Kickstarter Launches In The UK

Kickstarter, possibly the best thing to happen to the game industry (or most industries) in years has now finally stretched it's hand towards the UK and offered to help out independent UK game devs, tech companies and hell, regular people with great ideas to make their dreams become realities.

If you're not familiar with how the process works (then first of all, where the hell have you been?) it goes a little something like this: You have an idea you need money to bring to fruition; You create a Kickstarter, pick a total that will allow you to achieve your goal and allow members of the public to give you money to make it happen; If the project reaches its goal then you receive the cash and get to make your product. It's as simple as showing people something and having them decide if they're willing to invest in the idea. The majority of Kickstarters offer the finished article in exchange for a pledge of a set amount, so more often than not, you're not only helping get a game made, you're also guaranteed a copy of the game at no extra cost. It's allowed a number of truly unique properties to get created (like FTL) as well as breathing new life into old concepts and series (like Broken motherfucking Sword!!!).

It goes without saying that this is pretty cool, though I feel pretty confident in saying that it was going to happen eventually... Still, I know there are lots of you out there who have been waiting for this for months now, so you better not let us down! British pride and all that. Tally ho. Spit spot. Etc.

FTL is apparently pretty awesome, but I'm waiting until it's on sale to snap it up

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Podcast Posted!

One Man And His Banter - 05/10/2012

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28th August - 4th September 2012: A Week In Trailers

Last week was a fantastic week for trailers, so without further ado, set some time aside and watch these tasty eye morsels!

Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Hearthfire

The Hearthfire DLC will let you make your own house and fill it with books, mudcrabs and adopted children. This trailer was so lovely I HAD to watch it whilst cuddling something... Hold me.

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Assassin's Creed 3 - Naval Warfare

It's about naval warfare, and contains the words "master and commander". Its story checks out.

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Need For Speed: Most Wanted - Burnout Paradise 2 Gameplay

This thing is so Burnout Paradise 2 it's almost ridiculous... and fucking awesome! I am gonna play this, and I suspect I am going to enjoy it more than a little bit.

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Farcry 3 - Damn Nature! You Scary!

Learn some survival skills from the locals, do a little hang gliding and OH FUCK SHIT A FUCKING TIGER FUCK! I dunno if I can handle a game where I can get stalked through the jungle by a cunting tiger. Fuck that. Fuck it in the eye.

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LocoCycle - Reveal Trailer

From the makers of 'Splosion Man comes the greatest game ever made? It certainly looks it from this trailer. The thing I love most about it? Fuck context, deal with this motherfucking bike dragging a poor bastard along the ground and then air combo'ing guys wearing jetpacks. I mean, 'Splosion Man was hardly reserved, but my god! Is this Mila Kunis naked, or is it the open Ark of the Covenant? I somehow hope it's both. If this looks appealing to you (and it does) there's another trailer lower down the page which will have orgasmic fluids shooting out of you every which way, endlessly. You have been warned.

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Dance Central 3 - Story Mode

It's ballsy to take a winning formula and take it to the weirdest place you possibly can, but the ever-so fine folks over at Harmonix have decided to do just that. If you like time travel stories about dance dictators then this will be the game for you, and you don't like those things? Then you probably just need to re-read that combination of things again and take a moment to absorb to genius of it. I may not play it, but I want to. Oh my goodness do I ever want to!

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Borderlands 2 - Everything You Would Ever Need To Know

as if I weren't excited enough for Borderlands 2, this trailer comes along and blows my mind back into itself forming some kind of brain-flavoured black hole. If you wanna know how any of the game's systems work, this trailer's got you covered in every possible way. If watching this doesn't get your mouth watering then, chances are, you have no mouth.

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Super Time Force - A Trailer That Has Everything

I'm not 100% sure what this is, but it's incredible. Watch it twice, twice.

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Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zero - Debut Trailer

I admit to not being a Metal Gear guy, and I also admit to not understanding any of what this is about or why anything that happens in it  happens at all, but what I do know, is that those are some might nice wet textures! The kind of textures you just wanna take back to your hotel room and have a filthy, dirty look at. Ignore me, I'm clearly going through something here...

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And Finally...

More LocoCycle!!! - T-1000 As A Talking Bike

Yes, seriously. The fucking dude from terminator 2 voices one of the bikes in this game. Sit there and think about that for a second... The fucking T-1000 is the voice of a bike in a game where the talking bikes fight other bikes while they drag a guy behind them and make Die Hard references. It's the pinnacle. We've mastered the technology and realised it to its full potential. Bask in the warm glow of the greatest game ever conceived, created and then made into a trailer: LocoCycle... We're in for something special.

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GameBanter Update: Content Coming! I Promise!

Ugh, I hate writing posts like this. So basically, again, there's not been a huge amount of content on the site, barely any in fact, and while I could whinge about how I'm coming close to losing my day job, and how it now takes about 2 hours of my day just getting to and from work, but instead I'll just say this:

I very much need to start going to bed at human hours, HOWEVER, Sleeping Dogs Review is nearing completion, Darksiders 2 is getting played a fuckload, I have atleast 2 articles that I know I can definitely hammer out, and I'm aware of how much I absolutely suck at posting. All of this indicates to me that there are indeed posts incoming, and while there won't be any tonight... except for this one... there will be posts in the extremely near future.

I hate my inability to balance my time effectively, it means I spend too much time actually playing games and not enough time getting those thoughts down. Ah well, follow the @GameBanter twitter account for various posts about games during the day while I'm at work, tweet me and tell me how retarded my views on the shitness of the Assassin's Creed games are, or let me know that you too have an unfortunate real life holding you back from what you actually want to be doing. We can have a little back and forth, and I may even retweet you if you have something interesting to say. Gauntlet thrown! Make it a Friday to remember guys, and for fucks sake, play a video game or two this weekend!

Maybe spend your weekend with this happy chappy? You could do a HELL of a lot worse! Ha! Dude, that was awesome. That almost makes up for sucking so much.

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23rd August 2012 - New Broken Sword, Golden Joystick Voting and 3 More GTA 5 Screenshots

New Broken Sword Game Is A Thing That's Happening!

Dude! This news is so awesome! If you don't know Broken Sword then you don't know one of the best games ever made. One of the first adventure games to take itself seriously, it blended humour, great puzzle solving and likable characters with a fantastic story that took cues from biblical texts to create an epic tale years before the Da Vinci Code was a twinkle in Dan Brown's eye. It's had its fair share of sequels since then ranging from equally as fantastic as the original to 'meh' but the series holds a special place in my heart and always will. I'm thrilled there will be a new entry and, even though it is a Kickstarter so not guaranteed to get finished, I can already see myself falling in love with this. My bias begins now! Squee!

Geoge Stobart returns to kick world-destroying ass!

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Golden Joystick Voting Now Open

The closest thing we have to a legitimate video game awards ceremony over here has come round again, and like usual we're the ones choosing the winners. Games like Mass Effect 3, Arkham City, Uncharted 3 and Witcher 2 are all represented, so just go ahead, think hard about it and spread a little (Golden) joy(stick) to the people who makes the game you love. They earned it.

Golden Joystick Voting 2012

Not trying to skew your votes in any way, but if you maybe see Asura's Wrath in any of the categories, maybe you vote for it, yeah? Yeah.

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3 More Grand Theft Auto 5 Screenshots

Right, I think this will be the last time I make this news, but here's 3 new GTA 5 screenshots, mixed in with the 5 we already had. Parachutes, bike races and... tennis. I guess this is the foundation they were laying with their table tennis game, it's time for the big leagues now, Rockstar Tennis Team!

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And finally...

The Border Lands Launches And Is Playable On Any Browser!

Gearbox show us the humble beginning of the series in the form of a long lost 16-bit game. Enjoy! (It worked on the shitty 10 year-old computers at my work, so it'll work on yours too!)

Check out those graphics! You can really see there are more than 15-bits there.

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21st August 2012 - Diablo 3, Plants Vs Zombies 2, GTA 5 and Way More! *Updated*

It's been (mind my extreme French) CUNTING AGES since the last time I updated, and I'm sorry about that. I've been in a bit of a funk, but for some reason today I feel better and it just happens to coincide with quite a lot of news! Yay! So, FINALLY, here's some news for y'all!

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Diablo 3 Getting Endgame Content After Level 60

Diablo 3 has had it's fair share of troubles, from its disasterous launch day, the game launching without its PvP mode, being sold out in shops weeks after launch and general balancement issues raised by players. The game has been patched a few times since it came out but none more game changing that the upcoming 1.0.4 patch which, it got announced, will add extra content to the game beyond reaching the level 60 cap. In a feature that is being called, for some reason, Paragon, players will continue to acrue experience past level 60, with that experience going towards Paragon levels. Paragon levels will still increase your base Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Vitality in amounts "similar" to levelling up normally but will also give you 3% Magic and Gold Find. While it's cool to get an extra 100 levels to earn in the game, it's unbelievably condescending to call them anything other than regular levels. Pointlessly adhering to the "level 60 as level cap" rule is ridiculous, especially when you're increasing stats by the P-level. I'm all for the system, though it will undoubtedly unbalance the game beyond all recognition, I just don't see the point in acting like we're all stupid. Ugh, fuck you Blizzard... and your awesomeness. Argh! I'm so conflicted!

Levelling up = Cool, no matter how it's sold to us.

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Plants Vs Zombies 2 Announced For 2013

Yay! The first PvZ was awesome, and very popular. It come out on pretty much every platform and sold very, very well on them all, so it's not terribly surprising to hear work on a sequel has started. The press release for the game doesn't give much away, other than promising new features and settings, and I'd wager a new plant or two. The press release is nice and light-hearted, featuring such uplifting quotes as this from one of the game's zombies:

"Spring is crullest curlie ungood time, and plantz grow dull roots. So, we are meating you for brainz at yore house. No worry to skedule schedlue plan… we're freee anytime. We'll find you."

Look forward to next year, if only to rekindle an old friendship with some happy sunflowers.

Don't worry, not every level of the game is this insane.

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3 New GTA 5 Screenshots Released

Not much to really "report" on here, but if you wanna see some new GTA 5 screenshots (with the 2 known ones shoved in) then look no further! You'll notice a picture of a bearded guy flying a jet above an enormous city, and a guy cycling a bike who looks like he really knows what he's doing on that thing! I dunno why, but the thought of cycling a bike properly in a game like this excites me, weaving in and out of traffice, peddling like a maniac to get away from the police, being able to cut down thin alleyways at a moment's notice... I know GTA games had bikes before but they were always shit, I hope they're cool in this. Anyway, screenshots!

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Playstation Vita Getting 100 PSOne Games Next Week

Playstation Vita owners must be feeling like they've been constantly kicked in the nuts for the last few months, with little-to-nothing coming out and the good things that are coming out being also available on the PS3 (Sound Shapes, we're all looking at you) but a bright light is on the horizon in the form of super-old Playstation One games! Okay, so maybe that news didn't set your world on fire, but there are some really good games available, like Resident Evil, Final Fantasy 7 and Metal Gear Solid, so you know, if you own a Vita, August 28th may be a date to mark on your calendars!

Experience these wonderful graphics on your Vita's HD screen! Wowzers!

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Fallout 4 Could Be Taking Place In Boston

It seems rumours have been circulating Reddit that Fallout 4 (Or whatever the next entry may be named) will be set in Boston. Following Washington in "Fallout 3", and Las Vegas in "New Vegas", Boston may not seem to follow on well in terms of recognisable place names, but then you factor in that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is based there and it starts to make sense. According to a Reddit user:

"The rumours are true, Fallout 4 will take place in Boston. In case you haven't heard, Bethesda has recently been scoping out and researching Boston, they also have a strong connection to MIT. I may or may not be an MIT employee. But that's really all I can say for fear of losing my job. Apologies for the vagueness of this post. It's not just my job that worries me, but also getting the fuck sued out of me. Bethesda's contracts are basically full-proof so if they were to discover who I am, or rather, who I got this information from, a few people including myself could get into a lot of trouble."

I know it's hardly guaranteed at this point, but it's within the realms of feasibility for sure. Besides, at this point, I'd be willing to play Fallout: Rotheram.

This is probably closer to Rotheram modern day...

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The World Ends With You Sequel Teased By Site

Truly, it is the day of sequel announcements! Well, announcement is a little bit loose, this is a teaser site with a countdown clock. The site doesn't appear to give much away on the surface, but savvy internet-goers have deduced far more from the seemingly spartan website than it intitially seems is there. Things like the website's music being a remix of a song from the game, the names of character designers from the first game are credited in this new mystery game and the URL uses the Japanese word "subaseka" which is apparently an abbreviation of "Subarashiki Kono Sekai", the game's Japanese title. I'd say we have something here my friends, something... Exciting!

Doesn't look like it gives much away right? Well, the internet begs to differ.

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Counter Strike: Global Offensive Launched Today on PC, Tomorrow On Consoles

Just adding this in as a little added extra because this somehow escaped my cone of knowlege, but CS:GO is coming out on consoles? Tomorrow?!? That's messed up. It was news to me, perhaps it'll be news to you too!

Looks like they made this one nice and child-friendly.

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And Finally...

Wii U Release Date To Probably Be Announced In September

Nintendo are having an event in New York on September 13th. Seems like a good place for it.

Nintendo Power Shutting Down

The magazine has been alive as long as I have. I don't feel old often, but...

Deadly Premonition Sequel Teased By Game's Creator

Apparently he's been pitching the game at Gamescom. If it means another Endurance Run then boo ya!

Deadly Premonition - An unusual game made by an unusual guy. Roll on a sequel!

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Daily News - 9th August 2012 - DayZ Going It Alone, Plants Vs. Zombies FPS, and 18 Months Until Xbox 720?

DayZ To Break Away From ARMA 2 And Follow The Minecraft Model

If there is one experience you can point at and say "THAT'S the talking point of 2012" it's DayZ. A mod for semi-unpopular hardcore military simulator ARMA 2, it places in the zombie apocalypse on a large server with other players and hoardes of undead. With a focus on PvP interactions and with the player needing to eat food and stay hydrated to avoid death, not to mention dodging zombies which will kill you very quickly, it really struck a cord with gamers the world over and, despite is unbelievabe amount of jank, has spread like wildfire. The only downside to DayZ is that you have to own ARMA 2 to play it, a game which costs £25 and is, apart from DayZ, pretty shit (from what I've seen). Well, prepare to shit with joy, as I tell you that Day Z is going to become it's own, standalone game! The game will obviously be a little while coming, but the developers Bohemia Interactive are following the Minecraft model, offering you the Alpha at a discounted price and updating the alpha constantly, which means you'll get to see the game grow better and better, little by little. I'm so fucking pumped for this it's daft. SO PUMPED! The best way to articulate how crazy the game is, is for you to see it for yourself. Here's a Youtube video.

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Plants Vs. Zombies Will Be A First Person Shooter... I Guess

A job listing has shed light on a rather unique idea for a spin-off of one of PopCaps most popular titles Plants Vs Zombies. The job listing asks for people with experience with first person shooters, destructible environments and a cartoony style. Likening it to Team Fortress 2 probably isn't far off the mark, and quite how the zombies against plants angle will be played, but one things for sure: This is mental. Awesome, but mental.

It's gonna take some genius to make this into a FPS, I can't wait!

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More Job Advert Leaks Suggest Xbox 720 In 18 Months

Ahh, job adverts, gaming journalism's best friend. They give away everything from games, to consoles, to even, well, jobs! The latest massive leak via a job advert comes in the form of a Microsoft Marketing position being available. Some of the juicier morsels from that advert are:

"Over the next 18 months Microsoft will release new versions of all of our most significant products including Windows (Client, Server, Phone and Azure), Office and Xbox, along with completely new offerings like Microsoft Surface.  This wave of product launches will define the course of the company for years to come and thus provides an unprecedented opportunity for us to refresh and evolve our strategic brands. The Microsoft brand strategy team is looking for passionate, creative, team-oriented branding experts to help us lead this transformation."

Meanwhile, another job posting mentions Skype integration into the console. Seems pretty open and shut to me, though I'm sure Microsoft will deny everything.

It'll be sad to see it go, but it's served us well. Enjoy your 18 months, buddy!

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Daily News - 6th August 2012 - Infamous/God Of War Collections and Final Fantasy VII's Premature Release

I'm back. Just got internet in my temporary dwelling and after much, MUCH bitching on Twitter about how ridiculous Steam's offline restrictions are, I am back and ready to do what I enjoy: Writing about video games. Let's roll!

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God Of War And Infamous To Get Collections

Ahh, Collections. The equivilent of a DVD boxset but for games, what's not to love! Especially when the collections are almost always of awesome game series. The one that jumps to the front of my mind and gives me a happy ending is the Ico/Shadow Of The Colossus collection, which I own despite not even having a PS3. I'll be honest, though I don't own a PS3 right now, I'm definitely buying myself one for The Last Of Us, and if I can dust that PS3 with the icing sugar of a God Of War collection on top? Well what I've got there are a number of wet dreams and a few broken beadsprings. In closing, I'd like to say: Collections good. This is awesome news. Oh, and also, they'll be out before the end of August. Yeah, take that news cumshot to the face!

The only downside is that you might already own all of these games. But if you do you're already awesome anyways! So you already win!

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Final Fantasy VII PC Launches Early, But Is Quickly Fixed

So it appears someone at Square Enix made a boo boo and made the PC port of Final Fantasy 7 early. Unfortunately for those that got it, the game didn't work. Fair enough, as the game's not released yet, but a bit of a knob-kick to those that thought they were in for a treat and got cock-blocked. It turns out that the game went available for $12.70, which is just over £8. A fair price... Surprisingly!

Let's hope the graphics remain as... umm... 'unique' as they were back then...

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What The Fuck Happened To GameBanter?!? - 28th July 2012

Hey guys! So it's been a little over a week since I last posted anything, a fact that, I'm sure, has not escaped some of you. There are reasons for this, so in the interest of readability I'll just bulletpoint out what's been happening, and what's going to happen coming up:

• I tried rebuilding the website - The site I use to make GameBanter happen, released a new version of their website builder last week, and I was working hard to try and transfer the site over to that new version. It turned out that while it's slicker and improves lots of thing, like making commenting easier and making galleries slicker and better to implement, it also doesn't let me cram all the things that I want onto every page yet. As it is now I have the 2 bars at the side which provide easy access to anything recently posted, as well as having space to include Twitter and Facebook links, but the new website builder just doesn't have enough options for side bars for me to have the website be as easy to navigate as I wanted, so after MUCH experimenting, I decided not to go with the newer website yet. I'll wait until they make it more GameBanter compatible.
• I have to move - So yeah, this is probably the biggest thing. I live in a house with a few other people right now, but it was only on a 12 month contract which runs out on August 1st. As you will note, August 1st is like 4 days away, so I've had a stressful week or 2. When I get home from work, updating the site and sifting through the past few days news for vaguely interesting stories or trailers can take a few hours, which is normally fine when I have bugger all else to do, but the past week I've just wanted to get home and not want any stress, which I hope you'll understand. I also, don't have my own place to live! Woo! So yeah, the next month or 2 I'll be cramming myself in to someone else's house whilst I save up enough to get a place on my own, hopefully in the centre of Manchester. It's gonna be a pain in the ass these next 2 months imposing myself on others and spending as little as possible, but with any luck, once I'm done I'll have my own place! Which brings me to my next bulletpoint...
• Once I get my own place - Not only will website updates become more frequent, but I'm also going to start streaming! Woop! Whether I'm playing Starcraft, Diablo 3, Left 4 Dead, Football Manager, or even if I have some buddies round to play Super Smash Bros, I'm just gonna stream the shit out of it. Hopefully it'll be entertaining in some way, maybe even get the site a few more views, which would be great if it happens. Another thing I intend to begin once I have my own place is podcasting. I know I've done a bit in the past for special occasions, but I'd love to start up the weekly podcast I've always dreamt of. I've got some entertaining friends, and I keep in touch with some pretty cool people on Twitter, so I should definitely be able to put together a fun show atleast every week. I want, desperately, for this to be the way I make a living, and all of these will be baby steps to hopefully make this happen in the next few years. A boy can dream!

Again, I'm sorry for the lack of updates, I don't enjoy letting you (or myself) down, but sometimes real life gets in the way, like a bully in school or a cat that won't move out of the bathroom doorway. When real life's not in the way though, we're hitting it hard! Oh yeah! Can't wait! Party time a-coming! ...In fact, let's party right now! Have a good weekend!

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Daily News - 16th July 2012 - Deadpool Game Coming, Gears Of War: Judgement Release Date, Steam To Sell Apps and More!

A Deadpool Game Is A Thing That's Happening

A Deadpool game sounds like such a no brainer, I'm flummoxed as to why we're not upto atleast Deadpool 3 yet. The insane mercenary likes to murder things violently, break the 4th wall and pretty much never shuts up, all of which sounds to me like great fodder for a video game. The game looks to be a third person action game with some kind of finishing move mechanic which has you doing anything from shooting guys in the head from point-blank range, to punching them in the face so hard their head shatters like glass. My fear is that they can't keep the crazy up for long enough. There's a lot of "air time2 to fill in a video game, and if there's even a few seconds where Deadpool isn't saying or thinking something then the illusion is broken. I like the trailer though, and I look forward to more of them in the future.

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Gears Of War: Judgement Gets March 19th Release Date

I doubt if anyone was expecting Judgement to be out before the end of the year, but it's nice to have confirmation. For those unaware, the game will follow Kilo Squad, headed by Baird, as they do some fucked up shit prior to the day the Locust showed up. The game will feature new multiplayer modes and the campaign will supposedly follow an almost Left 4 Dead style multiplayer experience, which sounds interesting, and should have a more arcadey feel than previous Gears games. I really liked 3, so more Gears Of War is a thing I'm pretty sure I can handle, no Gears fatigue for this guy!

Pump me full of more hot Gears Of War action! Oh yeah! All over my face! ...Uhh, what?

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Steam App Tips Valve's Hand Prematurely

That Steam App must be dangerous around now, what with all these sales and whatnot, and nowheree to escape from the money sink, though it does offer some light in these dark, dark times in the form of... news! App stores are nothing new, but this would mark Valve's first really big foray into the non-game business. The app gave the game away by adding new categories to the Steam Store, like photo editing, accounting, design & illustration, and animation & modelling. That's a pretty varied array of categories right there, but it certainly points towards something more than just Angry Birds and Draw Something. Any guesses what could go into "Accounting" anyone?

It's an odd prospect, but if there's one thing Gabe Newell knows how to do, it's make money.

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And Finally...

Battlefield 4 Beta Possibly Outed

Dice have said though, that until they announce it, not ot believe anything.

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Is Getting A Second Season

The first season of the web series evidently did well. This is happy news!

Playstation 3 Super Slim Photographs Emerge

While not totally confirmed, this looks pretty good to me. I can see buying one!

This shit looks sexy! I fucking want one!

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