This is scandalous! When I buy a shooter, I expect – nay, demand> – for it to include a multiplayer mode that makes a mockery of the carefully-created fiction, is defined by the hollow pursuit of unlocks and is so rapidly abandoned by its players that it’s near-impossible to find a match about a fortnight after release. So hearing that Metro 2033 sequel Last Light has dropped its multiplayer really grinds my gears.

(It doesn’t. It seems like a very smart thing for a singleplayer-focused shooter to do). (more…)

When I beat the absolutely wonderful Thirty Flights Of Loving over the weekend, I had precisely one immediate reaction: “Wait, what just happened?” I cannot even begin to tell you how much that excites me. But then I decided to write an article about it, largely because one of my greatest passions in life is defying nonsencial figures of speech. At any rate, Thirty Flights Of Loving packs loads of information into not-even-30-minutes with hardly any dialog or exposition. But, in some ways, it’s even more of a supposed “un-game” than, say, Modern Warfare 3. I mean, all> agency is illusory. Without spoiling anything (note: that’ll happen a little bit after the break), you’re along for the ride – and that’s it. In a couple bits, it doesn’t even matter where you walk. The game will just jump-cut you to your intended location.

So why is it one of my absolute favorite games – and yes, I one hundred percent believe it’s a game – of the year? Because it made me think about what happened. No, scratch that. It required> me to think.

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RussianUkrainian blogger and marketing man Sergey Galyonkin – who tipped off the closure of the STALKER 2 project earlier this year – has claimed that Bethesda now have the rights to make a publish a STALKER game. They apparently do not> have rights to the extended universe. GSC owner Sergei Grigorovich has not sold the brand, but apparently Bethesda could now make a game based on the property with their own technology. We’ll report more on this as we get it.

This follows on from the closure of STALKER 2 earlier in the year, an event which culminated in Ukrainian spin-off studios such as Survarium devs, Vostok.

We’ve contacted Bethesda for a statement. UPDATE: Currently they are saying “No comment.”

As gamers, we do have a habit of accompanying our thrown bathwater with the baby, the taps, the bath itself, various bottles of shampoo, and all the shower fittings. And in the angered fuss about all manner of issues regarding our being “milked” by game releases, the phrase “DLC” seems to have become a dirty one. And that’s just plain silly. With rumours circulating that Ubisoft are planning a season pass for Assassin’s Creed III DLC, and even a new dedicated dev team to produce it, some are tending toward the negative. No, this is a >good thing.>

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Times are hard at THQ, despite their releasing a ton of good games of late. The publisher is strapped for cash, and it just keeps getting worse, most recently its shareholders launching a class action suit over the disaster of their U-Draw flop. Whether that’s a factor in today’s announcement, that Saints Row: The Third stand alone expansion ‘Enter The Dominatrix’ is now to be integrated into the fourth game, we’ve no idea. But that’s what’s happening, according to THQ boss, Jason Rubin.

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You waited more than a decade. Diablo III’s finally out. You can even play it> when the server gods smile upon you. And it’s fun! But it won’t last forever. Randomly generated or not, you and the big red Lord of Destruction (no, not that one) will eventually grow apart. And then> what happens? What do you hack? Whom do you slash? Where do you find undead creatures carrying cracked pants? Well, there’s Torchlight II on the horizon, but let’s say you have an irrational vendetta against colors and smiling. That’s where Grim Dawn comes in. I mean, it has “grim” right in its title, and titles never lie. Perhaps somewhat more concrete, however, is the new Soldier Demolition Melee trailer, which is about as spooky and soul-crushing as they come. It crushes other things too – mostly spines, near as I can tell. But with former Titan Quest folks at the helm, I suppose that’s to be expected – and, so far, highly anticipated. Check out the full trailer below.

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Open world comedy violence ‘em up, Saints Row The Third, is going to get a standalone expansion. A standalone expansion! Just like the old days. The expansion is called Enter The Dominatrix, and will apparently contain “freaking super powers”. It will tell the poignant story of an alien invasion of Earth. Only the Saints – now a global mega-corporation/slapstick paramilitary – stand between some weird alien dude, Zinyak, and conquest of the world. No other details at the moment, but all will apparently be revealed in the summer.

Saints Row The Third’s third DLC pack was just released, detailing the further exploits of the Third Street Saints, this time with the foul creations of unhinged Science. When will people learn? The Trouble With Clones is the latest in Volition’s short-form content packs for the silliest excuse to have fun there is, keeping with the scifi B-movie themeing following last month’s groovy Gangstas in Space. I’ve got some brief thoughts below about the way Volition are treating DLC, as well as the new Clones trailer. It features purple superpowers.

edit: As Maltose says in the comments, Saints Row 3 and all the DLC is currently 50% off on GamersGate.>

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The third Saint’s row game was a tonne of fun, crammed with all sorts of over the top features and missions, but what of all the things that didn’t make it into the game? Lead designer Scott Phillips in his GDC post-mortem shared some of the elements of the game that got cut, including 6 months work on a game where you played an undercover cop, infiltrating the Third Street Saints, which got entirely canned. (more…)

Gosh, did we really miss this? New missions and stuff for the superbly horrible Saints Row The Third were freaking the site from orbit on the 21st. The new Gangstas In Space DLC apparently features “a big budget Hollywood blockbuster in which you must battle sexy alien invaders using new sci-fi weaponry”. Sexy alien invanders, eh? Hm. You can see that stuff happening in a new trailer, below, and the thing itself is on the Steams. (more…)