New Borderlands DLC Released From Tomorrow

Just a heads up that the next piece of Borderlands DLC, The Secret Armory of General Knoxx, will be released tomorrow on Xbox Live. PC and PSN will get the content on Thursday.

The DLC will set you back 800 MS points on XBL, and $8.99 on PC and PSN. The latter amount is in dollars because the UK pricing is yet to be announced, but we’ll be sure to find out before Thursday.

The new content raises the level cap to 61, along with new enemies and locations to plunder.

Bioshock 2 Multiplayer DLC Announced, With Single-Player DLC to Come Later

2K has announced that Bioshock 2 will get its first piece of DLC next month. The “Sinclair Solutions Test Pack” will be multiplayer focused, extending the level cap to level 50 with more rank rewards thrown in.

Two new playable characters, Louie McGraff and Oscar Calraca, will be lining up to get shot in the face whilst concurrently being set on fire. Plus, there will also be 20 new trials, a third weapon upgrade for each weapon and five additional masks.

The DLC will go for 400 MS points on Xbox Live and Games for Windows Live, and £3.19 on PSN. No exact release date has been given, but we’re sure it won’t be long before one is.

If you’d rather have more single-player content then 2K assures you that some will be on the day. This will include “more narrative, new tools and new challenges that extend the lore and fiction of the failed Utopia under the sea.”

Check out three screenshots from the upcoming DLC in our gallery below.

Ubisoft DRM to require Internet connection

Ubisoft have finally confirmed the rumour that’s been doing the rounds for a few weeks: their new PC DRM will require an always-on Internet connection in order to play their games. And if the connection drops in the middle of a game, you’ll lose your progress. And if the servers go down, you won’t be able to play your game.

The new DRM will be in all announced Ubisoft PC games , including Assassin’s Creed II, Settlers VII, Splinter Cell Conviction, Silent Hunter 5, Prince of Persia and Ghost Recon. Ubisoft have confirmed that they “plan” to keep the servers up for all games in the future, but would not say they were “committed” to it.

Maybe the best way to defeat pirates is to ensure that no-one plays the PC version of your games?

Civilization V Announced, Productivity Will Fall

2k Games and Firaxis have announced that Civilization V is currently under development for the PC. The announcement comes via the latest issue of GamePro and also states that the game should be out in the autumn.

The game will sport a whole new engine, a new combat system and deeper diplomacy options amongst other things. It will also have an “extensive suite of community, modding and multiplayer elements”, which is all great stuff.

Expect more info soon, but for now colour this author excited!

This Week’s New Releases (14 – 21 February)

That damn monkey struck again! I’m thinking about setting up a laser trap to catch the pest this time around, but I’m not sure if he’ll just use the smoking trick like in Metal Gear Solid. Automated machine gun emplacement it is!

This week Aliens vs Predator hits the shelves, albeit on the back of an incredibly poor multiplayer demo. The singeplayer may yet live up to the standards expected from an Aliens vs Predator game, but I’m going to rent it just to be safe.

Here are all of this week’s releases:

• Aliens vs Predator (PC, PS3, X360)
• Guitar Hero: Van Halen (PS3, X360, Wii)
• Ghost Pirates of Voojoo Island (PC) – This looks right up my street!
• Ship Simulator Extremes (PC) – …while this one is in the bin on the back alley.
• Family Party: 30 Great Games Winter Fun (Wii)
• XIII Century: Blood of Europe (PC)
• Fireburst (PS3, X360)
• Flight Control (DS) – One of the most addictive games I have for my iPhone!
• Drill Sergeant Mindstrong (Wii)
• Downtown Texas Hold’em (DS) – I swear that there’s a new Texas Hold’em DS game every week.
• Hello Kitty: Puzzle Party (PSP)
• Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Justice for All (Wii)
• The History Channel: Great Battles – Medieval (PC, PS3, X360)
• SOCOM: U.S. Nacy SEALs Fireteam Bravo 3 (PSP)
• Torchlight (PC)
• Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce (PS3, X360)
• Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth (DS)
• Ninja Blade (PC)
• A Farewell to Dragons (PC)
• Half-Minute Hero (PSP) – I’m going to get this eventually.
• UK Truck Simulator (PC) – Game of the Year 2010!!!
• Indianapolis 500 Evolution (X360)
• Alien Zombie Death (PSP)
• Playmobil: Pirates (DS)

Fallout: New Vegas Takes You “Hundreds of Hours to Explore”

I’ve currently logged about 105 hours in Fallout 3, and that’s with the story not yet completed and only the Operation Anchorage DLC done and dusted (I also have Broken Steel). That’s a lot of game for the £30 I paid for it, and I looks like we’re going to get a pretty good deal again as Fallout: New Vegas promises to be bigger.

Speaking with USA Today Bethesda’s Pete Hines believes you’ll sink hundreds of hours into the game, so he’s just one guy to blame for your sudden lack of a social life.

“[The game] has a brand new, fresh experience that has a familiar feel of Fallout, but otherwise it’s an entirely new game and a new look, with Joshua trees and tumbleweeds and blue skies.

“Vegas is up and running. It is not a ghost town. It still exists and thrives. There are casinos, and you can go down onto the Strip. It will have a very different feel from that standpoint.

“It is a massive game world that will take you hundreds of hours to explore every nook and cranny.”

The game will compare in size to the Capital Wasteland from Fallout 3, but any characters from your beloved wasteland won’t be appearing. Instead you’ll hear about the events of Fallout 3 through it’s own “self-contained story”, which means that players new to the series will get a refresher on what’s happened in the world of Fallout so far.

More about the game will be revealed in the April edition of PC Gamer, so check back here for more juicy details come March 2nd.

Magazine Scans Show First Screens and Reveal New Info On Fallout: New Vegas

Magazine scans featuring screenshots and new information about Fallout: New Vegas have appeared online.

The scans are from the latest issue of PSM3, adding to what we already know from the PC Gamer scans that our sister site, Xboxer360, posted about a few days ago. Screenshots show the game looks very similar to Fallout 3, but since it’s running on the same engine that’s no real surprise. Some of the new revelations are that there will various warring factions, a command wheel for followers and more varied plant life.

There’s a tonne of more info in the scans, so head on over to No Mutants Allowed for the run-down and the aforementioned magazine scans.

This Week’s New Releases (7 – 14 February)

This is a day late because a monkey jumped into my computer and stole my original copy. I spent the rest of the day tracking him down through the wilds of the Internet jungle, seeing sites (see what I did there?) no sane man should ever see and having to escape from a tribe of furries. I finally dived into a river of spam and ended up in Nigeria, where I was scammed out of all my money and had to ride the Internet home clinging to yet another wannabee’s YouTube videos. I finally gave up and stumbled into my bedroom, clothes torn to shreds, to write a new post. So, when you read this, I hope you’ll realise just how much trouble I went to for all of you.

A more simple (and, erm, true) explanation would be that I simply forgot, but that wouldn’t make for an interesting story now would it?

Bioshock 2 is your only big release this week, and it’s also a game I’ve just been playing before throwing it into an ever-growing pile of games I have to complete. I should be happy to be a gamer right now, but it’s time like this where you realise there’s just not enough hours in the day.

Here’s the full list of this week’s releases:

• Bioshock 2 (PC, PS3, X360)
• Rollin’ Rascals (DS)
• Safar’Wii (Wii) – Possibly the lamest pun I’ve ever had the displeasure of reading.
• Reel Fishing: Angler’s Dream (Wii)
• Sonic & Knuckles (Wii)
• Frogger Returns (Wii)
• Big Catch Bass Fishing 2 (Wii) – Two fishing games in one week? Those three fans are going to be ecstatic!
• Overturn (Wii)
• Flips: Percy Jackson (DS)
• Jonas (DS)
• Karaoke Revolution (PS3)
• Memento Mori (PC)
• Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes (DS)
• Star Ocean The Last Hope: International (PS3)
• Phantasy Star Zero (DS)
• Ninja Blade (PC)
• Bleach: The 3^rd Phantom (DS)
• Super Monkey Ball: Step & Roll (Wii)
• Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (DS)
• Avalon Heroes (PC)

Square Enix Reports Large Profits; EA Announces Q3 Losses

Square Enix recently reported rather sizeable profit increases on a year-on-year basis, with increases in the many billions of Yen.

They have stated that their operating income increased by 68% from the previous year, to 21.4 billion yen and that net sales for the period were up 30% to 135 billion yen. Square obviously have the release of Final Fantasy XIII in Japan to thank for a lot of that, as well as Arkham Asylum which sold very well. This is pretty good news given the current economical climate and all that stuff that I am not going to pretend to be knowledgable about. Still, good to hear that a company is doing well.

At the same time, EA has announced a loss in quarter 3 of its fiscal year, despite various big-name titles. Games such as Left 4 Dead 2, Dragon Age and even FIFA 10 were not enough to stop the company from seeing a decline in profits from the previous holiday period.

However, with Dante’s Inferno already out as well as the massive Mass Effect 2, I don’t think it will be anything major to worry about for EA. With ME2 topping all the sales charts, it’s already looking like a good start to 2010 for the publishing giants.

Mass Effect and Dragon Age to Get “Long-Term” Support From Bioware

We may have already known that Bioware was planning more content for Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 2 (and, of course, we already have some, but it’s always nice to hear it repeated just so they don’t forget.

“We like to support our games long-term,” BioWare founder Muzyka told IGN.“Our fans are really important to us, and we try and support them. We have long-term plans for both Dragon Age and Mass Effect.”

Just how long is long-term though?

“We have a separate team running in parallel as part of the franchise team,” he added. “You know, people are moving back and forth, but we’ve made a dedicated investment in DLC for Dragon Age and Mass Effect, so we’re going to support them for a long time.”

“Stand alone products, expansion packs, things like that as well.”

So, if you love Dragon Age and Mass Effect (just like I do) we’re going to get even more content to try and satisfy our appetite for these epic universes.

Check out the rest of the interview here, which concentrates on the future of Mass Effect and other Bioware franchises.

« Previous Page — Next Page »