Monthly Archives: November 2011

Sega’s announced a standalone expansion pack, titled Fall of the Samurai, for Total War: Shogun 2. It’s to include six new playable clans who will need to “deal with” the foreign powers of America, Britain and France, as well as fighting against domestic factions.

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Square Enix’s released some new Final Fantasy XIII-2 screenshots, showing Caius and a look at side quests. Side quests give you fragments, which, in turn, can be traded for skills. The game’s out in Japan on December 15, the US on January 31 and in European on February 3, for PS3 and 360. View the screens below.

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DICE has released a new trailer for Battlefield 3′s upcoming DLC, Back to Karkand. It features gameplay from the Gulf of Oman map and focuses on vehicular combat, giving a glimpse at a fourth, classified vehicle. The expansion releases in December at no extra charge if you bought the limited edition of Battlefield 3. It’s available for $14.99/1200 MSP for others. You can watch the video after the break.

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EmpireStateGamer’s got an image from an Assassin’s Creed user survey, part of which supposedly gauged opinion on potential future directions for the series.

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In my latest Huffington Post UK piece, I posit that conservativeness at the top-spend end of video gaming has, thankfully, been off-set by increases in internet speeds and the rise of “bite-size” gaming formats such as mobile and PC.

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Sony’s released a video of Twitter being used on Vita, as you can see after the break. The touchscreen keypad’s used for the typing itself, and this is the tweet sent. History in the making. This was filmed at Vita’s recent London showcase, which hosted the announcement of the handheld’s EU launch line-up: read Stace’s impressions here. Vita releases in Japan on December 17 and the EU on February 22.

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Eurogamer’s rumouring that the next version of Kinect will be powerful enough to lip-read and “detect when players are angry”.

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Lego Pirates of the Caribbean, Size Five’s Privates and Just Dance 2 were all awarded at the children’s BAFTAs last night, with the Lego title picking up the main award. Sex education game Privates won the Learning Secondary BAFTA. Developer Dan Marhshall said: “I can’t thank BAFTA enough for honouring a tiny studio who made a weird little game. It was a great night, and I’m brimming with pride. To stagger home with one of those oh-so-familiar shiny metal face awards is so surreal, and completely magical.”

The UK Government has published its response to Ian Livingstone’s Next Gen report today, saying it agrees computer science education in the UK is in need of “reform”.

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Lego fansite Bricktuts is carrying what appears to be a promo image for Lego Batman 2, showing Batman, the Bat Mobile, Superman and more. The sequel’s reportedly out next year. The original released in 2008.

Nippon Ichi’s released first screens and some box-art of System Prisma’s PS3 RPG, Legasista. Take a look on Andriasang. It looks about as Nippon Ichi-ish as it’s possible to be. There’s a teaser site here, with a full site expected to go live on November 30. It’s out in Japan on March 15 next year.

Users on Skyrim’s official forum are reporting that the PS3 version of the RPG has now been patched to 2.01, apparently fixing a widely reporting stuttering bug. Bethesda PR boss Pete Hines has promised the patch will improve performance for “long-term play on PS3,” and user reports so far indicate this is the case. The issue seemingly occurs when save game files increase in size, rendering the game borderline unplayable. Thanks, Eurogamer.

Modern Warfare 3 has topped the UK chart for the third week running.

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Konami’s to adopt Digipass online security for e-Amusement Gate and its Konami Style shopping service in a preemptive strike against dreaded “cybercriminals”.

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Eidos head Ian Livingstone is hoping to see a message from the UK government that it’s listening to calls for an adoption of computer science as a compulsory subject in schools, speaking in the Independent this morning.

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Zynga’s follow-up to one of its most enduring and successful titles is reportedly under-performing.

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Pre-orders have gone live for Vita in Hong Kong, apparently creating a level of delirium intense enough “jam” online stores and “mob” retail outlets, according to a Joystiq-filtered Engadget China report.

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Although BioShock: Infinite abandons the silent protagonist schtick, Irrational Games boss Ken Levine is still a champion of quiet.

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The latest EVE Online dev diary has a look at CCP’s engineering group, which is currently working on the space MMO’s Crucible update. CCP Atlus is there promising the team is killing off problems people have been “griping about for years.” Details are also given on alterations to font sizes and bookmark functionality. We bring the news.

It’s after the break. Crucible’s out tomorrow at zero cost to you.

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5th Cell’s Jeremiah Slaczka believes too many industry executives don’t understand how games are made, or what makes them fun.

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