Ubisoft do really want to keep stringing the series out I guess. As long as Revelations is good, I can live with it.

It would just be nice to get AC3 proper at some point this decade.

Valve's boss Gabe Newell clarifies reports about Valve ending its focus on single player games in favor of multiplayer games.

The current goal of the studio is trying to add social features to their games to go along with the tradition of Valve's focus on single player experiences. The studio doe not want to just tack on multiplayer features just for the sake of having multiplayer at the cost of the single player experience.

Portal 2 was the test game by Valve to see if their "social features" could work within Valve's current philosophy of making games and as a stepping stone for bigger features such as more Steam-integration and Cloud-based applications.

http://gamrfeed.vgchartz.com/pics/va...2_expanded.jpg
http://gamrfeed.vgchartz.com/story/8...cial-features/
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National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) officially recognizes video games as art and is willing to fund the development of video games as long as the company itself is a non-profit organization.

The move comes after the NEA renamed its program from "Arts on Television and Radio" into the more generic "Arts in Media" as a way to cater to more forms of art and entertainment. This move also could impact California's debate on the idea of video games as art vs censorship of "violent" games and any potential future Supreme Court case involving this situation.

Love the sound of Valves vision. I know a lot of the guys there are fans of Demon Soul's, so I would not be surprised to see some crazy asymmetric multiplayer in a future game.

Luckily, they aren't applying this to the half-life series. I like that they are focusing on multiplayer experiences, but half-life needs to be mainly a single player experience.

I thought you were done with video games Figs.

For the most part. Sold like 90% of my games. Still have a few, and if a new Half-Life comes out this century I will probably grab that, but I haven't played very much at all the last few months.

Some interesting stuff and tidbits revealed from Activision's financial report for the 2010-2011 fiscal year.

Activision confirms Bungie will not be making an appearance at this year's E3. Bungie responded by saying they are busy working on a new project with some help from Activision and felt the hype for the game would be counter-productive at this stage in the game's development.

Modern Warfare 3 will debut at E3 to go along with the official revelation in gaming magazines around the same time. The game will make use of the "Call of Duty Online" plan worked on by Beachhead studio. The idea is to integrate the game and community much better while also making it easier for Activision to send map packs and fixes. Last year Activision had plans to make this a pay-to-play service but their studios convinced them to make this a free feature for all users.

Activision also claimed more people play Call of Duty Black Ops online than use Facebook on average every day with Black Ops getting about 58 minutes per day compared to 55 for Facebook. Their stat only counts since the first map pack was released on February 1st and not since the game was released in November of last year.

http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets...offacebook.jpg

http://kotaku.com/#!5800161/beachhea...l-of-duty-game
http://www.giantbomb.com/news/bungie...presence/3152/

Damn, hoping Bungie would announce their game at E3.

Who exactly is making Modern Warfare 3 for Activision?

Infinity Ward with the help of the new studios Activision recently bought (Raven Software and Sledgehammer Games) along with Activision themselves. Add in Beachhead studio and its about 4-5 studios working on the game.

The reason is due to lack of manpower at IW and letting those other studios get used to the CoD franchise. Also if rumors are true, they might also be working on the next Nintendo console version of the game (Treyarch probably would be helping with that one).

Treyarch might also be working on the Wii's version of Modern Warfare 2 if Activision follows the same schedule like with MW 1 on the Wii.

Same reason why MW 1 went on the Wii when World at War was out mainly due to Infinity Ward not willing to make a Wii version while Activision wanted more money and knew Treyarch could work with the Wii structure.

The bigger surprise was how Treyarch was able to port a modified version of the MW engine when Infinity Ward said it was impossible and not worth the time.

Treyarch are stand-up guys. Can't help but feel they can do better things than buffer an annual shooter.

Well they weren't fans of that team, and I don't think Treyarch digs how much marketing gets behind MW versus their CoDs.

I just want them to make another Spider-Man.

Source.

Will this mean anything for voice chat? I don't know much about Skype.

I was thinking it would mean we could talk to people over XBL while they aren't on an Xbox.

Talking to someone on their PC while you are on your 360 or Windows phone.

Acknowledging one (or two) things SoulCalibur has become known for, SC5 director Daishi tweeted some kind of breast chart from the design room.

http://fastcache.gawkerassets.com/as...breastsize.jpg

It would appear they have something against a certain measurement, and many of the females will still be heavy chested.

Note: All head models are identified, no hints at new characters.

Beta sign-up to Spy Party. Looks like on of the more intriguing multiplayer games coming out. One players a sniper looking into a party and he's got as many bullets as players. The other players have to blend into the party and complete objectives like bugging the room. Looks damn fun.

http://www.spyparty.com/beta-sign-up/

It's following the Minecraft model though, so expect to pay $15 to get in.

Oh sweet I was wondering about that game!

The rumored upcoming Alan Wake game expected to arrive around late 2011 to TBA 2012 has been confirmed to not be a sequel nor a DLC chapter or episode.

The game is expected to be either a prequel or a possible "expansion" to the events from the first game but also as a way for people who didn't play Alan Wake to understand the story and characters without needing to play the first game.

More info for the game might be shown at E3 2011 but nothing has been confirmed as of now.

http://gamrfeed.vgchartz.com/pics/co...1_expanded.jpg
http://gamrfeed.vgchartz.com/story/8...sequel-or-dlc/
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Activision confirms a new Bond game will be arriving later this year and it will not be a movie-game to go along with the new Bond film which is expected to arrive in 2012.

The story is expected to be an original story that won't be related to the upcoming film and Raven Software, who worked on a "stealth" prototype of the game, is working on the new Bond game.

I bought Alan Wake about 2 months ago used and still haven't played it.

For Kalyx:
<iframe width="560" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/LJzOWJg6RKw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Looks like the Soul Embrace sword is canon!

<div style="background-color:#000000;width:520px;"><div style="padding:4px;"><embed src="http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:moses:video:gametrailers.com:713741" width="512" height="288" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowFullScreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" base="." flashVars=""></embed><p style="text-align:left;background-color:#FFFFFF;padding:4px;margin-top:4px;margin-bottom:0px;font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px;">Tags: <a href="http://www.gametrailers.com">GameTrailers.com</a>, <a href="http://www.gametrailers.com/video/debut-teaser-soul-calibur/713741">Debut Teaser HD</a>, <a href="http://pc.gametrailers.com/">PC Games</a>, <a href="http://ps3.gametrailers.com/">PlayStation 3</a>, <a href="http://xbox360.gametrailers.com/">Xbox 360</a></p></div></div>

Untitled DBZ Game (Let's call it Raging Blast 3... or Tenkaichi 6):

<iframe width="560" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/6D2kwfpBjUc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Either way it seems the Tenkaichi/Raging Blast system returns. And good, because I'm sick of the DBZ games that try to make a legit fighting game out of the franchise. This engine represents DBZ better.

Hooray for mediocrity.

Namco Bandi deciding to go a different route with pre-order bonuses by making the collector's edition of Dark Souls the bonus instead of a generic in-game item or character done by other companies. Dark Souls is considered the spiritual successor of Demon Souls which was available on PS3 last year.

As an extra bonus, the collector's edition will be priced the same as the regular game and not the extra $10-$20 done for most collector's editions as well.

Besides the game itself, the edition comes with "an art book, behind the scenes videos, mini strategy guide, and a download of the game’s soundtrack all in a nice metal case."

The game is still set for an October 2011 release date on the Xbox 360 and PS3.

http://i.screwattack.com/content/ima...1305146875.jpg
http://screwattack.com/blogs/ScrewAt...re-Order-Bonus
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Square Enix celebrating Dragon Quest's 25th year anniversary with a collection disc for the Wii in anticipation for Dragon Quest X set to arrive late 2011 to early 2012.

Pretty crap collection. They could easily put 4, 5 and 6 on there, considering that they are nes and snes games.

Hoping for a splinter cell conviction sequel announcement. Fucking love that game.

I've heard the reason why nothing after DQ 3 is mainly due to how badly the series was handled in the US after the NES games (not translated or came out years later on different systems) and the first 3 games form the original story while the others are a new story or set.

DQ 6 didn't get a US release until this year on the DS and since its still selling well, Square-Enix wouldn't want to hurt its sales. DQ 4 was also on the NES but was the start of another story arch which wouldn't make sense to have it by itself. US never got DQ 5 until the DS version 2 years ago.

If Splinter Cell is announced before Rainbow Six I'll cry. I need my squad-based SWAT fix.

Even still, I'm guessing it's going to be a full price disc, despite the fact that all of these games are hella old with no touch ups.

I thought they were doing an HD remake of that shit. Either way, I'm not too bothered.

The success of making Assassin's Creed into an annual franchise has Ubisoft considering doing the same with a few of their other big franchises. As of now only the Rabbids and Assassin's Creed are the major series that get games each year.

It is assumed if Ubisoft does expand more series into the annual phase, Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon would defiantly get the special treatment. Ubisoft did mention in another report they want to make their Ghost Recon series into the "Call of Duty" killer.

The next Nintendo console will also play a huge role in this new plan due to Ubisoft mentioning how easy it would be to "port" Xbox 360 and PS3 games with little effort and bring their big series to the console as another source for income.

http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/3...tled_super.png
http://www.giantbomb.com/news/ubisof...anchises/3177/

Assassin's Creed 2K11

Yeah that MK HD remake sounded like it would drop by now. Strange that news of that faded.