Release Date: September 6
Director: David Twohy
Rating: R

The universe's most infamous eyeshining-assbeater is back for another round of against-the-odds action. This time, he's left stranded on a hostile, perpetually-sun-scorching planet with vicious creatures and killer bounty hunters on his tail.

What We Know:

Richard B. Riddick (Vin Diesel) just can't seem to hold on to the good things in life. Apparently that whole "being crowned new Lord Marshall of the Necromongers" thing was short-lived. The fortune-deprived Furyan now finds himself stranded on a harsh planet with a weather forecast that would simply read, "blazing hot afternoon up until...forever."

Of course, what unforgiving alien planet would be complete without a set of indigenous creatures looking to make our hero their lunch? Indeed, the planet has forced Riddick to utilize his impressive repertoire of reaping as he maintains a marathon of massacres just to survive. The solution to this dilemma: Riddick must locate an emergency beacon which, contrary to conventional thinking, will not send for help, but rather, alert a group of angry elite mercenaries who have been looking for him so that he can fight a lopsided battle to jack their ship. -- Sounds like a plan, right?

Now, for Riddick, the pot of gold at the end of this proverbial rainbow involves tangling with the toughest, meanest, and generally unpleasant mercs the universe has ever seen who look to cash-in on our castaway. However, the arrival of another ship run by a man with a personal vendetta could make for rare serendipity when a bad guy battle royale ensues as each party fights to nab Riddick for themselves. Yet, with all the carnage, looms a serious storm in which no living being will want to be caught, so time is of the essence.

Katee Sackhoff, Dave Bautista, Matt Nable, Nolan Gerard Funk, Raoul Trujillo, Jordi Mollà, and pop star, Keri Hilson fill the cast. Additionally, Karl Urban reprises his role from The Chronicles of Riddick as Vaako.

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Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance may be trading away stealth and lengthy cutscenes for highly technical third-person melee action, but the game will still stay true to the series' penchant for bizarro bosses. A new trailer highlights some of the main villains that Raiden will face off against along with their unique abilities.

Spoiler alert, I suppose, though more in the gameplay sense since there's nothing here that really tips you to what's going on in the story. It helps as well that all of the dialogue is in Japanese. Unless you can understand Japanese, that is. The wait for Raiden's latest solo adventure won't be much longer. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance comes to PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on February 19, 2013.

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.

The debut trailer for this summer's aging action romp, RED 2 has arrived.

It certainly appears that circumstances have caused the wizards of wetwork we met in RED to once again un-retire themselves. This time, the mellow life that Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) made with his significant other, Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker) will go up in a glorious nitroglycerin blaze. The former CIA black-ops badass has somehow found himself a high level target by MI6, sending former friend, Victoria (Helen Mirren) on his tail to do her duty and make his retirement REALLY permanent.

With the help of his insane killer colleague, Marvin (John Malkovich), Frank and Sarah are on the run from not only Victoria, but another mysteriously-deadly assassin. (Byung-hun Lee, better known as Storm Shadow from the G.I. Joe films.) However, while looking to find out who wrecked their lives, it seems that their home might also stand to be wrecked when Frank's ex-flame, Miranda (Catherine Zeta-Jones) steps into the picture.

David Thewlis (Remus from the Harry Potter films), Neal McDonough, and the great Anthony Hopkins fill the cast.

Check out the trailer below to see "how are things."

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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."

Release Date: August 9
Director: Neill Blomkamp
Rating: Not Yet Rated

In a bleak future where people are class-divided by luxurious life on a space station and misery on a dying Earth, an unlikely hero emerges.

What We Know:

By the year 2159, Earth is rendered a polluted, overpopulated mess of a planet that is regularly bombarded by carcinogenic radiation. As a result, those with the means (i.e., "the rich") have abandoned the terrestrial life in favor of a gigantic space station called "Elysium," designed to luxuriously house humanity's fancier, pinky-raising population. Over there, life is good and a pesky bout of radiation exposure is easily eliminated by way of tech reserved for fancy people.

It's certainly of no help to the folks stuck back on Earth, which has become sort of the MySpace of the future. This is especially so for a blue collar worker named Max (Matt Damon), a miserable manual laborer whose co-workers are androids that don't particularly like him. (Residual backlash from Stuck on You?) His luck would only worsen with a work-related incident exposing him to deadly levels of radiation. Rather than giving him superpowers, it has left him with less than a week to live.

Not content to simply lie back and die, Max has decided to defy the law, escaping his quarantine and fighting his way to Elysium for a cure. Of course, the Scrooge McDucks of space aren't having any radiated rabble in their pad and "immigration enforcement" has become a big operation. Headed by a tenacious taskmaster of an official named Secretary Rhodes (Jodi Foster), her cops of caste are hot on Max's trail, exhausting vast amounts of manpower and resources that probably dwarf what it would have cost to simply cure the poor bastard.

Along the way, Max gets modified with cybernetic implants, leveling up his badassery to new futuristic heights. He'll need it, since not only are the government on his tail, but a grungy and menacing merc named Kruger (Sharlto Copley) is also looking to nab our hero. Max's quest to get to the spa in the sky could also lead to a breakdown of class barriers. However, it will be riddled with obstacles...obstacles that will end up in explosions...epic, futuristic explosions.

William Fichtner, Alice Braga, Talisa Soto, Diego Luna, Carly Pope, and Michael Shanks fill the cast.

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It appears that the long-discussed return of The Terminator franchise will be moving forward. A duo of writers in Laeta Kalogridis and Patrick Lussier have been appointed to pen a follow-up for the best film franchise to feature time-traveling cyborg assassins with Austrian accents...ever.

Co-produced by Skydance Productions and Annapurna Pictures, the hiring of the new scribes is the first bit of movement on this project since a rendition directed by repertory helmer of The Fast and the Furious films, Justin Lin apparently fell through. This project comes after 2009's Terminator Salvation underperformed, followed by years of wrangling over the rights. However, the concept was revived when star, Arnold Schwarzenegger expressed interest in returning.

Laeta Kalogridis brings notable credits for authoring Shutter Island and Pathfinder, and as exec producer on Terminator maestro, James Cameron's Avatar. Patrick Lussier, on the other hand, brings a more action/horror-driven vision, with writing and directorial credits for the upcoming Halloween III, My Bloody Valentine, and Drive Angry. Together, the duo will bunker-down and try to find what will surely be a compelling new twist for the nearly 30 year-old franchise.

With Schwarzenegger clearly past the point of feasibility to play a killer cyborg, perhaps it's time for a script portraying him as a human character. (Maybe a human resistance fighter whose DNA was used to create the T-800 flesh suit. -- Just throwing out an idea.)

[Source]

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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Release Date: August 2
Director: Noam Murro
Rating: Not Yet Rated

The bloody, over-the-top story of 300 is expanded upon as a new hero steps forward against the invading forces of a gold-glimmering Persian overlord waging a grand naval battle against the armies of Athens.

What We Know:

The legendary 300 Spartans, who now "dine in hell," may have fulfilled their role in rallying the sentiments of Greece to take arms against the Persian invasion waged by Au-obsessed Persian King, Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro, reprising his role). However, if this was a story of how a great fire was started, that was merely the initial spark. The self-anointed living God has now burdened himself with a grand war between kingdoms taking place on multiple theaters. Perhaps acknowledging that even he cannot oversee such a campaign alone, the ersatz deity calls upon the wisdom of a wise general; A beautiful one, at that.

Artemisia (Eva Green) takes command of Persia's naval forces in a well-planned large-scale invasion of Greek lands that would serve to definitively expand Xerxes' brutal empire across what we now know as the Mediterranean Sea. However, just as we saw with King Leonidas of Sparta on land at Thermopylae, another hero would step forward to inspire the Allied forces in their campaign against the invaders at sea in Athenian general, Themistocles (Sullivan Stapleton).

With the word of Leonidas' sacrificial deeds still resonating throughout the lands, the former politician-turned military leader, Themistocles will need to find his own calling to muster the forces of Greece together to repel the invaders. Yet, Artemisia is both calculating and smart as she is gorgeous. Under her lead, the Persian machine of military might is more than a match for the Greek forces' penchant for passionate yelling and line-ups of symmetrically-oiled pecs. At the mercy of the winds, it will be a monstrous maritime battle of wits that will spill over to a grandiose ground battle.

Filling the cast are Jack O'Connell and Callan Mulvey. Plus, Andrew Tiernan, Andrew Pleavin, and Lena Headey are back to reprise their respective roles from the original 300 as Ephialtes the hunchback, Daxos of Arcadia, and Queen Gorgo.

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