Videogames

Electronic Arts and Maxis will launch a beta test for SimCity next week, according to the game's official Twitter feed. Sign-ups are open on the SimCity website, though note that the beta is PC-only and that you'll need an Origin account in order to sign up. The test kicks off on Friday, January 25, 2013 and ends on the following Monday, January 28.

There's one important catch that you should be aware of: the beta caps all players at one hour of play. Sure, that's one more hour than you probably expected to play of SimCity prior to its March 5, 2013 release. You probably won't have enough time to build yourself a full city, but just think of how many curvy roads you can lay down over the course of 60 minutes.

Sony's DualShock controller design was introduced back in the '90s during the era of the original PlayStation, but it looks like it may be going away with the hardware company's next gaming console. The word comes from a "senior games studio source working on an upcoming Sony game" who spoke anonymously on the subject to CVG.

The source claims that Sony's research and development team is testing out new features such as biometric sensors and LCD touch screens. A second unnamed source with connections to Sony claims that the DualShock successor will try to "emulate the same user interface philosophies as the PS Vita." That certainly makes sense, given the increasing presence of second screen play thanks to the Wii U and Xbox SmartGlass.

Sony is widely expected to reveal its PlayStation 3 follow-up in the first half of 2013, an announcement that would presumably include word of any new controller designs as well.

Valve's latest Steam initiative takes aim at GameFAQs: Steam Game Guides allows users to create their own help texts for any game available through the digital distribution service, complete with video and screens. The feature is still in its infancy, but you can browse through some of the more popular games and get a sense of what sort of potential there is here.

The layout is very nice, with guide creators able to break down their work into multiple, hyperlinked sections, add multimedia, and receive ratings and comments from the community. Game Guides can be accessed from any game portal on Steam or in-game via the Steam overlay feature. No more alt-tabbing to your browser to cheat!

Start your day with a first look at Grasshopper Manufacture's latest, Killer Is Dead. New details slipped out earlier this week, revealing more about the story and the characters, but this trailer is all about offering a peek at the gameplay and the slick visual style.

Make sure you stick around for the whole thing, as there's a brief post-script from protagonist assassin Mondo Zappa at the tail end of the trailer. He explains that Killer Is Dead is a story of "Love and Execution," and promises more reveals soon. Next up? "A beautiful woman who has devilish hands."

Blizzard Entertainment's Jay Wilson is one of the chief figures responsible for shepherding Diablo 3 into being, and after seven years of working on the game he's now ready to call it quits. Wilson won't be leaving Blizzard, but he's now moving on to work on "something new," as he writes in a Battle.net forum post (via GI.biz).

Wilson offers zero hints as to what his attention is turning to now, though he does promise that fans can expect the same level of commitment as a new director steps in in Diablo 3. "We have lots of things planned for the future, and those plans will carry forward as normal. I also won't be abandoning the team, and will remain available to them during the transition period while we determine who will take over duties as game director," he writes.

As you probably gathered from the preceding quote, there's also no word yet on who will be taking over for Wilson on Diablo 3.

UPDATE: That was fast. LucasArts tells G4 that the posting on Sony's Facebook page is incorrect. As the spokesperson told us, "We have not confirmed any platforms yet for 1313 and do not have any announcements to make at this time." Carry on.

ORIGINAL POST: Break out your salt shakers, gamers, because it's time to dump out a few grains. Sony's official PlayStation Facebook page for Germany has a new post up that seemingly confirms a 2013 PlayStation 3 release for the LucasArts-developed third-person shooter, Star Wars 1313. A bunch of images accompany the text, but all of it seems to be previously released screens and concept art.

LucasArts has said very little to date on Star Wars 1313. The game's E3 reveal offered a brief look at some early, unfinished gameplay; even the main character in the demo wasn't final. A subsequent appearance at Star Wars Celebration in August 2012 simply rehashed the E3 content with a more in-depth look at the design. Needless to say, we've reached out to LucasArts for comment and will update this post accordingly when we hear back.

There's a new trailer for Splinter Cell: Blacklist that confirms an August 20, 2013 release date (via IGN). The appropriately titled "Inauguration" trailer features gameplay mixed in alongside actual footage of U.S. presidents being sworn in and promising to protect the nation from those who would do it harm. That's where Sam Fisher comes in.

Blacklist sees Fisher heading up the newly formed Fourth Echelon, following the events of 2010's Splinter Cell: Conviction. The first big challenge that the organization faces is bringing down twelve terrorists and their collaborators before they can put their plan for a series of terror attacks in the U.S. -- called The Blacklist -- into action.

Conviction was solid and Blacklist certainly looked slick in its E3 2012 reveal. That said, you have to wonder why Ubi would stash the game at the tail end of the summer when it's widely believed that one or more new consoles will be hitting stores in the months that follow.

Bungie will be in attendance at the 2013 Game Developer's Conference in late-March, with an event schedule hinting at Destiny talk in a panel entitled Brave New World: New Bungie IP. Destiny, of course, is the not-quite-officially-revealed post-Halo/post-Microsoft Bungie project that Activision will publish. 

For a game that hasn't technically been confirmed or "revealed," we actually know a lot about it through rumors, leaks, and the occasional Bungie tease. The biggest infodump came in late November 2012 when leaked materials that Bungie confirmed to be accurate offered some initial hints about the story and setting.

The GDC panel will focus largely on Bungie's process and how the team brings a world together "from concept to production." The description also promises a "glimpse" of what's coming next "where the next ten years of great Bungie adventures will unfold."

TT Games' open world crime drama LEGO City Undercover, one of the more highly anticipated Wii U launch window titles, is now officially confirmed for a March 18, 2013 release on Nintendo's latest release calendar. Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon follows a week later on March 24, also the same day that Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity is released for Nintendo 3DS.

That's not all. March 5 sees the 3DS release of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate, which mixes up the traditional 2D side-scrolling of portable and classic Castlevania games with the 3D environments and action of MercurySteam's 2010 console revival. Also coming to the 3DS in 2013 is LEGO City Undercover: The Chase Begins, a prequel to the March Wii U game that hits stores on April 21.

Hit the jump for the full rundown of upcoming Nintendo platform releases, ripped straight from the announcement.

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Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel has a brand new trailer "Overkill" and as the title implies, every rifle discharge, bullet impact, and grenade explosion is in excess of what is necessary or appropriate (and I love it). There’s a brief exchange between Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel's new leads Alpha and Bravo that vaguely resembles Salem and Rio’s bro-speak so maybe there’s a chance I’ll warm up to these new characters (but I’m not holding my breath).

Check it out:

What’d you think? The other 2 Army of Two games had a unique charm to them so I have to say I’m looking forward to The Devil's Cartel. Are you?

The Razer’s Edge tablet blew away both consumers and journalists at this year’s CES, and we got a little time with it in all its varying form factors, leaving impressed by its ability to handle even higher-end PC games with relative ease. 

The Razer Edge, if you haven’t heard about it, is the only tablet out there running a full build of Windows 8 on an Intel processor and a dedicated NVIDIA GeForce GPU. That’s right, this bad boy is basically a desktop PC in tablet form -- no watered down, integrated graphics here -- and it’s finally ready for the masses to behold. But how does it perform?

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BioShock Infinite won't be here until March 26, 2013, but Irrational Games is ready now to reveal what PC users can expect in terms of in-game options and hardware needs. A new post on the studio's website serves up a lengthy rundown of the PC version's control options (mouse/keyboard, gamepad, both with user-defined settings) and video settings.

Issues with the original 2007 game's widescreen presentation have been addressed in Infinite, with non-4:3 aspect ratios no longer cutting off content at the fringes of the screen. As technical director Chris Kline writes in the blog post, "the wider you go, the more you'll see." Kline also confirms support for multi-monitor gaming using solutions from AMD, NVIDIA, and Matrox.

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Firaxis Games left Civilization 5 in a good place after the Gods and Kings expansion pack, though it seems like additional tweaks may be coming soon in another DLC drop, called One World. The title was spotted and posted about on the 2K Games forums (via Joystiq) by users exploring the ever-reliable Steam database listing.

Peeks at the Steam database have, in the past, offered advance reveals of imminent Steam releases like Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery and the Mac version of Call of Duty: Black Ops. As far as Civ 5 goes, there's nothing more than a title to be gleaned from the database listing. One World may well be nothing more than a few new civs, or it may be another full game revision on the scale of Gods and Kings.

We've reached out to 2K for comment and will update this post accordingly when we hear more.

Release Date: March 5, 2013

Developer: Crystal Dynamics

Publisher: Square Enix

Platform(s): PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Windows

Lara Croft has long been one of gaming's most recognizable mascots, though the Indiana Jones-inspired treasure hunter is being remixed for 2013. Regular franchise developer Crystal Dynamics is hitting the reboot button on Croft, with a fresh, new origin story to play through in the upcoming March 2013 release, Tomb Raider.

What We Know:

The rebooted Tomb Raider finds a 21-year-old Lara Croft freshly out of school and off on a sea voyage. She's off to find herself and establish a presence in the world, not unlike so many other recent graduates. The journey takes a dark turn when Lara's ship is cut in two by a violent storm, leaving her and her fellow survivors stranded on a remote tropical island.

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Seven years. That's how long it took three Finnish brothers to create Kastlevania 4, a feature-length LEGO-fied film inspired by Konami's Castlevania series (via Kotaku). The finished product clocks in at 146 minutes. That's longer than Star Wars, people!

The whole movie is delivered in the creators' native tongue, though English-language subtitles are included as well. This is crazy-impressive, as you'd probably hope it would be after seven freaking years of development. It's also entertaining. Set aside some time to give it a look.