Nathan Blades looks at the polarising RPG for PS3 & 360.
Jason Rose brings us a buyers' guide to smartphones available this Christmas.
Nathan Blades covers some console and industry-defining titles for the Sony PlayStation
Nathan Blades burns rubber in Mario kart 7.
Team Fortress 2 is Free Forever! - After 4 years of being a Steam favourite, fluctuating in price and brief periods of being free to download, Valve's Team Fortress 2 is now a free download forever - a followup from the Steam service allowing multiple free to play games in its lineup. Some diehard fans are bemoaning that their jeux du jour is now open to Internet plebians, but Valve's decision to make one of their most played games open to an even wider audience is a smart move - and they'll make more than enough profit from hat and weapon sales.
Indie Fighter Skullgirls is Noir and Dangerous - Fighting game thusiasts are really picky about how their games are put together. So who better to put together their own title? Mike Zaimont and Alex Ahad are two major players in the competitive fighting game community, and are working on Skullgirls, a PC-based Fighter that's offering some very bold gameplay ideas that make getting into it easier for fighting veterans and new players alike. Only 8 characters are planned to appear in the final version, the 3rd character to be announced is Peacock, a girl taking design cues from Disney and Tex Avery, with slapstic/homicidal tendencies to boot.
US Supreme Court to Rule on First Amendment Games Case - After six years, the US Supreme Court will on Monday deliver their verdict in Brown vs EMA, the Californian video game law which criminalised the sale of "violent video games" to minors. The contentious piece here is that such restrictions do not apply on music, films or books. Essentially, the court is ruling on whether or not games merrit the same protections as other forms of media. The First Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and expression for all its citizens, and the argument of the gaming lobby is that games are simply another medium of this, and thus should be afforded the same rights. Should the court rule in fabour of California (against the Entertainment Merchants Association), it could well set a precedent, both in America and the wider world, and would arguably set back any "games-as-art" arguments several years. The verdict is expected tomorrow afternoon our time.
Sonic the Hedgehog Celebrates 20th Birthday The last couple of years seem to have been relatively significant in terms of anniversaries, this year marking both Zelda's 25th, and Sonic's 20th. The first Sonic the Hedgehog title was released June 23rd 1991 for Sega's Mega Drive. Despite several successful sequels, the series has been seen by many to have been languishing of late, the last ten years having produced few games of note. Hoping to revitalise the franchise with a more critically acclaimed title, Sonic Team have released a demo of their upcoming Sonic Generations, which features both "modern" style Sonic, as well as the smaller, pudgier Sonic seen in the original Mega Drive games. The game features a mix of 3D and 2D platforming, and release is scheduled for November 22nd.
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