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The week’s big GRID 2 release got $15.50 shaved off the Steam-activated version at GamesRocket, dropping the price from $49.99 to $34.49. The US release date was Tuesday, while the rest of the globe will have to wait until tomorrow, May 31st. The game arrives almost exactly five years after the original CodeMasters hit racing title, and so far has achieved a respectable 82/100 Metascore.

The 8th Humble Indie Bundle sale started Tuesday, allowing you to name your price and support charity while getting some great DRM-free PC download titles. The bundle comes with Little Inferno, Awesomenauts, Capsized, Thomas Was Alone, and Dear Esther, along with each game’s soundtrack in MP3 or FLAC. You’ll also get Hotline Miami, Proteus, and the Proteus game soundtrack if you pay more than the average ($5.67 at time of writing). About 240,000 bundles have already been sold, making the 8th Indie Bundle one of the more popular bundles.

Not slowing down this week, the new Humble Bundle Weekly sale was also refreshed today, giving you a slew of Telltale games on sale: Back to the Future: The Game, The Devil’s Playhouse, Poker Night at the Inventory, Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures, Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent, Puzzle Agent 2, and Hector: Badge of Carnage. Beat the average payment ($3.82 at time of writing) and get all 5 episodes of The Walking Dead game. Just a note: You get one Steam key for Walking Dead and a grouped key for all the other games.

Don’t forget about next week’s release of Capcom’s Remember Me. For PC gamers, the Steam-activated download is 20% off after coupon code, saving $10 off the $49.99 list price. Preorder and you’ll also get the “Combo Lab Pack” which allows you to further customize your combat style.

Hot deals & recent releases

Last Tuesday’s release: Grid 2 (PC Download) — $34.49 at GamesRocket after coupon. Next best is $40 at GameFly and Green Man Gaming. If you don’t have the cash for the $190,000 edition that comes with a supercar, you can settle for this Steam-activated version.

The Humble Indie Bundle 8 — pay what you want. Includes five PC download titles, with two bonus titles added if you pay more than the average.

June 4: Remember Me (PC Download) — $40 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. List is $50. Sometimes your droid needs a memory wipe, and in 2084 Neo-Paris, apparently so do people.
 

Rockstar Games PC Bundles — at Amazon. Amazon’s “Digital Games Mayhem” sale is just about over, but today a few new solid offers appeared:

• Rockstar Classics $9.99 (5 downloads, normally $50)
• Max Payne 3 and LA Noire Complete Bundle $9.99 (normally $70)
• Grand Theft Auto IV: Complete Edition $7.50 (normally $30)

Last Tuesday’s release: Crusader Kings II: The Old Gods (PC DLC) — $12 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. List is $15. The most extensive (and expensive) Crusader Kings 2 DLC pack to date. The game gets an earlier 867 AD start date (previously 1066 AD) and a focus on Pagan factions like the Vikings. Right now you can actually buy the base game cheaper than this DLC.

Today’s release: Wargame: Airland Battle (PC Download) — $32 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. List is $40. If the Cold War had gone hot, this game explores what might have happened tactically. Although Airland Battle didn’t get much attention in the media, it released today, May 30th.

Apple iTunes $50 Gift Card — $40 at eBay. It’s not exactly a gaming deal, but we’ve heard rumors there are a few games available in the iTunes Store. Only a couple hundred thousand, though.
 

Preorder deals

July 9: Dark (Xbox 360) — $41.99 at NewEgg after coupon. Into stealth action RPGs? Put this game on your watchlist. Developed by Realmforge Studios and published by Kalypso Media.

Aug. 11: Mario & Luigi: Dream Team (Nintendo 3DS) — $33.99 at NewEgg after coupon. Europe and Japan get an earlier July release date, while the rest of us in North America will have to wait until August 11.
 

PC download deals

Metro: Last Light — $34.99 at Groupon. Two weeks old, and already 30% off the usual $50 price. You’d think it flopped to get such a large discount so early, but it’s critically acclaimed.
 

Resident Evil: Revelations — $32.49 at GamesRocket. An even more recent title, this “fun to play” latest Resident Evil installment is already discounted 35%.
 

Crysis 3 — $27.99 at Groupon. Gorgeously rendered post-apocalyptic New York and a new low price make this open-world FPS even more appealing for gamers with processing power to spare. Next best is $30 at Amazon.

Yesterday’s release: The Night of the Rabbit — $16 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. An imaginative adventure game replete with magic spells, talking animals, and fantastical hand-drawn graphics. List is $20.

Sleeping Dogs Bundle — $12.99 at Amazon. You get the gritty, well-reviewed game plus 10 DLC packs. Next best is $31 at GameStop.

Sniper Ghost Warrior 2 — $12 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. Only 2 months old, now 60% off. Very mixed reviews from professional critics, but a 7.1 ‘Good’ rating from the IGN community. List is $30.

Fallout: New Vegas Ultimate Edition — $8.49 at GamesRocket. Great deal and the lowest price yet on Fallout: New Vegas plus all available DLC. Next best is $30 at GameFly.
 

360, PS3, and Vita

Dead Space 3 (Xbox 360, PS3) — $29.99 at Groupon. After the adrenaline rush you’ll get playing, you can return to Groupon for a half-price off spa visit to decompress. List is $60.
 

Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified (PS Vita) — $29.99 at NewEgg. Get 4v4 action going via WiFi and swap equipment with friends in this handheld Call of Duty title. Next best is $45 at Amazon.

Dishonored (Xbox 360) — $19.99 at NewEgg. Fans of masks, the supernatural, and reactive worlds should get this well-reviewed title at the cheapest we’ve seen yet for the 360. Next best is $30 at Rakuten.
 

Hardware

Alienware M17x r4 Gaming Laptop — $1,469 at Dell Home after coupon. Quick Specs: Core i7-3630QM, 2GB GeForce GTX 660M, and 8GB RAM. List is $1,749.

Alienware M14x r2 Gaming Laptop — $869 at Dell Home after coupon. Quick Specs: Core i5-3230M, 1GB GeForce GT 650M, and 6GB RAM. List is $999.

HP ENVY h8-1360t Gaming Desktop — $649.99 at HP after coupon. Quick Specs: Core i7-3770, Radeon HD 7570, 10GB RAM, Bluetooth Wireless-N LAN card, 460W power supply, and Windows 7. List is $1,000.
 

Sennheiser X320 Xbox 360 Gaming Headset — $58.88 at Rakuten. Next best is $100 at Crutchfield.
 

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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This sponsored post is produced by Dealzon.

Here’s the thing about post-apocalyptic shooter games: most people just can’t get enough of them. Need to make a FPS title but can’t think of a compelling setting? What about…Asia as a nuclear wasteland after fallout from a North Korean saber-rattling mishap? You travel from country to country, battling different post-apocalyptic Asian tribes composed of mutant ninjas and five-handed kung fu masters. Bam.

Wait a sec…maybe we should trademark that IP…

Until Fallout: Asia is released, next week’s Metro: Last Light might just hold you over, especially if you’re a fan of Metro 2033 or novels by Dmitry Glukhovsky (which the games are based on).

You can get the Steam activated version of Metro: Last Light for only $37.50. The current preorder deal includes the bonus Ranger Mode DLC plus The Gospel According to Artyom, a digital comic from Dmitry Glukhovsky and Dark Horse Comics.

Other hot deals this week include Skyrim and Dishonored for only $15 each during GamersGate’s Bethesda Weekend sale. You already know about Skyrim and Dishonored, so we won’t spin additional details here.

Hot deals

May 14: Metro: Last Light (PC Download) — $37.50 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. All other legitimate retailers have it at full price. Steam activated.
 

GamersGate Sale: Bethesda Weekend Fifteen excellent Bethesda titles are on sale at GamersGate, with previous triple-A titles such as Skyrim and Dishonored down to $15. All titles are Steam activated.

• Dishonored — $14.99
• Doom 3: BFG Edition — $14.99
• Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim — $14.95
• Brink Complete Pack — $12.49
• Fallout: New Vegas Ultimate Edition — $9.95

June 4: Remember Me (PC Download) — $37.50 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. Considering its impending release, coverage of Remember Me (previously ‘Adrift’) is fairly light so far, but the amnesiac ‘memory hunter’ premise seems interesting.
 

The Humble “Double Fine” Bundle — Pay What You Want. Minimum is $1. Paying $7.94 or more gets you Brutal Legend. Bundle includes Costume Quest, Psychonauts, and Stacking.
 

Upcoming PC games

May 24: Resident Evil: Revelations (PC Download) — $37.50 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. Originally released on 3DS, this survival horror port is finally coming to other platforms.
 

May 30: Grid 2 (PC Download) — $33.75 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. Next best is $45 at GameFly. If you liked Race Driver: Grid or any of Codemasters racing games, you’ll enjoy Grid 2.
 

June 14: Dark (PC Download) — $25.50 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. Next best is $34 at GameFly. This upcoming stealth action vampire-centric RPG is now at the lowest price we’ve seen. Details are sparse beyond the few released trailers.
 

June 21: MotoGP 13 (PC Download) — $22.50 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. Next best is $27 at Amazon. If you follow the sport, this title might be worth checking out. Developed by Italian dev Milestone.
 

PC download deals

BioShock Infinite (PC Download) — $40 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. A new low price for the excellent third installment to the BioShock series. Essentially a must-own for most gamers.
 

Sniper Ghost Warrior 2 (PC Download) — $18 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. The first game was “okay”, but if you enjoy tactical shooters, this is the best deal we’ve seen for the game.
 

Alpha Protocol and Binary Domain Bundle (PC Download) — $6.39 at GameFly after coupon. Both decent (read: not great) shooters, but they’re bundled together at a great price.
 

Xbox 360 and PS3

Aliens: Colonial Marines (Pre-owned: Xbox 360) — $9.99 at GameFly. While reception for Colonial Marines wasn’t all that impressive, at $10 you’re not giving up too much to give the game a try.  

NCAA Football 13 (PS3, Xbox 360) — $19.99 at Amazon. It’s NCAA Football 12, but with a few new additions that earn it a 76/100 Metacritic score. “Heisman mode” seems a bit silly but could appeal to diehard fans.
 

Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Storm Generations (Pre-owned: Xbox 360) — $12.99 at GameFly. A new low on this year-old well-received entry in the Naruto Ultimate Ninja line that features a new battle system for faster fights.
 

Gaming hardware

Nintendo 3DS XL is $179.99 and the regular Nintendo 3DS is $149.99 at Best Buy. Both are $20 off their usual prices.
 

AMD Never Settle Reloaded Sale: Radeon HD 7850 & 7870 Video Cards + 3 Free Games — at TigerDirect. Never Settle Reloaded returns again! Buy a GPU and get Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon, Bioshock Infinite, and Tomb Raider for free. If you bought each game separately at their best online prices, you’d pay $90.
 

Lenovo IdeaPad Y500 1080p Gaming Laptop — $849 at Lenovo after coupon. Specs: Core i7-3630QM, 1TB HDD + 16GB SSD, and GeForce GT 750M 2GB. List is $1,349.
 

HP Envy dv6t-7300 Quad Edition Core i7-3630QM — $624.99 at HP after coupon. $9.99 shipping. List is $800. Cheapest we’ve seen the base configured HP dv6t Quad Edition laptop in months. Last week you’d pay $650 + $10 shipping. Add discrete graphics for $75 more and you’ve got yourself a gaming rig.
 

Lenovo IdeaCentre K430 Gaming Laptop — $999 at Lenovo after coupon. Specs: Core i7-3770, 16GB RAM, and GeForce GT 630 2GB. List is $1,269.
 

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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This sponsored post is produced by Dealzon.

Strategy gamers! Allocate your resources toward these two titles: SimCity and Europa Universalis III Chronicles. Both games boast in-depth gameplay, long-running franchises, and have numerous fans – but only one will go down in RTS infamy as an online-only single player game. Setting aside server stumbles, SimCity may actually be worthy of positive attention this week. The PC download is almost half off, and Europa Universalis III is free at GameFly.

Today SimCity dropped to $32 for the PC download with Origin activation (flame away). This is a solid price for a recently released Triple-A game, server snafus and DRM controversies aside. We suspect the game will soon reach the $30 price point, but don’t expect it to break the $20 barrier until closer to year’s end.

Europa Universalis III Chronicles can be yours for the unbeatable price of FREE today through April 11 at GameFly. You’ll still have to check out with a PayPal account or furnish your credit card info. But if you’re a fan of grand strategy games, you can’t go wrong with this bundle, as it includes all four Europa 3 expansions.

Note: We update our GamesBeat weekly deal post every Tuesday with the latest deals. For last week’s deals, check below the “Last Thursday” headline.

Tuesday New Deals

SimCity (PC Download) — $31.99 at GameFly after coupon. Yes, it’s Origin activated. Yes, you still need to be connected to the Internet. But hey, you’re not paying full price.
 

Europa Universalis 3 Chronicles (PC Download) — FREE at GameFly. The bundle comes with all four Europa 3 expansions. This same bundle runs $30 at Steam. Between $30 and free, we’ll take free.
 

Ni no Kuni: Wrath Of The White Witch (PS3) — $39.99 at Amazon. First big price drop on this beautifully crafted JRPG.
 

June 14 release: The Last of Us (PS3) — $49.99 at NewEgg after coupon. One of the first solid deals we’ve seen on the upcoming and highly anticipated PS3 exclusive.
 

June 25 release: Company of Heroes 2 (PC Download) — $45 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. Comes with beta access. Thankfully the title’s still being released, even after THQ’s liquidation.
 

Sep 17 release: Grand Theft Auto V (Xbox 360) — $59.99 at Microsoft. Xbox 360 owners get a better preorder incentive than their PS3 counterparts with an offer of 1600 Xbox Live points.
 

Last Thursday

In a move to bolster sales on titles published by 2K Games, GameFly is bundling up a few fan favorites and selling them at wallet-opening prices. This is a trend we’ve noticed lately for PC game sales, where retailers are happy to cheaply bundle last year’s hit releases to increase sales volume.

For the week, GameFly is offering four solid game bundles priced from $5 to $40. If you preordered BioShock Infinite, you’re probably familiar with some of these titles – they’re the same ones given away as bonuses during Infinite’s preorder sales push. Our top pick would be the BioShock dual pack bundle, containing the first two installment of the series for only $4.

If you see something you fancy, you might want to act fast, since all four bundle deals will be gone tomorrow.

On the console front, we’re spotting the first real discounts on recent releases like BioShock Infinite and Army of Two: Devil’s Cartel. While the savings are less substantial compared to their PC counterparts, kudos to GameStop for actually slashing prices on the 360/PS3 versions. Not bad for everyone’s favorite-game-store-to-hate.

2k Games PC bundles

BioShock Dual Pack (PC Download) — $3.99 at GameFly after coupon and includes BioShock 1&2. If you haven’t played the well-reviewed BioShock series, this is a cheap way to start. The cheapest we’ve seen this combo in the past is $10, and each game normally costs $20 apiece. Note the GameFly coupon code can only be used once per account, though it can apply to multiple games at once.

Spec Ops: The Line and The Darkness II Bundle (PC Download) — $3.99 at GameFly after one-use coupon. Four bucks makes a great price on two 2012 releases with Metascores of 76+. Buying each separately sets you back $60.

BioShock, BioShock 2, and Spec Ops: The Line Bundle (PC Download) — $7.99 at GameFly after coupon. On the surface, this is a good value since each game separately totals up to $70. That said, it’s actually a better move to buy both the BioShock bundle and the Spec Ops: The Line/The Darkness II bundle in the same transaction and use the once-per account coupon code because you’ll get 4 games instead of 3 for the same price ($8).

Borderlands 2 and XCOM: Enemy Unknown Bundle (PC Download) — $31.99 at GameFly after one-use coupon. Two very popular 2012 games are discounted $78 off their normal combined $110 price. If you buy each separately elsewhere at their lowest prices online, you’ll pay $80.

Hot deals & recent releases

Dead Island Game of the Year Edition + $8 preorder credit towards Dead Island Riptide (PC Download) — $4.99 at Amazon. This ties the lowest price ever seen on Dead Island GOTY, which includes the base Dead Island game and 3 DLC packs. Once the game is purchased, Amazon will email you instructions on how to get $8 off the upcoming Dead Island Riptide release (April 23rd).

Last Tuesday’s release: Defiance (PC Download) — $48 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. Elsewhere $60. The PS3 and Xbox 360 versions are down to $50.99 at GameStop after coupon. This week, the Magic 8 Ball says an 8+ rating from IGN and Metacritic users, although there aren’t many reviews out yet.

Bioshock Infinite (Xbox 360, PS3) — $50.99 at GameStop after coupon. Next best is $58 at Overstock.com. German retailer GamesRocket still has the PC download for $46.49, and Green Man Gaming still has it for £23.99.

Army of Two: The Devil’s Cartel (Xbox 360) — $50.99 at GameStop after coupon. List is $60. Like BioShock Infinite this game released last Tuesday, March 26th but received much less attention. Reviewers say it lacks originality, but gameplay appears to be fine. GameStop has the only discount thus far.

PC download deals

Tropico 4 Collectors Bundle (PC Download) — $8 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. List is $40. The bundle includes the Tropico 4 game with 7 DLCs. Think Sim City with a sense of humor, more islands, and fewer server problems.

Kung Fu Strike: The Warrior’s Rise (PC Download) — $1.99 at GameFly after coupon. GameFly discounted this July 2012 retro-style beat-em-up from $9.99 to $2.50. Use their once-per-account coupon code and drop the price further to $1.99.

A Game of Dwarves Sale: Game and DLCs (PC Download) — 66% off at GamersGate. The game alone normally costs $10, and after the 66% discount, you can get the game plus 3 DLCs for only $7.12.

360 & PS3 deals

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (Xbox 360, PS3) — $39.99 at NewEgg. Until recently, the February 19th release Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance hasn’t strayed far from its list price, making NewEgg’s $20 discount the best ever by $10. Next best price online is $50 at Amazon, which prior to this week was charging the full $60 list price.

Dishonored (Xbox 360, PS3) — $25.49 at GameStop after coupon. While Dishonored has been around for almost 6 months, this is only the second time it’s hit the $25 price point. (The only other time was Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend.) Elsewhere this week, most retailers dropped their prices from $40 to $30, but GameStop’s coupon code makes this the best deal around.

Hardware

Alienware M17x r4 Ivy Bridge Core i7-3740QM, 2GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675M, 1080p, 8GB RAM — $1,999 at Dell Home after coupon. Although this Alienware laptop commands a premium price, this is the lowest we’ve seen on this 17-inch behemoth by $100 and cuts $300 off this config’s $2,299 list price.

Dell XPS 8500 Ivy Bridge Quad Core i7-3770, Radeon HD 7570, 8GB RAM, Windows 8 — $659.99 at Dell Home after coupon. Dell’s cheapest gaming-capable desktop just got cheaper. At $660, the desktop is a new low by $20 and now costs the same as the base XPS 8500 config – but with a more powerful processor and video card. List price is $875.

PS3 Slim 320GB Console (Refurbished) — $171.96 plus $10.44 shipping at TigerDirect. Next best is $300 at Best Buy. While most PlayStation gamers are saving up for a PS4, the PS3 console prices are starting to drop. This 320GB console costs $300 in new condition, so the buyer saves $118.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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The master is stealing a few lessons from its prized student.

It’s been a decade since apathetic rogue Garrett last took something he shouldn’t have in the Thief trilogy of first-person stealth games, but you’ve likely felt his sneaky influence in many top-tier franchises ever since. Thief wrote the book on hiding in — and striking from — the shadows. Naturally, it’s now time for a reboot. Publisher Square Enix and developer Eidos brought a 25-minute, hands-off slice of a larger level to the Game Developers Conference last week, and it felt both impressive and familiar.

But it reminded me less of earlier Thief games and more of Dishonored, the similarly steampunky, first-person stealth game that proudly declared its Thief inspirations with every move it made. Dishonored played like one big homage to those classics. The new Thief, due on the PC, PlayStation 4 and other next-gen consoles sometime in 2014, looks like it’s paying those compliments right back … possibly with a few improvements.

True crime

“We loved Dishonored,” says Thief producer Stéphane Roy. “It’s really cool to see players loving that kind of game and wanting more. Dishonored is about revenge. In Thief, your job will be to steal, not to kill.”

And while some mystical elements return from the previous games, Thief won’t go full-bore into the fantastic like Dishonored did. “We really want to be more realistic,” says Roy. “No zombies.”

Thief returns to its traditional setting of The City (still unnamed after all these years), a port town bisected by a giant wall and built around twisting waterways much like Dishonored’s Dunwall. Story missions happen out in the city proper while Garrett can pick up more personal side missions in his own inner-city hub. The chaos-versus-order themes also remain intact, with the mysterious Baron pushing an industrialism agenda backed by a brutal police force called the Watch. Roy wouldn’t go into the opposing faction, but concept art hinted at a religious figurehead giving a fiery sermon with a noose ominously dangling in the background.

Taking what isn’t yours

The demo opened with Garrett targeting a nobleman named Eastwick — specifically, a gold medallion temporarily in Eastwick’s possession. Garrett infiltrates a city district in a covered wagon as the Watch piles bodies on carts; locks other, less skilled thieves in stockades; and hangs troublemakers from second-story windows. “A change is coming,” says Garrett. “I hear nooses tightening on every corner.”

That’s the first major step away from Dishonored and Corvo Attano, its annoyingly silent protagonist. Garrett narrates Thief. We get full access to his shrewd, pointed thoughts.

Appropriately enough, Garrett’s design steers clear of the heroic. He’s dark, gaunt, and scarred. The game shifts into third-person views when Garrett makes a vertical climb, so you get a good look at him often. Roy didn’t specify whether Garrett’s bionic eye makes a return, but his right eye is conspicuously green and glowing. While he doesn’t have magic powers, Garrett does know what he’s doing. “You start out as a master thief,” says Roy, with all that that entails. Garrett made liberal use of a rush move that gave him a stealthy burst of speed over a very short distance — nowhere near as powerful as Blink, Corvo’s handy teleportation move — and he has access to Focus abilities, one of which highlights all useful items and enemies much like Corvo’s Dark Vision.

Focus, however, also comes with a few offensive uses.

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This sponsored post is produced by Dealzon.

Hot on the heels of the Battlefield 4 gameplay trailer (and all the glorious screenshots from the Frostbite 3 engine), DICE/EA has announced all preorders of BF4 will receive the Premium Expansion Pack, making it a juicy incentive for fans of the franchise.

To whet your appetite even more, GameFly is offering a 20% off coupon for Battlefield 4, making the game only $48 for PC download. No fuss or mess – just enter the coupon and get $12 off. (Note: You can only use the coupon once per account, so pick your poison wisely).

Android gamers will want to look into this week’s Humble Mobile Bundle, which includes excellent titles such as Plant vs. Zombies and Anomaly Korea. Pay more than the current average of $5.51 and you’ll also get the classic arcade game Metal Slug 3.

Hot deals & recent releases

Q4 2013 release Battlefield 4 (PC Download) — $47.99 at GameFly after coupon. Includes Premium Expansion Pack. U.S. only, sorry everyone else. Console gamers can probably expect a deal from NewEgg in the near future.
 

Last Sunday’s release: Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon (Nintendo 3DS) — $33.24 plus $0.99 shipping at Kmart. Great sequel to the “classic” GameCube game Luigi’s Mansion. Can you believe that was a decade ago? #oldfart
 

Last Tuesday’s release: BioShock Infinite (PC Download) — $46.49 at GamesRocket. Straight up discount from this Germany-based retailer. UK/Euro residents should get from GMG which is at £23.99.
 

April 2: Defiance (PC Download) — $45 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. Defiance is promising a “groundbreaking” interactive experience by blending the SyFy show with the shooter MMO. Magic 8 Ball says: Cannot predict now, ask again later.
 

April 26: Star Trek (PC Download) — $40 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. A Star Trek game based on the movie? Given the paucity of good Star Trek games (Bridge Commander, perhaps?), we’re not holding our breath.
 

PC download deals

Borderlands 2 (PC Download) — $20.38 at GamersGate. Not the lowest ever for BL2, but it’s close at a few dollars more. Good price for the Steam-activated version.
 

Saints Row: The Third The Full Package (PC Download) — $13.60 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. Sigh. Every time we spot a THQ game, we get a little bit sad inside.
 

Prototype 2 (PC Download) — $10.49 at GamesRocket. Another decent deal from GamesRocket, making the lowest price we’ve seen so far. The Steam activation code is sent via email.
 

Darksiders + Red Faction: Armageddon (PC Download) — $1 at HumbleBundle. The dollar’s looking pretty strong when you can buy two games for a buck. This week’s HumbleBundle is an appealing “pay-what-you-want” system with a minimum of $1. If you beat the average price ($6.73 at the time of writing), you’ll also get two other games: Darksiders II and Red Faction: Guerilla. Just buying Darksiders and Red Faction: Armageddon separately at their lowest prices elsewhere would cost $37.
 

360, PS3, and Wii U deals

Dishonored (Xbox 360, PS3) — $29.99 at Amazon. Not best ever, but a good price for this excellent Steampunk-themed stealth-ish FPS.
 

Tekken Tag Tournament 2 (Wii U) — $29.99 at NewEgg. The 360 and PS3 versions are also on sale for $19.99 and $24.99, respectively. Metacritic scores of 80%+ for all platforms.
 

Assassin’s Creed: Ezio Trilogy (PS3) — $22.99 at Groupon. Yes, your eyes have not deceived you – Groupon sells video games in addition to their yet-another-spa-treatment offers. The trilogy includes Assassin’s Creed II, Assassin’s Creed Revelations, and Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood. Next best is $40 at Best Buy.
 

Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days (Xbox 360, PS3) — $5.99 at NewEgg. Hard to believe a popular Xbox 360/PS3 title is only six bucks with free shipping. Reviews are mixed, but one of the main complaints about this FPS is the shaky-cam, which can be turned off in the Options menu. Next best price online is $13 at Amazon, but most retailers are $20+.
 

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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As this generation of gaming is coming to a close, I’ve been mentally cataloging the titles that are still worth mentioning — the games that transcended the “eh, it’s all right” and moved on to being classics and legends. The real must plays. Right now, it’s not a terribly difficult to become overwhelmed by all of the choices. Recent releases like XCOM: Enemy Unknown and Dishonored show that there’s still more room to explore and innovate in old genres, and the innumerable sequels released every year remind me of how much I liked their predecessors (especially in the case of Ninja Gaiden 3).

But something about this bothers me — something intangible and difficult to explain. With the emergence of digital distribution as a valid way to deliver classics (read: great place to dump games while people still vaguely remember them), those forgotten titles have had a chance to regain the following they may have once held, but I have to wonder how many still deserve one.

Time has a tendency of weeding out the weaker picks because of the public’s ever-changing taste in video games but also because some titles have fallen to the wayside due to poor design choices. The role-playing, the adventure, and especially the horror genres have all seen massive advances just within the last year, and that leaves the genres’ forerunners in an awkward position. It’s easy to recommend the classic PlayStation Resident Evil over Resident Evil 6, but how difficult is it to convince someone to play the original X-Com?

Source: Capcom

I still have nightmares … if only they were about the monsters.

X-Com: UFO Defense (pictured top) is a fantastic game and cheaper than ever now that it’s available digitally, but there are still so many obstacles to overcome in order to properly play it. Learning to use the interface is no small task, and the game’s high learning curve can make many encounters frustrating. And depending on what operating system the computer is running, it may not even work correctly.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown doesn’t have these problems, and it’s not because it’s an unworthy successor. It’s strategic, intelligent, and at times brutal — everything a modern X-Com should be. The developers at Firaxis Games managed to create the game that X-Com fans really wanted and that casual strategists longed to play. There’s little to no excuse anymore for rounded gamers to avoid giving the series a go, and it’s hard to blame them for not doing it sooner.

The fact of the matter is that audiences aren’t quite as tolerant anymore. Now, that’s hardly an excuse to avoid playing something different, but that doesn’t seem to faze people. Day after day, I see people coming back to the same franchises. Even when they have other uncompleted games available, they’ll continue playing for hours just to unlock that next thing or find the last collectible. It’s a sad thing, really, but this a problem that has become increasingly real to me.

Anyone who knows me well knows my love of obscure and independently developed games; it’s like an addiction. It probably is an addiction. There’s something incredibly appealing about finding a system’s hidden gems — the games that, while not always remembered fondly, bolstered the system’s library to include titles beyond the initial triple-A system sellers. Off-beat games like Odama, Indigo Prophecy, and Way of the Samurai are the pride of my collection, and I can’t even begin to list some of my favorite indie games.

Owning so many games and being able to play through them is an amazing experience. But as time has progressed and life has become more complicated, it’s begun to lose a bit of its appeal. Make no mistake; many of the games that defined their respective genre can still stand on their own today: Super Mario 64, StarCraft, Mega Man, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, The Secret of Monkey Island, and Half-Life — some games are just impervious to the passage of time.

Others however, are not. Wolfenstein 3D is often looked upon as the first true first-person shooter, a title it justly earned thanks to its unique concept and innovative design. That was 1992 though; despite how much it has in common with modern shooters, Wolfenstein 3D hasn’t exactly aged gracefully. Its maze-like levels are still fun to play through, but even a title like Doom, which was only released about a year later, has more to offer than the genre’s grandfather.

Now, I doubt anyone would seriously suggest ignoring the beginning of one of the largest genres currently in existence, but it does bring up a question: What makes a game worth preserving and playing? Is it the availability and price of the title? Perhaps it’s more dependent on how well the mechanics and user interface have aged. Or could it be that there’s something deeper?

For me, a gaming enthusiast bordering on obsessive-compulsive, it doesn’t take much to see value in a game. Take Techland’s Chrome, for example; it has almost no unique features or importance to the evolution of video games and was released around the same time as far better games (Max Payne 2, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, and Call of Duty). This is, by all indications, a very generic shooter from a small developer.

But upon closer inspection, Chrome takes on a whole new appearance. Ignoring that Techland would later go on to make Call of Juarez, Dead Island, and the upcoming Dead Island: Riptide, Chrome is one of the first Polish-developed action games to be well-received outside its country of origin. An interesting tidbit, considering it’s a heritage I share, but it’s not the only reason I found my time to be well spent.

I have no doubt that Deus Ex did it better, but Techland crafted an impressive combination of large environments, light role-playing game elements, and intense firefights while developing Chrome. Even now, just shy of 10 years after its initial release, the title holds up fairly well; however, “fairly well” doesn’t sound quite as enticing when BioShock Infinite and Injustice: Gods Among Us’ release dates are right around the corner. What reason is there for playing a decade-old, barely remembered game?

This is a conundrum that baffles me, because there really isn’t much to say in reply. The only retort that comes to mind is: “Then why should we remember any old games?” But that leads down a dangerous road. There are plenty of games that are worth remembering and passing on, but the line between gaming classic and bargain-bin filler has become blurred in recent years.

I firmly believe that video games are moving in a positive direction despite some bumps and relapses, but there are still too many issues that remain unresolved. What titles have had a lasting effect on the gaming industry, and what games are only useful as template for designers? It’s easy to see that Ninjabread Man has no worth except as an example of poor game design, but what about all of the excellent — though highly flawed — indie games coming out now? Braid and Minecraft will no doubt survive, but Thomas Was Alone, Zeno Clash, and Waking Mars have a much smaller chance of staying in the public’s mind.

What games do you think will live on? Which ones deserve to but may not?

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Bethesda owns some of the coolest fantasy and sci-fi franchises in gaming. The publisher is taking advantage of its properties in a new online store that deals exclusively in merchandised based on games such as The Elder Scrolls.

The Bethesda Store is open now. It includes art, glassware, and apparel all decked out in popular Bethesda games like Fallout 3, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and Doom.

Currently, the big-ticket item is a $300 statue of the Dragonborn from Skyrim. It currently isn’t available for purchase, but fans will have to plop down a $100 deposit to reserve one of 16-inch sculptures.

Other, less expensive items include a $48 Dishonored-themed Dunwall Whiskey hoodie, an $18 Doom T-shirt, and some dope Fallout-themed Vault 101 sneakers for $85.

Check out some of the cooler items in our gallery below:

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, Disney announced its version of a Skylanders-like game featuring characters from the company’s various intellectual properties, President Barack Obama urged Congress to research the effects of violent video games on children, and the Internet takes Dead Island: Riptide to task over a controversial preorder bonus.

News:

• The DeanBeat: Disney starts a cross-platform toy war with Activision
• Kingdom Conquest II primer: How to protect yourself and dominate your enemies
• Rumor: The next PlayStation is more powerful than the next Xbox
• WGT partners with NBC’s Golf Channel for online golf game
• Déjà vu: New bill would give ESRB video game ratings the force of law
• Diablo III’s director is moving on (but is staying at Blizzard)
• Animal Crossing: New Leaf and more missing from Nintendo’s Q1 release list
• Disney Infinity: Made possible because Disney owns all of this
• Chartboost shines a light on holiday app performance (infographic)
• Gamewise connects gamers with a social experience and a reference tool
• German Facebook page leaks possible Star Wars 1313 release info (UPDATED)
• This week in the Nintendo Download: Fire Emblem, Crash Mobs, and Kirby
• Poll: Tell us what you want in a next-gen console
• Fallout: Coming soon to a TV near you?
• Ubisoft and New Regency team up again for the Splinter Cell movie
• Coming in October: GamesBeat 2013 — ‘The Battle Royal in Gaming’
• Sony exec confirms a new PlayStation announcement could come this spring
• Xseed completes Operation Rainfall trilogy with Pandora’s Tower this spring (updated)
• Obama: ‘Congress should fund research into the effects violent video games have on young minds’
• World of Tanks introduces Chinese armor with newest update
• Watch the Disney Infinity figures wiggle in 3D
• Nintendo to merge console and handheld divisions
• PlayStation Vita’s Wake-up Club is your new social alarm clock
• Dead Island Riptide developer apologizes for special edition’s severed torso statue
• BioShock Infinite on PC scales down to run on integrated graphics cards
• Apple: ‘Want to criticize religion? Write a book’ — don’t make a game
• Game acquisitions set new record at $4B in 2012, but investments tumble 57 percent
• Imprisoned Arma III devs free on bail
• We should inspire game developers to create alternatives to violent entertainment
• Homosexuality in Star Wars: The Old Republic is separate but unequal

 Mobile News:

• Match wits with Mike Tyson and other celebrities in interactive game-show app Braindex
  
• King.com’s Candy Crush Saga beats Zynga with top social-mobile game
• NRA pulls bait-and-switch with iOS shooting app
• Ad giant Interpublic invests in mobile-rewards startup Kiip
• The spendy social gamers of Anchorage (and other facts about mobile gaming habits)
• Mobile-app advertising platform SponsorPay doubles revenue in 2012
• Kabam acquires Vancouver studio Exploding Barrel Games

Interviews:

• How Rick Thompson became the über investor for gaming (interview)
• Tomb Raider’s multiplayer takes a different direction (video interview)

Reviews:

• Temple Run 2 prefers sure footing to leaps of faith (review)
• Earth Defense Force 2017 Portable brings B-movie fun to the Vita (review)
• Offensive Combat pumps out laughs and bullets in equal measure (review)
• DmC: Devil May Cry brings the sexy back to demon killing (review)

Previews:

• Oculus Rift is virtual reality that won’t make you barf (hands-on preview)

Community Spotlight:

• The Dead Island: Riptide reaction was an equality fail
  
• The backlog blues: What happens when you can play it all
• Milkshake Resolved: A Dead Island Riptide poem
• Dishonored’s use of tired storytelling devices shows that game narratives are stale
• Cyberpunk’s old-school order: The history and future of the tabletop games
• The most popular video games are also the most violent
• Honoring your game characters’ deaths is about respecting yourself
• Memorable quotes from video game history
• The future of gaming: What gun violence means to the industry
• Second glance: Investigating the creation and failure of Damnation with lead designer Jacob Minkoff
• 4 things we may never see again in video games

Pieces of Flair: 

• Video games and libraries are a good mix, say librarians
• The funniest Achievements and Trophies ever, part four: I see what you did there
• The funniest Achievements and Trophies ever, part three: That’s so meta
• The funniest Achievements and Trophies ever, part two: Murder is fun(?)
• The funniest Achievements and Trophies ever, part one: Failures
• GamesBeat’s PlayStation 2 memories
• The Kickstarter Hall of Shame: Crazy gaming gadgets
• The ideal Mega Man vs. Street Fighter game would look like this (gallery)

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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This contest is now closed.

Do you love free games? Of course you do! First off, they’re games. If you’re here, I assume you have a certain affinity for electronic entertainment. Secondly, they’re free!

Well, we’re here to satiate your wants and needs. We’re giving away five codes from our (figurative) vault of gaming treasures. These are:

Ninja Gaiden (NES classic on the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console)
Dunwall City Trials (Dishonored add-on pack for PlayStation 3)
Art Academy: Lessons for Everyone! (Nintendo 3DS)
Crosswords Plus (Nintendo 3DS)
Home Run Stars (Xbox Live Arcade Kinect)

Want one of our codes? Here’s how to enter:

• Follow us on Twitter (@GamesBeat). Not only is it the best way to get instant updates on all of our awesome content, it’s also important when we need to direct message you if you’ve won.
• Tweet the below messages (changing the game name to whichever code you want):

I want @GamesBeat to give me Ninja Gaiden: http://wp.me/p1re2-2x6z

• We will contact the winners in a couple of days on Twitter.
• It’s fine if you want to enter for all five codes, but doing so for the same code more than once a day will disqualify you.

Good luck!

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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A new video showing test footage from canceled Half-Life 2 spinoff game Return to Ravenholm hit the Internet today.

Arkane Studios (the makers of Dishonored) worked on the project sometime around 2006-2007 before Half-Life owner Valve shelved the project. Sometimes incorrectly referred to as Half-Life: Episode 4 (due to leaked resumes from former Arkane employees), Return to Ravenholm would have taken players to the dark, zombie-infested city nobody wants to go to from Half-Life 2. Much of the test footage involves a man — either a survivor or an infected zombie minus his headcrab — twitching freakishly and trying to break into a building, along with several stills of broken-down environments with the familiar Half-Life heads-up display.

We also get a brief scene of a headcrab playfully knocking around a human head. So cute!

Valve shelved the project in 2007. Arkane and Valve collaborated again on The Crossing, another steampunk shooter that also never made it to completion.

We’ve reached out to Valve for comment.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Video games give players the ability to do anything they want with just a few simple taps on a controller. Would you like to do a backflip? We have a button for that. Are you looking for Jason? Games have you covered. How about clearing a room of enemies via a series of increasingly complex fighting moves, including this really cool one that involves a lemon wedge and a stuffed duck? OK, that’ll be at least six or seven presses, but it will happen, and you’re gonna love it.

But sometimes, the interface fails, and we find ourselves wanting to do something that developers never really took into consideration. Here are eight button prompts we would have loved to see in some recent games — even if they wouldn’t all be particularly useful.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Video game programmers have been hiding secret messages, inside jokes, and general wackiness in their titles for decades. Finding these “Easter eggs” keeps gamers busy, and it shows that you can’t take yourself too seriously even when facing certain death in the midst of a zombie outbreak, alien invasion, or demonic possession.

Check out the gallery below to see 15 of the coolest, funniest, and kookiest Easter eggs of games released in 2012.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Hello, and a merry end of 2012 to you all. It’s been a grand year for video games and for those of us who choose to wile away our time playing them. Many of us have already celebrated the finest games of the last 12 months, so now it’s time to dig a little deeper into 2012′s catalog of hits and misses. Here’s where we champion things like dancing, sex, boss machinations, terrible assassins, and great use of taxpayer money in video games.

Onward with haste.

(Polite heads up: I’ve done my best to avoid major spoilers, but as this is a retrospective look at the year gone by, some minor spoilers have tiptoed in. Use the shield of common sense. The final award should not be read by anyone who hasn’t finished Dishonored.)

Worst dancer

Winner: Commander Shepherd (Mass Effect 3)

Video game animation has come a long way in a short time, but we’re still unable to put the sexy into dancing. Despite that, 2012 played host to its fair share of gyrating twits. The gang from Far Cry 3, Marcelo from Max Payne 3, and the dancers from Hitman: Absolution all put forward solid cases, but Commander Shepherd had this one wrapped up way back in March.

Shepherd not only displayed the dance-floor swagger of a beached humpback whale, he also chose to do his dancing while the entire galaxy slipped into the inky abyss. Nice one, S-dog. Your embarrassing dad dance moves almost cost mankind and its best friends everything.

Best (or worst) line of dialogue

Winner: Chap in strip bar (Hitman: Absolution)

I swear to you — this is something I heard. I was playing the strip bar level in Hitman: Absolution, prowling through the drooling masses, when I heard a man cry out from the swarm:

“I’m going to wear your ass like a hat!”

I just don’t have it in me to make that up.

Best use of taxpayer money

Winner: The Chicago Police Department (Hitman: Absolution)

Back in 2010, the Seacrest County Police Department bagged this award for using taxpayer money to fund the manufacture of Lamborghini patrol cars — a crime made worse by the fact that the SCPD didn’t just use them to chase down crooks but also to create roadblocks, which the crooks naturally plowed through at 250 mph.

In 2011, the Steelport Police Department won for what was the equivalent of nuking Steelport from orbit each time the player did a little dance in front of an officer.

So it’s only right that this year’s prize goes to another incompetent police department. Hitman: Absolution’s Chicago PD proved nothing if not dedicated to cleaning up the streets of Chicago. At one point midway through the game, roughly a dozen of Chicago’s finest open fire on Agent 47. It’s a perfectly executed maneuver bar one minor hiccup: the 84 civilians sprawled face down in the wet as a result of misplaced bullets. Oops.

Worst game

Winner: Ninja Gaiden 3

There aren’t many developers who can say they’ve had easier jobs than Team Ninja. Under the guidance of Tomonobu Itagaki, the Japanese developer perfected its fighting formula with the first 3D Ninja Gaiden. For Ninja Gaiden 3, an Itagaki-less Team Ninja took the old formula round the back of the shed and gave it the 12-gauge treatment. In its place arrived a crude and unsatisfying combat system coupled with a grueling cinematic camera that ducked and dived like an 8-year-old recording a distant ship with a handycam while on a dinghy in a monsoon. Oh, and there was a bit where a little girl asked Ryu Hayabusa to be her daddy. Good grief.

How Team Ninja bungled Ninja Gaiden 3 is beyond my comprehension, but it was far and away the worst game I played in 2012.

Best (or worst) scene of a sexual nature

Winner: Lucius (game)

Six-year-old Lucius wanders unsuspecting into a bedroom to catch his uncle playing hide the sausage with the maid. Rather than stop and explain what happens when a man and a woman love each other very much, the two continue at it in full view of Lucius. It’s game over for the player, but not before Lucius gets a good view of his uncle’s throbbing joystick.

Most inane boss machination

Winner: Richard Attenborough (Ninja Gaiden 3)

Ninja Gaiden 3 was an inordinately stupid game with an inordinately stupid antagonist. Gaiden’s mastermind villain had cloned dinosaurs on a jungle island, but unlike Richard Attenborough, Gaiden’s baddie planned to deploy his dinos in a bid to end the world. Fair enough. On the scale of bad ideas, using dinosaurs to destroy Earth falls somewhere between using tissue paper as toilet roll and bringing a blow-up hammer to a knife fight. But by the Gaiden yardstick, it was a relatively spiceless scheme — at least, until the antagonist told Ryu Hayabusa he was also going to sell the dinosaurs to children as pets. Just take that in for a moment.

They say if you put a monkey in a room for all eternity, eventually it will write the complete works of Shakespeare. I say, if you put a monkey in a room for 15 minutes, you’ll get the script to Ninja Gaiden 3 with 82 percent fewer MacGuffins.

Failed assassin

Winner: Agent 47 (Hitman: Absolution)
Runner-up: Ada Wong (Resident Evil 6)

With disguises no longer foolproof and levels roughly the size of a grass snake’s anus, Agent 47 needed a new trick to help him skulk by his enemies. The answer? Taking cues from the Naughty Bear School of Stealth, Agent 47 placed his hand over his face. No, really. Probably the most remarkable thing about 47′s newfangled trick was it worked every time (so long as 47′s magic bar was full). Chicago’s finest, hired goons, and even SWAT patrols were hoodwinked the moment Agent 47 — a bald numpty with an enormous scar etched into the back of his head — raised a hand over his face.

A special mention also goes to Resident Evil 6′s Ada Wong. Ada’s first mission saw her infiltrate a submarine and engage in some light stealth against Killzone’s Helghan soldiers. One of the mission objectives was simply, “Don’t draw attention to yourself.” Thing is, with Ada’s low-cut top and skin-tight leather trousers, not drawing attention proved incredibly tough.

Worst dogs

Winner: Hotline Miami
Runner-up: Mark of the Ninja

I lovingly dubbed Hotline Miami “Disco-Mordor” (for obvious reasons) when I reviewed it back in October. Cutthroat, ungenerous, and bloody excellent, Dennaton’s top-down action hit was one of my favorites of the year. But its pooches … dear lord, its pooches. Miami’s mutts had a lust for human flesh and a knack for rocketing out from just offscreen, making them the most bastard-annoying bastards of the year. Sure, you could don a mask and transform them into abiding canines, but then the pendulum swung the other way, and they were suddenly the victims of your callous hate. You couldn’t win with Hotline Miami’s dogs.

Best couple

Winner: Juliet & Nick (Lollipop Chainsaw)

Lollipop Chainsaw was as unloved as Goichi Suda’s other recent (and probably better) game Shadows of the Damned. While the blow-by-blow bedlam was enjoyable enough on its own, the lead characters were what gave Lollipop Chainsaw its soul. The chitchat between Juliet and her bodiless boyfriend Nick was sharp as they bickered, flirted, and sliced through the carnage with humorous quips. The result? You got the sense you were watching the drama of a genuine relationship amidst all the soaring limbs and gore geysers. Aww.

Bleakest game world

Winner: I Am Alive
Runner-ups: Day Z and Nintendo Land

I Am Alive is an early 2012 Xbox Live Arcade title that severed opinion in spectacular fashion. It may not have been the most polished game of the year, but Ubisoft sure did bleak with panache.

Haverton was a spiteful and uncaring place, painted in stark greys and home only to those robbed of their humanity. During one particularly memorable scene, two men hunched over a fire offered you a hunk of meat. It was an alarmingly selfless gesture from characters caught in a world that had, until that point, offered only sadists, a child, and the dead. If you snooped around a little, though, you soon found cages with human skulls inside them. Haverton was powerful in its wickedness and did a good job of papering over some of I Am Alive’s more prominent flaws.

Wiliest assassin

Winner: Corvo Attano (Dishonored)
Runner-up: Mark (Mark of the Ninja)

It’s been a bumper year for wily bastards in video games, such as Far Cry 3′s Jason Something, Dishonored’s Corvo Attano, and Mark from, err, Mark of the Ninja — not to mention characters from the likes of Lone Survivor and Hotline Miami.

But it’s Dishonored’s disgraced bodyguard and murderer extraordinaire Corvo who scoops the award for King of the Wilies (mind the lone “l” there). Corvo’s knack for teleporting gave him the upper hand over his peers, but even without that advantage, his deep well of tricks and murdering abilities (conjuring rats and slowing time to a standstill were two of the best) meant Corvo was well out in front of the pack. He was presumably loitering in the shadows somewhere like a steampunk Gary Glitter.

Best ego massage

Winner: Dishonored

(SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER)

(YOU HAVE BEEN SPOILER-WARNED)

Games are mostly about empowerment. In Dishonored, Corvo’s cache of party tricks did a sensational job of conferring on the player a gross sense of power. But it was a moment of silence — a transient scene at the end of a level that featured almost no killing — that triggered that feeling better than any other.

(LAST WARNING)

It came after Corvo had weaseled his way into a fancy dress party disguised as himself (in what was basically the best Hitman level all year). Having hidden in plain sight and satisfied the mission objectives, Corvo left the party, but not before scrawling his name in the guest book.

It was a sensational “screw you” to all the guards who had made your getting there awkward. Your wits, not your trigger finger, had got the better of Dunwall’s finest. A real moment of class.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Dishonored

This stylish steampunk action-stealth game borrows heavily from titles like Deus Ex, Thief, and BioShock, but manages to feel fresh thanks to its atmospheric setting. The fictional city of Dunwall — brought to life by a celebrity voice cast (Susan Sarandon, John Slattery, Brad Dourif, and Chloë Grace Moretz to name a few), a soundtrack from Dexter composer Daniel Licht, and the creative talents of industry veterans Raphael Colantonio and Harvey Smith — is as memorable as BioShock’s Rapture or Half-Life 2’s City 17. Toss in an intriguing mission-based storyline of politics and betrayal and an emphasis on player freedom, and you have the beginnings of a bold new franchise.

Read our Dishonored review

Dragon’s Dogma

Capcom’s attempt at a Western-style role-playing game was one of the sleeper hits of 2012. Its blend of punishing hack-n-slash combat and asynchronous multiplayer in an open fantasy world full of gigantic monsters proved popular with both players and critics. It debuted at the top of the Japanese software charts, selling over 300,000 units on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 at launch and making it the fastest-selling new IP of this console generation, according to MCV. A sequel is already in the works, and Capcom is teasing the possibility of a player-generated quest system.

Read our Dragon’s Dogma review

Dust: An Elysian Tail

It’s easy to look at Dust: An Elysian Tail’s Saturday morning cartoon art style and anthropomorphic characters and dismiss it as too childish or too “furry.” But those who do are missing out on a fun indie 2D platformer. Dust features a mature story about war and memory. The combat has depth without being overly complicated, and the game world is full of secret passages and hidden items waiting to be discovered. But what’s most amazing about this game is its background: Professional animator and illustrator Dean Dodrill taught himself to program and spent nearly four years of his life making the game a reality. His hard work paid off. Dust is a beautiful, charming game that’s sure to please anyone who gives it the chance.

Read our Dust: An Elysian Tail review

Journey

The joy of playing Journey isn’t in its length (it’s incredibly short) or its challenge (there is none) but in exploring a beautiful game world — set to a Grammy-nominated soundtrack — with an anonymous online companion. For years, Thatgamecompany has sought to push the boundaries of interactive entertainment, and Journey is its best attempt yet, proving that you don’t need guns, blood, or explosions to create an interesting and meaningful experience. Sometimes, simply jumping, running, and sliding down sand dunes with a friend is enough.

Read our Journey review

Mark of the Ninja

A “tribute to silent badassery,” according to GamesBeat reviewer Evan Killham, Mark of the Ninja is a masterclass in stealth gaming. Like Dust: An Elysian Tail, it’s a downloadable 2D sidescroller with a Saturday morning cartoon art style, but the similarity ends there. This game is all about avoiding detection, executing silent takedowns, manipulating darkness, and other feats of ninja-y goodness. Plenty of stealth titles are on the market, but a 2D one that pulls it off so well is a rare treat.

Read our Mark of the Ninja review

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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If 2012 has shown us one thing, it’s that video game development is truly in the “crossover era.” GamesBeat’s 2012 Game of the Year, The Walking Dead, was first available as a downloadable title, not a retail release. Other downloadables, such as indie-developed darlings Journey and Faster Than Light, garnered plenty of votes as well. And in our staff’s and contributor’s top games of the year lists, we even see mobile releases — like Fieldrunners 2.

Gaming has changed, and it’s nice to see that it’s more than just big-budget console and PC titles that have earned Game of the Year attention. Here are the top games as chosen by GamesBeat staffers and contributors. Let us know what you think about our picks in the comments — especially if you feel we’ve left something off our lists!

Editor-in-chief Dan “Shoe” Hsu

XCOM: Enemy Unknown
Platforms: PC, Xbox 360, PS3
Publisher: 2K Games
Developer: Firaxis Games

Little green men — yesteryear’s poster boys for mysterious invaders from outer space — are about as menacing as Oompa Loompas armed with toy guns. XCOM’s little gray men, however, are scary as hell. It’s not the ashen skin, bulbous eyes, or creepy-crawly walk. It’s what these Sectoids represent: a greater threat that we are simply not equipped to handle.

In the strategy game XCOM: Enemy Unknown, we mere humans bring dull knives to plasma gunfights. And just when we start to catch up in weapon technology, the bug-eyed bastards bring bigger guns and meaner friends. These jerks even cheat with mysterious mind-control powers. Meanwhile, we’re barely keeping the checkbook balanced between research, manufacturing, facility construction, aircraft, and an ever-decreasing budget due to world nations pulling out of the program if you can’t keep them safe (and you can never keep them all safe).

It all adds up to an incredibly exciting and stressful experience. Each decision — whether it’s which tree to hide your assault trooper behind or which whiny country gets your last airspace-monitoring satellite — feels monumental and permanent. Humanity’s existence is at stake, and we just want to make it to the next month, when a few more pennies come rolling in and a few more traumatized soldiers get out of sick bay.

It’s a desperate fight. And boy will we celebrate when those little gray men are dead.

Shoe’s other picks for best games of 2012: Fieldrunners 2, Dishonored, Journey, Fez

Lead writer Dean Takahasi

The Unfinished Swan
Platform: PlayStation 3 (PlayStation Network)
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment America
Developer: Giant Sparrow

The Unfinished Swan is one of the most creative titles yet for the PlayStation Network. It’s an interactive fairy tale where you lob blobs of black paint at a white screen. As you do so, you uncover part of a 3D space hidden within the white scene. Uncovering each scene is a mind-bending task, as you have to navigate perplexing puzzles. You explore the unknown, and as you do so, you uncover a new segment in a fairy tale about a boy who loses his mother. It is a touching story that will remind of you of the zany Alice in Wonderland. Ian Dallas, the game creator, feels that a child who is abandoned is like an unfinished work of art. But just when you think that the game has become predictable, it changes. In some ways, the story seems unfinished. But the title is a wonderful first effort for Giant Sparrow, a new studio bankrolled by Sony.

Dean’s other picks for the best games of 2012: Halo 4, Far Cry 3, Journey, Call of Duty: Black Ops II

Culture editor Sebastian Haley

Hotline Miami
Platform: PC
Publisher: Developer Digital
Developer: Dennaton Games

Indie sensation Hotline Miami is best described as the film Drive, but in a retro, pixelated and somehow even more violent form, with subtle hints of Rockstar’s Manhunt sprinkled on top. The short-but-sickeningly sweet levels allow you to carefully orchestrate your symphony of murder and mayhem, filling the floors with maimed corpses and spraying the walls with crimson, all while its surreal, Miami Vice-inspired soundtrack beats in the back of your mind. Basically, if you own a Wii or like looking at livestreams of kittens, this is not your kind of game.

Sebastian’s other picks for best games of 2012: Trials Evolution, Far Cry 3, The Darkness II, Final Fantasy XIII-2

Staff writer Jeff Grubb

Mark of the Ninja
Platform: Xbox 360 (Xbox Live Arcade), PC
Publisher: Microsoft Studios
Developer: Klei Entertainment

For these Game of the Year summaries, we’re supposed to look above and beyond the individual parts of a game. We’re supposed to write about why it is important, but in the case of Mark of the Ninja, it’s those parts that make it so special. Developer Klei’s 2D stealth action game for Xbox Live Arcade and PC is a master class in well-executed gameplay mechanics. Whether it’s a soundwave that ripples off your ninja’s feet to indicate how much noise he’s making or a vision cone that indicates where an enemy is looking, Mark of the Ninja is constantly communicating with the player. It then provides the player with a great controlling character to poke and prod the world with.

It’s not rare that a game makes you feel like a badass, but with Klei’s game it’s not about how powerful you are — it’s about how in tune with the environment your character is. You have so much visual and aural information that every moment is an opportunity for experimentation. You can spend 10 minutes laying out a detailed plan that involves deadly traps, or you can play the entire game without a sword.

In video games, we don’t usually get a lot of new ideas, we just get different takes on old ideas. Stealth is an old idea at this point, but Mark of the Ninja distinguishes itself by executing the concept better than any other game before it.

Jeff’s other picks for best games of 2012: The Walking Dead, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Trials Evolution, FTL: Faster Than Light

Copy editor Jason Wilson

FTL: Faster Than Light
Platform: PC, Mac, Linux
Publisher: Subset Games
Developer: Subset Games

I’m low on fuel. My crew raced around my starship like a colony of ants, hastily putting out fires as doors opened to the cold vacuum of space. The Rebels are closing in on me. Do I take a chance and see if I can gain more fuel in the next nebular cloud, or do I make a mad dash for the next sector and hope to find friendly forces instead of angry adversaries? These are just some of the choices the player faces in FTL: Faster Than Light, the indie roguelike that’s swept upon a number of Game of the Year lists in 2012 (including ours!). What makes FTL so compelling to players is that a take on Civilization’s “one more turn” addictive nature — but instead of furthering your game, you’re driven to see if your next attempt takes you closer to escaping the pursuing Rebel forces. And it’s this that makes FTL one of the most interesting, fascinating, and, yes, best games of 2012.

Jason’s other picks for best games of 2012: The Walking Dead, Crusader Kings II, Torchlight II, Dragon’s Dogma

Contributor Rus McLaughlin

Far Cry 3
Platforms: Xbox 360, PS3, PC
Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal

Something visceral. Something primal. Most shooters don’t have these. They settle you into a safe, comfortable role. Veteran soldier. Seasoned cop. Career criminal. A hero … or an antihero. But Far Cry 3 makes you run blind through the jungle while murderous pirates hunt you like a piece of prey. You’re just a terrified kid. Never held a gun before. Never seen anyone die before. Now you’re covered in your own brother’s blood and getting high off the giddy thrill of mere survival. Then you’re turned lose to roam two amazingly rich, open-world islands where you can really start enjoying yourself, slowly and cautiously picking your tormentors apart. Before you know it, the elation you get from destroying a criminal empire hardens into a different kind of drug: revenge.

That’s when Far Cry 3 surpasses the standard shooter fare. An aimless twentysomething becomes a killer of killers, as feared as the insane warlords he wants dead. Between coolly tense stealth play and straight-up gunfights, you become the predator, stalking intruders in your jungle and murdering them at will. It all culminates in a moment where you must decide just how much you enjoy that particular power fantasy. Enough to abandon your humanity? Maybe.

Far Cry 3 goes there. Solid gameplay — minus a weak-tea multiplayer — and incredibly detailed environments lift it far enough, but its secret weapon lies in how it takes you into that dark, primal place. And then it dares you to ignore your basic animal instincts.

Rus’s other picks for best games of 2012: The Walking Dead, Fez, Halo 4, Journey

Contributing editor Rob Savillo

Contributor Rob LeFebvre

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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[Writer's Note: I held off on posting this for a couple of weeks because of the recent tragedy in Connecticut. However, I've decided to go ahead and publish it after reading Leigh Alexander's post on violence in games and Ben Kuchera's insightful Tweet, "I'm always uncomfortable with the way we give every bully a platform while denying games are powerful when we're under attack. ... We argue games are a powerful art form that contain important messages, and then we're in the spotlight claiming they're pure entertainment." So instead of keeping this buried  somewhere out of fear that it will be criticized for being exploitative or poorly timed, I'm simply going to go ahead and present as intended: as a rumination on my uncomfortable relationship with virtual violence.]

I was 9-years-old when I beat a man to death for the first time. I did it with a red crowbar. I was standing on a craggy cliffside; my victim, a nameless solider wearing a gas mask, lay prostate, his head awkwardly sticking out over the edge like a diving board. I hadn’t meant to dispatch him in such a brutal manner. I had simply run out of ammo moments before and been left with no alternative but to cave in his skull.

I stood still for a couple of moments, my hazard suit shrieking that I should seek medical attention immediately. Instead of progressing toward the level’s end, I knelt down and smacked the body with the crowbar. Thuck! I giggled and slapped the body again and again, and pop! The soldier exploded, showering the arid desert below with intestines, limbs, and a goofy-looking half-skull whose one remaining eye stared at me as it plummeted into the sandy abyss.

I watched in awe and then reloaded my quicksave so I could do it all over again.

*

Four years later in Liberty City, I sat behind the wheel of a Blista Compact. Out of the alleyway emerged the guy I was supposed to kill. He was surrounded by his entourage of armed thugs, so instead of rushing the group with guns blazing, I decided to take the tactical route: I ran them down with my car. I managed to kill the target and two of his bodyguards. Then, I quickly turned the car around and took care of the stragglers.

I briefly wondered why I went back for the men who posed no threat to me. I reassured myself that they were enemies and that I was supposed to kill them — a weak excuse that satisfied my younger self, but even so, that same excuse doesn’t float for the thousands of pedestrians I have shot, stabbed, kicked, and blown to pieces throughout the Grand Theft Auto series. These are people I’ve tormented just because they’ve populated the world.

I tell myself that I’m not a violent person, and real-world examples seem to suggest that I’m not. I’ve only ever been in a handful of scraps, and the most harm I have ever done to another person was when I accidentally busted someone’s lip with my elbow. Yet there’s something about enjoying this kind of wanton artificial violence and mutilation that has me grappling with these presumptions.

But it’s just a game. That’s always the defense. These people are not real. They do not draw breath; the men I massacred were simply lines of code. No harm done, right?

*

Every once in a while, I’ll reinstall Hitman: Blood Money in order to replay a single level: “A New Day,” which has Agent 47 infiltrating a suburban neighborhood in order to kill a well-guarded FBI informant. I’ve completed the mission at least three dozen times now. I know the simplest way to kill the man without raising any suspicions or hurting anyone besides the target. I also know all the corners and hedges to hide behind and can predict what the enemy A.I. will do if I draw them into a firefight. This is often the route I go simply because it’s more fun.

It doesn’t end there, though. After I’ve slaughtered every agent, I move on to eliminating all the other people in the area, including unarmed civilians. They’re witnesses, I tell myself — which is actually somewhat relevant to the gameplay in Blood Money since witnesses cause Agent 47’s notoriety rating to rise and make future missions more difficult to complete. However, even with the practicality issue taken into the account, there is still the knowledge that I consistently choose the path that will end in bloodshed even though I’m well aware of the other, less deadly paths to my objective.

Am I just bloodthirsty? Do other gamers also have ridiculous amounts of fun gunning down virtual people and then feel guilty about it later? And I don’t mean the kind of comedic acknowledgement where one chuckles and quips, “Yeah … I’m a bad person,” with a smirk. I’m talking occasional waves of sincere guilt — not necessarily thoughts that keep me awake at night but moments where I stop and think, “What the hell is wrong with me?” Of course, they’re instantaneously swept out of my brain as soon as the next level of fun-filled carnage finishes loading.

*

Part of me knew that games like Hotline Miami and Spec Ops: The Line were on the way — games that pull a Peckinpah and make the player’s enthusiasm for violence a thematic focus. We’d already seen this prototype in the Metal Gear Solid series, which has consistently presented ham-fisted commentary about violence and war in order make the player mull over these topics, often with mixed results. The example that immediately springs to mind occurs near the end of Snake Eater, when Snake is forced to traverse a river strewn with the ghosts of soldiers the player has killed throughout the game. What sounds like a great idea turned out to be a tedious minigame that frustrated me more than it encouraged me to think about the violence I had committed. (“You give me all these weapons and hapless guards, and you don’t expect me to kill them? Asshole!” was my adolescent line of reasoning.)

Hotline Miami (pictured at top) bothered me in a big way. There is technically a plot in the game — a sorta-kinda reason for why you’re butchering a seemingly endless line of faceless henchman. But the narrative just feels tacked on and flimsy. The game’s multiple hallucination scenes suggest that there is something much bigger going on — some joke the developers are having at the player’s expense: “All we have to do is give you a context and you’ll kill anyone and anything left and right, won’t you?”

Why, yes. Yes, I will. Does that make me a potential monster? Hotline doesn’t ever answer. It’s content to simply smile from the dark. This isn’t a huge departure from the twist in BioShock, but this one affected me on a personal level, poking and prodding my concerns about my love-hate relationship with virtual violence. Logically, none of that makes sense. This is a game. It has no ill intentions, nor does it have the will to dog its players and make them feel disgust. The fact the Hotline affects me in this way says more about me that it does about the game, but the same holds true for novels and film. This doesn’t make one’s experience with the game (or the gamer’s self-realizations) any less valid.

Hotline was a cakewalk emotionally in comparison to Spec Ops: The Line. Instead of teasing me with playful ambiguity and pixelated bloodshed, Spec Ops is much more aggressive in its assault, taking every available opportunity to rub my face in the gory mess that I’ve made throughout the game’s Heart of Darkness-inspired journey. There’s an early segment where the player wanders through a hallway filled with rotting bodies. In his book-length critical reading of game, Brendan Keogh briefly considers the possibility that this hallway is a “metaphorical hell” for the player, the pile of bodies representing all the people that he or she has killed through the game so far. I had a similar interpretation during my first playthrough except that the bodies were not merely representative of this game’s victims but those from my entire time as a gamer: from one end of the room to the other, the bodies of all those dead pedestrians, the FBI informant, and perhaps even of the skeletal remains of that solider from the cliffside. Again, utter logical nonsense. (For one thing, there aren’t enough bodies accounted for.) But Spec Ops spends so much time psychologically assaulting the player and critiquing violence as a form of entertainment that I find myself unable to dismiss the interpretation regardless of how much it’s fueled by my own anxieties about the whole business.

A couple of days ago, games journalist Ian Miles Cheong tweeted, “I don’t think it’s some kind of double standard to be OK with video game violence against not-real-people, and not be OK with real violence.” I share the sentiment, but I still find myself unnerved by just how much I enjoy killing people who aren’t real. (Frankly, I’d be kind of embarrassed to let you in on how much time I spent using spring razors to dismember the guards in Dishonored just to carry their limbs around as distraction devices … or to treat their decapitated heads like soccer balls.) I am not in any way trying to state that Spec Ops or Hotline Miami work as a gauge or predictor for someone’s capacity for violence. Instead, this is more about how both these games hold a mirror up to the player. In my case, I don’t like how they reveal just how much I fucking love violence.

Is it true that I’m more likely to have a favorable opinion of a game if it has gore or an amusing ragdoll system? Yes. Do I absolutely despise a developer’s decision to feature gunplay in a game but not bloody, ragged bullet holes? You bet. And am I ashamed of all of this? A little, but I’m more unnerved than anything else. As someone who characterizes himself as a pacifist, the cognitive dissonance created by this clashing of my real-world ideals and my love for simulated bloodshed is disconcerting.

Ultimately, this anxiety probably won’t change my gaming habits. The majority of games I play are violent in one fashion or another. Tonight, I’ll be gutting pirates all across the Rook Islands with my trusty knife. Tomorrow, I’ll continue trudging through the metro tunnels of post-apocalyptic Moscow, gunning down bandits. Perhaps I’ll even fit in some time to backstab guards in Mark of the Ninja. And on and on it’ll go.

More bodies for the pile.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Game networking service Raptr released its annual Raptr Report detailing the most played games of 2012, and it carries a few surprises about how gamers spent their time in the last 12 months. The data is based on Raptr’s gameplay tracking feature and a user base in the 15 million range. Games on the Wii U and PlayStation 3 didn’t factor into these numbers due to data-capture restrictions.

The overall most played new intellectual property? That goes to Dishonored. Developer Arkane Studios’ stealthy, steampunk actioner narrowly edged out Sleeping Dogs’ kung-fu treachery by a slender 6 percent. But split the numbers out to total playtime per player, and massively multiplayer games still led the charge. Korean heroic fantasy The Exiled Realm of Arborea (aka TERA) commanded a strong 14 percent lead over its nearest competitor, Dragon’s Dogma, with the average player logging 40 hours in the first month alone.

Meanwhile, Xbox Live Arcade’s biggest hit turned out to be a PC game. Minecraft drew 350 percent more playtime than the second-place finisher, Trials: Evolution. According to Raptr, XBLA games tend to max out at roughly 10 hours of use in the first month. Minecraft players averaged just over 20 hours.

Raptr also notes that 27 percent of Minecraft players have tried to ride a flying pig.

The most played game of 2012, however, won’t come as any shock. It’s Call of Duty: Black Ops II with a comfortable 11-point margin, followed by Borderlands 2, Halo 4, and Minecraft.

But it turns out gamers are far more devoted to something other than Black Ops II.

Breaking the data into individual playtimes handily negates Black Ops II’s vast sales advantage. More people bought the latest Call of Duty, but on a person-by-person basis, gamers spent far more time trolling through Borderlands 2′s Wasteland. A lot more.

The average player spent 49 hours in the Wasteland … nearly 50 more than the average Black Ops II player in their respective opening months.

Possibly, the 11 percent of players who completed every side quest added to those numbers. Raptr also reports that players spent an average 80 hours to reach the level 50 cap. Borderlands 2 also topped the list of nonannualized game sequels with double the overall time that was spent on Diablo III. In that same category, Guild Wars 2 took honors for the most individual playtime.

On the MMO front, switching to a free-to-play model worked out well for a pair of high-profile titles. Star Wars: The Old Republic saw a 136 percent increase in overall playtime in just two weeks while Star Trek Online bumped its population a whopping 266 percent in playtime per day.

And the numbers clearly solve the age-old argument between those hardcore followings. Star Wars beats out Star Trek’s playtime numbers by 168 percent. The top three The Old Republic players have shown serious devotion, each logging over 250 hours in the game.

But for Raptr’s coveted No Bathroom Break award, which honors the longest average play sessions, a few new fighters entered the ring. Mass Effect 3 just barely missed toppling Borderlands 2, with XCOM: Enemy Unknown following not far behind. Halo 4, Black Ops II, and Dragon’s Dogma rounded out the list.

Raptr’s methodology  uses a proprietary formula based on key statistics that include total hours, average session length, and average playtime per person. To create equal footing for comparison, all games are compared based on the same time frames, typically defined as the first month after release.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, Epic Games president Michael Capps retired, Call of Duty: Black Ops II earned $1 billion in 15 days, Irrational Games pushed BioShock Infinite’s release date again, and Zynga filed to make real-money gambling games in Nevada.

You’ll also find reviews for Far Cry 3,  The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Dragonborn, Call of Duty: Black Ops II, and Writer Rumble as well as previews for Tomb Raider, Crysis 3, and Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time.

News:

• The DeanBeat: Expert advice on staying alive in Call of Duty: Black Ops II multiplayer
• Army of TWO: The Devil’s Cartel makes the Mexican drug wars seem glitchy
• What do game investors think about Kickstarter?
• Irrational Games pushes back BioShock Infinite release date
• PMC and Machinima will tout this year’s DICE Summit video game awards show
• Call of Duty: Black Ops II beats Halo 4 in NPD’s dismal November game sales list
• These missing Tomb Raider games could be entombed for good
• Dishonored’s first downloadable add-on pack is all about challenging your skills
• This week in the Nintendo Download: Lego Lord of the Rings, Scribblenauts Unlimited, and New Super Mario Bros. 2
• Peanut Labs extends its self-serve platform for creating market surveys (exclusive)
• God of War: Ascension multiplayer finds a sweet spot between shooters and fighters
• With ex-Zynga developer carrying the flag, Kixeye invades Canada
• Zynga files for right to make real-money gambling games in Nevada
• Assassin’s Creed III’s first add-on pack is erasing player progress
• The Four Bikers of the Apocalypse usher in the second add-on pack for Trials Evolution
• Pikmin 3 slips out of Wii U ‘launch window,’ will debut in spring
• Fire Emblem Awakening out on 3DS in North America in early February
• Call of Duty: Black Ops II hits $1B in sales in 15 days
• Bunchball shows off the ‘rock stars’ of gamification
• ‘Toxic’ League of Legends player responds to his 1-year ban
• Zynga’s new theme park game CoasterVille goes live today
• Facebook announces top games of 2012: SongPop music trivia game comes out on top
• Social media surfaces layoffs at game companies NCSoft and Petroglyph
• A Wii U update is available now — it should improve system stability
• The Ins & Outs of PlayStation All Stars’ newest fighters: Kat and Emmett
• Epic Games president Michael Capps retires
• DICE slips in a Mirror’s Edge reference (tease?) into the latest Battlefield 3 expansion
• The Slingshot Content Pack for XCOM: Enemy Unknown available today
• First Assassin’s Creed III add-on pack available now for Season Pass holders
• Replay Games fetches a new game and a chief creative officer (exclusive)
• Guitar Hero co-creator’s Green Throttle Games raises $6M to reinvent TV games
• Adobe launches new cloud-based game development tools
• Dragonborn expansion definitely coming to PlayStation 3
• Try out wizard battles in Ni no Kuni’s magical world tomorrow (updated)
• Android game console maker Ouya shipping its developer prototypes this month

Mobile news:

• After closing OpenFeint, Gree cuts jobs in U.S. offices
• Ngmoco goes next-gen with high-end graphics in The Drowning tablet game
• Brazil’s biggest mobile content publisher unveils its first game for the U.S.
• Social casino app goes to the city with New York-New York slot machine
• Tylted welcomes several top social-game developers to its mobile platform
• PlayPhone adds 20 games to its mobile social gaming network
• German ‘startup factory’ HitFox expands globally with four new game distribution businesses
• Cut the Rope developer’s next game is Pudding Monsters
• Enterprise gamification goes big as Badgeville teams up with Capgemini
• Fingerprint Digital to launch 7 new mobile education apps for kids
• Rovio adds the ice world of Hoth to Angry Birds Star Wars
• Kabam acquires Balanced Worlds game studio in China
• Swarm hopes to swoop in and help out developers fed up with Gree (exclusive)
• The Walking Dead: Assault brings top-down black-and-white shooting action to iOS

Reviews:

• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Dragonborn is a pint-sized Morrowind (review)
• Threeview: Call of Duty: Black Ops II reviewed by a critic, an analyst, and an academic
• Far Cry 3 is a superior rumble in the jungle (review)
• Writer Rumble is a vicious but therapeutic exercise for former English majors (review)

Interviews:

• Ben Cousins wants to prove mobile first-person shooters aren’t a pipe dream (interview)
• With a new leader, Ngmoco shoots for mobile gaming empire (interview)
• ‘Reverse Tetris’ puzzler Dream of Pixels may be critically acclaimed, but how is it selling? (interview)

Previews:

• Fast monsters in the tall grass will scare you to death in Crysis 3 (preview)
• Flutter is a kinder, gentler Pokémon with real-world butterflies (preview)
• Pull off some ridiculous time traveling heists in Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time (hands-on preview)
• Tomb Raider is at its best when it’s not emulating Uncharted (hands-on preview)

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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I like Dishonored, but all of those words and happenings in the narrative are just a bit too much for my attention span.

Well, publisher Bethesda has the cure to that which ails me with its upcoming downloadable content for the first-person stealth action game. Dishonored: Dunwall City Trials strips the game down to a series of 10 challenge maps where the plot doesn’t matter. The DLC debuts Tuesday for $4.99 on PlayStation 3 and PC and for 400 Microsoft Points on Xbox 360.

As the gameplay trailer demonstrates, players must combine their character’s weapons, gizmos, and special powers to eliminate targets. It compares players against one another on leaderboards that measure point totals. It’s actually quite similar to this year’s breakout Xbox Live Arcade title, Mark of the Ninja.

Dishonored is one of the year’s few big-budget games to introduce a new intellectual property. The designers at developer Arkane Studios set the action in the fictional city of Dunwall that they modeled after late 19th century London. It stars hero Corvo Attano as he attempts to unravel the mystery surrounding the death of the Empress that he serves.

Of course, Dishonored is really all about sneaking around and stabbing, like, everybody.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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It’s official — the video game industry isn’t just about sequels. Publisher Bethesda Softworks’ new property Dishonored was the fourth best-selling game in the month of October.

This information comes from the monthly sales data provided to GamesBeat by The NPD Group financial analysis firm. NPD tracks software and hardware sales at brick-and-mortar retailers around the country. The analyst firm does not include any digital sales (like Steam or the PlayStation NetworkI ) in its data, nor does it track the sales of mobile games. The industry continued its recent trend of under-performing compared to 2011. These numbers reek of a market that can’t wait for some new blood, and that’s exactly what we’ll get the next time we cover these numbers: This is the last NPD report before the Wii U.

Hardware and software sales were both down year-over-year, but accessory sales ticked up slightly. We’ll take a deeper look at the wider market after we list the month’s best-sellers:

1. NBA 2K13: Take Two Interactive (360, PS3, Wii, PSP, PC)
2. Resident Evil 6: Capcom (360, PS3)
3. Pokémon Black Version 2: Nintendo (NDS)
4. Dishonored: Bethesda Softworks (360, PS3, PC)
5. Pokémon White Version 2: Nintendo (NDS)
6. Madden NFL 13: Electronic Arts (360, PS3, Wii, Vita)
7. FIFA Soccer 13: Electronic Arts (360, PS3, Wii, Vita, 3DS, PSP)
8. Medal of Honor: Warfighter: Eletronic Arts (360, PS3 PC)
9. Borderlands 2: Take Two Interactive (360, PS3, PC)
10. Skylanders Giants: Activision (Wii, 360, PS3, 3DS)

“The top title was NBA 2K13 from Take Two Interactive. This game outsold last year’s 2K12 by over 60 percent in both dollars and units,” said NPD analyst Liam Callahan. “This favorable comparison may have partly been due to the NBA lockout at the start of last year’s basketball season, likely tempering consumers’ interest in 2K12 initially.”

I say we forget about video games and start covering sports, because that’s where the money is. Madden topped last month’s list, and NBA 2K13 dribbled in to take its place this time around. The other ball-based titles did well with EA’s football and soccer simulators dropping to the middle of the chart after holding two of the top three spots in the previous 30 days.

With the second spot on the chart, the anticipated Resident Evil 6 didn’t seem to suffer the effects of a cold reception from critics, but that high placement is a bit misleading.

“Sequels new to market this month did not perform as well compared to prior iterations,” said Callahan. “This, combined with poor comparisons against the launch of hits like Battlefield 3 and Batman: Arkham City in October 2011, led to the decline in software sales.”

Sequels new to the market mean only Medal of Honor and Resident Evil. Those two games sold OK, but they represent a disappointment compared to their franchise predecessors. Skylanders Giants, another sequel new to the market, sold over 160 percent more units than Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure.

In terms of hardware, Xbox 360 topped the charts for the 22nd month in a row. Customers purchased another 270,000 units and spent a total of $315 million on the platform. That streak will likely come to an end as Nintendo launches the Wii U on Nov. 18.

In the industry at large, sales were down 25 percent from $1 billion to $755.5 million. The primary culprit is hardware sales, which dropped 37 percent. The market is saturated and few people remain to purchase new consoles.

Software dropped from $576.8 million to $432.6 million. Again, this is largely due to Resident Evil 6 and Medal of Honor: Warfighter not performing as well as last year’s big sequels. Also: Assassin’s Creed III came out Oct. 30 and was not part of the tracking period.

NPD notes that used games and rentals earned the industry $101 million, while digital sales piled on another $359 million.

“We would estimate the total consumer spend in September to be just under $1.2B,” said Callahan. “While October was another month of steep declines in retail sales, we are looking forward to November 2012 with the results of Assassin’s Creed III, and Halo 4, which were positively reviewed, as well as the results of Call of Duty: Black Ops II.  These software titles, along with the Wii U launch on November 18, will provide a much needed boost to retail sales.”

The biggest game not to chart this month is probably XCOM: Enemy Unknown from developer Firaxis. Publisher Take Two did mention that the game was a success especially in terms of digital sales, which NPD does not directly track.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, Zynga lays off 5 percent of its employees even though the company’s stock price rose, game developers think the iPad mini is promising, and German studio Bigpoint lets 120 people go.

You’ll also find a review for Just Dance 4 and an in-depth interview the developers behind one of the season’s most intriguing indie games, The Unfinished Swan.

News:

• The DeanBeat: The iPad mini brings out the imagination of game developers
• HTML5 developer Softgames looking to expand after first round of funding
• Tim Schafer to host Rock Band charity night
• 80M people play arcade bubble shooter games on Facebook
• Nintendo’s weekly download report features giant presidential robots, Professor Layton, and New Super Mario Bros. 2 DLC
• Assassin’s Creed III is the most preordered Ubisoft game ever
• Dishonored developer announces three add-on packs
• 2K Games enlists Lineage developer to design Civilization Online
• Utherverse nabs a patent on scalable virtual worlds that can host unlimited users
• Wing Commander creator’s Kickstarter reaches goal in less than a week
• Gree acquires developer Pokelabo for $173 million
• THQ releases newest Darksiders II downloadable content on October 30
• Resident Evil 6 to get improved in-game camera in mid-December patch
• Halo 4 to get 3 multiplayer map packs through April
• DICE Summit shakes up its format for game creator talks and renames industry awards
• Game ratings board creates a no-cost service for putting content labels on digital games
• Borderlands Legends is an isometric strategy game due October 31
• Final Fantasy publisher signs deal to use Gears of War developer’s latest graphics technology
• Aiming to head off Apple, Microsoft shows off Xbox SmartGlass mobile app and Xbox dashboard update
• AMD launches new set of 8-core processors for gamers
• Here’s the first Wii U commercial from Nintendo
• Fight Club, Daredevil studio to help produce Assassin’s Creed film
• GameStop to get exclusive The Walking Dead: Collector’s Edition from Telltale Games
• Shigeru Miyamoto is Nintendo’s other original intellectual property

Earnings:

• Analysts pore through Zynga’s numbers as the stock price rises
• Zynga stock surges as it slightly beats analysts’ reduced targets for third quarter
• Facebook’s Zuckerberg unhappy with Zynga’s 20% decline in payments

Mobile News:

• Founders leave DeNA’s Ngmoco mobile gaming division
• Majesco expands into mobile games with Legends of Loot
• Mobile is now 20 percent of Zynga’s business

Layoffs:

• German games maker Bigpoint lets go 120 employees
• Zynga CEO’s letter to employees: We’ve laid off 5 percent of our workforce
• Zynga lays off almost entire Austin studio

Interviews:

• The story behind the emotional center of The Unfinished Swan (in-depth interview)
• The explanation behind the ending of the Unfinished Swan (interview part 2)
• Playboy’s Miss October talks about gamer stereotypes and breaking into the game business
• Here’s how you become an app store millionaire (interview)

Tablet wars:

• Game developers say iPad mini will be good for gaming
• This week could determine the fate of the digital economy

Reviews:

• Just Dance 4 revels in absurdity even as it loses some of its mojo (review)

Pieces of flair:

• Exclusive images from The Art of Assassin’s Creed III
• GamesBeat’s massive Street Fighter tournament: The semifinals

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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It’s not downloadable content in 2012 if it doesn’t have a Horde mode.

Dishonored, the first-person stealth-action game set in an oil-punk alternative-world London-like city called Dunwall, is getting three sets of DLC. The first add-on pack, called Dunwall City Trials, features 10 trial maps, including one that pits players against waves of computer-controlled opponents like in Gears of War’s Horde mode. Other Dunwall City Trials areas focus on timed platforming and assassination races.

This first expansion, due December for $4.99 (400 Microsoft Points), includes new Achievements and Trophies, and players can track their friends across each trial using the in-game leaderboards.

The next two DLC sets expand Dishonored’s story with new campaigns.

Expansion two, due spring 2013, focuses on Daud, the leader of a supernatural group called “The Whalers.” It’s still set in Dunwall, where you track down Daud’s special weapons and gadgets. No word on whether the Hartford hockey team is involved in any way.

The developer will detail expansion 3′s plot at a later date.

Arkane and publisher of Bethesda did not announce a price for the second and third add-ons.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, Kixeye’s chief executive officer calls out Zynga in the midst of an employee theft lawsuit, Microsoft reveals the new Xbox 360 dashboard, and the BioShock Infinite studio loses two more employees.

You’ll also find reviews for Skylanders Giants, the Walking Dead: Episode 4, Unfinished Swan, Happy Wars, Fable: The Journey, and Dance Central 3.

News:

• Nathan Fillion, Wil Wheaton, and more to partake in Firefall live-streaming event
• Preview of Assassin’s Creed III’s soundtrack proves the new composer did just fine
• The Witcher 2 developer’s next role-playing game is Cyberpunk 2077
• Good Old Games adds support for good ol’ Mac OS X
• Wing Commander creator’s new space sim Star Citizen now on Kickstarter
• Epic Games hires Microsoft Game Studios veteran to run Seattle developer
• Big Fish Games launches its first free-to-play game on PCs and Macs
• Twitch helps raise $1.5M from gamers for charity
• Grim but real player stats: 85 percent of social gamers do not return after the first day playing
• Licensed-games publisher Little Orbit lands investment from private equity group
• Forza Horizon to get Rally expansion for $20
• Claritics and Badgeville team up to gamify the enterprise
• Xbox Live members say Obama won second debate
• In midst of employee theft lawsuit, Kixeye CEO takes a blast at Zynga
• Obsidian raises $3.9M on Kickstarter for Project Eternity role-playing game
• Going once; going twice: News Corp. to auction off IGN Entertainment
• Skyrim game files hint at DLC dragon mounts and Morrowind locations
• The 10 most-anticipated games for Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii are all sequels
• Maximize your collections! BankersLab gamifies debt collection (exclusive)
• Beat the GMAT acquired by education giant Hobsons (exclusive)
• New update almost makes the Xbox 360 dashboard useful
• Head-mounted displays are still amazing (and still expensive)
• BioShock Infinite studio loses two more developers
• The Halo 4 leak: Microsoft responds, begins dealing out permanent account bans
• The Walking Dead developer is rumbling about its next comic-book adaptation again
• Call of Duty Elite goes free as Activision charges only for DLC for Call of Duty: Black Ops II
• MHL lets you play a bunch of Android mobile games on your TV (exclusive)

Mobile News:

• Disney’s mobile game star Swampy gets his own animated series
• Nexon partners to take Dungeon Fighter Online to mobile gamers in China
• Striiv launches a free fitness measurement app on the iPhone

Wii U:

• GamePad designer on Wii U motion games: ‘No, please don’t!’
• Nintendo engineers explain the magic of the Wii U GamePad’s video technology

Previews:

• Keep your Dance Central 3 party going with its SmartGlass DJ app (preview)

Reviews:

• Skylanders Giants is a kinder, gentler Diablo (review)
• Threeview: Dishonored reviewed by a critic, an analyst, and an academic
• RollerCoaster Tycoon 3D is a lazy, featureless shell of its predecessors (review)
• Captain Scarlett and her Pirate’s Booty gives you a reason to return to Borderlands 2 … unless you haven’t left yet (review)
• The Unfinished Swan is wonderfully creative but full of emptiness (review)
• Happy Wars brings free-to-play gaming to Xbox 360, and it’s worth every penny (review)
• Fable: The Journey surprises by smart mix of motion controls and storytelling (review)
• Dance Central 3 hops, shuffles, and body rolls its way to greatness (review)
• The Walking Dead Episode 4: Around Every Corner is big on emotion, small on challenge

Tips and guides:

• 8 tips for saving the world in XCOM: Enemy Unknown
• What is the Wii U? Everything you need to know about Nintendo’s new console
• The XCOM field commander’s tactical guide to Enemy Unknown

Interviews:

• Citadel of Sorcery is the most ambitious game you’ve never heard of (interview)
• Three DigiPen grads are thinking big by producing small (interview)
• Why Activision is making Call of Duty Elite into a free service (interview)

Pieces of flair:

• Don’t shake it! Admire some impressive Etch A Sketch gaming art (gallery)
• ‘Our exit strategy is death’ guides Days of Wonder’s board game philosophy
• GamesBeat’s massive Street Fighter tournament: 32 fighters enter, 16 leave
• 15 Street Fighter III peculiarities you may have overlooked

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

We’ve been bothering our stable of critics, business analysts, and design teachers a bit too often lately to participate in our new  Threeview series. It’s only partially our fault, though: It’s our busy season, and all these high-profile games are hitting back to back to back to back … .

Our team of reviewers have already tackled Borderlands 2, Bad Piggies, and Resident Evil 6. Today, they break down Bethesda’s play-it-how-you-want supernatural thriller, Dishonored, which hit Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC just last week.

Dishonored: The critic’s review

• By Rus McLaughlin, GamesBeat staff writer

Dishonored nails the Thief-style gameplay while missing the BioShock-quality story that would’ve elevated it into something truly special. It’ll have to settle for amazingly cool instead. The impressive depth, range, and balance earn this one an easy recommendation despite a few hiccups and one dreary, excessively long level. Gamers who don’t feel the need for repeat plays might not get their money’s worth, but for me, one spin through Dunwall wasn’t enough. The care and imagination that went into Dishonored makes each return visit worthwhile.

Click here for the full GamesBeat review.

Final critic’s score: 86/100

Dishonored: The analyst’s review

• By Scott Steinberg, CEO/lead technology analyst, TechSavvy Global

Coming in the wake of a string of high-profile successes from Bethesda Softworks, Dishonored should prove another triumph for the company, which has quickly established itself as one of the preeminent names in action-based role-playing.

Stakes are high with this being a new intellectual property (IP); there’s a sizable gamble being placed here. Developer Arkane Studios’ previous works — largely cult and critical successes — haven’t enjoyed commensurate commercial uptake. However, actual execution is tremendous: The title takes its creators’ eye for atmosphere, detail, and storytelling and marries them with sumptuous play and visuals, making this among the most compelling stealth-action experiences seen since Deus Ex: Human Revolution. As such, we get a compelling, core gamer-focused outing that marries the best of old and new: Players essentially enjoy thinking man’s depth, a developer well-versed in old-school design’s eye for nuance, and gripping set pieces and action in a single package.

Given the strength of the hands-on experience and Bethesda’s marketing muscle, crossover appeal should be strong — this is a title that is expected to enjoy strong mainstream acceptance in addition to resonance with enthusiasts. Despite the dampened environment at retail, both word-of-mouth and sales are expected to perform well. Just how well depends on fans of somewhat paralleling franchises (such as Assassin’s Creed) and their willingness to accept or migrate to the offering, especially with a new installment of said series available soon [at the end of October]. However, Dishonored is anticipated to be among the holiday season’s standout offerings and a solid long-tail performer that should continue to post strong returns into 2013, buoyed by critical praise and end-user enthusiasm.

Offering extensive replay value, and among the best-executed attempts at introducing new IP that delivers on gaming’s intellectual promise as well as having arresting hands-on appeal, Dishonored is in many ways a bold and anachronistic experiment. And yet, despite being an anomaly, it may also point to the way forward for premium retail product and level of consumer expectation that will begin to surround similar triple-A productions.

Final analyst’s score: 94/100

Dishonored: The academic’s review

• By Devin Monnens, assistant course director for game history, Full Sail University
• Blog: Desert Hat

Judging from the trailer alone (see below), Dishonored is about a man who stabs other men through the face with a sword. When I saw this, I wondered what would drive a man to stab a sword through the face of another man. Dishonored doesn’t seem to answer this question — head stabs make up very little of the game — but it does tell us something about assassins.

Firstly, being an assassin is hard work. They have to sneak around to avoid being seen by staying in the shadows, heading for the rooftops, and splashing through the sewers. When in combat, assassins must be good with blade, crossbow, and gun. Sneaky assassins will drop behind unsuspecting enemies and choke or stab.

Likewise, being an assassin is complex. Protagonist Corvo has many tools at his disposal (magic, crossbow, sword, gun, and stealth), and each tool has its own set of controls. Obviously, Corvo has trained for many years to become proficient with these weapons, just as hardcore players spend countless hours mastering games. An assassin thus feels natural in his body, just as players feel the controller is a natural extension of themselves.

Assassins must also be spatially aware. Just as Jason Bourne can naturally judge the fighting skills of everyone in a bar at a glance, so too can an assassin recognize the quickest route to the rooftops, the entrances to sewer grates, and understand the natural patterns of the guards. Players use these skills to reach their goals as quickly and quietly as possible.

Given this profusion of choices — weapons (and coordination to use them) and paths (and the ability to recognize them) — assassins must also be decisive: Think too long and you’ll get stuck, caught, or worse.

Assassins are also most interested in high-profile targets. Golgo 13 assassinates targets for $1 million apiece, but he makes no extra money for collateral damage. Corvo, on the other hand, assassinates for free, and head-on fights with guards will likely result in injury, reinforcing the need for stealth. Killing guards also gives pitiful reward — when you loot their bodies, you only find they make about 20 coins a day, roughly the price of a crossbow bolt. Putting their salary into perspective adds to other subtle clues, such as the game’s mention of “wailing widows” and check boxes for no-kill mission completions.

These lessons come from a long history of stealth games — from Metal Gear Solid to Thief – and suggest not only an informed design staff but also an experienced userbase. However, for newcomers to stealth — especially first-person stealth games — failing at being an effective assassin might make the player wonder if the torturer smacked a few too many brain cells out of Corvo. While experienced players can put on Corvo’s mask with ease, for newer players, it will take several hours to become a proficient head-stabber. In the end, though, it’s a whole lot more efficient than spending years of training in assassin school … .

Final academic’s score: 85/100
Note: This score does not represent the design of the game as a whole, just the portion covered in the review.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

It’s beginning to look a lot like your respective non-denominational gift-giving holiday … or just October. Although for many businesses, that is the first month of the “season.” Likewise, many customers are bracing themselves for a merry December by preparing their gift-receiving wish lists.

In regards to video games, consumer-tracking firm Nielsen determined customers’ most anticipated titles for holiday 2012.

Let’s break this down by console.

Most anticipated Xbox 360 titles:

1. Halo 4
2. Call of Duty: Black Ops II
3. Assassin’s Creed III
4. Resident Evil 6
5. NBA 2K13
6. Need For Speed: Most Wanted (2012)
7. Medal of Honor: Warfighter
8. WWE ’13
9. Hitman: Absolution
10. Fable: The Journey

Most anticipated PlayStation 3 titles:

1. Call of Duty: Black Ops II
2. Assassin’s Creed III
3. Resident Evil 6
4. NBA 2K13
5. WWE ’13
6. Need For Speed: Most Wanted (2012)
7. Hitman: Absolution
8. 007: Legends
9. Medal of Honor: Warfighter
10. LittleBigPlanet Karting

Most anticipated Wii titles:

1. Just Dance 4
2. Zumba Fitness Core
3. Lego The Lord of the Rings
4. Just Dance: Disney Party
5. Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two
6. NBA 2K13
7. WWE ’13
8. Transformers Prime: The Game
9. Skylanders Giants
10. Nickelodeon Dance 2

Most notable about this data is just how similar the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 lists are. In fact, they’re nearly identical except for Microsoft’s pair of exclusives (Halo 4, Fable: The Journey) and Sony’s one exclusive (LittleBitPlanet Karting.) It’s possible that the companies reallocated the bulk of their first-party resources to next-generation systems, which many expect the manufacturers will debut next year, and third-party publishers are hesitant to restrict any of their big games to a single console.

Every single game on each list is either a sequel or part of an existing franchise. Again, we’re at the end of a generation. That’s when publishers tend to withhold new franchises so they can prep them to ride the hype of a new console launch.

Nielsen did note that Bethesda’s Dishonored, a new property, only narrowly missed the top 10 most anticipated games on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

The Wii’s list is the most depressing, but Nintendo has the Wii U due out in November. Nielsen did not provide a most-anticipated list of Wii U games.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, EA is reportedly working with Fox on a Battlefield: Bad Company TV series, Valve wants gamers to help playstest unreleased products, Kixeye opens up about last week’s racism allegations, and OnLive’s assets sold for a mere $4.8 million.

You’ll also find reviews for Dishonored, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Forza Horizon, and Nights: Into Dreams HD.

News:

• The DeanBeat: The pace of disruption from physical to digital gaming
• Xbox Live tells us who won the vice presidential debate
• Temple Run developer has figured out how to make money on Android
• Rocket-powered robots to shoot other robots in Hawken beta this month
• Block by block: How Roblox is building one of gaming’s biggest platforms
• Linden Lab grabs its second life with creativity games
• How big is League of Legends? 12M daily users play for 1B hours each month and 75 die every second (infographic)
• September NPD: Borderlands 2 nearly tops best-seller list as overall sales take another dive
• Sony refreshes interface for its entertainment network
• Amazon gets Assassin’s Creed III Encyclopedia Edition for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
• Streaming tech company T5 claims Sony’s Gaikai infringes on its patents
• The first Borderlands 2 expansion is filled with booty — date and price announced
• Both ToeJam & Earl games headed to PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade in November
• Valve wants your help playtesting unreleased games and hardware prototypes
• ‘Fight Club’ director producing Halo 4 launch trailer
• Wing Commander creator Chris Roberts returns to gaming with Star Citizen online game universe
• With nine brains, this hydra-like Tilera chip is a multitasking wizard
• OnLive’s assets were sold for only $4.8 million
• Three-day badges are sold out for the PAX East gaming convention
• Windows 8 now defaults to real currency, but Xbox 360 still uses Microsoft Points
• The exodus continues: Zynga Poker general manager quits
• D&D artist casts ‘resurrect’ spell on old art, with help from Kickstarter
• Fanhood enters the sports-betting game fray on Facebook (exclusive)
• Updated: Developer Backbone Entertainment lays off workers
• Rovio: Star Wars Angry Birds ‘is the best Angry Birds we’ve ever done’
• EA reportedly working with Fox to develop Battlefield: Bad Company TV series
• 2012 game investments: Number of deals is up, but average raised per startup is dropping
• Sony sues Kevin Butler actor (update: Sony comments)

Mobile News:

• 23 percent of app gamers play only on mobile devices
• Heyzap launches a ‘play with friends’ feature for multiplayer mobile games
• He-Man game for iOS in the works
• Stunning mobile game Contre Jour goes multitouch in HTML5 with Microsoft’s help
• Moga mobile game controller to debut in 7,000 stores (video)
• AOL remakes Games.com for social-mobile era
• Sega brings Crazy Taxi to iOS

Reviews:

• The open road meets dubstep-laced stereotypes in Forza Horizon (review)
• Threeview: A critic, an analyst, and an academic review Resident Evil 6
• PlayStation 3 Super Slim isn’t worth the upgrade (review)
• Naughty Bear: Panic in Paradise is a dead bear’s party that’s not much fun
• Threeview: A critic, an analyst, and an academic review Bad Piggies
• Nights into Dreams HD is too brutally difficult to overcome nostalgia (review)
• XCOM: Enemy Unknown is peerless in modern game design (review)
• Dishonored lets you take sweet, sweet revenge (review)

Previews:

• Vehicles are the real stars in the chaotic world of team-shooter Ravaged (hands-on preview)
• EA invests big in Medal of Honor: Warfighter multiplayer combat (hands-on preview)
• Far Cry 3 balances an unforgettable narrative with an open world (hands-on preview)

Interviews:

• A successor to Nintendo Power magazine has less than 8 hours left to raise $5k on Kickstarter (interview) (update)
• Medal of Honor: Warfighter focuses on buddies and international warriors to boost multiplayer audience (interview)
• Gaming luminary Trip Hawkins talks about a $400 mouse, his new gig, and gestural controls (interview)
• Kixeye CEO says his company is aggressive, but not racist (exclusive interview)
• Dead or Alive 5 director discusses Hollywood, eSports, and tips for beginners (interview)

Pitch us in one Tweet:

• The top 10 games of ‘Pitch us in one Tweet’ (#1: Sixty Second Shooter)

Pieces of Flair:

• The weird and bizarre side of 25 years of Street Fighter
• Game industry pros confess their piles of shame
• Cool concept art for Chris Roberts’ Star Citizen online game (art gallery)
• Star Citizen features stunning sci-fi visuals (screenshot gallery)
• Borderlands 2′s Mechromancer: A girlfriend plays ‘girlfriend mode,’ boyfriend plays ‘boyfriend mode’
• The best of Skyrim mods #3: Super Skyrim Bros.
• Nonlethal and undetected: 10 essential tips & tricks to mastering Dishonored
• GamesBeat’s massive Street Fighter tournament: Decide who moves on from Division 1
• Gaming art for your Twitter header (Part 7: Consoles)
• Gaming art for your Twitter header (Part 6: Retro arcade)
• Gaming art for your Twitter header (Part 5: Mobile)

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Welcome to GamesBeat’s Dishonored guide. If you’ve played Deus Ex: Human Revolution, BioShock, any of the Thief games — and to a lesser extent, Metal Gear Solid or Splinter Cell — then you’re coming into this game adequately prepared. Essentially, stealth and creativity are key, but frontal assaults are generally a bad idea. The developers must agree, since there are many Achievements (or Trophies) tied to finishing the game without being detected or killing anyone.

This guide provides 10 tips and tricks to help you get the most out of the game, a Power and Enhancement miniguide, and tips on how to plan out getting all of the Achievements in three playthroughs while still having fun. Dishonored will likely take you 10-15 hours on the first go but can then be completed much more quickly on subsequent runs. Reports of four-hour speedruns were not exaggerated.

#1: The golden rule – SAVE OFTEN!
Dishonored allows you to save anytime you’re not in combat or a cutscene. And you should. A lot. If you’re going for total stealth and no kills, especially, you’ll want to save before any major areas with multiple guards. One slipup or one guard you didn’t know was there can set you back quite a bit of playtime if you haven’t been saving frequently.

#2: Upgrade Blink ASAP
This power allows you to instantly and silently travel short distances, uses very little mana, and is pretty much mandatory to complete any area unless you plan on waltzing through the front door and killing everyone in the game (don’t do it!). Upgrading Blink is cheap and allows you to travel roughly twice as far, so it should be one of your top priorities no matter what style of play you choose.

#3: Make Blink jumps that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to
If you aim Blink at a ledge within range, an arrow will appear signifying that you will climb it at the end of your Blink (instead of falling down). However, even when you know a ledge is within range, the arrow doesn’t always appear, especially if you’re aiming up. Get close enough with the Blink, and you can sometimes spam the action button to climb right before you fall. With a few tries, you’ll get good at judging whether or not you’ll be able to do this, but it does come in handy.

#4: There’s never just one
If you think you can run into a room guns blazing and kill all the guards like a badass, you might be right. But if they manage to alert other guards, you’ll probably be in for one hell of a fight. I once pushed a lone guard off a cliff because I thought it would be funny, and his death scream sent a freaking battalion of enemies my way.

#5: Learn how to parry attacks
If you are planning to go sword-to-sword with baddies, learn how to parry. Instead of holding the block button, tap it just when the enemy’s weapon would strike you. This throws your foes off balance and allows you to strike a fatal blow. Note that you’re invincible during the fatality animation, so this can save your ass if you’re surrounded or a grenade is about to go off, etc.

#6: Enemies are dumb
I’m not sure why game developers still can’t figure out how to make intelligent enemies in stealth games, but Dishonored is no different. If you get spotted and then dart away to a hiding spot, the enemies will eventually return as if nothing happened, even if you’ve left a mountain full of corpses in the middle of the room.

#7: Think outside of the box
Dishonored almost always provides multiple ways to accomplish a goal or reach a certain area. For example, at the very beginning of the second stage, you can find your first Bone Charm near the ruins of a bridge. It may seem like the only way you can reach the Bone Charm is by possessing a rat and crawling under the slightly raised gate. However, you can also simply swim around the back side of the ruins and use Blink to climb up.

#8: Mana regenerates
A small portion of your mana automatically regenerates. Powers such as Blink and Dark Vision use just enough juice that you can recover any spent mana in a matter of seconds. If you have the patience and don’t want to run out of elixirs halfway through a level, try to wait before Blinking again or using a different power.

#9: Use Dark Vision all the time
Dark Vision allows you to see enemies through walls as well as their cone of vision, and when upgraded, you can also easily identify traps or objects of interest. It gives you a massive advantage and has a low mana cost; therefore, it should be on all the time. Unfortunately, it comes at a cost. While in Dark Vision, the screen gets a washed-out sepia effect, and the sound goes all creepy. It kind of sucks some of the fun out of the Unreal Engine graphics and gameplay experience, but not using Dark Vision would be handicapping yourself, so. …

#10: Difficulty doesn’t matter
The Achievements in Dishonored are not tied to difficulty, so you can play through on easy or crank it up to the highest setting for a real challenge.

PLAYTHROUGH & ACHIEVEMENT TIPS

Playthrough 1 – Have fun
If you’re planning to get 1000/1000 gamerscore in Dishonored, you’re likely going to need to play at least three times. The first time, you should play for fun — enjoy the game as it was meant to be enjoyed, and do whatever you want. This would be a good opportunity for you to get to know the levels and missions, how the gameplay mechanics and enemy A.I. work, as well as experiment with the different powers, Bone Charms, and weapons.

There are nine levels total, and you can expect your first playthrough to take anywhere from 10-15 hours, including time for lots of reloading from death or going back to do a sequence “better” than whatever shenanigans you pulled the first time.

If you killed a lot of people, even stealthily, this playthrough should end with High Chaos. Don’t feel bad, though: You’ll a get a secret 50-point Achievement for it.

Playthrough 2 – Non-lethal & undetected
A large number of Achievements in Dishonored revolve around completing levels and then the entire game without being detected or killing anyone. You might as well as use your second playthrough to take care of those and make this game your B.

You will be using Blink, Dark Vision, and Bend Time constantly, so upgrade those powers immediately. Agility and Possession also come in handy. Since you don’t need any offensive powers or three of the four enhancements, you won’t need as many runes. In fact, I suggest getting what you need and then skipping runes and bone charms entirely, as going after them just puts you at risk. One of the most important non-preorder bone charms that might benefit you is Strong Arms (choking is faster), which you can find in the same building as Griff in the second level.

You’ll also have no need for guns or bolts or grenades, but Sleep Darts will be your best friend. Sadly, their capacity cannot be upgraded, so you’re stuck with 10 per level. Use them wisely. I recommend grabbing the Crossbow Reload upgrade as soon as it becomes available. You should have a plethora of money since you won’t need to buy almost anything other than Sleep Darts and Mana Potions.

Even primary story targets in the game can be “neutralized” with nonlethal means. This almost always involves a side mission or two, but hopefully you did those on your first playthrough and know what to do here.

Playthrough 3 – Non-supernatural speedrun
Now that you’re (ideally) a master of both stealth and combat and know the levels inside and out, you should be able to complete the final Achievement for finishing the game without buying any supernatural powers or enhancements. No powers or enhancements also means you don’t need to get any runes, which should cut a lot of time off of each mission.

You still get Blink, though, and since you already did all the other Achievements, you don’t have to worry about being detected or killing people. If you just go straight for the targets, you could complete this run in mere hours.

Alternately, you can swap playthrough 2 with playthrough 3 if you want some extra practice in being less dependent on powers and enhancements before attempting the challenging nonlethal and undetected Achievements.

Conclusion
Hopefully, these helped you out a bit. If you have any suggestions, anecdotes, or tricks of your own, please add them in the comments!

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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It’s rare to see something put the “punk” in “steampunk” as thoroughly as Dishonored does. Forget romanticism … the game’s fictional Empire of the Isles feels like it’s dangling over a cliff. Its high art and technological wonders both stem from the same delusional madman. A rat-borne plague has decimated the crumbling capital city of Dunwall. Corruption at every level is a given. When the Empress Jessamine Kaldwin reaches out to foreign powers for help, her own top advisers finish her off in a swift, bloody coup d’état.

And you? You’re Corvo Attano, the suddenly unemployed Lord Protector framed for her murder by its conspirators. Clearly, that’s not acceptable.

Luckily, loyalists engineer Corvo’s escape and a mysterious, omnipotent being known as the Outsider — i.e. Satan, according to the local religion — grants him astounding supernatural powers with which to rescue the kidnapped Emily Kaldwin, young heiress to the throne, and to dispatch the traitors who stole her crown. How you do it is entirely your choice.

That’s where Dishonored (available October 9 on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC) shines brightest, proudly reviving the first-person stealth genre and giving it a nicely twisted edge … even if a few flat notes keep it from true greatness.

WHAT YOU’LL LIKE

It takes a Thief: The Dark Project
Take the benchmark stealth gameplay from the Thief series, add the two-pronged weapon/power combo from atmospheric shooter BioShock, shake in a dash of Hitman’s silent assassination, and set it in 19th century Eastern Europe by way of Nicola Tesla. That’s Dishonored. But developer Arkane Studios didn’t just pick stellar influences (and wisely hire Harvey Smith, Thief’s lead designer, as a creative director). They mixed those elements into a seriously potent dish where every weapon, device, ability, and play style complements the others.

Well, eventually. Maybe it’s just been a while, but Dishonored’s brand of first-person sneaking takes getting used to. Keep Corvo’s body out of view, and you’re hidden regardless of any line-of-sight issues. Expect to lean out from cover a lot when you’re not looking straight through it with your x-ray Dark Vision. Distance and light factor in, too, but I’m pleased to report you’re never fully invisible. Pistol-packing officers and Overseer zealots always see you coming much sooner than their more careless subordinates, and Tallboys — heavily armed and armored sentries on robotic stilts — don’t miss a thing.

Once you dial into those nuances, Dishonored falls into place. Purchase and upgrade a few powers via collectable runes, and you can avoid or dismantle threats with near impunity. I frequently used Blink, a super-dash ability, to instantly zip up to unsuspecting enemies and kill/disable them before they even knew it.

Fortunately, Dishonored features some of the most careful balancing I’ve seen lately, making you feel like a total badass without ever breaking the game. Block-and-slash swordplay makes up the bulk of close combat — pleasantly tactile even if enemies occasionally rake you from 10 feet away — while everything else (gadgets, ranged weapons, supernatural abilities) maps to Corvo’s left hand. You can only equip one at a time. Resource drains keep the really dark magic in check, but even better, calling up the power-selection wheel doesn’t pause the game. If you don’t manage your hotkeys accordingly, the City Watch will chop you like month-old lettuce while you’re screwing around equipping your deployable rat swarm. And believe me, guards love to sound the alarm, call in reinforcements, and take you apart en masse.

So just like Thief, stepping lightly, staying out of sight, and planning your moves are the best strategies. Pick a fight on impulse, and you’re likely a goner. Not that you have to pick a fight at all, because ….

The gameplay options are astounding
While trapped on the wrong side of an electrified barrier, a quick glance around gave me a wealth of choices. Possess a nearby rat and scamper through a grate to the other side. Take control of a human soldier and walk right on through unharmed. Cut down the squad watching the barrier’s power source and steal the battery. Or do it when the guards weren’t looking.

Dishonored plays exactly the way you want to play it. Sneaky. Violent. Merciful. Mischievous. Malevolent. Expansive levels give you options a’plenty, and every problem comes with at least three or four solutions … or more, depending on which powers you’ve unlocked. Your supernatural arsenal tends to skew toward distraction, evasion, and infiltration, but you’ll find offensive uses for them as well. Why not freeze time, snap a few crossbow bolts into a few faces, attach a spring-razor mine to another enemy, then wind-blast him into a crowd of soldiers so they’re all shredded when time speeds up again? Yep, you can do that.

You can also finish the game without killing anyone, not even the targets your loyalist allies want eliminated, though the fates you arrange for your victims are arguably crueler than a swift blade to the chest. Or, like me, you can go around booby-trapping security devices to vaporize soldiers instead of Corvo, then stepping out into view so they unwittingly run straight into the kill zone. I have to say, the survivors wise up pretty fast.

So skulk around in sneak mode, take to the rooftops, find secret paths and hidden rooms, or simply assassinate everyone you meet and feed the bodies to the rodent hordes infesting the city. Any way you roll, Dishonored’s good with your decisions.

World building at the end of the world
The proud, decaying city of Dunwall might just be the most fully realized fantasy-game world since Rapture, BioShock’s underwater dystopia. Cool period flourishes blend seamlessly into postindustrial bleakness. You get a very real sense that a golden age recently gave way to the elements, to apathy, to plague, to unscrupulous science and black magic skulking in dark alleys. Dishonored’s visuals sometime look a bit too flat, and more than a few animations clip in reliably cheap ways (especially the ever-present rats), but the art direction wins out.

Arkane squeezes a lot of variety out of its setting, too. In addition to several fortresses, Corvo visits rotting slums run by warring gangs, attends a high-society costume ball in a spectacular mansion (the only mission where he can walk around freely without the City Watch pouncing), and travels into quarantine zones where Weapers — mindlessly hostile plague victims — roam the streets. Because, hey, what’s a video game without zombies nowadays?

You’ll find all the lore-hound favorites (notes, books, and audio logs) to fill out Dunwall and its whale-based economy. But Dishonored’s secret weapon is the Heart, a bio-mechanical organ/divining rod. When it’s not pointing you straight to every upgrade rune and stat-boosting Bone Charm, the Heart provides great insight into the world around you. Point it at people and it tells you their past and their future. Rarely does it say anything cheerful; “Unless he dies tonight, he will kill twice more before taking his own life” captures the essence of the Heart’s commentary pretty well. It’s even more instructive when you use it on your loyalist allies.

The Heart is easily my favorite character in the entire game. And that’s where we start getting into some of Dishonored’s bigger flaws.

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If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, Cliff Bleszinski leaves Epic Games, online developer Kixeye comes under fire after a former employee blogs about alleged racism in the workplace, and Zynga pre-announces weak third quarter earnings.

You’ll also find reviews for Resident Evil 6, FIFA 13, and Bad Piggies, as well was previews for Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Skylanders Giants, and Medal of Honor: Warfighter.

News:

• The DeanBeat: Raptr’s gamer data shows that building real communities pays off in profits (it’s the community, stupid)
• Words With Friends co-creators leave Zynga
• Rovio teases Star Wars-themed Angry Birds
• Loot Drop reveals RPG storyline on Kickstarter
• Photo gallery of Skylanders creator Toys for Bob studio
• Activision gives Skylanders Giants the mega-investment treatment
• Zynga ‘pre-announces’ weak earnings again for third quarter
• Full Mario, Zelda, and Star Fox retail titles headed to 3DS eShop
• The 3DS eShop’s best game, Pushmo, gets a sequel in Crashmo
• AppFlood is one of the fastest growing developer-to-developer ad networks
• Kixeye fires four after investigation into allegations of racism
• Dishonored isn’t a Choose Your Own Adventure game, but this trailer is
• Artillery aims to make web browsers into game consoles (exclusive)
• Cliff Bleszinski leaves Epic Games
• Bethesda hires former Star Wars: The Old Republic executive producer to run new Austin studio
• George Washington stars as the villain in Assassin’s Creed III extra content
• Patch notes: Minecraft Xbox 360 Edition update includes Creative Mode, strongholds, and dozens more
• Game veterans launch a two-fer ‘old-school RPG’ game on Kickstarter
• Kixeye takes ‘substantial corrective action’ after black contractor calls out alleged racist behavior at social gaming firm
• Notch to Callaham: ‘Thanks for the personal attack’ (UPDATED)
• Ubisoft continues support for Ghost Recon: Future Soldier with new multiplayer maps
• Resident Evil 6′s science is not just for ‘old men in tweed suits’
• Buy certain games on the 3DS eShop, get Donkey Kong: Original Edition free
• Possible box art appears for the unconfirmed Star Wars: First Assault Xbox Live Arcade game
• Mass Effect trilogy on Xbox 360 won’t include any of the paid DLC
• Aaargh! KingsIsle Entertainment’s Pirate101 online game world to launch as early as Oct. 8
• Maingear launches a 17-inch gaming laptop with free custom paint jobs
• What were the cheapest and most expensive consoles in gaming history? (infographic)

Mobile news:

• Angry Birds maker Rovio plans to reveal its mobile book app
• Battlefield 3 graphics for mobile? EA has developer DICE on the job
• Directly record your iPhone games with Kamcord

MMO news:

• Mists of Pandaria sales fall short of previous two World of Warcraft expansions

Interviews:

• How animators bring Skylanders Giants to life (video interview)
• How Toys for Bob turned Activision into a giant toy company with Skylanders (interview)

Reviews:

• FIFA Soccer 13 strives for perfection through gameplay imperfection (review)
• Bad Piggies is a painfully challenging departure from Angry Birds (review)
• Resident Evil 6 thrives on its silliness but stumbles when things get serious (review)
• Pokémon Black and White Versions 2 take few risks but still offer classic thrills (review)

Previews:

• Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance may need to rise above its surprisingly conventional design (hands-on preview)
• How animators bring Skylanders to life (video interview)
• Medal of Honor: Warfighter wants to be ‘Saving Private Ryan meets Hurt Locker,’ but its gameplay is in the way (hands-on preview)
• Activision gives Skylanders Giants the all-in, mega-investment treatment (hands-on preview)
• Giant robots with frickin’ laser beams: MechWarrior Online closed beta (hands-on preview)
• Will Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified lure gamers to the PlayStation Vita? (hands-on preview)
• Beef up your NBA 2K13 career with Facebook and mobile apps (preview)

Pitch us in one Tweet:

• The top 10 games of ‘Pitch us in one Tweet’ (#2: Colour Bind)
• The top 10 games of ‘Pitch us in one Tweet’ (#3: Hackycat)
• The top 10 games of ‘Pitch us in one Tweet’ (#4: Ring Run Circus)
• The top 10 games of ‘Pitch us in one Tweet’ (#5: Dunk Dreams)

Pieces of flair:

• Gaming art for your Twitter header (Part 4: It came from Japan)
• A insider’s photo tour of the Toys for Bob game studio, where Skylanders are born (photo gallery)
• Gaming art for your Twitter header (Part 3: PC)
• Steampunk NES’s creator spent 20 hours on the coolest gift a nephew ever got (gallery)z
• Gaming art for your Twitter header (Part 2: Popular franchises)
• Gaming art for your Twitter header (Part 1: The modern era)
• Mmm…10 video game cakes and other sweets (gallery)
• 15 bizarre Street Fighter Alpha mysteries

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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I can never decide anything. Take this interactive Dishonored video for example. Should I sneak past the enemies? Should I use magic? Or maybe I should beat them senseless with violence.

While I’m sitting here paralyzed with choice, why don’t you give the Dishonored: Path to Revenge video a try?

Publisher Bethesda and developer Arkane Studios’ are releasing the game next week on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC for $59.99. That gives you a few days to prepare for the many choices that the first-person stealth-action adventure presents you with.

As an aid — and maybe to promote the release just a bit — Bethesda created this interactive trailer that allows players to choose their own path in the world of Dishonored. Y’know, like those old Choose Your Own Adventure books that tell you to turn to certain pages for different choices.

In the video (and the game,) players take the role of Corvo Attano, a superpowered bodyguard to the Empress of Dunwall, which is a fictionalized version of London. Someone else murders the empress and frames Attano for the crime. To clear his name, Attano must dive into Dunwall’s grungy underworld.

Before you click the play button, know that this is an actual Dishonored mission that some could consider a spoiler. You have been warned.

Here is the interactive video:

How did you choose?

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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