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UEFA EURO 2012 Review

Dealspwn: “By presenting itself as DLC, the FIFA 12 engine is a given, and it’s still a lot of fun. But by making it so that you have to own FIFA 12 in order to play this half-hearted, half-licensed, half-baked expansion, EA Sports have shut the door to impulse purchasers, pumped on the spirit of the competition. No one in their right mind will buy FIFA 12 just for this, and those that already own the game will find far better services there than this paltry offering. [...]

Thus, when it comes to giving a final verdict on this expansion, it’s important to judge Euro 2012 solely on its content. Sadly, for over £15, there’s just not enough here to recommend at all. This game, perhaps even more so than the full releases that came before, underlines the cash-in nature of these tournament spin-offs, and it’s difficult not to feel, even though we’ve arguably received what we asked for, that we’re not just being ripped off in a new way.”

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition review

The Witcher 2 isn’t a game that you can just rush through to see the ending. It’s meant to be played slowly and enjoyed thoroughly, learning all that you possibly can about everything. There are references to the past, to Vizima during the first game, to events and characters in the books, which make it so much more enjoyable for those who are familiar with the game lore. And for those who aren’t, there is no reason not to pick it up, even if these little extras will go unnoticed.

Prototype 2

Locked down under the military jackboots of Blackwatch, who in turn overlook the vile, twisted experiments being conducted by Gentek, New York Zero is the perfect playground for Heller to flex his new virally contracted powers, with plenty of soft targets to rain down a proverbial sh*tstorm upon. Infected by previous moody Prototype hero, Alex Mercer, Heller is just as brooding and moody as his predecessor, but his range of powers make him an even more formidable force. If you’re expecting subtlety then, forget it. You won’t find a single ounce of it here

Black Ops 2 -- Future Warfare?

As players probably know by now the rumor of Activision releasing yet another Call of Duty title this November is pretty much set in stone. With the rumor of Black Ops 2 said to be announced during an NBA playoff game on Tuesday May 1st speculation on what the game will actually focus on has arose. There has been a large rumor that the next installment to the Call of Duty franchise will take place in the future rather than the Cold War era. As military first-person shooters are getting a bit dry and overdone maybe Activision is following in the lines of Ghost Recon: Future Soldier and taking the success of Black Ops to a more futuristic setting…

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The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition Review

GR: “Over the years there have been series that I have bought systems for. The SNES was an obvious choice for the Super Mario World, but from there Final Fantasy took root and I purchased a Playstation for Final Fantasy VII. Likewise I bought the PS2 for Final Fantasy X, and while I didn’t like it, I fell in love with that era’s Metal Gear Solid games and purchased a PS3 for the Metal Gear Solid 4. I actually loved Metal Gear so much I bought the 3DS at the excitement of the prospect of playing it in 3D and a PSP for MGS Peace Walker. Since then, I’ve played a lot of acclaimed current-gen games and series without them really sticking, so it’s with a little surprise that I write that I will buy whatever console or platform I need to play the next Witcher game that CD Projekt Red makes.

This game. Wow. Just wow.”

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Amazon Game Deals

Amazon has a host of current deals ready for you to grab some fantastic bargains.
Check out the newly revealed download deals of the week or grab a bargain from the video game deals section.
Check out some of the biggest bargains, deals and sales currently on at Amazon.

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Having trouble with the Guild Wars 2 beta event?

The biggest Guild Wars 2 beta weekend event ever is currently underway, with “hundreds of thousands” of players all making a mad dash for the beta servers at the same time. Naturally, quite a few of those people have had trouble accessing the game, and if you’re one of them, here are some helpful tips that may solve your issue:

Error code 9:4:5:1093:101

“Your account does not have access to the Beta Weekend Event,” says ArenaNet Social Media Coordinator Rubi Bayer. “There are two possible reasons for this:

1) The first possibility is that you registered a Pre-Order serial code instead of a Pre-Purchase serial code. This means the Pre-Order serial code that you registered will give you 1-day Headstart Access before Guild Wars 2 launches, but will not provide you access to the Beta Weekend Events. Some retailers apparently are selling Pre-Orders as if they were Pre-Purchases, which is unintended. This error will not prevent you from receiving your boxed version of Guild Wars 2 when the game releases.

However, those of you that have already registered your Pre-Order serial code and received an email invite from Arenanet to join the Beta Weekend Event, we will honor the invitation. Receiving the invitation was a mistake on our part and you will be able to log in shortly. Note that no further Pre-Order serial codes can be registered at this time.

If you paid in full and received a Pre-Order serial code by mistake, please contact your retailer to have this serial code converted to a Pre-Purchase serial code. If you did not pay for the game in full, you may contact your retailer to have your Pre-Order converted to a Pre-Purchase when you pay for the game in full.

2) The second possibility is that the Pre-Purchase serial code you bought was blocked for credit-card fraud. A very small number of users may have purchased codes from unauthorized resellers who are selling codes they obtained illegally. Please confirm that the retailer you purchased from is on our authorized list of retailers. If you did not purchase your serial code from one of our authorized retailers, please contact the retailer from whom you made the purchase and request a refund.”

No Beta Weekend Event email invite

“First, be certain that you pre-purchased through one of our retail partners or https://buy.guildwars2.com/,” says Bayer. ”Once you have your serial code, register it at https://register.guildwars2.com/. Once you have successfully gone through the registration process, you are set for the Beta Weekend Event.

Next, go to this Guild Wars 2 forum post, logging in with the credentials you created during the registration process. https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/info/news/Getting-StartedFollow the instructions given there, and you should find yourself downloading the client and ready for BWE before you know it!

If you successfully registered and did not receive an email, that’s okay. Follow the instructions exactly and you will be set for the Beta Weekend Event.”

Error code 48:1000:7006:529:101

“We are aware of the issues with the game and the forums,” stated a message on the Guild Wars 2 Facebook earlier today. “The team is working on them as fast as possible. We don’t have an ETA for a fix, but we’re aiming for “A.S.A.P. We know that there are still issues aside from the Error 48, and the devs are hard at work on those.”

Lag, glitches, or various other issues

If you do manage to get into the beta (as the beta servers and forums have been going up and down all weekend), remember that it’s exactly that — a beta. The game is unfinished, and the purpose of the beta is not only to stress-test the servers (good thing they did, right?), but also to run crowd-sourced quality assurance on a massively ambitious game.

Not only that, but when you complete key quests you’ll get a brief in-game survey to fill out where you can let the developers know if you though it was fun, too easy, too hard, boring, well-written, etc. Make sure to take advantage of this, as it’s a rare opportunity for you to have a direct impact on the actual game when it officially releases later this year.

In the meantime, visit the Guild Wars 2 Facebook and Twitter accounts for real-time updates, or check out GamesBeat’s Top 5 MMOs of 2012 feature for more on Guild Wars 2 and some other great games this year.

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Trials Evolution: The Blast Review

Blast: The original Trials game was an online phenomenon, occupying any decent procrastinators tab at work or school. A couple of years back, Trials HD brought the much adored franchise to Xbox 360 with enhanced graphics, realistic physics and a level of difficulty rarely seen in modern games. When Trials Evolution released last week, it broke XBLA records for most units sold in a single day. The demand for the game is more than present and thankfully, the addicting gameplay that made the original so memorable is back, and it is better than ever.

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Toy Soldiers on Steam!

Toy Soldiers is Now Available on Steam and 25% off until Friday, May 4th 10AM PST.

Toy Soldiers is an action-packed strategy-based game in which players command antique WWI toy soldiers vying for control of the trench-filled battlefields of Europe. Deploy an exciting arsenal such as tanks, cavalry, biplanes, and flamethrowers in vintage WWI toy dioramas. Developed by Signal Studios, Toy Soldiers allows you to take control of individual units or control the entire battlefield from a strategic view. Integrating multiple game genres and world-class visuals, Toy Soldiers is a unique and action-packed entertainment experience!

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Guild Wars 2 Pre-Purchase

You can now secure your Guild Ware 2 Collector's Edition, Digital Deluxe or Digital Edition copy by pre-purchasing the game at buy.guildwars2.com or at selec retailers.  Pre-purchasing Guild Wars 2 gives you guaranteed entry into beta weekend events, three-day headstart access to the final game, and the Hero's Ban in-game item.

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Assassins Creed 3 review

Quick, try and think of a good game about the American Revolutionary War besides Assassin's Creed III. Partial credit if you picked Empire: Total War, even if it's more about imperialism in general. I'll also accept this gem of a Flash game, which plays like Hogan's Alley with a machine-gun musket. Fact is, the Revolutionary War is a difficult setting for a game. It suffers from the same problem as any game set before World War II: In the mind of the average person, all of the fighting was done single-file with muskets that had to be reloaded after every shot. It was also a war that was fought well more than 200 years ago, making it hazy at best in our collective memory. Put it this way: World War II has Band of Brothers, The Pacific, and Saving Private Ryan. The American Revolution has a great History Channel mini-series, a musical, and a middling film starring a certified crazy person.
Thankfully, the people behind Assassin's Creed III appear willing to think outside the box. Consider creative lead Alex Hutchinson's comments on the topic of settings: "We've had versions of the assassin... people have thrown ideas around for probably literally any setting that people would think of. But when you get right down to it -- when we're doing the actual nitty-gritty of spending the time on it, spending a couple years making something -- we wanna go to a setting that other games haven't." Given its scarcity in other games, you can understand why Ubi looked to the Revolutionary War for ACIII.

The Action Doesn't Rely on Firearms

In some ways, the whole "musket" issue is actually pretty overblown. More often than not, Americans conducted an early form of guerrilla warfare, sniping their rank-and-file British foes from the safety of the woods. That in itself could make for an interesting game. But, of course, those lopsided tactics don't make the muskets of the time any less unwieldy or inaccurate. In Assassin's Creed, however, it's plausible -- even required -- that the main character would be versed in bladed weapons. After all, this isn't Battlefield, or even Metal Gear Solid. Assassins like Ezio, and now Connor, do perfectly well with a knife (or arrows). That puts muskets safely on the sidelines, where they can function as a change of pace but not the main mode of game play. The Assassin's Creed universe allows quite a bit of flexibility in terms of mechanics, making many of the problems other franchises would face in a Revolutionary War setting moot.

It Can Make Great Use of a Rich Setting

I've already mentioned that the forests of the American Northeast would make a great setting for an action game. But few can exploit that setting to the extent of Assassin's Creed. I can already imagine stalking a pack of British soldiers from a high branch, waiting until their backs are turned, then taking them out one by one. That's not to say that it'll be easy for Ubisoft. I'm no artist, but natural-looking foliage has always been tricky for developers to render. Given that the only alternative is the wide-open -- and boring -- fields that dominated the combat of that era, it's easy to see why action game developers would be reluctant to tackle the Revolutionary War. But for Assassin's Creed, it's an opportunity. Having spent three games running the rooftops of Italy, it'll be fun to spend some time tree-surfing.

It's Not Limited to the War

So you know how I said that the Revolutionary War is too far out of the collective memory? One of the consequences is that it all feels academic. After all, no one actually knows anyone who fought in the Revolutionary War. It's one of the reasons that we don't have many good blockbuster movies on the subject either. But Assassin's Creed has a built-in solution for this dilemma as well. It can use the real events of the war -- Valley Forge, Yorktown, and all that -- as background color for the "real" war between the Templars and the Assassins. This war bears a direct connection to the series' near-future framing scenario and thus feels more immediate to contemporary audiences. I'm not calling the Templar-Assassins War a masterpiece of fiction or anything; to tell the truth, it's one of the bits I like the least about the series. I'm a history nerd, so I enjoy the simple act of playing against interesting historical backdrops. But for others, I'm sure that the modern thread will make it feel less like a textbook, and more like... well, to be honest, a superhero film.
I'm sure that it would have been much easier for Ubisoft to go ahead and put Assassin's Creed in Feudal Japan, or in World War II. It's easy to sell the idea of an assassin with a katana, or even of an assassin storming Omaha Beach. It's not as easy to sell an assassin hanging out with Benjamin Franklin. Or Leonardo da Vinci, for that matter. My reference to Assassin's Creed as a game about costumed heroes was admittedly just a touch derisive, mainly because I'm personally sick to death of comic book films. But the Assassin's Creed concept being as flexible as it is, I think it has an opportunity to explore a huge number of interesting settings that have traditionally received short shrift in gaming. It could be the American Revolution, it could be the Russian Revolution, it could be the Cuban Revolution. Whatever it turns out to be, the history nerd in me is officially excited.

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BF3 Expansion

EA  have unveiled three new themed digital expansion packs which are: Battlefield 3: Close Quarters in June, Battlefield 3: Armored Kill in the fall, and Battlefield 3: End Game in the winter.

The details for each expansion are outlined as below:

Battlefield 3: Close Quarters – In Battlefield 3: Close Quarters, players are dropped into a frantic, infantry-only theatre of war. Frostbite 2 high definition destruction makes the environment come alive as everything from furniture to plaster gets shot to pieces. Players will feel the intensity of the world exploding around them as rubble and broken pieces pile up on the floor, while tight level design and vertical gameplay create a highly competitive environment. Battlefield 3: Close Quarters also introduces new weapons, assignments and unique dog tags to bring back to the base game.

Battlefield 3: Armored Kill– Following the tight infantry gameplay of Battlefield 3: Close Quarters, DICE will release Battlefield 3: Armored Kill that ups the ante for vehicular mayhem as only Battlefield can do. Featuring new driveable tanks, ATVs, mobile artillery and more, Battlefield 3: Armored Kill also delivers huge battlefields for an all-out vehicle assault, including the biggest map in Battlefield history.

Battlefield 3: End Game – The fourth expansion pack will ship in the winter but details remain tightly guarded.

Battlefield 3: Back to Karkand –Battlefield 3: Back to Karkand is available now for download for $14.99 or 1200 Microsoft points and features four of the most beloved Battlefield 2TM maps (Strike at Karkand, Gulf of Oman, Wake Island and Sharqi Peninsula), all fully re-imagined utilizing the power of the Frostbite 2 engine.

Patrick Bach, Executive Producer, Battlefield 3 said, “Instead of delivering piecemeal map packs, we’re giving players a completely new experience with every themed expansion pack to keep the action fresh. Our expansions are designed to excite our large and active fan base while attracting new recruits with gameplay that is dynamic and unpredictable every time.”

Xenoblade Chronicles

Xenoblade Chronicles has been a long time coming for North American Wii owners. The game released last year in both Japan and in Europe while Nintendo of America held fast to the notion that it would never make the trip across the pond. Due to an overwhelming response as part of Operation Rainfall, a movement started to get three high-profile Wii games released in America, Nintendo decided it is worth their time to bring it out in America.