Official PlayStation Magazine Australia has published the first review for the upcoming Batman: Arkham City, giving it a stunning 10-10. Those who enjoyed the first title have a lot to look forward to it seems. Some of the quotes read as follows: “Presentation: Endlessly creative, perfectly moody, and technically flawless. This is Epic’s Unreal engine pushed to its absolute limit.” “Sound: Alternatively foreboding and frantic, the game’s orchestral soundtrack matches the on-sccreen action perfectly. Voice acting is brilliant.” “Controls: Complex and initially overwhelming, but also logical and responsive. It’ll take a while to get used to them, but once you do, it feels perfectly natural flinging Batman around.” “Replay Value: Immense. A massive main quest, dozens of side missions, Riddler challenges, secondary game modes, and DLC will keep most people occupied for months.” “VERDICT: We can’t imagine how a superhero game could be better than this. Absolutely sublime.” I personally don’t count on reviews too often, but this is hard to ignore. Source: Arkhamcity

The rest is here:
Batman: Arkham City – 1st Review!

Bathesda Softworks released an in-game teaser of all the goodies you will score, once you pre-order the upcoming shooter: RAGE. The pre-order will grant you an upgrade to the Anarchy Edition, which includes the following in-game items: The Crimson Elite armor A double-barrel shotgun Rat Rod buggy The Fists of Rage melee weapon Interested? RAGE is scheduled for October 4th, 2011

See original here:
RAGE – Anarchy Edition Teaser

Starting yesterday, Insomniac began running a very limited Beta for the upcoming co-op title Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One. It is limited in the fact that it will only be running until September 27th. Given the limited time frame for the beta, this is going to be a quick giveaway. No points involved. We have a total of 4 codes for you (other codes will be made available via twitter and facebook as well)! So, how do you enter, you ask? Given the creative types of weapons the game is known for, all you have to do is leave a comment about a fun weapon you would create for the series if you could . Winners will be randomly picked tonight during the podcast (which should be recording at around 6PM Pacific Time (GMT -7)). Winners will be messaged as well. Good luck!

See original here: 
[Giveaway] Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One Beta Codes!

Fighting Fantasy: Talisman of Death brings the original 16m selling series of Fantasy Role-Playing Gamebooks to PSN for the first time! The once peaceful world of Orb is in terrible danger. Dark forces are at work to unleash the awesome might of the Evil One. Your mission is to destroy the Talisman of Death before the dark lord’s minions reach you. But beware! Time is running out… This PSN-exclusive version of Fighting Fantasy: Talisman of Death also features a Tarot Card character generation system, and the classic dice-rolling rule set you know and love, with optional all-new Battle and Test Your Luck systems for bold adventurers to explore. The intuitive Inventory system and an all-new Log Book help you easily track your progress through Orb’s magical world, make this the perfect way to relive this classic series. Go forth, brave adventurer! I used to play a lot of these “choose your own adventure” type books back in the day and had a lot of fun with them without cheating at all (going back to the page where I made the fatal decision of jumping of the cliff instead of staying inside the cave, etc). No sir, never did that… more than twice. How did it translate into a videogame? It did so in a great way! You use the left Analog is used to scroll up and down the page you’re currently in. Using the D-Pad you can move left towards your inventory to use provisions or items to recover stamina, luck, skill, or even to equip weapons and armor you might find in your quest. Using up or down on the D-pad speeds things up, since it takes you directly to the available choices for the page so you can move on within your adventure. R button is used for zooming in and out on the written page to make reading easier for those that don’t have a 20/20 sight to report anymore. And now for a VERY SPECIAL command: The Triangle button! This is used to open up the Log Book in which every character you find is given a page to be itself, along with a description (and some even get a special image if one was available in the original book) that will help you to get to know them better, or you can switch to another section that lists of all the items you’ve found or, and this is were it’s at, a looooong list with all 400 pages AND their contents (should you have unlocked it) so you can keep track of what choice takes you to what page and what the consequences can be, so you can actually have a shot at seeing all 400 pages. Remember how I said this was based on a book series? Well, I hope you like reading (I do!), because you’ll be doing A LOT of that in here! The book IS the setting and is how the User Interface is placed as to bring to life the written word in a digital world. In Talisman of Death, reaching a Game Over (You have died!) is part of the experience, since you can’t possibly see every page on a single run. Loading the same file allows you to retry and fix your mistake while making other choices, which will, eventually, also end up in a Game Over during several more “trial and error” situations. You can re-roll your character when you start (or restart) the game in case you’re not satisfied with how the 3 tarot cards are trying to deal your fate. Skill is important for making more successful hits or dodging enemy attacks, Stamina allows you to take a hit here and there or survive after you fall into a trap or hazard, and Luck allows you to increase the damage you deal, decrease the damage sustained from and enemy attack or to be “lucky” in a specific situation so you avoid a trap, enemy, hazard… or death. I died within 5 minutes of starting up the game and after only 10 pages… just the way I like it! After starting again, I took another path and died AGAIN, which quickly reminded me that the obvious option to take is not always the right one to favor. Once you’re ready to load your save file after a Game Over, you’ll be able to see what % of the book you’ve already seen (and completed) and the game autosaves every time you flip a page to make a choice, so there’s no way of “tricking” the system into going back to BEFORE you made a choice. Nor should you want to, since dying or loosing stamina from traps actually brings you one step closer to 100% completion of the book. There are several items to find in your quest. Some are Skill enhancing weapons and armor, others help you recover your stamina, or your luck and others are needed at some point of your adventure to progress down the right path or to encounter a new item that WILL come in handy down the road. You can’t use items while in an actual fight, so you must use any recovery items BEFORE engaging in a fight. You ARE given the option since you HAVE to click on the fight icon, which is nice. And not having to use pen and paper to keep track of everything in your backpack or the skill, stamina, luck values, or the stamina and skill of your enemies during every enemy encounter, or a real pair of dice to play along has really streamlined the experience and made it even better! Options you cannot choose on a page (because you lack the proper item, got lucky/unlucky, don’t have enough money, etc.) can’t be selected at all to progress… unlike the ones that you can choose and that are colored a bright hue of red. It’s easy to spot and understand, which makes it better overall since it prevents you from using an option you wouldn’t be able to make in the actual book if you played in an honest and ethical way. It helps in selecting options that are contained within a paragraph of text so they don’t get lost. There are two ways to play Fighting Fantasy: The Talisman of Death. You can go with the “pure” option and do everything with the random roll of the dice to decide if an attack has landed or not or if the gods have smiled upon you… or you can change it into a more “dynamic” system in which you select to flip a symbol from a playing field that contains Helmet symbols for a good attack, a Red Demon symbol for when the enemy lands a strike upon you, or a Crossed Swords Symbol that means that your attack has missed. These symbols are flipped open and moved around until they’re flipped back so you can’t see them and must randomly pick one BUT if you’re good enough you can see where the good symbols are and always win a fight. Skill difference between you and your enemy determines how many of the Good, the Bad, and the Miss symbols are present on each fight so each one has a different feel. Choosing not to use dice also means that luck in combat is calculated by placing a red and green bar at the bottom of the screen which represents bad (red) and good (green) luck. Stopping the moving cursor on either will bring you luck or misfortune. Luck in situations is carried out a bit differently, as 12 runes are placed in a circle and your current luck stat determines how many are red and how many are green so you can try to stop the circling rock on the color you want. I say “want” because sometimes you’ll want to be unlucky on purpose to get an extra page added to your logbook, as this is the only way to make sure you’ll be constantly unlucky. Only exception is when the game ask you to roll a die or two and take that value up against your current skill stat since those are ALWAYS determined by a random dice roll. And now to wrap this up give you an idea of HOW the game works, here’s an example of a situation that happens right at the beginning of the game (pages are not the right ones and some info has been changed as to not spoil the flow itself): It has begun… “You arrive at a fork in the road. You can go into the forest or continue off the road and into an open plain. What will you do?” Mmm, OK, let’s go to the open plain, even if I’ve got some trolls and some dark elves behind me. They’ll totally NOT see me out in the open. “Turn to page 324″ Me: “The Dark Elves notice you. What will you do?” Well, I’ve got a sword. What do you think I’m going to do? I’ll attack them! “Turn to page 183″. Me: “One of the Dark Elves starts doing some hand signaling and before you can react you realize he’s casting a spell. He has immobilized you and now all the other Dark Elves move in for the kill. Turn to page 112″ Me: “You have died. Return to page 1″ Fighting Fantasy: Talisman of Death is a great option for PS3 and PSP owners, as it brings the gamebooks created by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone to life in a great package. It’s easy to understand, pick up and play for 10-20 minutes, and then get back to it later should you choose to; or you can do a marathon 2 hour run and see how far you can get. Definitely worth the asking price and a worthy purchase for your collection. Review Pros Cons Gamebooks area back in style and available for your PS3 and PSP! Huuuuge amount of content Very Fun and Addictive Log Book doesn’t remember what section you left at once you exit (which will be fixed in the next game in the series) Rating 90% Developed and Published by Laughing Jackal Cost – $4.99 Available on PSN Want to get this game? Then you can: Buy Fighting Fantasy: The Talisman of Death Itself! Buy a $20 PSN Card! Buy a $50 PSN Card! Other Information Disclaimer – A copy of the game was supplied by the publisher for this review. – Game was completed before writing this review. – Total amount of time played: 10 hours.

Originally posted here: 
[Review] Fighting Fantasy: Talisman of Death (minis)

We have all been waiting for this moment to come and finally, the first trailer to the long awaited Max Payne sequel was released by Rockstar Games . As a fan of the game, and a São Paulo inhabitant, I must say the trailer not only didn’t disappoint me, but it hooked me from the very first line and took me back to the incredible story of the unluckiest video game protagonist I can think of. Everything looks good and, as expected, Max’s voice is still setting the dark tone for the game. Did I mention this trailer is made up entirely from in-game footage?

View post: 
Max Payne 3 – First Trailer Released

Greetings readers. Like it or not, the Call of Duty series is here to stay, and you’d be lying to yourself if you never heard of this game franchise. In a push to create hype and beat down its competitors, Activision along with sponsors such as Mountain Dew, Gunnar optics, Doritos, and another video game company console unleashed the Call of Duty XP event in Los Angeles. The event was held in a hanger where Howard Hughes built the Spruce Goose. The hanger was transformed into a gaming arena with each areas serving up different modes, game play, and giving the general public who paid the $150 fee a taste of whats to come in MW3. Me and Oly had a chance to attend this event and it sure did not disappoint. Personally, I prefer 3rd person shooters, however there is just something about the COD series that you cant help but notice. Each area of play was comprised of stations. Every time a participant completes or plays in one of the areas, he or she is rewarded with a patch. There were 12 patches to collect, and 2 patches that were exclusively obtained only by VIP wristband holders. The atmosphere of the place was filled with hardcore gamers. There was even a retail store area where you could purchase a blank shirt and have your PSN name screen printed on the back. VIP’s were treated with an open bar, and complimentary drinks and food. The best part of the event were the gift bags. For the $150 admission you basically get a free hardened copy of the game upon release. So the $100 already pays for itself there. Now for those of you who thought you can get away with getting one for your friend, guess what… You couldn’t. Each admission wristband were scanned upon giving you the gift bag so if you try to get another, you automatically get rejected. The gift bag included a limited edition Modern Warfare 3 Mountain Dew can, a couple of sponsor coupons, and silver tin. Inside the tin was a voucher with the redemption code to redeem your free hardened edition copy of the game, a thank you note from Activision, and woven patch from the event. Oly and I did not participate in the outdoor activies. The outdoor activities included a 100 yard zipline, paintball in the “scrapyard” map, test driving a Jeep, and “the pit” course recreated. Overall I had an awesome experience and they got me thinking about MW3 and wanting to tell everyone about it. Kudos to Activion for a job well done.

See the original post:
Call Of Duty XP L.A. Event Recap & Pictures

Have you been waiting for a price drop to enter the Move universe? Then Gamestop has you covered! For a limited time, several PS Move games are only $9.99 and all Move Accessories (which DOES include the actual Move and Nav controllers) are 50%! Follow the link to start saving! So, will you bite and spend some Move money?

The rest is here: 
Huge PS Move Sale at Gamestop

DICE have released yet another fine campaign-gameplay teaser from their upcoming shooter, Battlefield 3. Check it out … Did this get your attention?

Here is the original post: 
Battlefield 3 Operation Guillotine

Capcom today released the official box art of their upcoming game Dragon’s Dogma. I had a chance to play this during the San Diego Comic-Con at Capcom’s booth and it did not disappoint. Game play reminds me of Monster Hunter but with a more direct approach. The game is slated to be released sometime in 2012. I don’t know about you but Box Art says a lot about a game, and this box art looks epic!

Read more here: 
Dragon’s Dogma official box art revealed.

Ahoy scurvy dawgs! Deep Silver has just published a new trailer with what appears to be in-game footage of the upcoming pirate RPG Risen 2: Dark Waters. It also gives a little explanation on what’s going on at the world and what’s the story all about. You can check out the Official Risen 2 Youtube Channel for the debut cinematic trailer as well and you should keep an eye out for more every so often. Well, the winds seem to be blowing this game in the right direction and I can’t wait to see more!

Go here to read the rest: 
New Risen 2 Trailer