Gaming - Page 1190

Nintendo's Wii U Pro Controller is set to sport a battery life of around 80 hours from a single charge, according to Gamestop and Amazon. Coming from the current PS3 controller for example, that only lasts 20-25 hours from a single charge, this is some great news for gamers.

Nintendo haven't publicly announced this number, but retail giants Amazon and GameStop are using the specs in their product description, which probably came from Nintendo in the first place:

One of the biggest games to be released this year, Halo 4, has leaked out nearly a month early. There have been not only pictures of ecstatic gamers playing the game hit the Internet, but it has also reached torrent sites, weighing in at 16.28GB, which points to the game being a dual dual-layer disc game.

A Microsoft spokesperson told game magazine Game Informer:

Borderlands 2 can be considered a success right now, where it has sold 1.8 million copies in the US in just a single month. NPD Games' sale analyst Anita Frazier said on Thursday that Borderlands 2 "exceeded the first month's unit sales of the first game which launched in October 2009 by 234%".

Now, there's one huge problem that I have with NPD's numbers, is that they don't take into consideration digital downloads, such as one of the biggest source of purchases of Borderlands 2 itself, Steam.

I'm sure there have been hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of sales of Borderlands 2 through Steam and these numbers aren't included. This makes the game even more popular than its predecessor considering these numbers aren't taken into consideration.

Its big and its coming. Mass Effect 3's Omega DLC is the biggest and most expensive expansion for the game yet, according to BioWare. The expansion will be making an appearance on PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 on November 27 for 1200 Microsoft Points, or $15 for those not using Xbox 360.

Omega apparently will be "double the size" of the largest Mass Effect 3 DLC, which probably means double the game content of the Leviathan DLC pack. It will also be the most expensive DLC for Mass Effect 3, coming in at the $15/1200 MS Point mark as previously discussed. This ties the most expensive DLC for the series.

According to Eurogamer, "The existence of an Omega-based storyline has been known about since before Mass Effect 3 launched. The missions were originally included in early versions of the game's script, before being excised (and presumably expanded) for use in a separate DLC pack. An image of Aria T'loak's squadmate icon was actually broadcast during an official BioWare Pulse video."

The final downloadable content pack is available for the now nearly one-year-old Modern Warfare 3. With Black Ops 2 just around the corner, the publisher behind Modern Warfare 3 is looking to milk as much money as it possibly can before it has to wait another year to release a Call of Duty game.

The new DLC brings five all-new multiplayer maps for players to explore and learn how to play. Players will see a wide range of scenery, from the beach, to New Orleans, to off-shore sea-based battles. There's one thing that is almost a certainty about this DLC pack and that is that it will sell in droves, just like all of the Call of Duty games do.

Fox news, you have surprised me - news has hit the web that the TV network behind huge hits like American Idol and 24 are working on a TV series made from popular first-person shooter title Battlefield: Bad Company.

Bad Company really focused on the single-player campaign, and for those who played the game you might remember that little smiley face pin on the grenade, too. This was the game's sense of humor and it is looking like this humor will turn the game into an action-comedy series.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and 3 are seeing an update that removes Favella from the online map rotation while Activision works on an update to remove a texture. The texture in question is the picture frame that is located in a bathroom on the map. The picture frame is written on in Arabic script from the Qu'ran that reads, "Allah is beautiful and He loves beauty."

This has upset several Muslim gamers as Islamic law states that holy writings are not allowed to be in a bathroom. Not exactly unreasonable, but also a somewhat obscure law, I'm sure. The response discussed above regarding removing the map from rotation is in response to several Muslim gamers placing complaints regarding the writing being located where it was.

The map will be back in rotation as soon as Activision can release an update removing the text from the picture frame.

Don't get me started on how much time I wasted during my school years on SimCity. I remember we were one of the first schools in my state to receive a suite of computers, back in the day of the Pentium and CRTs, and mice with balls in them.

I played SimCity on those systems so much, and made my parents get SimCity 2000 which I played for countless hours - but there's a new, PC-exlcusive SimCity coming and boy does it look great. The video above is a 10-minute gameplay unveiling, where we can get the basic idea of how the game has changed, and just how much scope there is built in.

From building residential areas, to dumps, to casinos - SimCity has it all. It looks like a huge time-consuming city-building game, and I think it's going to appeal to a lot of people. SimCity will hit Windows and the Mac in February 2013.

Computer, Android. Android, Computer. Now that you two have met, maybe we can move on to bigger and better things, such as allowing Android's games to play on the computer. Well, that's exactly what AMD has done with the help of BlueStacks. The two have worked together to produce AMD AppZone Player, which will enable hundreds of thousands of Android apps to be used on AMD PCs.

The new app is a really cool program that uses BlueStack's "award-winning LayerCake Technology" to bridge Android and x86 application ecosystems. I'm pretty confident that the AppZone Player features an Android emulator, though I can't be 100 percent confident. If you want to check it out, the apps, and player, are available on AMD's AppZone website.

Rosen Sharma, CEO of BlueStacks said "As the engine behind the AMD AppZone Player, we are providing a potent combination of award-winning software optimized for AMD's industry-leading hardware. Consumers can now enjoy their favourite mobile apps on the larger, more immersive screen of their PC"

Check this out! Call of Duty and the studio behind Black Ops 2 has released the official Zombies reveal trailer:

I'm going to go out on a limb and take a stab at the structure of the game. Not only does this Zombies mode look really cool, it appears that players will move from map to map, or location to location via an old bus. During the trip they appear to have to fight off the zombies. I have a feeling players will be required to beat each stage on their way through the game mode.

If it works out to be something like above, it will be a change from the seemingly endless waves on a single map that Black Ops featured. That's one of the few things I didn't like about Black Ops' Zombies, you had to stay on the same map for so long. If they do this stage method, I think it could be really cool.

Readers interested in the upcoming WiiU gaming platform will be excited to hear that there will be some 23 games ready for launch day, which happens to be November 18 in the United States. During the announcement, Nintendo played somewhat coy with the hard details about the launch plans, only giving us a date and price.

Otherwise, they said that 51 games would be coming out during the launch window, a window which extended all the way until March 2013. Thankfully, things have been cleared up a bit and readers will be happy to hear that 23 games are available on launch day. Three of those games are Nintendo-published titles, and the 20 others will be from major publishers.

Players can look forward to New Super Mario Bros. U, NintendoLand, and Sing Party from Nintendo. Activision is will be providing Skylanders Giants, Wipeout 3, Transformers Prime, and Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. Ubisoft is coming out with Your Shape: Fitness Evolved 2013, ESPN Sports Connection, Just Dance 4, Rabbids Land, Assassin's Creed III, and ZombiU, a game that proved popular at E3.

I used to be a huge fan of Pure Pwnage back in the day, when I used to for a little while, be a 'pro-gamer'. I watched every episode, bought the shirts, the hoodies, and talked about it amongst friends. Browsing through Reddit just now, I've noticed that the team behind Pure Pwnage are wanting to make a movie, and are asking for pledges for funding.

Pure Pwnage has enjoyed huge success, where they landed their own TV show, and was nominated for Best Comedy Series, Best Writing in a Comedy Series and Best Directing in a Comedy Series, but was not renewed. The web series ran from 2004-2008 until the TV show, but until now, the land of Pure Pwnage has been pretty dry. The team behind Pure Pwnage are looking for at least $75,000 to get the project off their ground, but have said that this is "less than half the budget we need to accomplish what we have in mind, but it's a great start".

In the last few years, the competitive gaming landscape has evolved, immensely. We now have Starcraft 2, League of Legends, DotA 2, and many live streaming services like Twitch.tv and own3d.tv. The team hope to visit Korea, where I'm guessing they would get in with some of the world's biggest professional gamers - which would be seriously awesome, to see Jeremy interact with these pro gamers.

Don't get me wrong, there have been a lot of great games made. But, there are those select few that really stand out in your mind due to amazing gameplay, graphics, or some other intangible reason. I've collected a list of games that are definitely on the top of my list, and are probably towards the top of yours.

Last year we went to EB Games Expo that was held on the Gold Coast (Queensland, Australia) and enjoyed ourselves immensely. We checked out the newest games, spoke to the big developers and listened to gamers talking about games! We've also been invited this year's event and it's going to be a lot closer for me because it's in Sydney!

This year, EB Games Expo will be held across three days (5th October - 7th October) at Sydney Showground and EB Games tells us over fifteen thousand tickets have already been sold - but there's still a few more tickets unsold - so get them before they're gone! Over twenty-five thousand square metres will be filled with the latest hardware, consoles, software, games, devices and anything that relates to gaming.

EB Games showed us what the Sony stand is going look like, and it looks amazing!

It's not even near the holidays yet and Nintendo's Wii U is already thrashing through the sales, with pre-orders of the Deluxe and Basic bundles sold out at most online retailers.

The Deluxe bundle features a black, 32GB Wii U for $350, whilst the Basic bundle gives you a white, 8GB Wii U for $300. Best Buy, Toys R Us and Target are all sold out of both version of the Wii U, with Sears and Kmart only offering the Deluxe version which is sold out.

GameStop is all out of 32GB versions, but the 8GB bundle is still available for pre-order. Wal Mart still has stock, in both editions, available standalone, or as part of the Wal Mart Solution Bundle. This bundle throws in a Wii Remote Plus, as well as a choice of a Wii U game. The Solution Bundle is $400 for the Basic set, or $450 for the Deluxe.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent reportedly increased the number of new underwear purchases by 3 million percent, but it looks like its sequel is about to raise that bar far higher. Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs is being worked on by developer Frictional Studios, right now.

A new blog post by the studios' head, Thomas Grip, has unveiled that the developer is working on a "super secret", first-person horror game. So, we're looking at another game, like Amnesia, but what could the developers do better this time around? Grip writes:

Ubisoft has made it official that they are ditching the always-on model for DRM. In an always-on DRM scheme, a user must remain connected to the internet to play a game, something that isn't always feasible. It also has troubles when the central servers go down or are overloaded.

Thankfully, Ubisoft has decided to move away from both this DRM model and the limited activation model. Both of these are good moves for PC gamers and hopefully other companies will follow. The limited activation model creates issues for reviewers who have to reinstall the game many times, often across multiple generations of hardware.

The words Call of Duty and DirectX 11 feel so dirty next to each other, but developer Treyarch has confirmed that the upcoming Black Ops 2 will indeed support DX11.

Treyarch have said that they've updated the engine to include DirectX 11 support, and its associated bells and whistles. They've also said there'll be "more quality vs performance options than ever before". The news is followed by Windows XP support being dragged from under COD fans' feet.

Treyarch have said in a PC-specific FAQ:

We've been hearing about next-gen consoles more and more in the last few months, but before that they were simply rumors. Microsoft and Sony are not talking about next-gen consoles so that they don't cannibalise their current console sales, which is fair enough.

But, we have some new rumors to share with you courtesy of Semi Accurate. SA are reporting that Microsoft are having problems with the heart of the next-gen Xbox, its chip referred to as 'Oban'. It is reportedly being run through multiple fabs in high quantities, and this quantity is said to be much higher than what would normally be required for developer kits of the console.

SA reports that it takes around 8 weeks to run a chip through the fab, after which they can analyze the results. If production wafers are being worked on, the last time the fab can push a chip out is November 1, after that day, nothing will come baked out of the fab ready to be tested in order to have the reworked gear finished before the end of the year.

Let's face it, we have an incredibly exciting time ahead of us for gaming. First off, we have some absolutely stellar games still coming out on the now ageing consoles, as well as the PC. But, within the next twelve or so months, we should see the release of next-gen consoles, and within the next couple of months, we'll see the release of Nintendo's Wii U console.

Until then, let's go through a list of the most anticipated games coming out over the next year or so. Remember, everyone has different tastes, so you might not agree to our recommendations. Please do comment or e-mail us with submissions and we'll try to keep this updated, or use them in future "top 10" articles.

10.) Far Cry 3