Here are some details about Mass Effect 3 combat abilities. They’ve been encapsulated in video form so you don’t even have to read anything to find out about the new class-specific powers. However, if you don’t want to watch a man enthuse over the contents of the game’s special edition you should skip forward to around 1 minute 50 seconds. There’s nothing too surprising, with such things as floating turrets for engineers, improved melee combat across the board and shockwave-inducing ground-punches for vanguards. I suppose the most surprising reveal is that the collector’s edition contains a working model of the Normandy but I just made that up.

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On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me… a bitter lesson in what love really means (or doesn’t). What could have made this iron man (cough) feel so low? I’ll send you a private message explaining everything, but don’t tell anyone, right? (more…)

It’s that time of the week again, that time when Shermans and StuGs stop squabbling, Albatrosses and Camels play football together in no-man’s-land, and rust-streaked U-boats sidle up to exhausted Victory Ships and start nuzzling them like thirsty calves. The Flare Path has been lit, and today its flickering rectangular finger points towards an important flight sim demo, some classified campaign intel, a festival of formation flying, and a sim studio not too proud to beg. (more…)

Ah, so maybe we do have CS:GO beta keys after all… We’d probably better get on with playing that. (Also Tribes: Ascend, which we haven’t quite caught up with yet either.) Anyway! I am sure a few of you are already saving up for Desert Eagles, while the rest of the internet will have to make do with a few measly minutes of game footage here and there, such as that found below this post. I’ve also dropped in a comparison video which compares the Source version of CS with CS:GO. It certainly looks pretty, and I am sure Hidden Path/Valve are making a decent job of the manshoots, too. OR ARE THEY?> (more…)

The fourth Assassin’s Creed game is out on PC now, for once merely weeks rather than months behind the console version. I’ve been dragging old man Ezio across its rooftops and into its underground lairs of conspiracy for the last few days, and as such… well, you know how this goes.>

Experimentation, calibration, celebration and now stagnation: that’s been the course Assassin’s Creed games have taken, and until Revelations it’s been a course of sustained improvement. In some ways, and when looked at alone, Revelations is the best of the bunch, but it’s also the most unnecessary. Especially on PC, where delays meant we only saw the last game, Brotherhood, a piffling eight months ago. After a half-decade of tinkering, AssCreed has settled on its formula and Revelations presents an impasse – stay the course, do the COD-style franchise thing and hope the fanbase is loyal enough to stump up for iterative updates, or return to the reinvention it once embraced. (more…)

I’m not entirely sure if the things attacking me are zombies or if they are just very angry men. They run, I sidestep, they crash into a wall as they attempt to pursue, their turning circles more akin to a small car than a bipedal life form. What are they? Maybe I’ll never know but when they surround me, the distinctive sound of being clobbered pours from my speakers. Whatever they are, they definitely want to do me harm. There are more distinctive monsters in the dark corridors of indie top-down shooter Teleglitch, but the majority of my time in the four levels of the freely available beta was spent cautiously exploring dark corridors and fending off furious men. Who may have been dead already. Trailer below.

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Battlefield Heroes players must have been good boys and girls this year, because they are apparently all going to get presents from EA this month. The gifts come in the form of free stuff on their rewards page, and there are two things already in there. Having logged in I can confirmed that the first two days are Santa outfit the Royals and a “St Nikolas” outfit for the Nationals. More festive-themed gifts seem inevitable. We’re hoping for five gold rings at some point, but that seems like too much to ask.

Following a couple of not so great patches, Bethesda have cheered me up immeasurably this morning by sending word that in January they will be releasing the Skyrim Creation Kit.

PC players will be able to download for free the same development tools we used at Bethesda Game Studios to create Skyrim.

That would be enough to make me punch the air quietly in triumph but it’s not all. The tools will tie in to the Steam Workshop, allowing for easy upload, collection and browsing of mods. When I read that bit I did a small celebratory dance. Mid-way through I stopped though, convinced that this was a cynical move to control modding by making it exclusive to a specific platform.

Prefer to use existing modding sites? Not a problem. You’ll still be able to upload/share/access Skyrim mods on fan-created mod sites.

Dancing again. Full details below.

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MMORTS! MMORTS! Try saying it as a single word. Sounds ominous. Anyway, that’s a collection of letters that refers to but a few games, and End Of Nations is one of those. The forthcoming MMORTS from Petroglyph (Universe At War) and Trion Worlds (Rift) has opened beta sign ups. I thought they did that weeks ago, but not according to a new video bulletin which implores you to support the game in every possible way, which you can see below. That’s going to be weekly, apparently. Mm. (more…)

THQ have announced that Obsidian are making a South Park RPG: “South Park: The Game” is an epic role-playing adventure that will allow the user to befriend Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny and explore the quiet little mountain town like never before.” Parker and Stone are apparently going to be producing the script, performing the dialogue, and generally helping out, with the Californian dev team doing the dev work. Game Informer apparently have the game for their January cover, as teased here, at which point more information will be revealed.