There is little out there that matches the feeling of accomplishment the Monster Hunter franchise delivers.  Never heavy on narrative or characters, the goal of each game has always been to find the biggest, meanest-looking thing out there and kill it, and as anyone both new or familiar might suspect, that task is much easier said than done.

The latest entry into the Monster Hunter series, Monster Hunter Tri, is the first ever produced for a Nintendo system.  Previous titles, all made for the PS2 and PSP bar Monster Hunter Frontier, pushed their respective systems to the limit in generating what felt like living, breathing environments full of creatures ripe for the hunt. This latest entry is no exception.

Though the game suffers from some of the same technical missteps as its predecessors, the graphical upgrade, coupled with a smoother learning curve, several brand new monsters, and the highly-advertised underwater combat system has yielded a product that is both welcoming to newcomers, as well as inviting to those who have already mastered the series. Read more… »

BioWare and Square-Enix have both had big releases early this year with the launches of Mass Effect 2 and Final Fantasy XIII respectively.  Kotaku picked up on an interesting interview that Strategy Informer had with one of the people at BioWare.

During a discussion about the upcoming MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic, Writing Director Daniel Erickson says that Final Fantasy XIII is not an RPG. Read more… »

On Saturday, the makers of a wonderful little game called Auditorium are releasing their newest title, Fractal, a puzzle game that is literally designed to destroy your life. Or at least all the freetime you have left in it.

To help buyers decide if the preorder discount price of $9.99 was worth it, there is an in-browser demo you can play on the site, completely free of charge. And if you haven’t made up your mind by Saturday, the release day price will only be a few bucks more than the pre-order. Still a great deal for such a fun and addicting game.

[UPDATE: the release was pushed back to later in May, but the preorder still ends on the 15th so go get on that!]

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Valve has finally released their gaming and digital distribution service Steam for the Mac. It’s happy news for all Mac gamers, but Valve have outdone themselves with a bonus offer. For a limited time, they’re giving Portal away for free.

That’s right, giving it away. For free. Read more… »

EA and Epic have gone all out to promote their new partnership. With front-man CliffyB waxing lyrical left, right and centre about the awesomeness of the new IP coming from Painkiller producer People Can Fly.

Well we finally get a chance to check it out for ourselves with the very first trailer being launched today. To me it looks something like the bastard child of Borderlands and Bioshock but I will let you guys make your own minds up on this one.

Either way it looks great fun and should be a solid title to check out when released Q4 of 2011 for PS3, 360 and PC.

OnLive have managed to secure a deal with UK Telco giant British Telecom to bundle the OnLive service exclusively.

After buying a 2.6 percent share of the California based OnLive, BT have shown commitment to the project on a large level.  In an article published on industry site MCV, Gavin Patterson, CEO of BT Retail, clarified their position:

“Entertainment is going to be at the heart of what we offer customers in the future. The partnership with OnLive complements our existing BT Vision service. It’s great for our customers – they’ll have access to a huge catalogue of games, available instantly on their TV or PC without expensive hardware. And it’s great for BT – it will enhance our premium broadband position and we’ll be entering into a market that’s worth more than £2billion.”

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The latest PlayStation Store update has gone live, bringing with it a host of nourishing delights. This week sees the release of two full games, Catan and Rocket Knight, along with another batch of DLC for LittleBigPlanet, Skate 3, Nier and the first premium content for Battlefield: Bad Company 2.

Read on for a full list of this week’s PSN Store update.

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How many HD trailers can you take in one week? Hopefully at least three! Feel free to check out the new gameplay footage vignettes, and post your thoughts.

Have you picked up Lost Planet 2 yet? Let us know, because we’re about to dig into it, and would like some heads up as to what we should expect. If the trailers are anything to go by, though, it should be a rockin’ good time.

We’ll have a full review of Lost Planet 2 on Gamer Limit as soon as possible!

Remember that Humble Indie Bundle I wrote about a last week? Well it has turned into quite the success. Right before the deal came to a close yesterday, gamers dug deep into their pockets and managed to raise over $1 million.

In celebration of this fantastic achievement, the offer has been extended by four days. This mans that you have until 4pm EDT on May 15 to get in on the action. Also, because the bundle broke the million mark, several of the developers have decided to release the source codes for Lugaru HD, Gish, Aquaria and Penumbra Overture. This means that modders will be able to produce new content for the bundled titles. Read more… »

In what seems to be the latest trend Battlefield Bad Company 2 will be getting a new four player online co-operative mode entitled “Onslaught“.

This news hits as the latest patch for BFBC2, v1.02, goes live bringing with it some game balancing tweaks, XMB crash fixes and also access to the new SPECACT kits.  This kits will set you back around $2.00/£1.19 each or $5.50/£3.99 for the bundle.

There are four SPECACT packs each opening up four Trophies and four new awards each.  The bad news?  These kits are only available in the EU for now with and American release “coming soon”.
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By now, we’ve all grown tired of the classic game cliché of shooting down hapless helicopters, but it’s rare we get to experience it in a racing game. This is set to change however, as Disney Interactive have revealed two new game modes entitled Air Attack and Air Revenge in the run up to the release of Split/Second: Velocity.

Air Strike has you hurtling around the track whilst avoiding an onslaught of missiles from an overhead attack helicopter. You are granted three lives and it’s essentially a game of survival, meaning the longer you survive intact the more points you will accumulate. Air Revenge ups the ante by replacing points with power, allowing you to will jam the pesky chopper’s targeting system and send it crashing down in an orgy of explosions and devastation.

From the video posted above, it all looks like tremendous fun and will hopefully be a worthy addition to the game’s arsenal when it comes crash landing on May 18th in the US and May 21st in Europe.

Read more… »

During an interview with Test Drive Unlimited 2′s designer at Namco Bandai, Alain Jarniou, the prospect of a demo to the open world racer was raised.  Now you might think that attempting a demo of a game that is basically one part sand-box and one part racer would be impossible.  Well you’d be both right and wrong – after all Burnout Paradise managed this.  What Jarniou had to say was this:

“Right now, the plan is to have an open beta of TDU2.  The difficulty of having a demo for a game like this is the fact it’s a huge island, and a huge amount of data. It’s not the best way to show the game. So yeah, for now the plan’s an open beta.”

No word yet as to the length or validity of the Beta.  Will it be a glorified demo like the REACH beta?  Or can we hope for a nice proper Beta cycle like Bizarre Creations did with Blur.

Test Drive Unlimited 2 ships later this year in the Autumn for PC, 360 and PS3.