Daily News - 5th January 2012 - Xbox Live Indie Games, Super Meat Boy, Old Republic Cheat-Dancing and Microsoft Flight Simulator

Indie Games On Xbox Live Get A Bit Of A Boost

Microsoft got some stick over their latest dahsboard update from Indie developers, for making the Xbox Live Indie Games section a great deal harder to find than on the previous dash. It seems like they're trying to make amends a little bit by allowing indie developers to make bigger games and charge less for them. Old indie games were forced to be a maximum of 150 megabytes, and had to be priced between £2 and £4, but now, Microsoft is allowing the games to be upto 500 megabytes and can be priced anywhere as low as 80 Microsoft points (70p). It's encouraging to see this kind of change, and can only result in better games for less, now if we can just find them...

Expect more games like this in future

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Super Meat Boy Hits A Super Milestone

Super Meat Boy, one of the best games.... just, one of the best games, has been out a year or so now, and has spread itself to Xbox Live, PC and Mac, being part of various sales and bundles along the way and had finally, passed the 1 million sales mark. I'm personally thrilled, I always enjoy seeing something I love get it's due, and Super Meat Boy's success surely means more first-class offering from Team Meat in the future. I can't wait!

One of the best games is no exaggeration, believe me!

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Old Republic Exploit Allows Users To Boogie On Down And Become Invincible

As ridiculous as that headline is, it's true. The "/getdown" command in the game allows users to express themselves via the medium of dance, but more importantly, it makes players invincible. I doubt it will be long before this gets sorted out, but until then you Old Republic players enjoy stuff like this:

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And Finally...

Microsoft Flight Simulator Going Free-To-Play

This spring, all you budding pilots out there can enjoy all the complexity of pressing virtual buttons and pulling virtual levers whilst also soaring through the air, for free! Obviously not everything in the game will be entirely free, but controlling a plane as it flies through the air is a given. Should be good... ish.

It LOOKS good, if nothing else

Daily News - 4th January 2012 - Bastion Sales, Crysis 2 Piracy and A Cheeky Indie bundle!

Bastion Sells Over 500,000 Copies

Bastion was easily one of the best games of 2011. I didn't manage to play the game (my joblessness meant I couldn't afford it) but absolutely everyone had it on their Game Of The Year lists somewhere, so it's encouraging to see the game sell extremely well. The game has been in a few sales over the Christmas period, which probably helped quite a deal, but their success is well-earned. Greg Kasavin, from Supergiant Games said:

"We're happy to have this many people playing and to be in a position to make more games on our own terms. When we set out to make Bastion, a sales number like that seemed astronomical to us, so it feels great to have hit that mark. It goes to show that a lot of folks out there like what we’re doing and want us to keep going, which is great, because we intend to stick together as a team and do just that."

More power to those guys, and I'll for sure be playing it soon.

That's an in-game capture. Look at that!

Crysis 2 'Most Pirated Game' For 2011

Any publicity is good publicity right? Welllllllll, not in this case. In a year with such releases as Modern Warfare 3, Battlefield 3 and Skyrim, it turns out that the game scumbags actually wanna be playing is Crysis 2! Who knew! I played a bit of Crysis 2 (before I started writing "Why I Hated..."s, luckily for it) and it was shit as fuck, so why pirates want it is beyond me, but there were a few other games on it's tail. Crysis 2 led with 3.92 million downloads, then afterwards it was Modern Warfare 3 with 3.65 million with Battlefield 3, Fifa 12 and Portal 2 just about bringing up the rear. It's never nice to see good games get pirated... but Crysis 2 getting pirated? I don't know how to feel about that...

Pretty... pretty but shitty

New Year Indie Bundle Is A Right Cheeky Twat!

Indie bundles are, generally speaking, amazing, pay what you want, support charity and indie developers, and get some great games to boot. One such bundle, the Indie Royale, has been the worst of these. The games they've had aren't the best, and they make their prices a little too high to be inviting to an, admittedly, profounfly spoilt indie bundle buying crowd. Now though, they reach new levels of disappointment, by letting pre-purchase a bundle... and not tell you what games are on it. I really don't think any of the games in the bundkle will be any decent, but if they are I'll let you know... It's my duty as a journalist! Unfortunately!

Why Nathan Fillion? Shut up! That's why!

Daily News - 1st January 2012 - The Binding Of Isaac 3DS and Happy New Year!

The Binding Of Isaac Could Be Coming To 3DS

Game announcements come in many forms, but perhaps none quite as unique as the method through which Edward McMillen has announced he's attempting to get The Binding Of Isaac onto 3DS. A Formspring question, of all things, asked by "MonkeyNL" has just been unearthed from a few weeks ago, in which the user notes that he thinks the top down perspective of the game would lend itself very well to the 3DS's own brand of triple-dizzles. McMillen obviously agrees, as he says the following:

"A publisher i know is currently asking nintendo if they woudl be ok with isaac on the 3ds, if they say yes then ill had the game off to them and let them port it."

The game is supposedly pretty cool, I've yet to play it as there are many-a-thing I'd rather play right now, but I intend to get round to it, hopefully before the inevitable 3DS release.

It maybe won't be the most kid-friendly 3DS game, but it'll lend itself very well to a portable

Happy New Year!

I started the site in April of last year, so as of the start of 2012 the site has been up and running for a solid 8 months now. I like the site, and won't change too much (not the world's biggest fan of change over here) but my hope, nay, my dream, is that hopefully by this time next year I'll be getting paid for this. Right now I'm unemployed, and running the site isn't free, but it's worth barely affording rent as I really do love writing about video games, reviewing them and in general feeling like a part of the industry I love (even if it's an incredibly teeny-tiny part).

An incredible amount of thanks to the PR people I've been into contact with these past 8 months, you guys have made me feel like this site hasn't been a massive waste of my time and money, and treat me with respect (unlike Ocean Marketing guy). You guys make me feel like this is actually a job, one I don't get paid for but a job nonetheless. Not just a job either, but my dream job, and one I hope I can keep up until atleast this time next year... provided we're all still here come 2013!

Happy new year, and thanks for supporting the site, guys. 2012 is gonna be AWESOME!!! (Mass effect 3!)

Opening up my review copy of Batman: Arkham City was a pretty huge moment for me, definitely a life-highlight

Daily News - 30th December 2011 - Borderlands 2's Gunzerker, Gears Of War 3 Demo, 3DS New Year and More!

Details On Borderlands 2's First Class: The Gunzerker

I'm a massive fan of Borderlands, so much so that I'm gonna be playing the game through again with some friends, (thank you Steam sales!) and those of you who read the site often will know that if there's something I love I'll take absolutely any info about it as news (see any Mass Effect 3 story on here, including the one below) and Borderlands 2 will be no exception. The first of the game's 4 character classes, the Gunzerker, has been known of for a while now, but we didn't have any indication of any of it's specific abilities until now, and they sound super Borderlandsy. Here's a couple of examples:

• Yippe Ki Yay - The more kills you get, the longer Gunzerker mode will last
• No Kill Like Overkill - Doing "overkill" damage to an enemy will heal you
• Come At Me, Bro - Taunts enemies and gives you full health and more armor

This gives me a good, warm feeling inside, knowing you can craft your own playstyle and have exciting reasons to enjoy levelling up is part of what made the original great, so seeing it restored is awesome. Gearbox have also said that re-speccing your character easily is a feature they're looking to bring back. Which I love. Jon Hemingway, the game's lead designer said:

"We won't talk specifically about how you do respec-ing. You know in the first game respec-ing was ridiculously cheap to do and you could do it whenever you wanted. We do everything we can to encourage experimentation so the players can try out the different things."

Can't wait!

Gears Of War 3 Demo Available Now

Gears Of War 3, one of the year's best games, has finally gotten it's chance to show you why it's so good in the form of a nice, free demo. the demo is called "Shipwreck" and takes place a few hours into the story. It should be downloadable now.

Give it a go, you might like it as much as I did!

3DS New Year's Telethon Sounds Pointless, Kinda Cool?

Nintendo have been releasing 3D videos on the 3DS for a few months now, some good, some not so good, and some I couldn't care less about. If you have a favourite then you'll be surpsied to hear that Nintendo are giving you the chance to vote on whether it gets another showing on their 3D video channel with a weird live telethon at New Years. Apparently they'll take phone calls and votes to see which video users want to see re-featured on Nintendo Video for 5 days at the start of next year. The telethon will run for about 3 days and is pretty out of character for Nintendo. Details and low-res photo of a telephone here.

There have been precious few reasons to whip my 3DS out recently... This isn't one of them.

Mass Effect 3 Is Going To Be The Most Difficult Mass Effect Game

I read this headline, but for fear of spoilers didn't read the rest of the news story, so this is all I know... Great journalism!

I can't imagine why the third one would be more difficult... Giant, ancient death robots notwithstanding

Fallout: New Vegas Gets New Mod From Lead Designer

This isn't a huge piece of news, but is kinda cool. I had lots of problems with New Vegas, but the game being too easy definitely wasn't one of them. Lead Designer J.E. Sawyer disagrees with me though, as he's made his own mod with balance changes designed to make the game more challenging. He makes the good point that work on the game has stopped, there's no DLC in the works and nobody working on it, it's just him, so if he breaks the game he's made it nice and easy to undo it. In his own words:

"some of the mechanics changes make the game significantly more difficult... or at least more of a hassle... I'd rather have people opt-in to those changes than make them the default in a patch. The game's over. The ship has sailed. No one is working on it anymore. No testers, nothing. This mod is just me working in my free time. If I horribly botch something, you can just un-check the mod and go on your way."

An "Ultimate Edition" of the game is coming out in a few months.

There wasn't enough of this in New Vegas

Daily News - 24th December 2011 - Rift Hacked, 3DS Ambassador Games Updated and Old Republic Starts Off Strong

Rift Players' Account Information Stolen

Bad news for Trion Worlds today, as they dicovered their account database has been maliciously hacked. The hackers got away with your date of birth, name, password etc., but the MMO developer don't think they have your credit card info:

"There is no evidence, and we have no reason to believe, that full credit card information was accessed or compromised in any way. The database in question contained information including user names, encrypted passwords, dates of birth, email addresses, billing addresses, and the first and last four digits and expiration dates of customer credit cards. We have already taken further action to strengthen our systems, even as we, with external security experts, continue to research the extent of the unauthorized access."

It's important to note that the account database also hold info from anyone who was in the game's open beta, so if you've had any interaction with Rift at all, you may want to consider a fresh password for any games that you use the same password for. Merry Christmas indeed.

The game got some good buzz about it at luanch, I hope they recover strongly from this

3DS Ambassador NES Games Gain New Features

Us 3DS Ambassadors were promised quite a few things as part of the Ambassadors program, so long as it came with the understanding that fulfilling those promises will take a while. Well, Nintendo are nothing if not honest, as we're finally starting to see them roll out these updates to our free NES games. The update adds virtual manuals, better home screen icons and, most importantly, the ability to make, and then load up, restore points whilst playing. That means you won't have to play through the entire Legend Of Zelda or Metroid in one go, which actually makes them a much more attractive time-wasting propsect.

A better way to enjoy the classics is always welcome

Star War: The Old Republic Already Doing Well With 1 Million Players

The Old Republic was never going to be a guaranteed hit, with much of the pre-release talk being negative, but the demand for a Star Wars MMO is obviously high enough, with 1 million players already clocking in an impressive 28 million hours and killing over 2 billion NPCs. The game may not be perfect (apparently the server queues are horrendous right now) but I'm glad to see it's had a nice, strong start. Also, fans of Star Wars Galaxies, the older Star Wars MMO whose servers shut down a week or so ago, may be interested to read the Star Wars Galaxies Memory Book, an free online book chronicling the game from it's release in 2003.

Star Wars Galaxies - Free "Memory Book"

I'd try the game out, but Star Trek Online goes free in a month... so yeah.

Daily News - 21st December 2011 - Chritmas Bargains, Free UFC and Battlefield 3's Popularity

Holiday Cheer Means Bargains Everywhere You Turn!

It's Chriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiistmaaaaaaaaaaaaaaas. In 4 days. And as such, there are loads of great deals going on at the moment, from the Humble Indie Bundle, to Steam, here's a list of some of the better stuff:

The Humble Indie Bundle

• Pay what you want for the bundle, which has just added the entire contents of the 3rd Humble Bundle, AND all the game's soundtracks! So now, for the price of your choosing, you can own: Super Meat Boy, Shank, Jamestown, Bit.Trip Runner, Cave Story+, NightSky HD, Gratuitous Space Battles, Crayon Physics Deluxe, Cogs, VVVVVV, Hammerfight, And Yet It Moves and every one of the games' soundtracks.

Steam Christmas Sale

• As with most big Steam Sales, The best deals change from day-to-day, but aside from these daily delights are deals like every Valve game for £24.99 or, today, Dungeons Of Dreadmor  for 86p. Keep checking back, who knows what's next! Also, they're running a competition whereby the top prize is EVERY SINGLE GAME ON STEAM. Dude!

Xbox Live Daily Deals And Christmas Savings

• New games being on deal every day
• After Burner Climax - 400 MSP (50% off)
• Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet - 600 MSP (50% off)
• L.A. Noire - Rockstar Pass DLC - 480 MSP (50% off)
• Peggle - 400 MSP (50% off)
• Peggle Nights - 200 MSP (50% off)
• Plants vs. Zombies - 600 MSP (50% off)
• Portal: Still Alive - 600 MSP (50% off)
• Renegade Ops - 600 MSP (50% off)

Renegade Ops is supposed to be awesome, and for half price you really can't say no

UFC 141 For Free On The Xbox

Now I haven't had a chance to look at this for myself yet, but supposedly the new UFC app for the Xbox 360 is ready, and as a treat, they're letting Xbox owners get the Pay-Per-View for free. All you have to do is make all the necessary moves to buy the PPV and you should find that the price for it has been set to "free"! It may take a few days for them to update the app but with any luck we'll be seeing free knockouts soon!

You can't really put a price on a free fight... Because it's free!

Battlefield 3 Was Apparently The 5th "Fastest Rising" Google Search Of 2011

This is kind of a weird statistic, but I thought it was kinda cool. Between 2010 and 2011, Google searches for "Battlefield 3" and "BF3" rose by 1,773%, making it to fifth on the list, ahead of iPhone 5, Adele and Steve Jobs. Not too shabby for a video game!

Battlefield 3 better than Adele - Confirmed!

Trailer Round-Up - Week Of 12th December 2011 - Heaps Of VGA Trailers: Mass Effect 3, Bioshock Infinite, Alan Wake and More!

Trailer Of The Week is Mass Effect 3, because it's Mass Effect 3. MASS EFFECT 3!!!

VGA 2011 Trailers

Mass Effect 3 - Exclusive Trailer

I think this shit looks awesome.... surprisingly

The Amazing Spiderman - Full Gameplay Reveal

Provided these robots won't be the only bad guys in the game, there's unbelievable potential here!

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Patriots - Reveal Trailer

I dunno how into Rainbow Six's gameplay I am, but this is a pretty cool trailer

Transformers: Fall Of Cybertron - Exclusive Trailer

This looks more brutal than most realistic FPSs. Impressive.

Alan Wake's American Nightmare - Exclusive Trailer

Here's hoping the game's not too shrunken down due to it's XBLA status.

Command & Conquer: Generals 2 - Reveal Teaser

I have no opinion on the C&C series, nor do I know if this gives away anything or not... My bad.

Fortnite - Exclusive Reveal

Apparently somewhere inbetween Minecraft and tower defense lies Fortnite. I've no idea.

Tony Hawks Pro Skater HD - The Warehouse Is Back

Warehouse was pretty awesome back in the day, here's hoping it still is.

Diablo 3 - Exclusive Intro Cinematic

Yout turn on the game, you get this.

Tekken Tag Tournament 2 - Exclusive Trailer

...Or TTTT as it shall henceforth be known

The Last Of Us - Exclusive Debut Trailer

Looks interesting, hopefully the tone it sets will put it above the usual zombie game.

Hitman: Absolution - 47 Apparently REALLY Liked That Girl

Killing dozens of inept guards with the Ballers? I'm in.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance - "Return Of The Ripper"

I don't know how much I actually wanna play this, but I sure as hell wanna watch all the crazy cutscenes!

Bioshock Infinite - Exclusive Trailer

I didn't like the gameplay in Bioshock, hopefully this will change it up enough to make me happy.

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The Rest Of The Week

Darksiders II - Death Takes The Reigns

The first Darksiders was ace, I can't see this being any worse.

Gotham City Impostors - Honor Batman With Cardboard And Explosives

Okay, so now instead of thinking this looks like a novelty, I just genuinely think this looks awesome,

Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City - Catch Up With some Familiar Faces

Leon! Sold!

I Am Alive - Follow The Rules Of Survival

I'm interested to see how this turns out. It's ambitious if nothing else.

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Daily News - 14th December 2011 - 2nd Batch Of 3DS Ambassador Games Revealed

3DS Ambassadors Getting Some Tasty GBA Games

It's been a while since us 3DS ambassadors heard any news on our extra freebies, but finally today we know. Aswell as our bundle of NEs games, we're being treated to some pretty awesome GBA games:

• Metroid Fusion
• The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap
• Mario Kart: Super Circuit
• Super Mario Advance 3: Yoshi's Island
• Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
• F-Zero Maximum Velocity
• Kirby & the Amazing Mirror
• Mario vs. Donkey Kong
• Wario Land 4
• WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames

Between Metroid Fusion and Minish Cap, that's 2 absolute classics right there, so as far as I'm concerned anything else after that is a bonus, nevermind one of the best Mario Karts and a great Super Mario title. I can't wait to have a reason to turn on my 3DS!

It may not look like much here. but on a 3DS screen it'll look a treat

Daily News - 13th December 2011 - Incredible Humble Indie Bundle and VGA Announcements And Winners

This Humble Indie Bundle Is The Best One Yet.

The Humble Indie Bundle is usually an incredible bargain, but this one, goes above and beyond. This Humble Indie Bundle contains arguably the best games yet, and all for the cheap, cheap price of £however-much-you-want. The list of games in the bundle reads like a who's who of amazing indie titles, with almost every single one loved by critics. Read the list, and prepare yourself:

• Super Meat Boy - One of the best games I've ever played

• Jamestown - A game universally loved by critics

• Shank - Gorgeous, hand-drawn 2D sidescrolling beat-em-up

• Cave Story+ - The original Cave Story is an almost legendary Metroid-esque game

• Bit.Trip Runner - The best of the Bit.Trip games and a nice, hard, rhythm-based platformer

• Gratuitous Space Battles - Epic, fleet-based space battles with online multiplayer!

• NightSky HD - A puzzle game with a style similar to Limbo

To be honest, if this bundle were JUST Super Meat Boy, or JUST Jamestown, or JUST Shank and then the rest of the game's were poo I'd still recommend this bundle, but to have them all and for less than £4?!? Dudes and dudettes, just fucking buy this now. Come on, don't be cunt. It's for charity and everything. Buy the fucker!!!

The Humble Indie Bundle

Honestly, it would be worth it for just Super Meat Boy alone

The VGAs Were A Thing That Happened

So the Video Game Awards happened, winners were announced, and new things were shown off, I'll just list them off, bulletpoint stylie, and keep it nice and simple.

The Winners

• Game of the Year: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

• Best Action Adventure Game: Batman: Arkham City

• Best Xbox 360 Game: Batman: Arkham City

• Best Adapted Videogame: Batman: Arkham City

• Best PS3 Game: Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception

• Best Graphics: Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception

• Best Wii Game: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

• Best Motion Game: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

• Best Fighting Game: Mortal Kombat

• Best Independent Game: Minecraft

• Best Handheld/Mobile Game: Super Mario 3D Land

• Best Song in a Game: Bastion

• Best Original Score: Bastion

• Best Downloadable Game: Bastion

• Best Individual Sports Game: Fight Night Champion

• Best PC Game: Portal 2

• Best Multiplayer: Portal 2

• Best DLC: Portal 2

• Best Performance by a Human Male: Portal 2

• Best Performance by a Human Female: Portal 2

• Best Driving Game: Forza Motorsport 4

• Best Shooter: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

• Character of the Year: The Joker

• Best RPG: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

• Studio of the Year: Bethesda Game Studios

The Announcements

• Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance - Now being developed by Platinum Games, the people behind Bayonetta and Vanquish

• Batman: Arkham World - The Joker held up a script titled "Batman: Arkham World" during his acceptance speech for character of the year.

• Bioshock Infinite - A new trailer foir the game was shown. It's still happening.

• Diablo 3 - They showed the opening cinematic for the game. It also, is still happening.

• Fortnite - Epic Games' new game. Looks like it will be a mixture of Left 4 Dead and a flash "Defense" game. Could be cool.

• Transformers: Fall Of Cybertron - A trailer for the game was shown, which looked pretty awesome. It's happening.

• The Amazing Spiderman - A trailer showing Spiderman kicking the scrap out of robots was shown. Looked cool!

• Alan Wake's American Nightmare - The XBLA game was announced. More Alan Wake.

• Rainbow Six Patriots - They showed a CG trailer for the game. No gameplay, but more Rainbow Six is happening.

• Command And Conquer: Generals 2 - The game's coming in 2013, and runs on the same engine Battlefield 3 runs on.

• Mass Effect 3 - More trailer goodness. The game's gonna kick infinite amounts of ass.

• The Last Of Us - The next game from the Uncharted team. It's about the last humans dealing with basically a zombie apocalypse.

• Hitman: Absolution - More footage of the game in action. Looks good.

• Tony Hawk Pro Skater HD - A remake of the first Tony Hawk game with some levels from Tony Hawk 2. And for mega cheap!

It was a pretty cool night for announcements, and it's probably gonna mean a bumper Trailer Round-Up this week!

Dragons win all!!!

Trailer Round-Up - Week Of December 5th 2011 - Battlefield 3, Gotham City Impostors and Touch My Katamari

Trailer Of The Week has to go to Battlefield 3. That game looks ridiculously good in trailers, and is as fun as it looks. Makes me wanna go shoot things just looking at it!

Battlefield 3 - Wake Island Trailer

It's a beautiful locale... for killing.

The Darkness 2 - Say Hello To Vendettas

I've heard this could be Left 4 Dead but with demon powers... Couldn't have put it better myself!

Gotham City Impostors - Nowhere To Hide

Such a great concept, I hope it's nice and bloody!

Batman: Arkham City - Change Up Your Wardrobe

Looking good Bats!!!

Touch My Katamari - Squeeze And Pull

It was a pretty standard week for game trailers... except for this one.