THQ's previously reported financial difficulties continue with the resignation of CFO Paul Pucino, who leaves no named successor in the wings. However, there are some glimmers of light on the horizon for the troubled publisher, which reports that it's in negotiations with an unidentified financial sponsor (expected to result in a "significant and material dilution to shareholders").

It's also established a "forbearance agreement" with the bank Wells Fargo, which essentially allows THQ extra time to catch up on its debts - until January 15 in this case.

"This agreement enables us to continue focusing on bringing our games in development to market," said THQ's CEO Brian Farrell. "Meanwhile, we are evaluating financial alternatives that will transition the company into its next phase."

With Company of Heroes 2 looking very special indeed, and other promising titles like Metro: Last Light trundling toward release, we're keeping our fingers crossed that THQ manages to climb out of this financial hole.

This painting by artist Andrew Ryan (not that one) re-imagines the cast of Mass Effect as a band of warriors, mages, knights and archers from Dragon Age. The Normandy is a high dragon ridden by Joker, Garrus is an awesome crossbow-wielding knight, Jack's a blood mage elf, EDI is a golem. It works quite brilliantly.

Kotaku received word from the artist that the work was finally complete. Each character was designed separately before being combined in the final diorama. According to his Deviant Art page, Ryan is a recent graduate of the Manhattan School of Visual Arts and is "always looking for new and exciting art opportunities, primarily related to concept art/books illustration/ or card game art." Read on for more close ups of the individual characters. Which one is your favourite?

Caring, sharing types rejoice: Valve have released a patch which enables two-controller splitscreen play for Portal 2, making it all the easier to give your co-op buddy a purple nurple when they "accidentally" mis-time the placement of an Excursion Funnel. Again.

And you aren't restricted to squinting at a fraction of your desktop monitor, either: the update adds support for Big Picture mode, allowing you to bicker over who gets to hold the Discouragement Redirection Cube in the comfort of your own living room.

All you have to do to activate splitscreen is to press X on the second controller inside the first co-op menu, and then a whole new world of same-screen squabbling is available. We recommend you fuel your newfound fractious fellowship with our recent guide to the top 10 Portal 2 co-op maps.

The patch also fixes a couple of controller support glitches: previously the ‘quick ping’ button caused the player’s movement to stop and it was impossible to exit Robot Enrichment or Create Test Chambers menus using the controller alone. No longer!

Remember Far Cry 2's multiplayer mode? With that user-friendly level editor? Perhaps not. When I think of Far Cry I imagine standing on a hillside looking at a gorgeous open world that explodes as I pull a rebar out of my broken hand. Deathmatch doesn't spring to mind, but there's no reason why Far Cry 3's multiplayer mode shouldn't be good. It's got guns, right? And men to shoot. And "innovations" like "battle cries" and "team support weapons" and the like.

One of those team support weapons is a psych bomb that seems to drop hallucinogenics onto an area of the battlefield, resulting in some quite interesting visual quirks. See that and much more in the new multiplayer trailer below.

If the promise of an old school turn-based RPG by the creators of Sierra's Quest for Glory sounds appealing to you, then you'll rejoice at the news that Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption has reached its $400,000 Kickstarter funding goal, rendering its completion a dead certainty.

Developed by two of Quest for Glory's lead designers - Lori and Cory Cole - you still have the opportunity to help fund it via PayPal, with several stretch goals announced including a Companion Meep (described as a "Tamagotchi-like pet that you need to feed, groom and be nice to") for $500,000, voice acting for $600,000 and French, Italian, German and Spanish localisation for $700,000.

 

Planetside 2 is here. Are you interested in going to war alongside the European PC Gamer community? If so, then read on for details of our plans so far.

We're currently planning to make our start on the Miller server, as that's where many PlanetSide 1 veterans are headed as well as our valued friends/bitter enemies at Rock, Paper, Shotgun. We'll be setting up an official PC Gamer outfit as part of the Terran Republic faction, led - in the early days at least - by Rich. You can find the latest details on this forum, which should include an up-to-date list of the officers to contact in-game for an invite within the next few days.

A note on our choice of faction. We know that many of you will be unwilling to abandon you favourite side, and there was talk during beta of setting up a number of splinter outfits for those wanting to dress up as purple power rangers or roll around listening to dreadful rawk. For the time being, we'd rather concentrate on building our community in one place rather than split it from the get-go. If you absolutely must play Vanu, why not join RPS and express your distaste for our lifestyle decisions by shooting silly pew-pew lasers at us? We won't mind. We're magnanimous like that. Also, we've got a tank with two guns.

From the "people are still talking about this?" files today comes an interview by The Guardian with Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser that touched upon Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas' Hot Coffee scandal. The ensuing media scrutiny and negative pressure wound up "draining and upsetting" company members facing "a tough time" keeping relationships with the press civil.

"The massive social decay that we were supposed to induce hasn't happened," Houser said. "So, in that regard, a lot of those debates that used to go on, they're not such a big deal now. We never felt that we were being attacked for the content, we were being attacked for the medium, which felt a little unfair. If all of this stuff had been put into a book or a movie, people wouldn't have blinked an eye. And there are far bigger issues to worry about in society than this."

Hackers rooting among San Andreas' files unearthed an abandoned yet mostly intact minigame where main character CJ would have sex with his girlfriend at the prompting of certain...er, "movement" commands. The resulting outcry involved the Federal Trade Commission investigating Houser and the rest of Rockstar's staff. The ordeal was recently documented in detail in a book by David Kushner titled Jacked: The Outlaw Story of Grand Theft Auto. Kushner is also the author of the excellent Masters of Doom.

While Rockstar may simply be biding its time until the appropriate moment to unleash its fomented armageddon of entropy, its current efforts on Grand Theft Auto V look extremely promising, though a PC version lingers in uncomfortable "consideration" territory for now.

If a syringe containing the distilled souls of Dragonball Z's Hercule Satan, Team Fortress 2's Saxton Hale, and Hulk Hogan was injected into someone's arm, you'd get Mr. Torgue. If you asked Mr. Torgue what his favorite kind of explosion is, he'd respond with "YES." If a vault hunter asked him for directions to the newest uncovered vault, he'd throw his horns in the direction of his freshly launched Campaign of Carnage DLC for Borderlands 2. And then blow it up with the grenades his hand was holding.

In his newly excavated Badass Crater of Badassitude, Mr. Torgue offers a new storyline, quests, bosses, weapons, and cameos from equally unstable characters such as Moxxi and Tiny Tina. In case you play for three minutes without seeing a single explosion, an arena-style Loot-splosion event tosses shiny gear your way on the displaced air of—you guessed it—explosions. As Mr. Torgue himself would eloquently state, "IF YOU'RE NOT PICKING GIBLETS OUT OF YOUR TEETH, IT WASN'T A REAL KILL."

Mr. Torgue's Campaign of Carnage is now available for download for $10 on Steam. Our critical opinion is forthcoming, assuming it remains unexploded.

Got Hitman: Absolution, video capturing capability, and the desire to be $1000 richer? You can make use of those strangely-related criteria by heading over to GamrRank, a meta-achievement/playtime tracking social media platform. The service is offering one grand to the best Hitman video involving a dead body and your name spelled on a surface with bullet holes—just like so many of my home movies. The video above explains the finer points.

You have two weeks to get your entry in. Second place nets you $500, and third will take home $250. Some Hitman swag is also available for honorable mentions. If you have a GamrRank account, you can check out this page to accept the challenge.

When the Portuguese first landed upon Japan's shores in 1543, they stroked their handlebar mustaches and said, "You know, that whole honorable swordsman thing is working well for you, but what you really need is our brand of GUNshido." They then shot the word "PORTUGAL" into the side of the Emperor's palace. My history recollection is probably incredibly inaccurate by now, but still, guns remain the central theme for the November 30 release of the Otomo Clan DLC for Total War: Shogun 2. You'll get a new playable faction with five armed unit types, extra buildings, and special traits.

The Otomo Clan high-fived Portugal's trade deals early on during Japan's feudal fracas, and it nabs a number of assets following the basic military doctrine of "take anything and add a gun to it." The Otomo Donderbuss Cavalry, for example, masters the art of firing the shotgun-like Donderbuss rifle on horseback. The Otomo Matchlock Samurai combines fearsome swordsmanship with rifle-fire volleys range, because handing samurai another method of dealing swift death is both overkill and freaking awesome.

The Portuguese Tercos (which I read as "Portuguese Tacos" at first glance) and Otomo Matchlock Ashigaru supplement the samurai as long-range riflemen. On sea, the Otomo Matchlock Kobaya harnesses "Christian fervor" for more accurate shots during marine operations. I guess I missed the Bible passage granting dead-eye divinity.

Cash-strapped warlords can also lease off a single building slot per city to the Portuguese for a lump payment burst of funds towards rapid troop buildup. As for traits, the Otomo Clan provides appropriate bonuses to pumping out the firepower:

Can recruit cheaper gunpowder units (-10 percent)
Missionary actions are cheaper (-15 percent)
Improved conversion to clan religion (+2)
Faster import of Matchlock Ashigaru units (-3)


Steam is offering a 10 percent discount on pre-purchases, so head over to the DLC's store page for more info.