EA and Disney team up

EA games and Disney have announced that they will be working together to make multiple Star Wars video games. EA studios DICE and Visceral will be in charge of making new Star Wars games, while BioWare will continue to work with The Old Republic. Statements on Star Wars 1313 and Star Wars: First Assault have not been made.

Nintendo News

Nintendo has announced that they will not be hosting a press conference at this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo. Nintendo president Satoru Iwata states that they will instead be hosting several small events to showcase upcoming games and hardware for the Wii-U. Some of the upcoming Wii-U games will appear at E3, however no new hardware will be announced. Nintendo will be conveying this information through other sources, such as Nintendo Direct.

Also, the Nintendo Miiverse is expanding. Players can now view their friends Miis from any PC or smart device. This is well accommodated  as 80% of 3.45 million Wii-U's are connected to the internet, which is record breaking for a Nintendo console.

Xbox 720 reveal

Microsoft has released that the reveal event for the Xbox 720 will be on May 21.  This will "give you a real taste of the future" as the next generation of Xbox is shown. Microsoft also states that they will have several games that they will be showcasing at E3 two weeks later.

Ratchet & Clank Movie announced

Insomniac has announced that a theatrical Ratchet & Clank film is set to be released in 2015.  The production studios involved are Rainmaker Entertainment, involved in Escape from Planet Earth, and Blockade Entertainment. Insomniac Games is playing a huge role in the development of the film.  Also, actors James Arnold Taylor, David Kaye, and Jim Ward are all returning to play Ratchet, Clank, and Captain Qwark respectively.

New Tomb Raider Movie

To go along with the recent reboot of the Tomb Raider game series, MGM studios has announced that a Tomb Raider film is in production. MGM will be working with GK films on this project. The film will be based on the new Tomb Raider, and is not related to the two Tomb Raider films that were already released.

New Characters in Playstation All Stars

Our new challengers

New downloadable content for PS All Stars was released last week along with a large patch unlocking Kat from the vita's Gravity Rush and Emmett Graves, the space cowboy from Starhawk. Emmett is a ranged character who can call in various weapons and devices, much like in Starhawk. Kat uses a variety of short ranged kicks as well as her gravity powers to dominate. These characters are free for a limited time and are reasonably quick downloads. Also newly on the Playstation Store is a map from Heavenly Sword and several minions.

first video of Bungies Destiny

PS4 Prototype Controller

A picture of the new PlayStation's controller has been leaked, But given that this is an early prototype the final design is likely to look a lot different.

 

Another Photo has been leaked.

New Batman Game Coming This Year

 During an investors call the CFO of Time Warner John K Martin revealed that a new game in the Arkham series was coming this saying  "And we also have a strong games release this year, which will include the next release in the Batman Arkham franchise," including "So all in all, we expect Warners to post another very strong year in 2013. And with a little luck, the year should be as good or maybe even a little bit better than 2012."

This comes after reports that the game will be set in the Silver Age and feature members of the Justice League, but that wasn't supposed to arrive until 2014. And Developer of the previous Batman Arkham games hinted that their next game wouldn't be a Batman game.  

Last of Us Delayed

Best Buy has changed the release date of the game to June 18th. But Amazon and Gamestop still list the game with its original release date of May 7th. If this turns out to be true this will be the first time Naughty Dog has delayed a game once they've announced a firm release date.

Update:
The Last of Us Has now officially been delayed until Friday June 14th, Naughty Dog has released the following statement:

As a team we pride ourselves on setting a very high quality bar for every aspect of our games – gameplay, story, art, design, technology and more. We want to make sure The Last of Us raises that bar even further – for ourselves, and most importantly, our fans.

As we entered the final phase of development for The Last of Us, we came to realize just how massive Joel and Ellie’s journey is. But instead of cutting corners or compromising our vision, we came to the tough decision that the game deserved a few extra weeks to ensure every detail of The Last of Us was up to Naughty Dog’s internal high standards.

Michel Ancel Protesting Rayman Legends Delay

Michel Ancel and other members of Rayman development team have banded together to protest the games delay. Last week Ubisoft announced that they where delaying the game from February 26th to early September, so that they could bring it to the PS3 and Xbox 360. 



The sign that the Devs are holding translates to "Release Rayman. Show support for Ubisoft Montpelier."

Rayman Legends delayed, And Will No Longer be a Wii U exclusive

Ubisoft has announced that Rayman Legends has been delayed and will no longer be a Wii U exclusive. Legends will no be released on Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and Wii U in early September. Over six months after its original release of February 26th.

Xavier Poix, managing director of Ubisoft's French studios said "When we saw all the comments when we announced the game would be focused on Wii U, all of the people that have both the PlayStation 3 and 360 were really disapointed." 

Psychonauts 2 lose Minecraft Devs support

Mojang's Markus Persson, and Double Fines Tim Schafer talked about a year ago about the possibilities of a new Psychonauts, but alas that dream has died.

Schafer stated "I think I gave Markus a heart attack when I told him how much Psychonauts 2 would cost." Persson clarified on Reddit that Double Fine would need $18M to make Psychonauts 2 a reality saying " I don't have time at the moment to even try to get educated enough to make an 18 million dollar deal." 

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Announced

The Witcher 3 will get a full reveal in the upcoming issue of Game Informer. 

It has also been revealed that the Witcher 3 will be the "final episode" in Geralt of Rivia's story. CD Projekt Red's studio head Adam Bakowski stated " People may ask if this is really the last Witcher game. Yes it is. why? Because we believe that the series should end on a high note." 

The Witcher 3 will also be developed on CD Prejekt Reds new engine REDengine3 along with their next game Cyberpunk 2077 

The Witcher 3 is scheduled to release in 2014 with Cyberpunk 2077 to follow. 

Saints Row 4 could release in August 2013

 Chris Stockman the design director on the original Saints row, tweeted that " the word around the campfire is SR4 is shipping on current gen consoles in late august." New saints Row publisher hasn't confirmed this report.

Saints Row 4 originally just going to be an expansion to Saints Row the third called Enter the Dominatrix was morphed into a full sequel by late publisher THQ.

Although CEO of Koch media, Deep Silver's parent company, Klemens Kundratitz said there's "no doubt" the next Saints Row will release in 2013. 

The Last of Us News

Naughty Dog has just announced that their first new franchise since the release of Drake's Fortune in 2007, The Last of Us, will feature a multi-player mode. Though they haven't verified what it would be like, there are preorder bonuses at Gamestop that are related to multiplayer, such as items, skins, and bonuses.

Along with this, a new trailer was aired at Spike's Video Game Awards. This trailer shows insight into what the plot of the game will entail.

This game releases May 7, 2013 and offers a new start for Naughty Dog and their fans.

PlayStation All Stars: Battle Royale Review

Nintendo has had great success from their crossover fighting franchise, Super Smash Brothers. This title features everyone's favorite Nintendo characters doing battle in bouts of up to four opponents at a time. Now, Sony has decided to create their own game as such, and released PlayStation All Stars: Battle Royale. This game features your favorite characters from franchises like Killzone, Twisted Metal, Bioshock, InFamous, and many more, taking part im matches us gamers have only dreamed of before.This game provides seeming endless entertainment for you and your friends to take part in. The amazing cast of characters, dynamic maps, and diverse items always make the game interesting.

Don't knock over his ice cream.

The best part of this game is the cast. I really enjoyed battling my way through the PlayStation universe as Cole McGrath, Kratos, and Ratchet. Rivalries are formed between characters, such as Sly Cooper and Nathan Drake, or Parappa the Rapper and Ape Escape's Spike. The battles lead to a story that, though interesting, leaves to be desired. The best example of a story is Drake ending up with a few pages of the Thevius Racoonus, prompting Sly to take them back. The worst is Jak pulling a gun on Ratchet because Ratchet looked at him funny. Some of them are even comical, such as Kratos knocking over Sweet Tooth's ice cream cone.

Bioshock's Songbird firing at the plane from Uncharted 3

The maps in this game are fantastic, and adds new layers to the story. Sometimes you get to see Chop Chop Master Onion kick a Chimeran Goliath so hard that it collapses. Other times, your Uncharted 3 cargo plane will get shot down for flying too close to the sky city Columbia. It is worth it to play all of the maps just to see what happens next.

One of the games downfalls is the unbalanced characters. Some always land hits and gain AP incredibly quickly, while others are easily avoided and take awhile to level up. Some level 3 supers are difficult to use and don't guarantee kills, while others allow up to six and guarantee three. Another problem is the noncompetitive challenges to be played alone. The game lays out several difficult tasks that are too be completed whilst battling three opponents. The third difficulty I had was how characters tended to be unnecessarily aggressive to each other, such as Spike attacking Parappa for scaring away a monkey, but this was only a minor issue.

I would strongly recommend this game to anyone who likes their PlayStation exclusives, Smash brothers, or fighting games. Its better than any Smash Brothers game that I've played, and its something that's been a long time coming.

9.5/10

Halo: Forward Unto Dawn

Forward Unto Dawn is a live action, 5 part mini-series that covers events leading up to the beginning of Halo 4. It follows Commander Thomas Laskey of UNSC Infinity as he picks up a distress signal from the Forward Unto Dawn. The series is mainly Laskey’s flashbacks to his time in Corbulo Military Academy at the start of the Covenant War. This is an incredibly interesting story, laying a background for Halo 4 as well as the conflict with the Covenant. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in playing Halo 4, or in general anyone who wants a good, action packed story. Anyone can access it for free via Halo Waypoint or on the YouTube page:.Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn.

Killzone Mercenary announced

Sony has announced at Gamescom the long awaited Killzone Vita now known as Killzone Mercenary. The game is being developed by Guerilla Games with no release date announced. Sony is promising a "First person shooter not possible on any other platform." 

Portal 2 Level Creator gets Co-op

Valve has updated the level creator to allow people to create co-op maps. This update also allows players to play the top rated maps in multiple different categories. along with this update Valve is giving Portal 2 owners on Steam a coupon to give to a Steam friend, for their own copy of Portal 2 at 75% off.