, were attacking a Terran Republic base. We’d been at it for a good hour or two. It was the definition of a battle of attrition. Neither side would concede. But slowly we chipped away at their defenses, and before much longer, we’d destroyed the generators powering the shields that protected the innermost sanctum of the base. And inward we went: our tanks rolled up, our infantry charged through. The Terrans were outnumbered, and soon the base was ours. We had reaped the rewards of a long, hard-fought struggle.

And then I opened the map. And on the map, there are exclamation marks used to designate points of conflict. Upon zooming out for a full view, I saw roughly five exclamation marks across the entire zone, five other bases under siege. And then I realized that our little skirmish that we’d just fought so hard to conquer, and push the opposing faction out, was only one of many. That battles just like this, some smaller, some larger, but all with the exact same amount of attrition, were being waged across the entire world. All at the same time.

And that is awesome.

Did somebody say games? No? Well, I’m gonna, so whatever. The weekly latecast of me bringing you fine people the latest games late continues unabated, with a full two day lateness this week! I swear, one day, I’ll get my schedule sorted out so that I have time on Sundays but until then, enjoy the guessing game.

Of note, I actually followed up on my comment last week about The Testament of Sherlock Holmes and…yeah, that game isn’t great. Probably coulda called that, but hey, you never know until you try it, right?

Anyway, that’s old news. Onto this week!

Coming out this week:

Carrier Command: Gaea Mission – October 2nd for PC & X360
This remake of the original 1988 Carrier Command is curiously being developed by the same developer, Bohemia Interactive, that created the first, leading me to wonder whether or not this is a real remake, or more of a reboot. But, hey, who am I to argue with Bohemia after the revitalised success that Arma II had had since DayZ‘s release, not to mention the impending DayZ retail release?

NBA 2K13 — October 2nd for PC, PS3, PSP, X360 & Wii
You guys like Basketball, right? Well here comes the biggest Basketball release of the year to not come packaged with a free basketball! Hell, it’ll still probably be bigger than NBA Baller Beats, because really, who the hell bought NBA Baller Beats?

New Little King’s Story — October 2nd for PSVita
The sequel to the Wii’s Little King’s Story will, according to Japanese magazine Famitsu, have “love elements, along with new visual stylings for its characters.” Without delving into press material, that’s all I could find about NLKS (although, let’s face it, that quote is just about the press-iest thing anybody could ever say about a JRPG.)

NiGHTS into Dreams… — October 2nd for PSN, October 5th for XBLA
One of the top selling games from the Saturn era comes to your Hard-Drive on digital platforms! Includes levels from some weird expansion thing called Christmas Nights! Can you tell I have no interest in this game at all?!

Resident Evil 6 — October 2nd for PS3 & X360
Speaking of games I (and the rest of the OWNT staff) have no interest in, there’s Resident Evil 6. In the coming months, we’re planning to get reviews out for all the major releases, but honestly…I don’t think there’s any point to an RE6 review. From what I understand of the series, you need to have a longstanding relationship with Resident Evil to comment on this title, which I don’t think any of us have, and the reception it’s received so far has been polarizing enough that if you’re really on the fence (after what I understand was an utterly abysmal demo), you should probably read the review from somebody who actually knows what they’re talking about. Might sound like some sort of a cop-out, but hey, full disclosure is a thing, so there you go.

Sonic Adventure 2 — October 2nd for PSN, October 5th for XBLA
I’m gonna go out on a professional limb here and make what other people have led me to believe is a controversial opinion: Fuck Sonic. I hate Sonic. I’ve never liked Sonic and I don’t get the appeal. Maybe my reflexes just kinda suck and I’m looking to blame the game, but I’ve never had a great deal of difficulty with other games based on speed, like say Burnout. If you do like the little furry hedgehog, though, here, take some classic Dreamcast era Sonic, and enjoy! Wait, when did the Dreamcast become classic? Sheeesh.

Port Royale 3 — October 4th for PS3 & X360
Port Royale is apparently a business simulation game and I’m already bored. Except for maybe you can be a pirate! Which isn’t boring. But if you can’t, this is probably a game solely for the businessy sorts, like OWNT’s founder Coop, because I guarantee he’s the only one on staff who knows how to turn a profit. The only one.

Remington’s Super Slam Ultimate Sportsman Challenge — October 5th for PS3 & X360
Hey, you! Are you so sports?! Yeah, but are you ultimate sports?! Yeah, but are you SUPER SLAM ULTIMATE SPORTS?! Then go out and buy this goddamn light-gun game. Maybe lay off the adrenaline inducers as well, the veins in your neck are freaking me the hell out.

Pokémon Dream Radar – October 7th for 3DS
This downloadable Pokémon game barely seems to be an actual game, and more a sort of AR-enhanced DLC for the real Pokémon game that comes out this week. See below.

Pokémon: Black & White Version 2 — October 7th for NDS
Well, they made another Pokémon game. This one, believe it or not, is a Japanese Role Playing Game in which you collect pocket monsters and utilize their varied skills in pitting them through inhumane duels with their kin, before enslaving them within miniature balls that would fail to pass Geneva Convention standards for Prisoner of War containment! You know if you’re buying this or not already.

OH! Before I forget, I think The Walking Dead: Episode Four is coming out this week. Just watch me be wrong.

Well, that’s Your Week in Games. See you next week. Maybe on time this week.

The Mass Effect series has (as was predicted by anyone with a brain) been given it’s own box collection.

The set will come with:

•  Mass Effect
• Mass Effect 2
• Mass Effect 3
• Exclusive box featuring Commander Shepard Artwork

While it’s been confirmed that the set will come with the Mass Effect 3 multiplayer, there is no word yet as to whether or not this set will contain any of the DLC for the three games.

The sheer amount of DLC for the three Mass Effect games adds up to roughly the cost of another game.So while I can’t see Bioware withholding it from the set, it seems very strange that they haven’t explicitly stated whether or not it will be included.

Aside from the ambiguity about the DLC, this seems like a fairly skinny box-set. The majority of box-collections either come with HD polish or some form of art book, figurine, or something along those lines, to entice fans to buy the game again.

The only possible reason a fan of this series would purchase this pack is if they play Mass Effect on the Playstation 3. The original Mass Effect was never released for the PS3, but this new box-set will contain a PS3 compatible version of the game that started a great series and ended with a million bawling fanboys.

Otherwise I’m assuming that putting the three games under a$60 price-tag is to entice people that have never played Mass Effect. What Bioware fail to realize however, is that the only people that haven’t played Mass Effect are either too young to read the conversation options, too old to enjoy the rampant lesbianism, or likely turned off by all the hooah surrounding by the ME3 ending.

The Mass Effect Trilogy will be released on November 6th and you can find out more about it here.

I know, I know, I’m a day late. Cut me some slack, I broke 3 toes today. No punchline here, only pain, kinda like this weeks releases, amiright?! Yeah? No? Psch, whatever.

Coming out this week:

Dead or Alive 5 — September 25th for PS3 & X360
If you like women in bikini’s kicking the living shit out of each other, you’ll probably like this! If you’re more into ‘the art’ of fighting games, though, you might wanna skip this and keep to Tekken Tag Tournament 2, which I hear is pretty good.

Disney Princess: My Fairytale Adventure — September 25th for PC, Wii & 3DS
What with the growing general interest in broniism and whatnot, I imagine any degrading comments I could make about these sorts of kid-friendly games will sooner or later result in management calling down to me from their cloud of dollars and telling me to cool down a little. That day hasn’t arrived yet, though, so if you’re expecting any real information about this game…what is wrong with you?! Ah, I kid, I kid. I actually watched a couple of episodes of My Little Pony with my niece a few months ago and you know what? That show is entertaining enough that I get why some people would be attracted to it. Apart from obscene animated crushes, though, I don’t know what people’s deal is with Disney Princesses…

DragonBall Z for Kinect — September 25th for X360
Namco Bandai refused to respond to my query as to whether DBZ for Kinect would cost “OVER NINE-THOUSAND (DOLLARS)”.  I probably wouldn’t have responded to such a question either, to be fair.

FIFA Soccer 13 – September 25th for PC, PS3, PSP, X360, 3DS
Over here in Britain, this game is just referred to as FIFA because ‘soccer’ is not a word. You crazy Americans.

Final Fantasy III —  September 25th for PSP
In Square Enix’s eternal quest to bring every FF game to the PSP, no matter how out-dated the hardware may seem to the rest of us, FFIII follows suit.

Grand Theft Auto III — September 25th for PSN
A part of me is still trying to comprehend how GTAIII wasn’t already on PSN. Does this mean that Vice City and San Andreas aren’t on there either? WHAT SORT OF WORLD ARE WE LIVING IN?!

LittleBigPlanet PS Vita — September 25th for PSVita
New rule: I’m not going to comment on any title that includes the name of the system it is being featured on within its title because you probably already know what to expect. Starting…Now.

One Piece: Pirate Warriors — September 25th for PS3
Apparently One Piece is a manga, rather than a swimsuit, as I first assumed. However, because that manga is not Ghost in the Shell, Akira, Battle Royale or something, you know, recognisable, I can’t say I care about this game. Probably doesn’t matter because word on the vine is that it’s not very good.

Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 — September 25th for PC, PS2, PS3, PSP, X360, Wii & 3DS
That’s right…they’re still making games for the PS2. Inorite?! I was surprised too.

Realms of Ancient War — September 25th for PS3
RAW (okay, that’s kinda cool) sounds pretty blase, so let’s take a look at one of Wizarbox’s previous titles, So Blonde.

Sunny Blonde is a 17-year-old teenager who has been spoiled by her rich parents. On a cruise with her parents who are celebrating their wedding anniversary, the ship is struck by lightning, and she is knocked overboard. She finds herself stranded on a beach of a remote “Forgotten Island” in the Caribbean Sea.

Holy crap, did they create the upcoming Tomb Raider 6 years before Crystal Dynamics?!

She is totally alone and worrying about her nails and messy make-up

…maybe not…

 The Testament of Sherlock Holmes — September 25th for PC, PSC, X360
Alright, that’s it. After seeing the Sherlock Holmes vs Jack the Ripper game cover all over the place for years, I’m officially hella curious as to what these games are. I’ll probably take a look at some point later this month/week/year/sometime in the future. I promise.

 Tokyo Jungle — September 25th for PSN
From what I understand Tokyo Jungle is set after humans have left planet Earth and follows the plight of the animals left to fend for themselves against each other in the streets of Tokyo. This sounds half bizarre, half awesome, all Japanese.

Warrior’s Lair — September 25th for PS3
If you didn’t already get your isometric RPG fix from Torchlight 2 last week, Sony got your back with…well, another isometric RPG…

World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria – September 25th for PC, Mac
I do not care for WoW but the CG trauker they released for MoP really had me curious as to how Blizzard would handle the opportunity to make their own WoW movie, because hey, I think it’d be pretty awesome.

Bad Piggies — September 27th for iOS, Mac, PC
Anybody here ever play Angry Birds? A couple of you, yeah? Here…have a sequel. Then tell me how you play this on a PC?

The DENPA Men: They Came By Wave — September 27th for 3DS
Uhhh… this is a role playing game in which you play as the DENPA men and is that supposed to mean anything to anybody? Oh, Japan…sometimes I just don’t know what to do with you!

Everyone Sing — September 27th for PS3, X360 and Wii
Until a karaoke game includes the following, I don’t care about karaoke games:

Catch you guys next week.

In a recent blog post by series Executive Producer Mark Darrah, BioWare has confirmed the official title of their next installment in the Dragon Age games. Dragon Age III: Inquisition marks the third entry in the fantasy role-playing game franchise, and judging by its title, will once again focus on a Mage vs. Templar story arch. While details are scarce right now, Darrah has mentioned a few behind-the-scenes notes about the development of the game.

• This game is being made by a lot of the same team that has been working on Dragon Age since Dragon Age: Origins.  It’s composed of both experienced BioWare veterans and talented new developers.
• We are working on a new engine which we believe will allow us to deliver a more expansive world, better visuals, more reactivity to player choices, and more customization. At PAX East, we talked about armor and followers… Yeah, that kind of customization. We’ve started with Frostbite 2 from DICE as a foundation to accomplish this.

The use of DICE’s engine was reported last November in an article by RockPaperShotgun, which stated that BioWare had considered using it for potential multiplayer features in an upcoming Dragon Age title. With the confirmation now official that they are, in fact, experimenting with Frostbite 2, could Dragon Age III have that long-rumored multiplayer just as Mass Effect 3 did?

Borderlands 2 comes out this week! And all you Americans get it, like, half a week before I do. Which makes me angry. But not too angry because I am just stoked to get the chance to play a game I’ve actually been looking forward to. Mike is gonna be playing it as soon as and will get a review up sooner than later and we might start trying to figure out how ‘Second Opinions’ work with this game, but no promises. We should certainly have those up and running in the coming months, no matter what, because there is a whole mess of games on the way.

Speaking of games (and Borderlands!) lets see what else is on the horizon for the coming week.

Coming out this week:

Harley Pasternak’s Hollywood Workout — September 16th for X360, September 20th for Wii
If you want a workout guided by the Canadian *SENSATION* responsible for the figures of Hilary Duff, Katy Perry and…uh, Lady Gaga then look no further. I spent enough time with an old room-mates Nike training game for the Kinect to know, goddamn, I neither need nor want to spend any time with any more exercise games.

Borderlands 2 — September 18th for PC, PS3 and X360
Do I even need to explain why you should play Borderlands 2? I could point you to what I want out of the game, but otherwise things are looking good. Just look at this screenshot.

F1 2012 — September 18th for PC, PS3 and X360
I don’t know whether it’s got something to do with being in Britain, a place with less fondness for NASCAR than Formula One, but I still see an abundance of F1 2011 copies all over shelves, whenever I stop by anywhere that sells games at all. So, yeah. Now I get to look forward to seeing F1 2012 all over everywhere instead.

Hotel Transylvania  – September 18th for 3DS
Apparently Hotel Transylvania is a movie, starring Adam Sandler. Now I’m pretty into movies and whatnot and I have never even heard about this feature. Adam Sandler as Dracula sounds about as appealing as any of Sandlers recent roles recently, though, so not very.

Jet Set Radio — September 18th for PC, PSN and XBLA
Jet Set Radio is an action platformer that originally debuted on Dreamcast. You’ll probably remember it better by the name Jet Grind Radio, although I don’t think I ever even heard of it. So this is a HD remake. Apparently the original was pretty good, so take that for what it’s worth.

 Kinect Nat Geo TV – September 18th for X360
I’m sure this already came out, but looking back, I don’t seem to have written anything about it. So hey, if you dig on elephants and shit, National Geographic got your back with the most appropriate game for you since…well, Afrika for the PS3.

Kinect Sesame Street TV — September 18th for X360
It seems to me that this game is utterly moot, what with Double Fine having released what will likely prove to be an exceptional Sesame Street-Kinect based experience with Once Upon A Monster. Apparently, though, Sesame Street has a big Kinect initiative which means this is probably the second of a whole myriad of SS games coming along in the future.

Street Fighter: 25th Anniversary Collector’s Set — September 18th for PS3 and X360
I’m just gonna give you the hard info because that’s probably the most informative thing I can do, rather than crack some lame old joke about Street Fighter.

The Street Fighter: 25th Anniversary Collector’s Set includes Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, Street Fighter III: Third Strike Online Edition, Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition and Street Fighter X Tekken. All costume DLC is included for Street Fighter IV along with all character and Swap Costume DLC for Street Fighter X Tekken. The set will also include an eleven disc soundtrack filled with Street Fighter music spanning the last twenty-five years. In addition, a two disc Blu-Ray set will feature a documentary covering the franchise, Street Fighter IV and Super Street Fighter IV anime films, all episodes of the Street Fighter animated series and Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie. A 64-page art book, eight inch light-up Ryu statue, full-size Ryu martial arts belt and certificate of authenticity are also included.

I legitimately kinda love the Jean Claude Van Damme Street Fighter movie. Legitimately.

La-Mulana — September 20th for Wii

La-Mulana is an Action Archaeological Ruins Exploration game.

What in the holy fuck does that mean? As Dr. Lemeza Kosugi you will fight monsters to get to the mystical city of La-Mulana and you know what? This just sounds bad. I don’t even want to know anything else, it just sounds bad.

Rayman: Jungle Run — September 20th for Android
Who loves Rayman? You love Rayman! Who loves Android? Fucking no-one, that’s who. Alright, I kid, I kid. But seriously, I couldn’t care less about an Android version of a great game, because I simply don’t have an Android.

Torchlight II — September 20th for PC
Torchlight II isn’t coming out. I know they say it’s coming out, but it isn’t. It can’t be. My universe implodes the moment this game finally comes out. So no, it’s not coming out. It’s especially not coming out the day Borderlands 2 comes out where I live, because, hell, that means I’m probably not gonna play it.

Anna — September 21st for Mac
So, this is a first person horror adventure that debuted on PC earlier this year and has very little profile as far as I can tell. But I’ve been looking into getting into horror games, so the PC version may end up making its way onto my personal wishlist. We’ll see.

So, to surmise: Borderlands, Borderlands, Borderlands. Any thoughts? Hit the comments, below.