• EVE Online celebrates becoming a tweenager
• Teen Titans and Bad Girls skin packs coming to Injustice: Gods Among Us tomorrow
• The next Xbox won't force you to be online for single player games
• EA gets to make Star Wars games
• Awesomenauts are...1!
• EA and Maxis announce The Sims 4 coming 2014
• Treachery of the White Hand comes to Lord of the Rings Online
• Magrunner: Dark Pulse wears its Portal influence on its digital sleeve
• Now Loading for the week of May 6, 2013
• Here's an hour of Battlefront III

Lobo will be coming to Injustice: Gods Among Us tomorrow but the game will also be getting two skin packs for various characters as well. 

The Teen Titans pack contains skins for Deathstroke, Cyborg and Raven.

The Bad Girls pack contains skins for Harley Quinn, Wonder Woman and Catwoman.

In addition, the compatibility pack for Lobo will contain a free Batman Flashpoint skin.

Here is all the info about tomorrows DLC drop that you need to know. 

• -Lobo will be available for $4.99, or free to Season Pass holders.
• -Batman's Flashpoint skin is FREE with the compatibility pack.
• The Bad Girls & Teen Titans skin packs will be available for $2.99 each, and are not included in the Season Pass.

Well, that didn't take too long. Today, Walt Disney announced that they have entered in a multi-year agreement with Electronic Arts to produce Star Wars games. EA gets an exclusive license to make, what hopefully, will be some very good games to tie into the new movies as well as explore other parts of the Star Wars universe.

DICE, Visceral, and BioWare will be developing new games for the franchise so I'm sure many are hoping to see a new Battlefront headed by the folks at DICE. Now, Visceral's an interesting choice as I don't know what they'd do, but having experience in third person games, maybe they can take up Star Wars 1313 and continue running with that. BioWare, how about a new Knights of the Old Republic?

And will someone get me a new X-Wing Vs. Tie Fighter game please? You listening EA? [READ MORE]

The torture and murdering of innocent Sims will commence once again as EA and Maxis have announced that The Sims 4 will be released next year on PC and Mac. 

Now, my first thought was "oh god please no. It's going to be online only." Well everyone can calm down because thankfully, EA confirmed with IGN that the single player portion of the game will be playable offline. 

"Today we are revealing to our top fans the fact that The Sims™ 4 is coming to PC and Mac in 2014.

The Sims franchise is fueled by the passion and creativity of its millions of fans around the world. Their continued devotion to the franchise ignites the fire of creativity of the team at The Sims Studio, driving them to continually improve and innovate on one of the world’s most successful simulation game that has sold more than 150 million copies worldwide.

Share your excitement for the game on Twitter with the hashtag #TheSims4."

No other details have been announced but apparently we are getting more info later today.
 

Amazingly, Portal didn't spawn a million copies.  It has, however, now spawned one: Magrunner: Dark Pulse.  Magrunner: Dark Pulse is a downloadable title that will be available for the PC, Xbox 360, and PS3.  It doesn't feature portals, but it does feature people running around in challenge rooms solving puzzles with their Gruckezberg magnetic gloves that allows them to manipulate objects and bypass obstacles.  

Watch the video and see for yourself.  For more info, follow the jump.  Also visit Focus Home Interactive and frogwares.com.
  [READ MORE]

5/3/2013

• Netherealm Studios makes it official. Batgirl is the next DLC character for Injustice: Gods Among Us
• Now Playing: Blood Dragon's Dogma Edition
• World of Tanks Blitz on Wargaming TV News Block
• Techland announce Hellraid
• May PS Plus goodies bringing some serious quality
• Tower Defense + CCGs = ...what?

5/5/2013

• Fuse Digital Comic explores character backgrounds
• Team up with Overstrike 9 on May 7
• Wii U Update is live

Insomniac is getting the word out about their first multiplatform title Fuse. With the newest announcement, players can delve into the backstory of all four characters, as well as the first big story mission, in a digital comic.

Radical Interactive has the reins on this comic, adding more depth to the intel docs found within the game, they said.

Check out the trailer below for a look into the characters' lore.

If you weren't already aware, Nintendo has released the latest Wii U firmware update, bringing the console up to version 3.0.0. I've tinkered around with it a little and it does offer some decent improvements, like letting you stream downloads to the console in the background, even when it's turned off. The patch also drastically shortens the Wii U's atrocious load times, although it's still a little slow for my tastes.

It's nice that these updates are finally rolling out, but I wouldn't hold it against you if you didn't know about it yet. I haven't had much reason to turn my Wii U on since I wrapped up my Monster Hunter 3 review so the update took me a little by surprise. I did grab a few downloadable titles--Kirby's Adventure NES on the Virtual Console (Nintendo is still running the Famicom 30th Anniversary sale with select games for only 30 cents) and Tank!Tank!Tank! is now a free download, so playing around with the new VC features is fun.

As always the Wii U is a great system just bursting with potential, and it's cool to see the improvements that the updates bring, but there's just so little to do with the console right now. Nintendo better have some killer stuff in their Nintendo Direct pressers leading up to E3, because I'm getting worried that Wii U might go the way of the Dreamcast before the year is out.

Beyond: Two Souls has a 2,000-page script but will only have 10 hours of gameplay. Activision's CEO is one of the highest-paid in America, while EA lopped off limbs left and right. But it's wasn’t all bad this week--Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon’s pulpy VHS shtick won hearts and minds, and critical darling Fez finally spun its way onto PC.

What are you playing this weekend?

Russell Archey | staff writer | Twitter @neoscyther
More than likely I'll be working on my next review piece, Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Minis on the Move. It's been awhile since I've played a Mario vs. DK game, so I'm really looking forward to spending time with this one.

Sean Cahill | staff writer | Twitter @seancahill2
I'll be sitting down for some Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen on the 360 for the latest review piece. Outside of that, after beating BioShock Infinite in the past couple of days, I'll probably return to Tomb Raider to finally beat that and, perhaps, Far Cry 3.

Sean Colleli | staff writer
It's time to hit the indie Steam backlog, probably with some They Bleed Pixels. I might also pick up DLC Quest; my girlfriend tells me it's pretty funny. Then again, I might also get Mars: War Logs, Zeno Clash II, or of course Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon. Decisions, decisions.

Jeremy Duff | senior staff writer | Twitter @duff3c
This weekend I need to sink a bit of time into The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing, which is shaping up to be way better than I expected. I might also have to dip my toes back into Soul Sacrifice because, well, those monsters aren't going to slay themselves.

Charles Husemann | editor-in-chief | Twitter @chusemann
This weekend will be spent working on Farm Simulator: Suburban Edition as I finally get around to cleaning up the garden areas in my backyard and start working on taming the yard. On a digital game front, I'm going to be spending time with MechWarrior Online as I continue level grinding on my next sets of mechs to elite status.  Time permitting, I'm going to try and progress a bit on BioShock Infinite and possibly even start a playthrough of Half-Life 2 as a recent HL2DM session has reignited my love of the game.

Randy Kalista | staff writer | Twitter @randykalista
My 14-day trial of EVE Online expired, so my character's early explorer/archaeology career is on ice indefinitely. They've done extensive work with the tutorials. It unlocked entire branches of gameplay too complicated to figure out on my own before. So now I need a pick-me-up. I would revisit The Walking Dead or Planescape: Torment but, ugh. Downers. Some Sacred Citadel beat 'em up action might do the trick. Jeremy and I co-op'd a bit, but it crashed as soon as we reached the first boss, some ancient, 'roided-up Treant.

Mike Mahardy | staff writer | Twitter @mmahardy
I've been getting back into nightly loot fests in Diablo III, so those will be punctuated by attempts to finally become a fighting game fan. I have a tendency to try out most new fighting games, but after trying Injustice: Gods Among Us at GDC, I think my love for the license will pull me through.

We've all played first-person shooters, and we've all, at some point in our gaming lives, thought, "Enough with all this shooting!  I want to hit things with a sword and/or shoot magic at the supernatural and can't just spend two more years of my life lost in Skyrim.  I've only got one chance left with my boss and significant other and I need to save it for GTA V."

Well, Amalgamofeverygamerever, I have some good news for you: Techland, makers of Dead Island and Call of Juarez, have heard your call and present Hellraid.  Hellraid is a single-player first person hack-and-slash game with ranged weapons and magic that also features a four-player co-op mode that sounds an awfully lot like it's a wave-based "horde mode."

Hellraid will be available for the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC later this year.  To learn more, follow the jump.  You can also visit hellraid.com, and facebook.com/hellraidgame. [READ MORE]

I'm no stranger to collectible card games such as Magic the Gathering and Yu-gi-oh, nor am I a stranger to tower defense games (most of the time it's in Warcraft 3, but I digress).  However, I don't think I've ever seen a tower defense game mixed with a CCG.  That's basically what Prime World: Defenders is.

Prime World: Defenders is your typical classic tower defense game, except your towers, spells, traps, and so on are magic cards that you have to collect, upgrade, and use strategically.  Each victory will net you some new cards to use.  If this sounds right up your alley (I know it's up mine), you can pre-order it on Steam, and doing so will get you 20% off, early access to the beta, and three rare cards to start with: Energy Cannon, Fireball, and Emblem.  More info can be found at http://playdefenders.com. [READ MORE]

Oh boy... someone is going to be in trouble for this. 

A couple of weeks ago, someone on the Gamespot forums posted that they had discovered the names of the four DLC characters. Listed were Batgirl, Zod and Scorpion from Mortal Kombat. I frequent a lot of fighting game and Mortal Kombat fansites and let me tell you, the response to these characters has been pretty negative. 

To make matters worse for those hoping this list was false, it seems that someone accidentally let the cat out of the bag early on the next DLC character for Injustice today. Spotted at the Eventhub.com forums, "Batgirl" accidentally showed up on the Xbox Live marketplace today for free. Although you could download the character it you would get an error once it reached 100%. In any case, I would say that there is a good chance that Batgirl is coming to Injustice soon and that the leaked list of DLC characters is real.

Of course, I'd love to try out and see the characters in action before forming an opinion. That being said, I also find this list rather disappointing. There is such a small number of female characters in this game that I was hoping we would get more than one as DLC and something that wasn't just Batgirl. Black Canary, Power Girl, Poison Ivy and the list better choices goes on and on. Zod actually makes sense since he is the villain in Man Of Steel, which is coming out this Summer, and I would assume they would want to cross promote that.

Finally, as much as I love Mortal Kombat, I loathe the idea of Scorpion in this game. I already cleansed my mind of the atrocity that was Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe and I don't want to be reminded of that. Plus his inclusion makes no sense in terms of the storyline. How are they going to explain Scorpions inclusion in the DC Universe now?