Duke Nukem Forever
Duke-Nukem-Forever-DLC-2
Jeez, took long enough, right? I mean, it's been, like, two whole months since Duke Nukem Forever's Parody Pack was announced. Two! You'd think these people could learn to be a bit more timely.

Regardless, Duke's making his first assuredly offensive leap into the brave new world of DLC on October 11, according to VG247. It's completely free to First Access Club members, but everyone else will have to pony up a fairly steep $9.99. Four maps and weapons - no matter how sort of timely their knock against Call of Duty may be - don't exactly cause my piggybank to explode with glee. Or explode at all, for that matter.
Borderlands Zombie Island Trailer


An upscaled version of Resident Evil: Code Veronica headlines this week's PSN Store update. It's available for £15.99.


FIFA 12 arrives to download on Friday - for the privilege of saving yourself a walk to the shops you'll pay £54.99 on PlayStation 3 and £31.99 on PSP.

Battlefield 3's open beta rolls out on Thursday, while gamers can help themselves to PSN-exclusive shooter Rochard, freemium role-player Free Realms and new Dead Nation DLC from today.


There's still no sign of the MIA Mortal Kombat: Arcade Kollection - it arrived on time for its XBLA launch almost a month ago and has yet to materialise on PSN in Europe.


2D adventure Castlevania: Harmony of Despair, out in the US, is also missing.


PSN Plus subscribers get 20 per cent off metal pouring puzzler Mercury hg this week, and Resi Evil: CV for half price.


Anyone who bought Resident Evil 4 HD last week also gets Code Veronica at 50 per cent discount.


But European Plus payers have seemingly missed the glut of Uncharted 2 DLC gifted to US Plus accounts in North America's latest PSN update, alongside new Nathan Drake avatars and themes.


European gamers do get a hefty price drop on Borderlands' Game Of The Year edition though - it's more than half price this week only. Cut from £27.99 to £11.99, it includes the full game plus all four DLC packs: The Zombie Island of Doctor Ned, Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot, The Secret Armory of General Knoxx and Claptrap's New Robot Revolution.


The full update, courtesy of the EU PlayStation blog, lies below:

PS3 Games

  • Arkedo Series - 03 Pixel! (£1.59/€1.99)
  • Child of Eden (£23.99/€29.99)
  • Crysis 2 (£31.99/€39.99)
  • De Blob 2 (£19.99/€24.99)
  • Elemental Monster (£0.95/€1.19)
  • FIFA 12 (£54.99/€69.99) - Available Friday 30th September
  • Free Realms (free)
  • Homefront (£27.99/€34.99)
  • Max and the Magic Marker - Gold edition (£7.99/€9.99) - Trial & Unlock
  • Mercury Hg (£3.99/€4.99) - Trial & Unlock
  • Rochard (£7.99/€9.99)
  • Resident Evil: Code Veronica (£15.99/€19.99) - Discounted to £7.99/€9.99 for purchasers of RE4 HD until 12th October
  • Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 12: The Masters (£57.99/€69.99)
  • Who Wants To Be A Millionaire (£7.99/€9.99)
  • Saints Row 2 (£15.99/€19.99)

Video: Rochard.

PSP Games

  • FIFA 12 (£31.99/€39.99) - Available Friday 30th September

PS minis (PS3 and PSP)

  • Galcon Labs (£1.99/€2.49)
  • The Treasures Of Montezuma (£1.74/€1.99)

PSone (PS3 and PSP)

  • Gubble (£2.99/€3.59)
  • Snowboard Racer (£3.99/€4.99)

PS3 Demos

  • Battlefield 3 Beta - Available Thursday 29th September
  • Stardrone Demo

PS3 Add-Ons

  • Dead Nation - Road to Devastation (£3.49/€3.99)
  • Free Realms - 30 Day Membership (£3.99/€4.99), 90 Day Membership (£9.99/€12.99), 180 Day Membership (£19.99/€24.99), 365 Day Membership (£23.99/€29.99), Lifetime Membership (£27.99/€34.99)
  • Champion Jockey: G1 Jockey & Gallop Racer - Comedy Pack (£1.99/€2.49)
  • Duke Nukem Forever - Hail to the Icons Parody Pack (£6.29/€7.99)
  • Elemental Monster - Battle Tickets -Set of 4 (£0.95/€1.19), Battle Tickets -Set of 21 (£4.79/€5.99), Battle Tickets -Set of 45 (£5.49/€6.99), Battle Tickets -Set of 100 (£10.99/€13.99). Booster Box -Ancient War (£4.79/€5.99), Booster Box -Birth of Deities (£4.79/€5.99), Booster Box -Emperor's Revenge (£4.79/€5.99), Booster Box -Legendary Dragons (£4.79/€5.99), Booster Box -Otherworldly Visitor (£4.79/€5.99), Booster Box -Sacred War (£4.79/€5.99)
  • Elevator Action Deluxe - Additional Stage 1 (free)
  • Fallout: New Vegas - Courier's Stash (£1.59/€1.99), Gun Runners Arsenal (£3.19/€3.99)
  • NBA Jam: On Fire Edition - Time Is Money Pack (£2.39/€2.99)
  • SkyDrift - Gladiator Multiplayer Pack (£3.99/€4.99)

Rock Band & Yoostar

  • Rock Band Network - Ship With No Sails - Neonfly (£0.99/€1.49), Stabbing The Drama - Soilwork (£0.59/€0.79), The Window - Raven Quinn (£0.99/€1.49), Trying Hard - Loni Rose (£0.59/€0.79), Pendulum - After the Burial (£0.99/€1.49)
  • Rock Band 3 - Slipknot Pack 02 (£3.49/€5.29), (contains the following songs also available separately) Left Behind - Slipknot (£0.99/€1.49), Pulse Of The Maggots - Slipknot (£0.99/€1.49), Wait And Bleed - Slipknot (£0.99/€1.49), Snuff - Slipknot (£0.99/€1.49)
  • Yoostar 2 - Fireworks Over City Scape (£0.59/€0.75), A Woman Who Will Arouse My Intellect (£1.39/€1.75), Live Long And Prosper (£1.39/€1.75)
Duke Nukem Forever
Duke Nukem
Duke Nukem Forever sold well, apparently. What sales charts fail to measure, though, is the weeping rage of a million disappointed souls, beating their chests and flagellating themselves for believing in the stinking resurrection of the zombified remains of Duke. To measure that, you need a survey.

Gearbox are collecting opinions to discover what you thought about Duke Nukem, presumably for the rumoured Duke Nukem Forever sequel. Personally, I could only force myself to play to the second hour, before binning it. What did you think?

Duke Nukem Forever

Gearbox knows what I think of Duke Nukem Forever. Why not let them know what you think, as part of the studio's public survey on gamer's opinions of the game.


Eurogamer


Grand Theft Auto 4 has now shipped a gargantuan 22 million copies worldwide since its April 2008 release.


That doesn't mean they've all been sold, but it's an indication of its enormous success nonetheless.

Company chairman Strauss Zelnick revealed the figure during a talk at ThinkEquity's annual Growth conference, reported IndustryGamers.


Take-Two (owner of 2K and Rockstar) said the Grand Theft Auto series has now shipped a total of 114 million units to shops around the world.


In comparison, breakout console success Red Dead Redemption has shipped 12.5 million copies. That game became the first of Take-Two's fleet to demonstrate anything like the success of GTA.


The two BioShock games have combined to ship 9 million units. A third BioShock game, BioShock Infinite, is being made for a 2012 release.


The Wii Carnival Games series shipped 8 million units.


The entire Midnight Club series shipped 18.5 million units. The Civilization series shipped 11 million units.


The Max Payne series managed to ship 7.5 million, and will also welcome a third instalment in 2012.


The two Mafia games shipped 5 million copies.


Borderlands, alone, shipped 4.5 million. Borderlands 2 will be released sometime between April 2012 and March 2013.


Last but not least, The Darkness, which shipped 1 million. Whether weak or not, it too is due a sequel, and that's also coming in 2012.


Notably absent from the Take-Two list was L.A. Noire, which we know to have shipped 4 million units.


Rumour has it that Take-Two is close to announcing Grand Theft Auto 5. But will Take-Two wish to detract attention from its already packed 2012 slate?

Video: Max Payne 3 now has Rockstar's full attention.

Borderlands Game of the Year - Valve
Implemented new opt-in stat-tracking service, BTest, for Steam players.

- The result of ongoing work within Gearbox Labs, BTest is a limited-time experiment that offers you the chance to help us tune and improve our games.

- By choosing to participate in BTest, you help us learn more about the world of Borderlands (what guns are the most popular and effective, what areas are being played the most, etc.) just by playing the game!

- You will be able to compare your characters to your friends and other players throughout the world through the Gearbox Labs site.

- For more information on BTest, visit http://labs.gearboxsoftware.com

Added new EULA and opt-in / opt-out menu choices for BTest functionality.

Save games now sync with Steam Cloud for remote backup.
Fixed crash issue when connecting to Gearbox Labs

Borderlands Game of the Year
Borderlands 2 To Be Announced
Keen eyed players of Borderlands might have noticed that the Steam version recently updated itself, bringing Steam Cloud save synchronisation and something called BTest. According to the update, BTest is a stat tracking system that will record what guns and areas are most popular with players, in order to help Gearbox improve their games. The software also includes a leaderboard at Gearbox Labs, which will let you compare your stats to other players.

With Borderlands 2 announced for April next year, it seems likely the data collected will have some influence on the development of the sequel.
Borderlands Game of the Year - Valve
Implemented new opt-in stat-tracking service, BTest, for Steam players.

- The result of ongoing work within Gearbox Labs, BTest is a limited-time experiment that offers you the chance to help us tune and improve our games.

- By choosing to participate in BTest, you help us learn more about the world of Borderlands (what guns are the most popular and effective, what areas are being played the most, etc.) just by playing the game!

- You will be able to compare your characters to your friends and other players throughout the world through the Gearbox Labs site.

- For more information on BTest visit http://labs.gearboxsoftware.com

- Added new EULA and opt-in / opt-out menu choices for BTest functionality.

- Save games now sync with Steam Cloud for remote backup.

BioShock® 2

The Art of BioShock 2, and Dead Space 2, and Dragon Age, and Silent Hill, and...You may know artist Jason Chan as the chap who helped design us a lovely t-shirt. Or who drew rad pictures of kids fighting zombies.


You should know him, though, as a video game concept artist who's worked on games like BioShock 2, Dead Space 2, and Dragon Age: Origins.


Chan works at Massive Black, a creative agency that specialises in concept art for movies, TV and video games. They do good work; we've featured a few of their artists here on Fine Art before, like Coro Kaufman and Wes Burt.


In the gallery above you'll find a selection of his video game work, as well as a his contributions to Coke's 2011 Super Bowl ad and few trading card game pieces (World of Warcraft included) to go along with them.


To see the larger pics in all their glory, either click the "expand" icon on the gallery screen or right click and "open link in new tab".


Fine Art is a celebration of the work of video game artists. If you're in the business and have some concept, environment or character art you'd like to share, drop us a line!

You can contact Luke Plunkett, the author of this post, at plunkett@kotaku.com. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.

The Art of BioShock 2, and Dead Space 2, and Dragon Age, and Silent Hill, and...
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Kotaku

Borderlands 2 Takes Your Suggestions for Its Special Edition PremiumsWhat would you like to see in a Borderlands 2 Collector's Edition? A box that opens up like a Crimson Lance chest? A psycho mask? Fake skaggy poo? A life-size rakk hive?


That last one might be a little tough, but Gearbox Software is taking suggestions for what premiums Borderlands diehards would like to see in a collector's edition when Borderlands 2 releases in 2012. They've opened an official thread on the Gearbox forums, so go in there and sound off. It's a studio that's very well known for its fan service, so maybe your idea will fly.


As someone who pumped at least 60 hours into that game, let me weigh in with my preferences. Realistically, they need to give a code for a truly balls-out in game weapon, as that's been one of the franchise's creative calling cards. Unrealistically, I want a See-n-Say Claptrap. Pull the string, and a Claptrap spins in the center, coming to rest on one of the game's many catchphrases, or Claptrap saying "The Skag goes ... 'Hlarglrbrfrgh.'"


Borderlands Collectors Edition Suggestions [Gearbox]


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