Monthly Archives: December 2011

Activision has announced proceeds from the sale of all Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 avatars on Xbox Live between now and December 16 will be donated to the Call of Duty Endowment. There are over 30 items for MW3 available, and two additional avatars, the American Special Forces and Special Ops Juggernaut have been added for the incentive. Go have a look through here. It’s for a good cause. Shots of my Avatar in the newest gear are posted below.

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The International Committee of the Red Cross is looking into whether videogames in which the player participates in wars, whether fictional or not, should adhere to the Geneva and Hague conventions.

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A NeoGAF user has discovered that the EA Online Pass voucher in his brand new copy of Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit has expired, thus locking him out of the game’s multiplayer modes.

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DICE has announced the PC version of Battlefield 3 will be patched on December 6, and updates will include various bug fixes and balancing, along with the addition of colorblind mode and some of the Back to Karkand content, which will arrive in full on December 13. Bug fixes and tweaks are posted below, courtesy of Evil Avatar. Full patch notes can be found over on the Battlefield 3 website.

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Perfect World has released a video for Blacklight Retribution, which is currently in phase three of the closed beta. Watch it below courtesy of Gamefront. The free-to-play Zombie Studios shooter will be monetized using microtransactions entirely, instead of offering a subscription service, and is set for a release later this year. You can sign as a beta participant through here.

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NOA has released the US trailer for Xenoblade Chronicles, which was announced for the region yesterday. It’s posted below, courtesy of IGN. The Wii exclusive is slated for an April 2012 release.

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Day 1 Studios has had to lay-off 95% if its staff working on the Silent Scope reboot after the game’s publisher, Konami backed out of the deal. According to a Gamespot report, the Chicago-based studio was working on a revamp of the franchise for Konami, and it was to be the first entry in the series since 2002′s Silent Scope 3 for PS2. There’s no word just yet on why the deal between the two firm’s went south, but at present, Day 1 has another project in the works with a much smaller team fronting it. Considering it’s Saturday, there hasn’t been any official announcement on the matter, so it’s plausible more information will be released on Monday. Day1′s latest release was the shooter F.E.A.R. 3 for Warner. Thanks, Shack.

A NeoGAF user has received the January issue of Game Informer and has seen fit to post information regarding South Park: The Game in the works at Obsidian and to be published by THQ. You can assume that going below the break may contain a few spoilers, so don’t look below if you want to wait on your copy of the magazine to arrive in the mail.

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Tired of the old chestnut about games causing violence? It’s time for gaming to grow up and stop passing the buck, Julie Horup argues.

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Capcom Japan has filed a trademark for a game called E.X. Troopers in the US and Europe. Spotted by Siliconera, its sounds to us like a shooter where you will play a trooper of some sort. We have no creative thought as to what the initials E.X. would stand for, though. Maybe extreme? Extreme Troopers? If that’s the case, maybe it’s mechs. Who knows. As usual, we’ll send a mail. Thanks, Joystiq.

An “unnamed Japanese developer” has told Wii U daily that Nintendo’s next console will contain a quad-core 3GHz PowerPC-based 45nm CPU, 768MB of DRAM “embedded” with the CPU and shared between it and the GPU which is 40nm and ATI-based. Try saying all of that three times really fast while holding your tongue. The site’s source claims to be working on porting a PS3 game to Wii U, and that Nintendo is currently testing another version of the console with 1GB of DRAM embedded with the processor. As usual, just file this away for later use until Nintendo officially announces specs. Thanks, D’toid.

IndustryGamers is reporting that Alan Wake may have sold much better than previously thought, especially once digital sales of the title are taken into consideration.

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Despite the fact an Assassin’s Creed has been released every year for the past three years, doesn’t mean it only takes the Ubisoft team a year to make the entries.

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Details on Master Chief and Cortana in Halo 4 have been revealed through the latest issue of Xbox World.

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You’d be forgiven for thinking the main character in Onechanbara Z is Aya, since Kagura’s outfit is so very similar, but it’s not. The female heroine of this title is a half-vampire from Romania, so the only similarities between the two ladies are their penchant for skimpy outfits. She also has a sidekick named Saaya who can slice and dice enemies with the best of them with her named weapons. Don’t worry though, Aya and her half-sister Saya are still around, but this time as your enemies, with the former now donning an assassin’s outfit and supposedly responsible for the horrors banging around Tokyo. Onechanbara Z: Kagura will be released as an Xbox 360 exclusive on January 19, 2012 in Japan. Check out shots of it over on Siliconera.

If you register two eligible 3DS titles online by Christmas, Nintendo will give you 3D Classic: Kid Icarus for free when it launches January 5.

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Sony’s Jim Ryan has said that in an “ideal world,” the firm would have preferred that Insomniac stayed exclusive to PS3 development, but the firm harbors no ill will and is “still friends” with the Resistance developer.

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Market research firm eDataSourcehas estimated that Amazon sold around 2 million units of its Kindle Fire tablet since launch. According to the firm’s CEO Carter Nicholas, 850,000 have been sold through Amazon with the rest moving through various channel sales, such as Best Buy which reported a 63% sales increase for the tablet during October and November. In a recent press release, Amazon Kindle VP Dave Limp stated that the firm sold “millions” of the new Kindle family and Kindle Fire before the holiday shopping weekend started. A projection from research firm iSuppli (via CNET) suggests Amazon will ship 3.9 million units of Kindle Fire during the last three months of 2011, which would give the firm a 13.8% share of global tablet shipments in Q4, exceeding Samsung’s 4.8% share and coming in second to Apple’s 65.6% share. Thanks, MCV.

Keeping up with its Marvel Universe Online reveals, MMOSociety has renders of Iron Man up on the site for perusing. Previously revealed characters include Thor, Deadpool, Wolverine, and Captain America.

A release date has not been set for Gazillion’s MMO.

Ubisoft’s digital publishing manager for EMEA Thomas Paincon has said the firm feels it is best to release new IP through digital outlets due to the less risk involved.

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