This sponsored post is produced by Dealzon.

With the big release of Metro: Last Light earlier this week, it’s easy to forget Borderlands 2 got a new DLC this week: the Psycho Pack. It features a new playable character “Krieg, the Psycho” and a new “Psycho Bandit” class. This DLC is not in the Season Pass, so you’ll have to pick it up separately. Fortunately there’s a 30% off coupon that makes the DLC only $7.

Tuesday marked the big Metro: Last Light release. Despite THQ’s bankruptcy earlier this year, 4A Games and Deep Silver were able to release the highly anticipated title with only a two month delay from the original March 2013 release. The Steam-activated version of Metro: Last Light can be bought for $40 after a 20% off coupon, making it the only known discount for the game thus far.

Today Amazon launched a “Digital Games Mayhem” sale. A total of 826 (!!) PC and Mac download games and DLC packs are up to 80% off their usual prices. Perhaps the best part about this sale is the plethora of PC download bundles available. For instance, the Deep Silver Power Pack Volume 2 includes Saints Row 3 The Full Package, Dead Island, Saints Row 2, and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky for only $17.49; separately, these would cost $32 at best prices. Most recent releases are not to be found in the sale, but there’s an exception with the new Star Trek game for $24.99 (50% off).

Hot deals & recent releases

Last Tuesday’s release: Borderlands 2 Psycho Pack (PC DLC) — $7 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. Elsewhere $10. Introduces the 6th playable character to Borderlands 2. The “Psycho Bandit” class is melee focused and can generate health when killing enemies.

Last Tuesday’s release: Metro: Last Light (PC Download) — $40 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. Elsewhere $50. The latest Metro title survived the THQ bankruptcy with a respectable 82/100 Metascore.
 

Amazon “Digital Games Mayhem” Sale: PC and Mac downloads — up to 80% off at Amazon. A total of 826 PC/Mac download games and DLCs are on sale with big discounts. Highlights below:

• Star Trek — $24.99 (normally $50)
• XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Civilization IV: Complete Edition, Civilization V Gold Edition Bundle — $19.99 (normally $120)
• Deep Silver Power Pack Volume 2 — $17.49 (normally $95)
• Crusader Kings 2 — $9.99 (normally $40)
• Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition — $7.49 (normally $30)
• The Cave — $4.99 (normally $15)
• Magicka Collection — $4.99 (normally $20)
• Bioshock Dual Pack — $4.99 (normally $40)

Preorder Deals

June 25: Project X Zone (Nintendo 3DS) — $33.99 at NewEgg after coupon. Elsewhere $40. This tactical role-playing title was released on October 11, 2012 in Japan and finally washes up on North American shores next month.
 

Aug. 18: Disney Infinity Starter Pack (Xbox 360, PS3) — $64.99 at NewEgg after coupon. List is $75. Similar to the Skylanders figurine video game genre. Includes figures of Sully, Mr Incredible, and Jack Sparrow.
 

Nov. 5: Call of Duty: Ghosts (Xbox 360, PS3) — $52.99 at NewEgg after coupon. List is $60. First discount spotted on the 2013 Call of Duty title. The official release date announcement came earlier this month, but to no surprise. Another classic CoD first-Tuesday-in-November release date.
 

PC download deals

BioShock Infinite (PC Download) — $34.99 at Groupon. Best price yet on quite possibly the best game of 2013. You’ll need to jump through one hoop to redeem the Steam key from the actual vendor.
 

Jagged Alliance Weekend Sale: Games and DLCs (PC Download) — 50% – 75% off at GamersGate. The tactical role-playing PC game has a solid discount this weekend. Grab the base game and all DLC/expansions in the Collector’s Bundle for $13.98 (normally $30).
 

Men of War Weekend Sale (PC Download) — 75% off at GamersGate. Each individual Men of War game, expansion, and DLC is 75% off, including the Collector’s Pack which includes everything for $17.50 (normally $70).
 

Yesterday’s release: Sanctum 2 (PC Download) — $11.25 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. List is $15. The game released yesterday, but the 25% off preorder coupon code still works. Think of the game as tower defense + first-person shooter.

360, PS3, and Nintendo 3DS

Atelier Ayesha: The Alchemist of Dusk (PS3) — $34.99 at Amazon. JRPG fans who haven’t already picked this up save $15 today. This makes the first significant discount we’ve seen since its stateside release two months ago.
 

Fire Emblem: Awakening (Nintendo 3DS) — $29.99 at Best Buy. In IGN’s words, “the best thing to hit the 3DS since Super Mario 3D Land.” Yippee! Next best is $35 at Amazon.
 

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Mirror of Fate (Nintendo 3DS) — $24.99 at Best Buy. With the exception of a 4.7/10 IGN review, this franchise reboot sequel is generally well-reviewed, if not remarkably so. Next best is $37 at JR.com.
 

Crysis 3 (Xbox 360, PS3) — $24.99 at Groupon. This makes the lowest price we’ve seen on the popular post-apocalyptic open-world shooter by $8. Next best is $39 at Amazon.
 

Hardware

Alienware X51 Gaming Desktop — $969 at Dell Home after coupon. Specs: Quad Core i7-3770, GeForce GTX 660, and Ubuntu Linux OS. List is $1,149.
 

PS3 Slim 320GB Console (Refurbished) — $199.99 at Groupon. New condition is $300 elsewhere. Just in case you don’t have a box and you’re itching to try some up the upcoming PS3 exclusives (Last of Us, etc.).
 

Turtle Beach Ear Force X31 Digital Wireless Gaming Headset (Refurbished) — $17.99 at Best Buy. Next best is $50 at Rakuten. New ones can go as much as $60+, and the newer model X32 goes for $87.
 

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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 was running out of time and ammo. Mutated wolves, freakish crustaceans, and a flying demon were relentlessly hunting me through the swampland. According to my watch, I only had 15 seconds left of breathable air in the gas mask. I had two choices: either let the wildlife eviscerate me from head to toe or suffocate to death from the surface’s radioactive atmosphere.

Welcome to the harsh world of Metro: Last Light.

Developer 4A Games returns to post-apocalyptic Moscow in this sequel to Metro 2033 (out May 14 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC). The studio based its first-person shooter series on the Metro books written by author Dmitry Glukhovsky. Just a few months ago, the future of Metro: Last Light was uncertain when original publisher THQ closed down due to bankruptcy, but Deep Silver (publisher of the zombie-slaying Dead Island games) picked up the publishing rights for $5.8 million during the THQ auction a few weeks later.

The interruption doesn’t seem to have affected Metro: Last Light in any meaningful way. 4A Games crafted a rich, beautiful world fraught with danger, political conspiracies, and supernatural forces.

What You’ll Like

The unshakeable sense of dread

Twenty years after nuclear missiles scorched the planet (an event stemming from World War III), Moscow is a wasteland. All sorts of monstrosities have risen from the ashes and claimed the Russian city as their turf while other creatures chose to go underground where the remaining survivors try to live a normal life. Death looms at almost every corner.

This is clear when you first step foot on the surface. Between the pockets of intense radiation and the wildlife that slithers, swims, flies, or runs across the landscape, I was always nervous when Last Light took me back above ground. Part of that anxiety comes from a sort of tactile connection that develops during the non-shooting portions of gameplay: the act (and squeaking sound) of wiping your gas mask to remove any blood or goo obscuring your vision, repeatedly charging your electrical equipment by rapidly clicking the mouse, or flicking on your lighter in places where your flashlight just doesn’t work.

As the elite Ranger known as Artyom, you’re not some avatar in a virtual shooting gallery. You’re an active participant, a citizen of the Metro. A survivor. And once you feel like you’re actually a part of the fiction, the threats amplify tenfold. The hostility isn’t limited to the world of the living, either. Remnants of the dead — those who died from the blasts — appear in the form of ghostly apparitions and disembodied voices whispering to you in the darkness. Last Light isn’t a pure survival-horror game, but the creepy elements it uses are enough to make you paranoid.

The people

The tension can feel overwhelming at times, so a series of Metro stations that people have transformed into towns serve as much-needed breaks. They’re more than just trading posts, however. You feel as if real people have lived in these places for years. You learn this from the numerous conversations happening all around you. Some folks are refugees escaping the tyrannical rule of the Nazis or the Communists (at the end of the world, it seems divergent political ideologies are stronger than ever). Others are humble merchants who will gladly take your pristine pre-apocalypse bullets — Metro’s form of currency, which you can also use as ammo — in exchange for their wares. And some are just thieves, looking to scam the next poor bastard who walks their way.

Even your enemies, if unaware of your presence in the shadows, tell fascinating stories. One group I snuck up behind were sharing superstitious tales, like the story of The Tunnel Keeper, a mysterious Pied Piper of the Metro who commands its followers to travel into the dark tunnels. They’re never heard from again.

These conversations are shining beacons of life (or whatever’s left of it) in the otherwise bleak future that Last Light depicts. You can see the weariness on the survivors’ faces. But, somehow, they’ve found a way to go on with their lives after the bombs had dropped. I found this oddly comforting.

Post-apocalyptic beauty

Metro: Last Light looks stunning. If you have the means to, you should definitely play this on a PC. Even my ancient machine, which is slightly above the minimum requirements, was able to run one of the most visually striking games I’ve ever seen. The developers sculpted a gorgeous painting out of the charred and broken buildings, bridges, and streets of post-fallout Moscow. The same is true for the labyrinthine tunnels and city states of the Metro system where gas lamps illuminate the dank walls and filthy homes of its tenants in gritty detail.

It makes me jealous for those who are able to run Last Light at its “optimum” settings, which require, among other things, a $1,000 Nvidia graphics card. If you fall into that camp, pat yourself on the back. You’re in for one hell of a visual treat.

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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.

Even though it was only announced yesterday, the November 5 release of Call of Duty: Ghosts is already available for preorder at numerous retailers. At the time of writing, three retailers are offering bonuses with the game. The most enticing deal on the PC download comes from GameFly in the form of a $7 digital download credit that’s yours as soon as Ghosts releases.

If you’re more of a console gamer (or just don’t want to wait half a year for a $7 credit), Best Buy’s got an alternative deal that applies to the PC physical and console editions. You’ll be out around a hundred bucks because they make you purchase an additional game, but you get instant gratification in the form of a $15 gift card that doesn’t just apply to downloads. If you’re already tempted to buy an additional title and are resigned to the fact you’ll probably buy something else from Best Buy soon – because let’s face it, those marked up HDMI cables have a draw on you – this deal isn’t half bad.

Call of Duty: Ghosts preorder comparison

Just over a month after its critically acclaimed release, BioShock Infinite finally gets a discount on the console versions that beats the best current PC download deal. Best Buy is offering $15 off Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of the game, bringing them to $44.99. This makes the lowest price we’ve seen for the console game by $3, and it saves you $12 off the current next best deal out there.

If you want to live dangerously on both sides of the law, Green Man Gaming’s offering a dual pack of downloads that’ll let you commit or solve crimes, depending on which angel on your shoulder has your ear at the time. They’ve bundled both Max Payne 3 and LA Noire for $16.

This combo price ties the lowest summed price we’ve seen the games sell for separately, but you’ll also get the Max Payne 3 Rockstar Pass DLC. The lowest we’ve seen the Rockstar Pass go for in the past is $7, so effectively you’re getting the full games at lowest ever prices plus a free DLC. Both games received stellar reviews, so if you haven’t played one or the other, this is a great time to buy.

Hot deals & recent releases

Nov. 5: Call of Duty: Ghosts + $7 Digital Credit (PC Download) — $59.99 at GameFly. Currently the only preorder bonus deal available for the PC download version.
 

Bioshock Infinite (Xbox 360, PS3) — $44.99 at Best Buy. First time the console versions have a solid sale that makes them cheaper than the PC download version. Who’s the gaming master race now?
 

Max Payne 3 and LA Noire Pack (PC Download) — $16 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. A great bundle with two excellent, well-reviewed games plus their additional content.
 

Dragon Age Complete Pack (PC Download) — $9.99 at GamersGate. Includes the Dragon Age: Origins Ultimate Edition and Dragon Age 2. Separately $40.
 

PC download pack & bundle deals

Batman Arkham Complete Collection (PC Download) — $27 at GamersGate. Includes Batman Arkham City Game of the Year Edition, Batman: Arkham Asylum Game of the Year Edition, plus two LEGO Batman games.
 

Codemasters Racing Pack (PC Download) — $21.75 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. Pack includes DiRT 3, Dirt Showdown, FUEL, and GRID – a decent set of racing games whose titles make grammarians involuntarily cringe. Separately these would normally cost $80.

Sonic the Hedgehog Bundle (PC Download) — $21.56 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. This bundle includes a whopping ten Sonic game downloads.

Omerta: City of Gangsters and Port Royale 3: Pirates & Merchants Bundle (PC Download) — $19.99 at GameFly. A weird combo for sure, but the odd pairing doesn’t diminish the bargain.
 

Tomb Raider Collection (PC Download) — $12 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. If you want to grab everything before the most recent Tomb Raider title, this is easily the cheapest way. Nine titles.
 

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Collection Bundle (PC Download) — $8.99 at GamersGate. This is the base game plus two DLC packs. Normally $30.
 

Tropico 4 Collectors Bundle (PC Download) — $8 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. You’ll get a great city-building sim game plus 7 DLC packs for less than two DLC packs normally cost.
 

Patrician: Complete Pack (PC Download) — $7 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. The pack contains Patrician IV Gold Edition and Patrician III. If historical trading sim games are your thing, grab this pack.

Neverwinter Nights 2: Complete (PC Download) — $5.99 at GamersGate. Excellent PC RPG for an even better price. This bundle comes with all 3 released expansions.
 

Dungeons & Dragons Anthology: The Master Collection (PC Download) — $5.99 at GamersGate. If you love the D&D RPG system, you’ll want to check out this collection, which includes classics like Baldur’s Gate and Planescape: Torment.
 

Kane and Lynch Pack (PC Download) — $5.60 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. Contains Dead Men and Dog Days. If you’ve never played this third person shooter, it’s certainly worth considering for under $6.

Gothic Complete Collection (PC Download) — $5 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. Includes all three parts of the saga. Next best is $25 at GamersGate.
 

Just Cause Pack (PC Download) — $5 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. Contains Just Cause and Just Cause 2. If you bought each game separately, they’d add up to $19.
 

360, PS3, and PS Vita deals

May 14: Metro: Last Light Limited Edition (Xbox 360, PS3) — $49.99 at NewEgg. Comes with “Ranger Mode” – an exclusive weapon and 100 military-grade bullets. List is $60.
 

June 14: The Last of Us (PS3) — $49.99 at NewEgg. Still a hot, eagerly anticipated title, and Newegg is clearly capitalizing on the hype.
 

June 25: Muramasa: Rebirth (PS Vita) — $29.99 at NewEgg. Hand-drawn graphics, ninjas, and evil spirits. You really can’t ask for more from this Wii port.
 

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (PS3) — $39.99 at NewEgg after coupon. A new style of action-oriented gameplay for the Metal Gear series. Next best is $46 at JR.com.
 

Gears of War: Judgment (Xbox 360) — $34.99 at NewEgg. Yep. You can rip off gods’ heads with your bare hands, but you can’t open locked treasure chests.
 

Sleeping Dogs (PS3, Xbox 360) — $19.99 at Groupon. Good price for the console versions of this open-world game which hardly ever goes on sale.
 

Hardware

Alienware M17x r4 1080p Gaming Laptop — $1,874 at Dell Home after coupon. Specs: Core i7-3630QM, 2GB Radeon HD 7970M, and 8GB RAM. List is $2,149. Deal expires today.
 

Alienware Aurora Gaming Desktop — $1,719 at Dell Home after coupon. Specs: Quad Core i7-3820 Overclocked 4.1GHz, DUAL GeForce GTX 660, and 16GB RAM. List is $1,924. Deal expires today.
 

Alienware X51 Gaming Desktop — $689 at Dell Home after coupon. Specs: Core i5-3330, 8GB RAM, and GeForce GT 640. List is $799. Deal expires today.
 

Lenovo IdeaPad Y500 1080p Gaming Laptop — $879 at Lenovo after coupon. Specs: Core i7-3630QM, 12GB RAM, GeForce GT 750M 2GB, and 1TB HDD + 16GB SSD.
 

Lenovo IdeaPad Y400 Gaming Laptop — $749 at Lenovo after coupon. Specs: Core i7-3630QM, GeForce GT 750M 2GB, and 8GB RAM. List is $1,249.
 

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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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Deep Silver isn’t like the others. At least that’s what it keeps telling us, but we’ve heard that before … and we’ve been hurt before.

One of Europe’s rising game publishers, Deep Silver is now competing with Ubisoft, Activision, and EA, but it’s also distinct from those companies.

Deep Silver chief executive officer Klemens Kundratitz

“We are in many aspects quite different compared to other video game publishers,” Koch Media chief executive officer Klemens Kundratitz told GamesBeat. “We are a private company. Therefore, we don’t have to deal with the public shareholder aspects of the business or the quarterly planning and delivering.”

Most publishers are publicly traded corporations. They answer to shareholders who demand constant growth. Deep Silver is at odds with that typical structuring. Two people, Kundratitz and Franz Koch, own all of Deep Silver (and its parent company Koch Media). Rather than pleasing a large group of investors who only really care about the bottom line, Deep Silver is much more limber because it’s only concerned with those top two individuals.

Private ownership has its advantages, but it might also explain why you probably hadn’t heard of Deep Silver before 2011. That was the year the publisher broke out with hit zombie title Dead Island, but it’s been around a lot longer than that.

In 2002, Koch opened Deep Silver to distribute games throughout Europe. The German company has a long history of importing films to the continent and saw an opportunity to use that expertise in the gaming sector. For years, Deep Silver’s primary goal was to partner with external companies to distribute games in Germany and other European nations.

But then Dead Island went and sold 5 million copies in 2011. The publisher quickly announced a sequel, Dead Island: Riptide, which comes out April 23. That one follow-up wasn’t enough to satisfy Deep Silver’s ambitions. The company was primed to strike at the next opportunity … and that came with the collapse of publisher THQ.

“”We were distributing THQ products in Italy and Spain, so in mid-December we had a lineup meeting with the publisher,” said Kundratitz. “We went over their entire portfolio with them. A week later we learned about them filing Chapter 11.”

This introduced a great amount of financial exposure to the company’s distribution business. THQ was an important partner, and Deep Silver was counting on those THQ products to fill out its lineup. THQ’s bankruptcy wasn’t catastrophic for Deep Silver, but it definitely introduced some potential stumbling blocks.

THQ originally attempted to remain intact by selling off the entirety of its assets to investment firm Clearlake Capital. The judge in the Chapter 11 case blocked that move and demanded that THQ hold an auction to see if a consortium of bidders could get more money for THQ’s debt holders.

This opened a window of opportunity for Deep Silver.

“We had to make up our minds about how to deal with the situation,” said Kundratitz. “We really loved their IPs and what they were planning to do over the next few months. We felt that rather than going defensive, we decided to see how we could make this situation work to our advantage.”

So over their Christmas break, Kundratitz, Deep Silver development director Vivien Dollinger, and their staff worked through the math to determine which products made the most sense for them.

“We narrowed down our interest to Metro and Saints Row,” said Kundratitz. “But we were flying blind.”

The THQ auction wasn’t like you’ve seen in the movies. A fast-talking announcer wasn’t taking open bids from Sega and others. Instead, interested parties quietly submitted their bids through a management group, and the highest bidder would take home a new developer or game property.

Deep Silver decided to go for it. It bid $23 million for the Saints Row franchise and for its studio, Volition. It also bid $5.8 million for the Metro 2033/Metro Last Light properties. In both of those instances, Deep Silver outbid its French rival, Ubisoft, who attempted to steal Saints Row for $5.4 million and put in a $5.175 million bid for Metro.

Suddenly, Deep Silver has one of the most interesting publishing lineups of 2013.

In addition to Dead Island: Riptide, Deep Silver has the interesting FPS Metro: Last Light coming on May 14. On Aug. 23, the publisher will release Volition’s Saints Row IV.

That’s a major change for a publisher no one west of the Atlantic had really heard of before 2011.

Beyond this year, Deep Silver is looking at free-to-play and mobile, but it won’t abandon what is working now.

“Free-to-play is obviously an interesting business model that we believe will be a part of the industry’s future,” development director Vivien Dollinger told GamesBeat. “It’s already proven itself. We think it’s here to stay as part of the market, but there’s still lots of room for retail.”

Kudratitz tolds us that the key to Deep Silver’s growth lies in its private ownership and a dedication to delivering what gamers want.

“In a year of transition, of consolidation, of restructuring in many areas. I can only say that we are growing in all of our business segments,” said Kundratitz. “I think that’s proof that companies that are less corporate and maybe more gamer-oriented can be more successful. It’s a time of opportunity for us. As an industry, I think we have to think about what the gamer wants. It’s not production values that will drive this industry. It’s new and novel gaming experience that we can deliver in ways that gamers love.”

It’s odd that a game company would hold up delivering what “gamers love” as something that makes it different. At the same time, gamers have a deep dislike for public corporations like EA that seem to put shareholder needs ahead of gamers. If Deep Silver doesn’t have to answer to a board concerned solely with a return on investment, maybe that really does make it different. And maybe that’s the publisher we need.

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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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In a time when Hollywood is churning out a sixth Fast & Furious and a second live-action G.I. Joe film, the environment seems ripe for a movie adaptation of the insane Saints Row franchise.

Game publisher Deep Silver owns the rights to the open-world crime series and is putting out Saints Row IV later this year. Interestingly, Deep Silver’s parent organization, Koch Media, is also deeply invested in film production and distribution in Europe.

Koch Media chief executive officer Klemens Kundratitz told GamesBeat that he is considering films for all of Koch’s properties. That includes Saints Row and first-person action series Metro.

“[Those movies are] not out of the question,” Kundratitz told GamesBeat. “If a company can deliver that transmedia experience, we are probably one of the few that have the ambition and ability to deliver that.”

Koch, which has nothing to do with the influential Koch brothers of the U.S., partnered with Hollywood to release films like Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, Margin Call, and Moon in Germany. So the company has deep knowledge of the film-production industry.

“At the same time, I have to be honest, we have not been able to deliver that [transmedia experience] yet,” said Kundratitz. “But it’s one of my long-term strategic goals to do so.”

In 2011, following the release of the original trailer for Deep Silver’s game Dead Island, Koch sold the film rights to Lionsgate. That project is still in development.

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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 trailers are a big deal. Where once big budgets were the exception, they are increasingly becoming the norm. Deep pockets are not always key to creating a stand-out trailer, though. Ingenuity, innovation, and a healthy sense of humor can also go a long way to help sell a game.

Here we present the best game trailers to grace our screens during 2012. They represent a cross-section of the gaming world and feature a variety of styles and budgets. The one thing they have in common? They’re done right.

If you think we’ve missed any trailers of note, feel free to drop a comment below.

Borderlands 2

Gearbox Software gave its first-person role-playing shooter Borderlands 2 (PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360) a sing-a-long soundtrack that just shouldn’t have worked. The genius is that “Wimoweh” has never sounded as gloriously out of place since its original 1939 release. Even better than Tight Fit.

Watch Dogs

Eschewing both gameplay and prerendered footage, this trailer for Ubisoft’s open-world action-shooter Watch Dogs (PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360) brilliantly sets up the game’s premise with a starkly delivered blurring of fact and fiction that sounds eminently believable. Watch Dogs is certainly a title to look out for next year.

ZombieU

Zombies. Are we sick of them yet? Ubisoft doesn’t think so, having created one of the year’s most atmospheric trailers for its Wii U-exclusive survival-horror game. The film succeeds in making ordinary environments look extraordinary by subtly twisting our perspective on the dark streets of London.

Dyad

Independent developer Shawn McGrath unleashed his psychadelic musical shooter, Dyad, on the PlayStation 3 this summer. Its original trailer received an unkindly greeting in some quarters, with PlayStation Blog user Mattsta009 saying of its star: “It doesn’t look like that girl is even playing Dyad, she is kind of just holding a controller, acting badly and smiling vacuously at the screen.” In a stroke of genius, McGrath recast himself in the lead role. Watch from 20 seconds in to see him in action. The original trailer is underneath for a neat “compare and contrast” opportunity.

The Last of Us

Proof of the power of soundtrack, developer Naughty Dog used the Hank Williams song “Alone and Forsaken” to great effect in this trailer for upcoming PlayStation 3 action game The Last of Us. The atmosphere seems even more bleak and unforgiving with Williams’ raspy vocals layering on the tension.

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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, the voice of GLaDOS from the Portal series shows up in the trailer for the movie Pacific Rim, Disney buys South Korean game developer Studio Ex, and Call of Duty: Black Ops II gets more zombies, now on the Nuketown map.

You’ll also find reviews for Uncharted: Fight for Fortune and Guardians of Middle-Earth.

News:

• The DeanBeat: The accelerated change of the game industry
• Black Ops II keeps players engaged with the start of League Play and more
• Endgame: Syria — a game that explores the nation’s civil war
• Journey composer is fine with winning a VGA on the red carpet
• This week in the Nintendo Download: Crimson Shroud, Batman, and Adventure Time
• How Gears of War toys are being marketed to children
• Contrary to popular belief, Call of Duty multiplayer engagement is still healthy (exclusive)
• Fight monsters, collect loot, and build a castle in Gree’s new role-playing game
• Miniclip and Univision target Spanish speakers with U.S. online game site (exclusive)
• Portal’s GLaDOS is a movie star — we’re not joking
• Funcom removes subscription requirement for The Secret World
• Everyone’s a winner: Zynga’s new Elite Slots Facebook game
• Call of Duty: Black Ops II developer Treyarch unleashes Zombies on its popular Nuketown map
• McDonald’s includes toys of Moshi Monsters’ virtual pets in Happy Meals
• Historic epic makes history: Assassin’s Creed III hits 7M sold in a month
• It’s dangerous for developers to go alone. Scopely offers help
• Angry Birds animated film to debut in 2016
• How a game design student in California brought Portal to a graphing calculator
• GameLaunched is the new gaming-only crowdfunding platform
• THQ giving away Metro 2033 to promote upcoming Metro: Last Light
• Nokia engineer hacks Windows 8 to get free games (and provides full instructions)
• Xbox 360 to get 40 new entertainment apps on Xbox Live
• The Humble THQ Bundle gets less humble with Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War
• Disney pushes into Asia with purchase of South Korea’s Studio Ex
• PopRox Entertainment’s social game might let you pay off your mortgage
• Games Workshop to release video game adaptation of Space Hulk
• Backers successfully fund Sportsfriends — the bundle of JS Joust and other odd multiplayer games
• Meteor Entertainment taps Live Gamer to power virtual economy and payments for Hawken (exclusive)
• Prepare your controller-throwing hands: Dark Souls II is coming

Mobile News: 

• Apple names top free and paid apps of 2012
• Fit Brains expands its mind-training brand to mobile devices
• Corona Labs acquires cloud service provider Game Minion
• Fiksu introduces real-time bidding tracking to its user-acquisition tool
• Flurry says communication and news mobile apps hold our attention the longest
• After five No. 1 hits, Disney Mobile to launch three new holiday games and four big updates
• Test your knowledge: The first fully synchronous multiplayer trivia game for mobile devices
• OpenKit to release open-source social mobile gaming services with no lock-in for developers
• Block-builder Roblox goes mobile in time for the holidays
• Applifier raises $4M to for expansion into mobile game replays
• Jibe raises $8.3M to build rich, real-time communications for games and apps
• Nintendo releases official Pokédex for iOS — and it costs $5.99 apiece for each region
• A company other than Nintendo is launching its own ‘GamePad’ tablet

Previews:

• Dead Space 3 ain’t a walk in the park (hands-on preview)
• Insomniac’s Fuse promises some intense multiplayer co-op battles (hands-on preview)
• With Company of Heroes 2 multiplayer, ‘every battle tells a story’ (preview)
• Resident Evil 6′s new modes put an undead spin on competitive multiplayer (preview)

Interviews:

• Sony Online Entertainment chief says PlanetSide 2 online frag game is a smashing success (interview)
• Insomniac’s Ted Price says the industry’s malaise mandated drastic changes to Fuse sci-fi game (interview)
• How Journey’s composer ended up working on Leisure Suit Larry (exclusive interview)
• Why Company of Heroes 2 could warm the frozen real-time strategy market (interview)

Reviews:

• Uncharted: Fight for Fortune plays its cards right (review)
• Guardians of Middle-earth dispels the difficulty of online battle arenas (review)

Pieces of flair:

• 10 gorgeous custom game covers (gallery)
• BioShock Infinite’s generic protagonist fits into every game (gallery)
• Here are just the trailers from Spike’s Video Game Awards (you’re welcome)
• How a family of four remade the first Grand Theft Auto V trailer with Lego

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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 value of a Facebook “like” rose today, or maybe the value of THQ’s Metro 2033 dropped.

Either way, a “like” equals a free copy of Metro 2033 on Facebook. Just head to THQ’s Facebook page here, click the “Like” button, and download the game.

Metro: Last Light, the sequel to the sci-fi first-person shooter, is due out in March.

THQ is likely using this as a marketing opportunity to promote the sequel. Commercials and ads on websites can only go so far, but unless people have something to fall back onto, it’s easy for them to overlook a new title.

Other publishers have used similar promotions involving free games, but few have made the process as easy as “liking” something on Facebook.

Before the launch of Borderlands 2, for example, 2K Games offered the original game as one of the free Instant Game Collection titles on Sony’s PlayStation Plus subscription service.

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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 video game industry has always had strong ties to the world of movies, something highlighted by the growing trend of using live-action trailers to help market games.

While such trailers are not new to the industry, the budgets attached to them are growing ever greater, to the point where some wouldn’t look out of place on a Hollywood showreel.

Michael Boniface, the European managing director of APB Reloaded developer Reloaded Productions, spoke to GamesBeat about the trend toward live-action. “The problem with gameplay footage is that it can be more difficult to convey concepts that live-action can do more easily,” said Boniface, “plus there’s still more interest and pickup from live-action. Like it or not.”

Veteran actor James Cosmo (Highlander, Game of Thrones) stars in the trailer for the game Darksiders II, and he sees the two industries growing ever closer. “The video gaming business is now bigger than the film industry. Big movies and big games are merging and becoming something really fascinating,” Mason said. He feels that, thanks to the anarchic nature of YouTube and the Internet, young filmmakers are able to get their work seen more easily and have the chance to blur the worlds of movies and games in a creative way.

Whatever your take on them, these big-budget efforts look set to stay, so it’s just as well that some publishers are doing them right, as you can see from these 10 cinematic gems.

Metro: Last Light

The trailer for upcoming shooter Metro: Last Light (PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360) focuses on the emotional and human impact of the world as we know it coming to an end. Filmed in freezing temperatures in Ukraine, with Mark Patton (Prometheus) as the director of photography, it looks every bit as epic as seasoned commercials director Jim Weedon intended.

The brief given to creative agency Ichi was to fire the collective imagination of first-person shooter fans and reintroduce Metro as a must-play title. The exact words from the THQ marketing team were, “Give us something BIG!”

With 4 million YouTube views during its first four days of release, this film ably demonstrates the impact that live-action trailers can have on the market.

Sleeping Dogs

Square Enix stepped in to buy the half-finished True Crime: Hong Kong when Activision decided to scrap it. Reborn as open-world crime game Sleeping Dogs (PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360), the marketing team enlisted Goldtooth Creative to help create some buzz with this explosive trailer.

Director Paul Furmiger talks in glowing terms about the creative possibilities offered by such live-action game trailers: “When we started creating trailers for gaming companies we were surprised by how much creative license they gave us. It was a bit like the Wild West. Even for this project, the game’s marketing team should really be commended on taking a chance and allowing us to create a live-action trailer for a video game.”

Darksiders II

James Cosmo stars as the manic priest in THQ’s trailer for the action-adventure game Darksiders II (PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii U), along with acting as a narrator in the game. He described the production process as “almost as if we were shooting an great big epic movie, but we only shot for two days. The production quality was on a par with anything you’d see on a big feature movie.”

“Trailers are really exciting things,” Cosmo said, “because you only have a certain amount of time to put over an awful lot of information and an awful lot of feeling, so it’s got to have terrific impact.”

Hawken

Gameplay footage of Hawken, an upcoming free-to-play mech shooter from Adhesive Games,  has already impressed with its atmospheric visuals and explosive energy. This live-action trailer — the first in a series of shorts directed by Gears of War art director Jerry O’Flaherty — takes things up another notch, adding a human element to the drama.

O’Flaherty is looking to put names and faces to the mech pilots in Hawken: “Through these characters I wanted to begin to speak to the fiction behind the game, to introduce people to a mythology that is just as interesting and intriguing as [my] first view of Hawken.”

APB Reloaded

When you relaunch a game that was previously a complete disaster, you’d better do it with a bang. GamersFirst certainly accomplished that with this live-action trailer for the free-to-play massively multiplayer online game APB Reloaded. Using YouTube stars Tobuscus, Katers17, SeaNanners, and SMPfilms as featured extras in the production is also an inventive way of helping spread word about the game.

Boniface told GamesBeat: “The live action with SFX was designed to show the game’s incredible customization in a way which was accessible to a more mainstream viewer, without relying on a bewildering array of different character models.”

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The sensory smorgasbord of the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) heaved itself upon the video game industry for three straight days, and GamesBeat’s intrepid crew enthusiastically hit showfloors, conference halls, and meeting rooms to offer our readers piles of previews, interviews, and news.

What follows below is our collected coverage during the show. You’ll find everything here sorted into categories for easy navigability.

Awards

Who needs stickers? We analyzed, judged, and sorted our top picks for the show’s offerings directly for you. Take a look — the results might surprise you.

GamesBeat’s E3 2012 Game of the Show…plus staff picks – by Dan “Shoe” Hsu

The GamesBeat E3 non-award awards: The least prestigious awards in the industry – by GamesBeat staff

The coolest technologies we saw at E3 2012 – by Dean Takahashi

The best family games of E3 – by GamesBeat staff

The top 8 trends of E3, from bows to brutality – by Mike Minotti

The top 15 swag shirts of E3 2012 – by Rus McLaughlin

Previews

You’ve found the beating heart of E3′s overwhelming magic. Whether from observatory impressions or direct, hands-on experiences, GamesBeat discussed and dissected a sizable stable of upcoming games and hardware.

Hands-on

Hitman Absolution lets you perform hits in giant crowds – by Dean Takahashi

Metro Last Light fights shooter fatigue with deeper single player – by Dean Takahashi

Crysis 3 brings the jungle, gun hacking, and silent stealth kills to Manhattan – by Dean Takahashi

EA reveals Dead Space 3, coming with drop-in cooperative play – by Dean Takahashi

Sleeping Dogs turns Hong Kong crime movies into a video game – by Dean Takahashi

From the creator of Portal, Quantum Conundrum caters to physics-based puzzle gamers – by Dean Takahashi

Capcom remakes hack-slash-shoot-grapple formula with upcoming DmC: Devil May Cry – by Dean Takahashi

Capcom shows three playable characters for Resident Evil 6 – by Dean Takahashi

Finding similarities between Arma III and Carrier Command: Gaea Mission – by Omri Petitte

Neverwinter’s user-generated content could elevate it above the competition – by Stefanie Fogel

DmC: Devil May Cry is full of swagger…and F-bombs – by Eduardo Moutinho

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed leaves Mario Kart in its dust…and wake…and vapor trail – by Mike Minotti

Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch is an anime you can actually play – by Eduardo Moutinho

Sony Online Entertainment’s PlanetSide 2 – by Rob LeFebvre

Slice, dice, and julienne enemies in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance – by Eduardo Moutinho

Medal of Honor: Warfighter deploys fire teams to the front lines – by Eduardo Moutinho

Hell Yeah! is like Metroid with a chainsaw jetpack-riding demon bunny – by Mike Minotti

Dead or Alive 5 wants to deliver a power blow to the competition – by Eduardo Moutinho

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s simplicity is just what consoles need – by Omri Petitte

Hands-off

Just what kind of game is Star Wars 1313? – by Dean Takahashi

Warner Bros. confirms LEGO: Lord of the Rings video game – by Dean Takahashi

EA’s cute The Act romance game exploits iPad’s touchscreen for unique gameplay – by Dean Takahashi

Turn the snow crimson with redcoat blood in Assassin’s Creed III – by Dean Takahashi

Far Cry 3 demo leads you deeper into drug-induced insanity – by Dean Takahashi

Quantic Dream’s Beyond: Two Souls is one of the best games of E3 – by Dean Takahashi

The 5 different games you’ll be playing in Dishonored – by Sebastian Haley

Final Fantasy XIV brings new gameplay and western sensibilities to venerable franchise – by Rob LeFebvre

Windows 8 works hard to meet the needs of all gamers – by Rob LeFebvre

A trio of Mario games strengthen Nintendo’s 3DS lineup – by Mike Minotti

OnLive’s MultiView spectating entices multiplayer and co-op gamers – by Omri Petitte

Player choice matters in The Walking Dead: Episode 2 – by Stefanie Fogel

The Last of Us is even smarter than you think – by Rus McLaughlin

Star Wars 1313 is a game of firsts for the sci-fi franchise – by Eduardo Moutinho

The adventure-game renaissance continues with The Cave – by Eduardo Moutinho

Heroes and villains join forces in Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion – by Mike Minotti

007 Legends proves personality makes or breaks a game – by Omri Petitte

Breaking down what’s exactly new in God of War: Ascension – by Dan “Shoe” Hsu

Turning technology against your friends in Watch Dogs – by Omri Petitte

Interviews

Chasing after the wayward developer or evasive executive amid a sea of journalists and industry luminaries didn’t slake our interview appetite, and we nabbed a slew of thoughtful talks with members across various gaming companies. Take a look.

Why Ubisoft is pouring a lot of resources into Wii U games – by Dean Takahashi

Harvest Moon creator wants to spread happiness with his new game – by Jacob Lopez

How Shenmue’s lead programmer rescued a bad game – by Jacob Lopez

The Last Story developer talks Operation Rainfall, reason for cover system, and Wii U – by Jacob Lopez

With 1.3B tanks obliterated and 30M players, Wargaming.net plans to conquer the online gaming world – by Dean Takahashi

Even Scribblenauts’ creator is surprised by the things people make in his new game – by Jacob Lopez

The Witcher developer CD Projekt RED wants to set new standards with Cyberpunk – by Stefanie Fogel

Japan’s Gree moves mobile gaming into the spotlight at E3 – by Dean Takahashi

THQ’s Brian Farrell talks about looking for a bottom and staging a comeback – by Dean Takahashi

Crytek says CryEngine 3 already does awesome graphics as good as Unreal Engine 4 – by Dean Takahashi

Our opinions

During the craze-filled days of E3, our minds typically busied themselves with ensuring our legs avoided snapping off our torsos and running away with yelping noises. But sometimes, a cohesive thought miraculously coalesced within our overloaded brainpans. Our hands shakily reached for the keyboard, keys started tapping, and well…these are the results.

The DeanBeat: What to expect at E3 – by Dean Takahashi

4 ways developers will use SmartGlass to enhance Xbox 360 experiences – by Dan “Shoe” Hsu

Nintendo’s Wii U: Safe on first, weak on third-party – by Rus McLaughlin

Why Nintendo will have a tough time adding a second GamePad tablet controller to the Wii U – by Dean Takahashi

Tomb Raider is not torture porn – by Rus McLaughlin

Would it be a mistake for E3 to move out of LA? – by Dean Takahashi

Bored, impressed, and giddy: Our final thoughts on E3 2012 – by Dan “Shoe” Hsu

Move over, consoles – mobile is the future – by Rob LeFebvre

Microsoft’s E3 2012: Analysis of 16,000+ comments shows Halo 4, South Park impressed, rest did not – by Andrew Hiscock

Sony’s E3 2012: Analysis shows “shotgun blast” won big, Wonderbook lost – by Andrew Hiscock

Nintendo’s E3 2012: Reactions show hardcore gamers lost faith in Wii U – by Andrew Hiscock

Memes

All it takes is one memorable quote, one Freudian slip, or some facepalm-worthy banter to prompt the Internet community’s creative and unrestrained hand at animated gifs, a worshipful use of Impact font, and hastily jangled Photoshop edits. Here’s what we’ve found.

The best memes of E3 – by Jeff Grubb

Remember these crazy memes from past E3s? – by Jeff Grubb

The wildest memes from the Microsoft E3 press conference – by Jeff Grubb

Silly memes inspired by Sony’s E3 press event – by Jeff Grubb

Aisha Tyler: Ubisoft’s meme machine – by Rus McLaughlin

The oddest Nintendo E3 gifs and Photoshops from the Internet – by Jeff Grubb

Galleries

We snapped plenty of pictures while attending parties, pressers, and meandering the showfloor. Direct your eyeballs upon these galleries, and enjoy the view!

The big gallery of E3′s huge banners – by Mike Minotti

E3 2012 will get your hands up – by Evan Killham

Our editor-in-chief’s E3 adventure – by Evan Killham

The many costumes of E3 2012 – by Jacob Lopez

Retro games have a place at E3, too – by Jasmine Rea

Videos

Dubstep. A beleaguered Lara Croft. Ham-handed hosts. No, this isn’t the latest entry in Alex Trebek’s dream diary — it’s some of our E3 video and trailer content below. Enjoy!

Tomb Raider trailer shows how Lara Croft feels sorry for shooting you – by Dean Takahashi

Konami pre-E3 2012 event: More Castlevania and Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance – by Jasmine Rea

Ubisoft shows strong commitment to the Wii U – by Mike Minotti

6 awkward moments from the E3 press briefings – by Evan Killham

Why we wub wub wub E3 2012: The dubstep of E3 – by Jacob Lopez

Press conferences

Surprises and snooze-fests alike emanated from E3′s five major press briefings held by Microsoft, Electronic Arts (EA), Ubisoft, Sony, and Nintendo. Check out all the announcements and debuts here.

Microsoft (video)

Halo 4 trailer video shows Forerunners, new tech – by Rob LeFebvre

New Splinter Cell: Blacklist borrows from Uncharted – by Jeff Grubb

Gears of War: Judgment sets Sera on fire (again) – by Rus McLaughlin

Microsoft previews Xbox Music at E3 press conference – by Rob LeFebvre

Forza Horizon brings street racing to the franchise – by Jasmine Rea

Microsoft introduces Xbox SmartGlass to integrate smartphones and tablets with Xbox 360 – by Dean Takahashi

Nike+ Kinect Training brings in-depth fitness measuring to Xbox 360 – by Jeff Grubb

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer coming to Xbox 360 this fall – by Jacob Lopez

Usher hits the stage to announce Dance Central 3 – by Rob LeFebvre

Xbox Live is getting Nickelodeon, Machinima, and tons of live sports – by Tom Cheredar

Kinect voice commands hit EA Sports flagship titles – by Eduardo Moutinho

South Park creators introduce their game and playfully mock Microsoft – by Jeff Grubb

New Xbox 360 games coming from Signal Studios, Twisted Pixel, and…Gore Verbinski? – by Stefanie Fogel

Microsoft E3 2012 press conference recap…in limerick form – by Andrew Hiscock

Electronic Arts (video)

SimCity Social: If this free-to-play game is too good, will you pay $60 for the full PC version? – by Dean Takahashi

EA reveals Battlefield 3 Premium and fields “15 million players worldwide” – by Omri Petitte

Star Wars: The Old Republic gets new planet, new species, and free trial – by Jacob Lopez

EA nabs UFC from THQ – by Jeff Grubb

Medal of Honor: Warfighter’s beautiful carnage – by Rus McLaughlin

EA shows off Need for Speed: Most Wanted at E3 – by Rob LeFebvre

Ubisoft (video)

Rayman Legends rhythmically runs to the Wii U – by Eduardo Moutinho

You are the network in Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs – by Rus McLaughlin

Here’s where that Watch Dogs cube-head QR code goes – by Jeff Grubb

Sony (video)

Experimental developer Quantic Dream reveals the haunted life of Jody Holmes in Beyond – by Jasmine Rea

Nathan Drake and the Big Daddy Bouncer join PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royale – by Mike Minotti

J.K. Rowling is writing PlayStation’s Wonderbook – by Rus McLaughlin

Sony announces Assassin’s Creed III Vita and PS3 bundles with exclusive content – by Jeff Grubb

Sony brings down the house with The Last of Us demo – by Dean Takahashi

Sony E3 2012 press conference recap…in limerick form – by Andrew Hiscock

Nintendo (video)

Social networking comes to Wii U, Miiverse will interface with PCs and phones – by Jasmine Rea

First look at action-strategy game Pikmin 3 – by Jeff Grubb

Nintendo confirms 23 games at E3, video streaming, and more for Wii U – by Mike Minotti

Wii Fit U will make you sweatier, livelier, and happier – by Rob LeFebvre

Brag to the Miiverse and take on new modes in New Super Mario Bros. U – by Eduardo Moutinho

Zombify your face with ZombiU for the Wii U – by Mike Minotti

Nintendo bets big on “asymmetric” tablet-based gameplay – one player against several – by Dean Takahashi

Batman: Arkham City Armored Edition utilizes Wii U’s GamePad screen – by Omri Petitte

Nintendo details 3DS Mario titles, Luigi’s Mansion, and third-party games – by Jeff Grubb

Nintendo Land brings asymmetrical multiplayer to Wii U – by Jasmine Rea

Nintendo’s E3 2012 press conference recap…in limerick form – by Andrew Hiscock

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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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Brian Farrell, chief executive of embattled video game publisher THQ, has endured a lot of criticism in the past year as investors have pummeled the company’s stock price and watched as Farrell has had to make cutback after cutback in staffing.

THQ’s bad bet on investing in the uDraw tablet cost the company a lot of money and forced it to accelerate a shift out of kids mass market games into hardcore titles for older players. The company’s revenues fell short during the holidays, and it has scaled back investments in its upcoming Warhammer 40,000: Dark Millennium, changing the format from a massively multiplayer online game to a single-player title.

Another blow landed last week as publishing rival Electronic Arts announced it had won the right to make Ultimate Fighting Championship video games, taking the mixed martial arts franchise away from THQ, a move that will affect THQ’s San Diego, Calif. studio.

But THQ has also had better-than-expected revenues recently, and it hired Jason Rubin, co-founder of Naughty Dog, as president to help turn around the company. We caught up with Farrell at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), the industry’s largest trade show, last week. Here is an edited transcript of our interview.

GamesBeat: You have good games here at E3, but I know it’s been a tough year.

Brian Farrell: It’s been a tough year on a number of levels. We’ve had to completely reposition the company. As you know, for a long time, the kids business was part of our bread and butter. We recognized that the kids business was declining. In fairness, we didn’t move quickly enough out of that business, but now we’re out, totally focused on core, and I think you’re seeing the results here.

GamesBeat: Is there a way to figure out how to find where the bottom is for THQ and where your stable base will be?

Farrell: I think we have not only hit that bottom, but we’re starting to pull out a little bit. Don’t take my word for it, but if you look at our Q4 financial results, we look at that as a template for our future. We have high-quality games. A lot of the upside came from the digital downloads coming from Saints Row: The Third. So you ship a successful game, and the follow-on digital revenue is really strong. We had great cash flow as the result of those two things.

We’ve been talking about the focus word, but now look around. I don’t have to talk about it. Every one of the games we’re showing have some kind of awards or nominations hanging from them. The focus is working. Now, we’re not declaring victory yet. We have a boatload of work to do. But getting Jason Rubin was a huge win. He is a smart, creative, but disciplined guy who has a vision to do even better on the core side. We also share a vision for where the industry is going and where the core business is going on a digital level. I’m personally reenergized. I think a lot of the company is, too.

GamesBeat: It must be hard, still, to hear that the Internet at large is calling for your head. “Why is Brian still here?” or whatever. How do you work with that kind of criticism?

Farrell: [Chuckles] The good news or the bad news, depending on your point of view, is that I’ve been doing this a long time. I’ve been through these troughs before, and I’ve been through the peaks before. Both of those things, the peaks and the troughs, come from products, right?

When we hit good products, we bring a very successful company. And when we’ve not delivered good products, we’ve been in a failure state. In a failure state, I double down in terms of work ethic, dedication to the business. I feel personally responsible for where THQ is right now. I take full responsibility for that. But I’m also taking responsibility until relieved of command for making it work. I’ve done it before. I intend to do it again.

GamesBeat: I guess it still takes a while to change directions or to also make an impact. If you’re doing fewer, more high-impact games, then by necessity it’s going to take a while.

Farrell: I completely agree with that. If you think about what we’ve been saying over the last few months, it’s not a new strategy. It’s just getting there faster. Getting out of the kids business — we said we were heading in that direction, but given what happened with uDraw last year, we did it more immediately. So this is not a new concept, again, if you look at what we’ve done with the smaller slate of titles and the focus, I think you’re going to see a high level of quality on all of those.

Again, the products speak for themselves. Look around the booth and see what’s hanging from the walls. So we’re on that path, we’ve been on that path, and what Jason and I completely agree on. Obviously that’s not where he’s going to have his imprimatur. It’s just a little further out and also in the digital realm. The new business models are emerging. It’s a little too early to talk in specifics about it. But he has a point of view that I’m very supportive of that is right in line with what we’ve been talking about the last couple of years.

GamesBeat: How do you look at your slate as far as decisions that you guys have made? Clearly it’s more focused, they’re bigger games, each release looks better. What else would you observe about this?

Farrell: That’s the business model now, right? Let’s start with Darksiders. Launches in a couple of months. I think that’s another demonstration of our commitment to what we said we were going to do. We said quality core games in a good window. The team came to us a couple of months ago and said, you know, we knew the game was good, but to get it to where it needs to be, we need a couple more months. You know the financial situation of the company. Tough call. But I said, you know what? We said we’re going to do quality games, and we’re going to do quality games. Team, you have an additional two months. I think it’s going to be reflected in the quality.

And also, we checked around in terms of what’s a better window for launching the game? I personally picked up the phone with a couple of key retailers and said, you know, let’s make the right decision here. And we did the right thing for the product. Again, we said we were going to do it, we’re doing it.

One of the pleasant surprises for me this show was Metro. I’ve always been a fan. I don’t know if you remember all the way back to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. — then that same team left and formed a new team to do the original Metro for us. Once again, they needed a little more time with the game. We gave them the time. We’re going to put it away from all the other shooters coming out this holiday, away from Halo, away from Call of Duty.

I think we’re going to have a good window. It’s a unique product, right? Where can THQ stand out? Competing with 100-million-dollar budgets? Probably not. But a new world you’ve never been to before with a feeling and an ambiance that gamers can’t get elsewhere? That’s super cool about Metro. And gamers are recognizing it. So again, time, positioning in the market, competitive window release. We’re doing the right thing by our games.

GamesBeat: And then the UFC thing, was that predictable? Or was that a surprise?

Farrell: Well, it wasn’t a surprise to us. It was something that we were very interested in. We’ve been very clear. Our CFO Paul Pucino has said the break-even on a game is around two million units, plus or minus. We’ve also said that we’ve done about 1.4 million units of UFC 3. An 86-rated Metacritic game, you know what that means in the sports world — that’s really hard to do. Some people did connect those dots.

We were being asked a question: Why are you continuing on with this? Personally, I almost hate to admit this. I love the sport. I have a lot of respect for the Fertittas and Dana White. It’s been a great brand for us, but for us the ability to get cash and invest in things that are more core to our strategy, great for us. Will UFC be a better platform on EA Sports? I’m sure that’s the hope at EA and the UFC, and honestly, we wish them well. I hope to keep going to the events. It’s a win-win-win here.

GamesBeat: I guess it helps that you can get out from under some financial obligations there, that keep on ratcheting up on the marketing… That would have been a burden?

Farrell: Yeah, that and ongoing development on something that wasn’t working for us. Again, great brand, and again, we wish them very well, but again… I think all parties are absolutely delighted with the outcome.

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Each year, during the various press conferences surrounding the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) game-industry trade show, people applaud. Some of it’s polite (some guy we don’t care about is getting on stage). Some of it’s fanfare (yay, a new Zelda!). Some of it’s fake rah-rah (come on, we know you’re employees trying to pump up the crowd).

But once in a while, it’s pure, legitimate wow.

An extended, genuinely enthusiastic ovation awaited the conclusion of publisher/developer Ubisoft’s demo of Watch Dogs, a new modern-day drama/action/adventure game with a touch of cyberpunk. It’s stylish. It’s violent. And it’s oh-so-pretty. Of course, it’s way too early to judge whether this upcoming (date: TBD) Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC release will be any good or not, but read our quick-look preview and peep the gameplay video below to see why we picked Watch Dogs for GamesBeat’s E3 2012 Game of the Show.

Ubisoft’s thriller wasn’t the only star of E3. Here are the final top-threes by the rest of the GamesBeat staff who were in attendance at E3 2012. (To check out more coverage of any of the games, just click on the tags below the article or follow our E3 tag.)

Dan “Shoe” Hsu, GamesBeat editor-in-chief

1. The Last of Us (PlayStation 3)
2. Watch Dogs (multiplatform)
3. Dishonored (multiplatform)

Dean Takahashi, GamesBeat lead news writer

1. Beyond: Two Souls (PlayStation 3)
2. The Last of Us (PlayStation 3)
3. Watch Dogs (multiplatform)

Sebastian Haley, GamesBeat culture editor

1. Metro: Last Light (multiplatform)
2. Watch Dogs (multiplatform)
3. The Cave (multiplatform)

Omri Petitte, GamesBeat writer

1. Watch Dogs (multiplatform)
2. Assassin’s Creed III (multiplatform)
3. PlanetSide 2 (PC)

Mike Minotti, GamesBeat writer

1. Assassin’s Creed III (multiplatform)
2. Disney Epic Mickey: The Power of Illusion (3DS)
3. Rayman Legends (Wii U)

Jacob Lopez, GamesBeat writer

1. Watch Dogs (multiplatform)
2. The Last of Us (PlayStation 3)
3. Scribblenauts Unlimited (Wii U)

Stefanie Fogel, GamesBeat writer

1. The Walking Dead — Episode 2: Starved for Help (multiplatform)
2. Borderlands 2 (multiplatform)
3. Quantum Conundrum (multiplatform)

Rob LeFebvre, GamesBeat writer

1. Watch Dogs (multiplatform)
2. Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch (PlayStation 3)
3. Gravity Rush (PlayStation Vita)

Rus McLaughlin, GamesBeat writer

1. Watch Dogs (multiplatform)
2. The Last of Us (PlayStation 3)
3. Tomb Raider (multiplatform)

Eduardo Moutinho, GamesBeat writer

1. Star Wars 1313 (multiplatform)
2. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (multiplatform)
3. Injustice: Gods Among Us (multiplatform)

Please vote for your own favorite in our poll and explain your vote in the comments.

GamesBeat 2012 is VentureBeat’s fourth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. This year we’re calling on speakers from the hottest mobile, social, PC, and console companies to debate new ways to stay on pace with changing consumer tastes and platforms. Join 500+ execs, investors, analysts, entrepreneurs, and press as we explore the gaming industry’s latest trends and newest monetization opportunities. The event takes place July 10-11 in San Francisco, and you can get your early-bird tickets here.

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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 checkH our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best games stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, 38 Studios founder Curt Schilling calls out the governor of Rhode Island for damaging remarks, Activision settles lawsuit with former Infinity Ward heads West and Zampella, and Trip Hawkins resigns from Digital Chocolate.

You’ll also find previews LEGO: Lord of the Rings, Hitman Absolution, Metro Last Light, and Rock Band Blitz. GamesBeat also reviewed Go Ninja, Dragon’s Dogma, and Mad Riders.

GamesBeat:

The DeanBeat: What to expect at E3

Machinima scores partnership to promote highly anticipated Hawken game (exclusive)

Warner Bros. to bring online battle arenas to consoles with Guardians of Middle-earth

Warner Bros. confirms LEGO: Lord of the Rings video game (preview)

Just what kind of game is Star Wars: 1313?

Hitman Absolution lets you perform hits in giant crowds (hands-on preview)

Konami Pre-E3 2012 event: More Castlevania and Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

Go Ninja is like Canabalt with gore and swords (review)

Activision settles lawsuit with former Infinity Ward heads West and Zampella

Battlefield 3 gets numerous tweaks and fixes, just in time for new $50 “Premium” service

Intel Video Superstars competition calls for gaming filmmakers

Sony next-gen console almost used download-only format

4 celebrities (other than Curt Schilling) whose games failed

The Nordic Game Program matters to everyone

TERA publishing VP reminisces starting a company, westernizing an MMO, and a little friendly competition (exclusive)

Mad Riders is beautiful but flawed (review)

Metro Last Light fights shooter fatigue with deeper single player (hands-on preview)

Dragon’s Dogma is an ambitious open-world action fest (review)

Rock Band Blitz trades peripherals for pandemonium (preview)

THQ attempting creative math to maintain NASDAQ listing

Investigating something wicked in The Secret World

Nvidia demos upcoming Hawken mech game using cloud graphics (video)

VentureBeat

Robert Bowling dishes on his move from AAA to Indie (exclusive)

Game pioneer Trip Hawkins was forming a “rebel alliance” among indie game developers (exclusive)

Kixeye expands to mobile games, creates Australian studio

Microsoft says it has sold 67M Xbox 360s, 19M Kinects, and generated $56B in game revenues

Leisure Suit Larry creator wants “infringing” Kickstarter campaign taken down (exclusive)

Badgeville raises $25M to break out from the pack in gamification

Struggling publisher THQ names game veteran Jason Rubin as president

Gaming pioneer Trip Hawkins resigns from Digital Chocolate

Curt Schilling dings Rhode Island governor for damaging remarks on 38 Studios

5 Hit Points: We quiz the creators of You Don’t Know Jack

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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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Rubin will report to Brian Farrell, who remains chairman and chief executive. But Danny Bilson, who has headed THQ’s creative efforts in recent years, is resigning his post as executive vice president to pursue other interests.

THQ is one of the largest publicly traded video game publishers in the U.S., but it has been troubled by a dearth of hits, a shift in gamer tastes, and an ill-advised bet on a drawing tablet during the last holiday season.

It remains to be seen whether the appointment will be enough to lift the company’s stock price. THQ needs its price to go above a dollar a share or it faces delisting from NASDAQ. The stock is flat in after-hours trading.

Rubin has been involved in creating hit video games for more than 20 years. He will be responsible for all of THQ’s worldwide product development, marketing, and publishing operations.

Rubin is best known as the co-founder of Naughty Dog and was the co-creator of titles such as Crash Bandicoot and Jak and Daxter. Those games sold more than 40 million units worldwide. He and co-founder Andy Gavin sold the company to Sony in 2001. And Rubin led the Naughty Dog team until 2004. He co-founded Flektor, a media mashup tool, which Fox acquired in 2007.

“Jason’s proven track record in the industry speaks for itself, and he is one of the brightest minds in the business,” said Farrell in a statement. “We believe he can be a game changer and can contribute immensely to executing on our strategy of delivering quality connected core game experiences.”

“THQ has incredible internal and external game development teams and an exciting slate of games in its development pipeline,” said Rubin. “The recent transformation of THQ into a creator of wholly-owned IP has placed it in a perfect position to leverage future trends in the game business. I look forward to working with the management team and board to realize the company’s goals.”

THQ is realigning its focus from a maker of licensed games to a developer of AAA games for core audiences. It has titles coming such as Darksiders II, Saint’s Row: The Third — Enter the Dominatrix, Company of Heroes 2, South Park: The Game, WWE 13, and Metro: Last Light. Jason Kay, co-founder of Flektor, has been appointed chief strategy officer at THQ. Dave Davis, senior vice president at THQ, is also leaving the company.

Regarding Bilson, Farrell said, “Danny has made significant contributions to THQ, and we thank him for his efforts. Along with Danny, Dave has been instrumental in getting our strong pipeline into production.”

GamesBeat 2012 is VentureBeat’s fourth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. This year we’re calling on speakers from the hottest mobile, social, PC, and console companies to debate new ways to stay on pace with changing consumer tastes and platforms. Join 500+ execs, investors, analysts, entrepreneurs, and press as we explore the gaming industry’s latest trends and newest monetization opportunities. The event takes place July 10-11 in San Francisco, and you can get your early-bird tickets here.

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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 got a look at a preview of Metro Last Light, and it looks beautiful, if that’s the right way to describe a title with a horrific environment and so many ways to die. If Ukrainian developer 4A Games follows through on this game’s promise, I believe the game could help turn around publisher THQ and breathe some new life into the first-person shooter market, which has been dominated by Call of Duty and Electronic Arts’ Battlefield and Medal of Honor games.

To many gamers, that shooter market has become stale. Metro Last Light is fresh because it shifts the point of view to the Russian perspective (rather than the typical American or Western view) after a nuclear holocaust. And it offers a deeper single-player story.

“Are you mourning the death of first-person shooter single-player campaigns?” asked Huw Beynon, head of communications for THQ in the first presentation of the game for journalists since it was unveiled a year ago. “This is our bid to combat shooter fatigue. We are crafting a single-player experience that players will remember for years to come. Metro Last Light is more than just a shooter.”

It is an action-adventure game where you have to scrounge to find supplies and level up your weapons and character. The environment itself is hostile, and players have be wary of radiation and stay out of the way of mutated predators that roam the ruins of Moscow.

THQ released the first cinematic video trailer showing the story behind Last Light last week, and it’s quite well done. That trailer tells the story of a nuclear war from the Eastern European view, showing the mad rush to the shelter of the subway in Moscow after nuclear missiles are fired. Twenty years later, humans emerge from the subways, only to find horrifying predators such as giant rats, huge bats, and gargantuan spiders.

“This is not a western vision of the apocalypse,” said Beynon.

THQ has gone deeper with the story-based play in this game than the first version, which was based on a novel by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky.

In the trailer, an old man listening to a short-wave radio hears about the onset of nuclear war. He warns people to start moving to the Metro, or the underground subway, in Moscow. No one believes him until the emergency alarms go off. A woman who was singing to her baby runs toward the Metro entrance. Moscow’s own nuclear missiles launch into the air and a panic ensues.

The trailer is set in 2013, and it features an all-Russian cast. Not a word of English is spoken unless you count the prophet of doom screaming, “Armageddon! Armageddon!” But you can understand exactly what is happening. The woman with the baby shouts at a Russian officer guarding the entrance to the subway. She gives him her baby. He takes it, and heads underground. The doors close, and the nuclear bombs go off.

This kind of memory comes back to the main character in the form of flashbacks, allowing the gamer to see a ruined site in its former glory. This kind of drama is a step up from the story of the original title, Metro 2033, which debuted in the spring of 2010. When Artyom, the main character, emerges from the Metro subway, nothing stands except the stone shells of buildings. He is accompanied by a guide who helps him navigate the terrain.

Instead of shooting everything that moves, Artyom and his companion hide from herds of wild animals. They look for bullets and have to save ammunition by pummeling giant spiders with their gun butts. They wear gas masks and have to search for fresh filters.

Artyom is attacked by a flying bat-like creature and has to aim carefully with each shot in order to keep from wasting ammo. When the fighting gets hairy, Artyom can toss a Molotov cocktail at attackers. Rain falls and the characters note how they haven’t seen such a thing since before the war. Artyom and his guide find a downed airliner full of supplies. When they reach the cockpit, Artyom has a full-blown cinematic flashback to the plane’s final minute as it crashed into a nuclear fireball.

The realism is gritty. Artyom has to wipe spider guts from his gas mask so that he can see better. Giant rats charge the two shooters, who have to flee and fire backward as they can. They reach the door to the subway with seconds to spare. Three friendly soldiers pop out to assist, blasting back at the giant rats with flamethrowers. Artyom and his friend escape into the protection of the underground Metro. Such is daily life in Moscow of the future.

The game is coming out in 2013 and is approaching its alpha test version. THQ has its financial problems right now. But if it can last long enough to have this game see the light of day, it just might be around to make a third Metro game.

Check out our video intervew with Mark Madsen, global brand manager for the Metro franchise. And below that is the cinematic short film for the game.

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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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In an SEC filing on Friday, THQ informed the agency that it plans to propose a reverse stock split at a June 29 shareholder meeting. The reverse stock split will collapse the number of shares outstanding on the market from 68.5 million down to 22.8 million (1:3 reduction), 13.7 million (1:5), or 6.8 million (1:10) depending on which ratio the board decides is best for the publisher. These proposed reductions would increase the stock price from its current (according to the paperwork filed with the SEC) $0.68 to $2.04, $3.39, or $6.80 respectively.

THQ’s board hopes to raise the price of the common share above $1.00 with this action. The NASDAQ, home of the THQ stock, requires that a company must consistently trade above $1.00 to maintain a listing on the market. In January, NASDAQ warned the Saints Row: The Third developer that it would be delisted from the index if it could not regain compliance with that minimum bid by July 23, 2012.

This will not increase THQ’s current market valuation of $41.75 million. In fact, investors typically view the reverse-split tactic as a desperate maneuver and could respond by decreasing the company’s perceived value even further.

THQ is still in the thick of a company-wide realignment after a tough fiscal 2012. In its last quarterly investor report, where it announced a $95 million operating loss for the year, the publisher reaffirmed its new commitment to AAA games.

“We exceeded our initial fourth quarter guidance for net sales, earnings and cash position, driven by high quality core games with a significant digital component, which is the blueprint for our future,” said THQ President and CEO Brian Farrell. “We have made significant changes to our business, and are on track to execute our strategy of delivering quality connected core gaming experiences, beginning with the sequel to the award-winning Darksiders in August.”

The publisher has cut back $30 million on its investment in kids’ titles and expects to sell through its stock of uDraw tablets during fiscal year 2013. In making these changes, the company racked up $62.8 million in “business realignment” expenses. The Nickelodeon and uDraw lineup of games appear to be the great boondoggles responsible for THQ’s current financial predicament.

THQ continues to publish downloadable content for Saints Row: The Third, including the recently released Penthouse Pack of characters featuring real models from Penthouse magazine. This August, the corporation will release Darksiders II for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC. In September, the developer will release a new, stand-alone addition to the Saints Row: The Third universe titled Enter the Dominatrix. By the end of 2012, the annualized WWE wrestling sim will hit all major consoles.

For 2013, THQ is preparing Company of Heroes 2, Metro: Last Night, and South Park: The Game.

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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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Metro Last Light, the sequel to the first-person shooter game Metro 2033, is coming out in 2013. Today, THQ released the first video trailer showing the story behind Last Light, and it’s quite well done.

In the trailer, an old man listening to a short-wave radio hears about the onset of nuclear war. He warns people to start moving to the Metro, or the underground subway, in Moscow. No one believes him until the emergency alarms go off. A woman who was singing to her baby runs toward the Metro entrance. Moscow’s own nuclear missiles launch into the air and a panic ensues.

The trailer is set in 2013, and it features an all-Russian cast. Not a word of English is spoken unless you count the prophet of doom screaming, “Armageddon! Armageddon!” But you can understand exactly what is happening. The woman with the baby shouts at a Russian officer guarding the entrance to the subway. She gives him her baby. He takes it, and heads underground. The doors close, and the nuclear bombs go off.

The original Metro 2033 debuted in the spring of 2010. It was based on the post-apocalyptic novel of the same name by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky, and it was made by 4A Games, a Russian developer that helped make the shooter Stalker: Shadows of Chernobyl. Metro 2033 features a ragtag group of survivors living underground in the Metro subways of Moscow. They go to the surface to scavenge for materials, but they face horrific mutated monsters that are only too happy to eat humans for a meal. 4A is also making Metro Last Light.

Last Light’s live-action video is really moving, and it establishes the origins and setting for the game quite clearly. It’s an example of video game marketing at its best since it aims to hook the player emotionally into the title’s fiction.

The video closes with a soldier wearing a gas mask and then switches into game art, showing the mass destruction in Moscow 20 years after the attack. Nothing stands except the shells of stone buildings and the facade of the Metro, where survivors live underground. The trailer closes by revealing that the game is coming in 2013, assuming, of course, that the world doesn’t come to an end first.

This kind of game is critical for THQ to establish its reputation as a high-quality game maker. The Calabasas, Calif.-based company is one of the big publicly traded video game publishers, but it’s a lot smaller than rivals such as Activision Blizzard and could use more repeat-hit franchises.

Metro Last Light takes place in 2034, a year after the last game. It is more than two decades after a nuclear war all but extinguished mankind. Humanity is on the edge, living in places such as the Metro beneath Moscow. Most people living in this era never see the sun and often don’t get much more than 500 yards from where they were born.

Humans have a lot of horrible beasts to worry about, both in in the subterranean world and above ground. But now they’re stuck in a civil war over a Doomsday weapon that could very well finish off the apocalypse. You play the hero Artyom, the “last light” for humans before they slip into the darkness.

I’ve seen a scene from the game and it’s a good first-person shooter. The gas masks that the enemy humans wear and the dark, dreary world remind me of Sony’s Killzone games. The game play combines stealth and all-out machine gun fire. The ruins afford a lot of cover. It isn’t a pure run-and-gun experience, where you can charge into the environment hoping for the best.

One scene I watched showed some stealth kills, followed by a fierce firefight with some fascist-like enemies. It’s not easy to take down heavily armored shooters, but the gun play is quite satisfying. The rolling gun battle moved onto railroad cars where you could duel with the enemy in the other railroad car chasing you.

The developer (4A Games) acknowledged the first game was rough around the edges, so it’s working on developing a more polished game. In this game, the graphics are great, with a lot of cool lighting in the semi-darkness.

The developers say the game will have a deep story and plot twists that will keep players engaged. The game will appear in 2012 on the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Get ready to “fight for every bullet and breath” in the claustrophobic, immersive world of Metro Last Light.

We’ll be exploring the most disruptive game technologies and business models at our third annual GamesBeat 2011 conference, on July 12-13 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. It will focus on the disruptive trends in the mobile games market. GamesBeat is co-located with our MobileBeat 2011 conference this year. To register, click on this link. Sponsors can message us at sponsors@venturebeat.com. To participate in our Who’s Got Game? contest for the best game startup, click on this link.

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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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