General Discussion

Ignition Entertainment and Zombie Studio’s XBLA downloadable title, Black Light: Tango Down is this week’s, Deal of the Week. Released on July 7, 2010, Black Light: Tango Down focuses on online multiplayer where you can find yourself playing the standard mulitplayer shooter staples, Team Deathmatch, Deathmatch, and Control Point. Ignition and Zombie tried to add a co-op element into the game, but unfortunately the co-op mode “Black Ops” received mixed and mostly negative reviews. Black Light: Tango Down released for 120o MS points and is being discounted to 600 MS points until Monday, February 21. via Major Nelson View the full article

Ladies and Gentlemen, meet Kyle Orland. Kyle writes for popular gaming website like Gamasutra and Joystiq. Kyle thought it was necessary to write a help book about the hugely successful Zynga social game, Farmville. Speaking with Ars Technica, Orland describes why he feels that the world needs a “Farmville for Dummies” book. According to Orland, people who play Farmville do not play many video games and therefore need a book detailing how to a play a game that already practically changes your diapers, puts a bottle in your mouth, and teaches you how eat. “Sure, Farmville isn’t a particularly difficult game—it practically holds your hand in telling you how to play, and…

Halo: Reach’s new map pack will be delivered to you sometime this March for 800 Microsoft points. The “Defiant Map Pack” will feature 3 new maps and an added 150 gamerscore points. Condemned can hold 6-12 players and is in a space station above Reach. Unearthed is firefight map on a mine and refinery on Reach. Highlands takes place on a wooded training preserve on Reach. 8-16 players can take on Highlands. via Major Nelson View the full article

<br> <br> Developed by: Uglysoft <br> Platforms: PC <br> Rated: Not rated by the ESRB (but would probably be rated M for its messed up and disturbing content in general) <br> <br> How many games let you slaughter kittens? Not many. Not that it’s a good thing, but they are good for easy experience points. Kitten slaughter aside, Mark Leung: Revenge of the ***** contains all manner of hilarious and disturbing content. From getting farted on by b*tchmonkeys, to using jellyfish penises to revive your fallen comrades, this is one very… different RPG. <br> <br> View the full article

Like a phoenix, the Fail of the Week Award is rising out of the ashes to bring to you another fail-rific recap of all things fail in the gaming industry. This week’s contenders are the “countless sequels, prequels, special editions, we want your money” Activision and the “we love to do reports on things we know absolutely nothing about like video games” Fox News. Let’s stand the competition side by side and get the full details in this week’s Fail of the Week showdown. Activision Fail After announcing that the Guitar Hero franchise is done along with True Crime, Activision was slapped in the face by analysts who said they did it all themselves. You can’t blame analysts…

Can you imagine a world where video games series like Grand Theft Auto, BioShock, Call of Duty, and World of Warcraft are all owned by the same juggernaut publisher? If the recent rumors about Activision's plans to acquire Take-Two are true, then this could happen. "There are very strong rumors amongst people at a very senior level within the global business," an anonymous senior executive told MCV regarding the supposed deal. "But they're not much more than that at the moment – they are just rumors," the executive continued. "And, of course, given Activision's news this week, everyone is now looking to see what their next move is. But you can definitely put two and two t…

I'd really like it if everyone made the effort to show up and support Gamercide in this. I'm pretty sure Paradox will be stopping in to see how the giveaway is going, and I don't want to be embarrassed by a low turnout. Even if you go to bed early, you can still park your bums in the chat, and go to bed. Each person that shows up, adds to the viewer count. The higher that viewer count, the higher up on the main page our stream will be. The higher up on that main page, the more random people will come and join us. Please try and show up. I'd like to do more things in the future with Paradox Interactive. It's both tonight and tomorrow night at 10PM PST. If you don't know w…

Come Get Some! 2K Games Announces Duke Nukem Forever® Balls of Steel Edition! New York, NY February 11, 2011 – Duke’s got them – and now you can too. 2K Games and Gearbox Software are proud to announce the Duke Nukem Forever® Balls of Steel edition! Arriving alongside the standard editions on May 3, 2011, the Duke Nukem Forever Balls of Steel edition for the PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system, Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and Windows PC is a must-have for those who have been awaiting the return of the King. View the full article for more details.

<br> <br> Analyst Michael Pachter says that, “I’m certain to my core,” when it comes to whether or not Activision will start charging gamers to play Call of Duty online when it comes to the newly announced project that is being taken on Beachhead. <br> <br> According to G4TV, Pachter said that Project Beachhead will be charging for the mulitplayer and that there might also be charges for weapons or $1.00 each or a monthly subscription to access all of them. <br> <br> If this turns out to be true, it will interesting to see which console’s sales will go up and if fans will revolt or will fall in line and pay to play. <br> <br&gt…

Activision sure doesn’t waste time. They may have nailed the coffin shut for Guitar Hero and True Crime, however Activision confirmed that Family Guy and Spiderman will both be getting games sometime this year. Comfirmed today by Activision’s Eric Hirshberg was this little piece of news and that they will also be adding another Cabela’s hunting game to the mix as well as games for the final Transformers movie, Transformers 3 and X-Men: First Class. According to Hirshberg, “These are all strong franchises with passionate niche audiences that can achieve repeatable and profitable success.” Tell that to Guitar Hero Mr. Hirshberg. via Games Radar View the full article

Prepare for a Magicka “Surprise”, Mount & Blade: With Fire & Sword, Pirates of Black Cove, Defenders of Ardania and Supreme Ruler: Cold War Playable at Event! NEW YORK – February 11th, 2011 – Paradox Interactive has today announced a strong line-up of playable titles for this year’s Game Developers Conference taking place in San Francisco between February 28th and March 4th. The renowned developer and publisher will be showing off a variety of upcoming games including the newest addition to their acclaimed Mount & Blade series entitled Mount & Blade: With Fire & Sword and a new tower defense game set in the Majesty universe titled Defenders of Arda…

Lionhead Studios is reaching out to Fable fans for their input to help decide the fate of Albion with a survey. The quick survey asks which features like british humor, customizing your character, being a hero, co-op, and more you prefer over the others. You rank each of them from 13 being the highest to 1 being the lowest. Hopefully Lionhead will take the time to read the surveys, because with how Fable III turned out, they will need all the help they can get for the next one. via Games Radar View the full article

Ever since Activision’s announcement of giving Guitar Hero the boot, analysts have not been afraid to let some harsh words fly towards Activision. Speaking to Gamasutra, M2 Research senior analyst Billy Pidgeon said that Activision, “pretty much driven the franchise into the ground with title after title after title.” There is no denying that statement. Countless numbers of Guitar Hero games have been released quicker than two rabbits can go at it during a single night session since the first Guitar Hero released in 2005. According to Eric Handler of MKM Partners, the market for these games just isn’t there anymore. “It had a great run, but it also had a steep fall and…

This Dumbass of the Day is an unnamed teenager from Maryland pretending to be a student from Berkeley Heights High School in New Jersey. This dumbass thought it would okay to play a prank on the other teen and threaten to shoot students at Berkeley Heights High School after gaining the other teen’s login details. During a Madden NFL online third party transaction from a website not associated with Microsoft or EA, the not so funny prankster was able to gain the Berkeley teen’s XBL account information. The dumbass logged into the account and sent almost 100 messages out to students at Berkeley Heights threatening to bring a gun to school the following day and would be s…

Crap, this is insane. This is exactly why I DON'T play fighting games now-a-days. I mean I used to be great at the older Tekken games, and even could pull off the super 21 hit combos in Killer Instinct, but this is insane. Observe some of Wolverine's combos for the upcoming Marvel Vs. Capcom 3.

Steam announced that PC Gamers who preorder Homefront through them will receive a free copy of Metro2033. Gamers will also get a day one unlock for the Air Assault Drone for use in multiplayer. Homefront is set to release March 15th, 2011. via Steam Community View the full article

Five studios are now responsible for Activision’s Call of Duty franchise. Newly added Beachhead joins Treyarch, Infinity Ward, Sledgehammer, and Raven. Beachhead will be concentrating on digital content for the long running successful series. Looks like Activision wants total and complete domination in the world of Call of Duty. via IGN View the full article

via Eurogamer Eurogamer is reporting that the Channel 4 News Team recently caught a glimpse of what appears to be an unannounced Halo 5 game along with an icon for Project Gotham Racing during a recent demonstration by Microsoft’s Jonathon Cluts of hidden Kinect technology. During the demo, Cluts is showing how he can change walls in a futuristic house. He passes by icons and chooses Grandma’s Room. Clearly on either side are icons for “Project Gotham Racing” and “Inside Halo 5″. This all could have been a marketing scheme cooked up by Microsoft or maybe there actually is a Halo Kinect title in the works. via Eurogamer View the full article

A video has been uploaded by Youtube user kick755 that shows him playing Dead Space 2 with Kinect and a Wii remote in his right hand. In the video, Isaac Clarke responds what seems to be perfectly to kick755′s movements, mirroring him exactly. If this video is legit, it does help to prove that games that are not sports or recreation types can respond well to Kinect. via KinectHacks View the full article

Yes you did indeed read that correctly. This Dumbass of the Day hails from Sony’s camp and is the fictional PR man that Sony made up for commercials and gave “Kevin Butler” his own Twitter account. Unfortunately for whoever is running the Twitter account, they might be at the unemployment line today. Tweeted back as a reply to what was assumed to be a Battleship joke was the hack code for the now fixed “jailbreak hack”. Sony has been trying to keep the details of this hack a secret for an ongoing court battle as they attempt to locate all of the hackers that have used this code. The tweet has since been deleted and it looks like Sony will need to create a new face for …

What's worse? Having your face jibjabbed or realizing that YOU'RE ALMOST A QUARTER CENTURY OLD!?!?!? Happy birthday girl. Go have fun today.

<br> <br> Developed by: X10 Studios <br> Players: 1 <br> Platforms: PC (Available through Gamer’s Gate, Desura, Steam, Direct2Drive, and directly from X10) <br> <br> Drawing from various classics such as Metroid and Mega Man X, A.R.E.S. Exinction Agenda is the first chapter in an episodic side-scrolling shooter. Set in the 21st Century, Earch is over polluted and we are facing extinction. A processing station is sent in to Earth orbit to help with this problem, but is overrun by “zytron” that kills the station’s systems and turns all the machines hostile. ARES is a robot tasked with clearing out the station, rescuing the hostages, a…

True Crime is no longer. Forget about any sequels for that series. Guitar Hero will only be DLC now. They're also cutting some jobs. No mention of how many jobs, though.

Image via The Source Batman fans who are eagerly waiting to get their hands on Batman: Arkham City will be able to read about the events that transpired between the video games, Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City. The six part miniseries picks up one year after Batman: Arkham Asylum ended. Readers will find the Warden turned Mayer, Quincy Sharp shutting down the deranged Asylum and building a city to house the lunatics of Gotham. The issues will be on a comic book stand near you beginning May with issues 1 and 2 being released during in the same month. via The Source View the full article

During the Conan O ‘Brien fiasco, Microsoft made an attempt to get the late night comedian to do shows for Xbox Live, however Executive Producer Jeff Ross revealed that Microsoft really did not show any plans for what they planned to do with Conan and instead signed with TBS. “A lot of the conversations were ‘well, it’s a show, but it’s not a show and there are no breaks, but maybe there are breaks and it’s not 60 minutes, it’s this’ and nobody really knew what it was,” Ross told Morris. “So it was really going to be a leap of faith to jump in with these guys and figure something out which we didn’t know. Plus there were 100 people of jobs and that didn’t bode well f…