Videogames

Microsoft isn't quite ready to reveal its next-gen hardware plans, but a proof-of-concept that surfaced this week for something called IllumiRoom points to one direction the company is thinking in (via Gamasutra). In short, IllumiRoom uses Kinect for Windows combined with a projector to bleed on-screen content out into the room around your TV.

Watch the proof-of-concept video above and you'll see that while it's not QUITE a real-life Holodeck, it's still a pretty neat thing that can be used to expand your field of view in a game. Microsoft isn't ready to reveal any concrete plans for IllumiRoom, but an official website confirms that more will be revealed at April's ACM SIGCHI Conference in Paris, France.

Defiance, Trion Worlds online open world shooter, is coming to consoles and PC in April and we have the latest gameplay trailer for you “Massive Co-Op” below. The trailer showcases some of the guns, vehicles, and huge boss battles that await you and your friends (and their friends, and their friends) in the ruins of alien ravaged San Francisco. There’s a pretty fantastic moment where someone on an ATV power slides through several enemies that’s worth the price of admission alone.

In case you forgot, Defiance is part of what the suits are calling a “transmedia experience” which will link the game to a SyFy original television series of the same name.

Check it out:

Pretty cool right? I think I need to see a little bit more of the game before I'm 100% sold but I’m definitely interested to see how the game and the TV show sync up. Are you?

2K Sports has reached an agreement with Major League Baseball, the MLB Players Association, and MLB Advanced Media (the league's Internet overseers) that will see MLB 2K13 released for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on March 5, 2013. Tampa Bay Rays pitcher David Price, a recent winner of the American League's Cy Young Award, is confirmed as the cover athlete.

The news comes as a bit of a surprise since 2K's MLB license expired at the end of 2012 and that March release date is less than three months from now, but it's pretty likely that Visual Concepts was working on the game long before the license renewal was finalized. MLB 2K13 also brings back 2K's Perfect Game Challenge, a $1 million competition that sees players competing to pitch a perfect game.

With the release so close you can probably expect 2K Sports to spin up the preview machine on this puppy in the near future, so stay tuned for more details.

For as long as the RTS genre has been around, it's reassuring that talented developers working in it are still finding ways to stand out at all, let alone with all-too-familiar settings like World War II. Such is the case with Company of Heroes. It's been six years since the original game, and studio Relic Entertainment thinks it has had enough time with their new Essence Engine 3.0 to put it to work on a sequel that properly moves the series forward.

Company of Heroes 2 tackles a far more ambitious World War II timeline than the original game’s D-Day to Operation Market Garden schedule, here opening up the entire Eastern Front from 1941 to 1945, and all from the Russian perspective. No game could truly depict the WWII Eastern Front without the harshness of a Russian winter, and Relic makes it happen through their Essence Engine, by which snow is more than just a flat white texture with crunchy footstep sound effects layered over. Here in Company of Heroes 2, winter has a depth that demands tactical consideration, with snow that melts under the heat of grenades and flamethrowers, ice that soldiers can slip and slide on, bodies of water that can freeze over as bridges, and enemy ambushes that will seek to blow up these bridges.

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Starting tomorrow, January 10, 2013, Dust 514 officially becomes a part of the EVE Online single-shard MMORPG universe, according to an announcement on the official EVE website. CCP Games' PlayStation 3-exclusive free-to-play FPS launched in 2012 as a grand-scale multiplayer shooter with some ambitious ideas for the future.

In practical terms, Dust players are classified as "mercernaries" who can belong to any EVE corporation (you can also create your own), with each multiplayer match amounting to an assignment whose results ripple into the EVE Online universe. It's complicated and it's something that has never been done before, but the potential here is huge. Give the announcement post on the EVE Online website a read for more details.

Release Date: February 12, 2013

Developer: Gearbox Software

Publisher: Sega

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

In space, no one can hear you scream. In Aliens: Colonial Marines, all of your co-op friends can hear it, and they'll laugh at you mercilessly for being such a wuss. Unless they're screaming too, of course. That's what Gearbox Software is shooting for in this Sega-published adventure that has 20th Century Fox's series canon seal of approval.

What We Know:

The story in Aliens: Colonial Marines is framed as a direct sequel to James Cameron's 1986 film Aliens, though it also occurs after the events of Alien 3 as well. The U.S.S. Sulaco has been discovered in orbit around LV-426 and players assume the role of Corporal Christopher Winter, a Colonial Marine who is a member of the search and rescue crew sent to investigate the unresponsive vessel.

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Today brings hints of a new Fallout game from a source who is actually in a position to know something: Erik Todd Dellums, the voice actor behind Fallout 3's ThreeDog (via All Games Beta). Dellums tweeted to Fallout 3 fans that "there may be more of the Dog coming! Fingers crossed!" 

Not exactly concrete info, but Dellums' follow-up tweet is encouraging: "I was given permission to release that tease," he wrote. The last Fallout game, Fallout: New Vegas, was developed by Obsidian Entertainment in 2010, but ThreeDog appeared in Bethesda Softworks' 2008 series revival, Fallout 3. 

I'd put the smart money on BethSoft being behind whatever the next Fallout is, given that the current hardware generation has seen the studio alternate between Elder Scrolls and Fallout games. Skyrim was released in late-2011. Will Fallout 4 be revealed, even released, in 2013? We'll have to wait and see.

The roster of fighters in Netherrealm Studios' upcoming Injustice: Gods Among Us is now 15 strong, with the latest issue of @Gamer confirming the existence of villains Bane and Lex Luthor in the game.  Netherrealm's own Ed Boon -- also co-creator of Mortal Kombat -- tweeted an image from the mag's latest issue that offers a look at the two characters.

Bane is pretty much what a DC Comics fan would expect: a hulking brute connected to an assortment of hoses with his face covered by a mask resembling that of a Lucha Libre fighter. Lex Luthor may be a puny human, but he wears a hefty battlesuit that, if it's anything like what he's worn in the comics, increases his strength and gives him the power of flight.

You'll be able to pit DC's greatest heroes and villains against one another later this year when Injustice: Gods Among Us hits stores later this year.

Electronic Arts is sharing a new look at Maxis' SimCity in the form of the game's intro video. There's not much to it, really; you've likely played tons of games in your life and, as such, have seen tons of intro videos that offer a basic sense of what the game is like.

This refreshed take on SimCity arrives on March 8, 2013. The game's "always-on" Internet requirement has put a few fans off, but early looks at Maxis' enhancements to the series have largely been met with positive responses. Will you be building your own metropolitan paradise (or hellhole) come March?

As if Marvel's animated heroes weren't adorable enough with all their earnest earth saving and improbable outfits, now they're getting bricked out LEGO style!

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment announced that Marvel LEGO Super Heroes will be available this fall across major platforms, offering up an original storyline with Loki and Galactus out to harm the good people of earth, while Nick Fury sets out to stop them with the aid of Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, Spider-Man and other Marvel Heroes.

“Players will brave the ultimate mission to save the world as they explore famous landmarks in LEGO New York and take the adventure beyond Earth to iconic locations in the Marvel Universe,” said Tom Stone, Managing Director, TT Games Publishing.

This first LEGO video game to feature famous Marvel characters will allow players to unlock more than 100 characters from the the Marvel Universe, all within an epic, action-packed and yet delightfully playful LEGO universe. Already mentioned, albeit not confirmed, are appearances from characters in the Spider-Man, Avengers, Fantastic Four, X-Men and Guardians of the Galaxy universe.

For more, check out Game Informer who go in-depth on the game for their February cover story.

Sony has hired Hanna screenwriter Seth Locchead to work on a script written by Juston Marks for a film adaptation of Shadow of the Colossus, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Marks was the original writer brought in back in 2009, and Lochhead steps in now to work with director Josh Trank (Chronicle) on polishing the story off.

Team Ico PlayStation 2-era classic should need no introduction with the G4 crowd. The game sends the young Wander and his trusty steed Argo off an adventure across a barren land populated by 16 towering creatures, the titular Colossi. Wander's goal is to defeat the inhabitants of the land so that he can free his lady love from a magically induced sleep.

Sony bringing in a second writer to polish of this long in development script is an extremely good sign. Be hopeful, Team Ico fans. Be very hopeful.

Release Date: February 5, 2013

Developer: Sanzaru Games

Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment

Platform(s): PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita

Sly Cooper returns! Sanzaru Games takes the reins from series creator Sucker Punch Productions for Sly Cooper: Thieves In Time, the first current-gen offering for the series and the long-awaited follow-up to 2005's PlayStation 2 gem, Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves. In Sly's latest adventure, players hop back and forth through time as they take control of various Cooper ancestors.

What We Know:

Sly Cooper: Thieves In Time picks up after the events of the previous game, with Bentley's time machine playing an important role in the story. After discovering that the pages of the Thievius Raccoonus are disappearing, Bentley gets Sly and the gang together for a time-jumping tour through the Cooper family tree. In addition to Sly, players will also take control of his Cooper predecessors in various stages, taking advantage of their unique skills to solve a variety of platforming, stealth, and exploration puzzles.

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Xi3 Corporation is partnered with Valve Corporation on a pint-sized gaming PC that is designed to support Steam and its Big Picture Mode. It's not quite the Steam Box that you've all been waiting for, but that's really only because it isn't actually being called "Steam Box." This is most certainly a box o' Steam.

The press release from Xi3 is unfortunately light on hardware specs, only going as far as saying that it's built "for residential and LAN party computer gaming on larger high-def screens." The grapefruit-sized Xi3 Modular Computer chassis (pictured above) is the company's own design, but the gaming-specific model is described as a "development stage" product.

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Activision still hasn't officially confirmed the rumored Revolution map pack for Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, but a now-removed Amazon listing makes the already likely content drop seem even more certain. It started with an alleged accidental posting of a DLC trailer of the Call of Duty mobile website, as reported by MP1st. Now there's this Amazon listing (via OXM UK) that runs through each piece of content in the pack.

The contents of the Amazon listing as OXM reports it line up precisely with the details revealed in allegedly leaked promo art that first tipped fans off to the fact that DLC was coming. You can continue to take all of this non-confirmation for what it's worth, but it certainl seems to be increasingly clear that the first Black Ops 2 is happening later this month.

Hit the jump for a rundown of the four multiplayer maps, one Zombies map, and added weapon as described by the removed Amazon listing.

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Telltale Games saw huge success in 2012 with the release of The Walking Dead as an episodic series, with the game now at more than 8.5 million individual episodes sold since launch. Company CEO Dan Connors shared the data point with the Wall Street Journal in a recent interview, adding that roughly a quarter of those sales are for iOS versions of the game.

The company's biggest sales months for the game were in November and December of last year, thanks largely to the game's first season coming to an end, the end-of-year award accolades, and the conclusion of the first half of the AMC TV series' third season. There's unfortunately no additional word on Telltale's second season plans beyond Connors' brief mention that it is indeed the plan.

Give it up once again for Telltale Games and The Walking Dead. And for those who haven't gotten around to playing it yet: seriously, what are you people thinking? Get on that!