Focus Home Interactive will be publishing Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga for the Xbox 360 and PC in October.  The saga includes Ego Draconis and Flames of Vengeance; the saga expands on the original (Ego Draconis) with remastered graphics and hours of extra gameplay to deliver a visual and updated spectacle.

As for Flames of Vengeance, the new adventure continues where Draconisleaves off and delivers a finale to the Dragon Knight series. Read more… »

Team 17 is delivering a DLC package for Worms 2: Armageddon to the Xbox Live Arcade.  The smash series has been in the consoles and PCs of many gamers for the last 15 years and it isn’t slowing down anytime soon.

With a new single player campaign, new weapons, new customization features, and a new mode, having worms has never been so great.   Read more… »

Earlier this week, Blizzard announced they would be changing their forums to display people’s actual names instead of their avatar handle when posting.  After a huge backlash from their fans and the gaming community, it appears the popular PC game company has changed its stance on the issue and will not be making this modification to the forums after all.

I for one never had a problem with the change, as I think using a person’s real name makes them more accountable for the crap that comes out of their mouth.  Unfortunately I’m in the vocal minority, meaning things will go back to the status quo as the majority demands it.  For more information regarding why Blizzard changed their minds, hit the jump. Read more… »

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a total hypocrite when it comes to videogame difficulty. All at once, I find myself wishing that games presented more of a challenge, yet whenever I play an especially difficult game that makes me lose progress, I feel that my time is being wasted. One thing I know for sure is this: even when trudging through an especially difficult game, I rarely feel truly threatened.

In modern experiences, the simple fact is that true feelings of danger are hard to come by. We’re given experiences with the ability to save anywhere, liberal checkpoints, and overall low difficulty, and in many ways, I wouldn’t trade this for anything. Given this, how can games at the very least achieve the illusion of putting us in grave danger at every corner?

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That’s right… it’s me! I’m back, so you can start the party now. Sorry for keeping it on hold for so long, but moving is a pain in the lower back-crack and while trying to get settled I kept getting distracted by stuff like friends, free food, and sleep. What pesky things those are.

But that’s neither here nor there. I’m here to ask what the hell YOU’RE playing. SO TELL ME OR I WILL DESTROY YOU. Or will at least whine about it on twitter and in the forums…

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Fractal is the newest puzzler by Cipher Prime (makers of Auditorium), with a few unique twist that will have you pushing until you manage to pull your hair out, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The game feels much like Hexic HD and Frenzic met at a party and got a little too drunk, resulting in a love child with great music, awesome puzzles, and three very sexy play styles.

The game borrows the idea of  clearing a hexagon from the board from Hexic HD but puts a twist on the play in that you’re not rotating three pieces, but using a limited amount of pushes to get the pieces into place. The main challenge comes in seeing if you can complete the 30 level campaign in a straight shot using the amount of pushes given to you. Think of it as a puzzle marathon that you’ll likely lose, but that’s not a bad thing.

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The EA Sports NCAA Football franchise continues to work towards providing an authentic college football experience.  The intensity, tradition, and college environment are a few of the more important aspects of the game that can help the franchise set itself apart from other sports games. NCAA Football 11 takes that authenticity a step further with “120 ways to win”.

While the qualities of college football off the field are essential to the experience, it is on-the-field authenticity that has been lacking in years prior. With “120 ways to win” EA Sports Tiburon has implemented each and every offensive and defensive package for all 120 teams. But is this along with a few new additions enough to take the franchise to the next level? Read more… »

It’s quite clear that Sonic has been going through a bit of a rough spell lately – his transition to 3D has arguably been less than successful and the essence of the series has been completely lost in translation due to poor design choices and dodgy engine mechanics that lack the sense of speed the franchise was famous for.

However, while both Sonic 4 and Sonic Colors look like a return to form for Sega’s beleaguered mascot, series’ creator and gaming legend Yuji Naka is still set on playing with new ideas.

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*Update: BioWare has sent out an official press release with more details. According to the press release, Dragon Age II is slated to arrive March 2011. The other major detail in the press release is that gamers are no longer able to roll a custom character like in the first Dragon Age. Instead, BioWare is going the Mass Effect route, forcing gamers to play as Hawke, a human (male or female your choice) “refugee who rises to power to become the single most important character in the world of Dragon Age. Known to be a survivor of the Blight and the Champion of Kirkwall, the legend around Hawke’s rise to power is shrouded in myth and rumor.”

Today BioWare unsurprisingly announced that it has been working on Dragon Age II, a full fledged sequel to last year’s critically and commercially acclaimed RPG Dragon Age: Origins.

According to the announcement, DAII will hit the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC at an undisclosed date in the future. The game is said to feature “a new hero, a different part of the world, and a ton of surprising improvements that will shed even more light on the lore of the Dragon Age universe.” Read more… »

When I get together with some of my mates we tend to drink some beers.  Maybe play some Rockband or take in a movie.  When Sean, Grant, Ryan and David – the entire team of Hello Games – got together, they decided what the world really needed was a fantastically fun game that served no greater purpose than to amuse and entertain – I’ll wager some beers were also consumed during this postulation.

With that pure notion in mind they have spent the past two years slaving away over Joe Danger.  Leaving behind well paid jobs at some of the UK’s top development companies to create a start-up developer in one of the most unpredictable financial markets of the past 30 years.  Luckily for them their game is an absolute belter.

Hello Games seem to of drawn influences from titles current and past that there are so many obvious titles that could be mentioned here.  Titles like Trials 2 and Trials HD spring instantly to mind.  As does Nintendo’s Excite Bike.  All of these comparisons are fair and justified but there are so many more genre types bursting forth from this game.

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The latest update has landed on the PSN Store this week, bringing with it a fine selection of content  to enjoy.

Monkey Island 2 is the undisputed highlight of full PSN games, and there’s the usual supply of game boosting DLC including additional content for Dragon Age: Origin, some Marvel level and costume kits for LittleBigPlanet and even a playable demo of the scary, quintessentially Japanese Patapon 3. Oh, and there’s another preposterously priced map pack for Modern Warfare 2.

Hit that jump for a full roundup of this week’s PSN Store update.

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DICE has continued its ongoing onslaught of lacklustre DLC with the release of VIP Map Pack 4, the latest new map pack that isn’t really a new map pack. This time around, Atacama Desert and Port Valdez have received the VIP treatment, with Atacama Desert now available to play in Rush mode and Port Valdez in Conquest mode.

It’s clear that every map is slowly being made available for every mode: there are still a few maps that aren’t playable in certain modes however,  so it is highly likely that we haven’t seen the last of these VIP map packs.  At this rate it looks like we may have to wait until the end of the year for the forthcoming Vietnam expansion before we get any real new content. Let’s just hope that the interest level in Bad Company 2 doesn’t run out of ammunition by then, particularly with the releases of Medal of Honour and Call of Duty: Black Ops looming ahead.

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