Brink and Prima Official Strategy Guide

Following up on last month's trailer, here's a look at some pre-alpha multiplayer gameplay from Dirty Bomb. The trailer takes us to a smoldering, half-destroyed version of London, presumably one of the levels of Brink developer Splash Damage's new free-to-play title. We get to see mostly scenes of infantry action, though a few moments of sniping and vehicular combat make it in as well.

Dirty Bomb: London Bridge Gameplay [Youtube]

Laurel D. Austin does some great work. Employed for years at Splash Damage, the team behind Brink, she's recently joined Blizzard, where she's working as a concept artist. Living the dream.

In this gallery you will find: some of her amazing work for Brink (say what you will about the game, its art was awesome) as well as World of Warcraft stuff, specifically images for the trading card game based on the blockbuster MMO.

You can see more of Laurel's work at her personal site.

Every year the Writers Guild of America awards a special Outstanding Achievement in Video Game Writing award to the team responsible for the most memorable interactive entertainment script. Which of these five titles will walk away a winner on February 19?

You know what I love about the Writers Guild of America Video Game Writing Award? It's a chance for games that weren't nominated for any other category to shine. Just look at poor Brink. Not only wasn't it nominated for any other major awards, just about everyone I know forgot it even existed. Now it stands proudly among the likes of Batman: Arkham City, Assassin's Creed: Revelations, Uncharted 3, and...Mortal Kombat?

There was writing in Mortal Kombat?

And if your favorite game didn't make the cut, rest easy; to be eligible members of the writing staff must be or have applied to be members of the guild's Videogame Writers Caucus at the time their game was released, and who wants to deal with that hassle, other than the Mortal Kombat guys?

Check out the full list of nominees and appreciate a group of people that doesn't get the recognition they so richly deserve.

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN VIDEO GAME WRITING

Assassin's Creed: Revelations, Story by Alexandre Amancio, Jean Guesdon, Corey May, Darby McDevitt; Multiplayer Story by Stéphane Blais, Richard Farrese, Jeffrey Yohalem; Lead Script Writer Darby McDevitt; Script Writers Richard Farrese, Nicholas Grimwood, Corey May, Jeffrey Yohalem; Greek and Turkish Ambient Dialogue Writer Vincenzo Beretta; Ubisoft

Batman: Arkham City, Lead Narrative Designer Paul Crocker; Story Written by Paul Dini, Paul Crocker and Sefton Hill; Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

Brink, Lead Writer Edward "Bongoboy" Stern; Bethesda Softworks

Mortal Kombat, Story by John Vogel, Brian Chard, Dominic Cianciolo, Alexander Barrentine, Jon Greenberg; Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, Written by Amy Hennig; Sony Computer Entertainment

The game may've met with a lukewarm reception when it hit last year, but the one thing that Splash Damage's Brink had going for it was an amazing art style. Laurens Corijn, an artist at the British dev studio, brought that look into the real world by modding a standard Nerf Stampede into an amazing replica of the FPS's Gerund assault rifle.

Corijn went really in-depth with this re-creation, cracking the Stampede open and attaching sights to the once-harmless kids' toy. The step-by-step guide's hosted over on the official Splash Damage site. If Brink ever gets a sequel, let's hope something like this is in the collector's edition.

Photo Blog: Creating a Brink Nerf Gun [Splash Damage]

A major report on British developers from IndustryGamers has thown up a surprising piece of information: that Brink developers Splash Damage are probably working on a new Marvel game.

The report says that the studio is working on an "unannounced project for a major entertainment brand", which is "based on one of the biggest American pop culture brands of the last 50 years".

When it then says this major entertainment brand is "a company widely believed to have given up on the console publishing business", it becomes pretty clear it's talking about Disney, which recently purchased Marvel comics.

The game in question has "online multiplayer technology" and is running on "an even more polished Brink engine".

So, yeah, sounds a lot like Brink with Marvel characters. Maybe for the upcoming Avengers movie.

Anyone interested? Guess it depends on how much you like Marvel!

United Front: 7 UK Studios To Keep An Eye On [IndustryGamers]