On Monday, gaming fans lined up in front of electronics and gaming stores to await the midnight launch of Diablo III, Blizzard Entertainment’s latest action role-playing game in the series that kick-started the genre back in 1996. Gamers had been waiting more than 12 years since the last installment descended upon PCs and devoured the lives of millions, so what was another 12 or so hours?

People wait in line outside the Best Buy electronics store at Bay and Dundas Street in downtown Toronto at around 11:00 pm. Many near the front of the line sat patiently in their lawn chairs. The line stretched to the street corner and around the bend, slowly growing south down Bay Street.

Angelo Kiustenglou entered the line at 12 noon, fully dressed as a Necromancer from Diablo II. It’s his first-ever cosplay. Best Buy (and the Future Shop up the street) offered contests exclusive to people who made the effort to show up in costume. Plus, Angelo says, “it’s the one chance I get to stand in the middle of downtown with a suit of golden armour on.”

Angelo’s 15-year-old brother Frankie came dressed as a Barbarian, and spoke entirely “in-character” with a growl and the occasional guttural warcry. As he shouted during our short chat, passersby shouted in reply, and it became an impromptu Waaaagh!-off in the middle of the city.

When asked how the wait had been outside, shirtless no less, he described it as “painful,” although that might have had more to do with his not having the game in his hands yet more than anything.

“And I’m kind of hungry. But, you know, I’m committed here.”

This Demon Hunter was called out of line for photographs almost constantly, thanks to her fantastic costume. In case you were wondering, those are special contact lenses, not camera red-eye.

These two cosplayers were part of Best Buy’s launch party crew, which included people giving away mousepads, posters and energy drinks to those waiting in line.

First in line were Oscar “Cayo” Gonzalez, left, and Tad Yuan. If Cayo looks familiar, that’s because he was at the front of the line at the very same store at the Starcraft II midnight launch in 2010.

While both are die-hard Blizzard fans, Yuan is in line specifically for the $100 Collector’s Edition. “I just want the collector’s edition. I got a Starcraft II collector’s edition, and a WoW [World of Warcraft] collector’s edition.”

“So you’re collecting…collector’s editions?” says Cayo.

“Yeah,” replies Yuan, sheepishly.

Why do they love the Diablo games enough to wait in line for 12 hours? “The replayability, and the random nature of the game,” explains Cayo. “And the loot, man. The loot.”

Best Buy’s entrance was adorned by a display from graphics company AMD, including Diablo III trailers, mousepads, and headsets, along with the Health and Mana-coloured light-boxes.

We’re not sure why DiRT 3 was loaded on the main computer. If they were trying to promote the upcoming DiRT Showdown, it fell on deaf ears.

Outside the Future Shop at Yonge and Dundas Streets, the lineup stretched west past the future site of the Silver Snail comic store, all the way to Gould Street and Ryerson University.

A man on a bike passes by. He asks: “Yo, what’s everyone lining up for?”

“Diablo III!” answers one man.

“Oh, shiit!” the cyclist replies.

Left to right: Shanker, Tyler, Eric, George and their friend Michael (not pictured, holding the fort on the lawn chair behind them) arrived between 6 and 7 am Monday morning to make it to the front of the line. The group works at the same company. They booked off vacation time to wait in line.

They’ve been in line for the entire day, as the store opened and closed for its regular hours. “We were here before the store opened. We watched people walk to work, and then laughed at us when they were walking home from work,” said Tyler, who also plays Starcraft II competitively.

“Blizzard owns us,” said George, on behalf of the entire group of Diablo veterans. “We’ll do anything they say.” They described the plan to come to the midnight launch, including coming in a large enough group to get food while others keep their place in line.

Anton Richter showed up dressed as the archangel Tyrael, including a garb that completely obscured his face and possibly scared the heck out of a few pedestrians.

The 18-year-old was introduced to Diablo II by his father, and his love of the games grew from there. “I’ve just been a fan of Blizzard games for a while, I really like the Diablo games, and I just felt like doing something for this.”

At the new EB Games store closer to Yonge and Queen Streets, the doors were wide open well before midnight. Clerks clocked in the sales ahead of the actual launch. At 12:00 am, those who had already paid needed only to show their receipt, get a stamp and pick up the game.

The two-tiered launch system had worked out for EB in the past. According to several of the associates and supervisors working the midnight event, this allowed them to move roughly 500 copies of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 during its midnight launch last November.

The EB Games store five minutes to midnight. Fans, their receipts in hand, slowly filed to the resigter area for a second time to pick up their copies of Diablo III. They then walked up and down the streets, carrying their bags and purchases proudly.

Of course, had they known the ensuing days would be plagued with server errors and downtime, perhaps some of them might not have made the trek for the launch. But for the moment, it was a coming together of fans and die-hards for the most pre-ordered PC game of all time, and something surely to be remembered.

Mors Westford brings the pain in Game of Thrones: The Game. (Cyanide Studios)

Fans of the Game of Thrones television show should take care: Game of Thrones: The Game is first and foremost an old-school role playing game. The game looks as though it was designed with RPG fans in mind as opposed to offering something more familiar for fans of the television series. In many ways, GoT:TG has more in common with George Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire books than the HBO drama. Still, the developers managed to work in the likenesses of some of the characters from the show offering a little continuity between the game and the HBO series.

GoT:TG relies on standard RPG systems of inventory management, loot gathering, skill trees, lengthy dialogue scenes, and slower/strategic combat. The section of the game we played took place in King’s Landing – specifically Chataya’s Brothel and the dungeons and labyrinths below the Red Keep. The visuals are not overly impressive but the twisting alleyways of city and the dark dungeons under the Red Keep feel right for the world of Westeros.

It seems that most of the player’s time will be spent in combat or engaging in long conversations between characters. Combat centers on selecting, readying, and activating skills and abilities to create a series of attacks. This means that the player must choose carefully in order to ensure that Mors or Alester can use ranged, melee, and healing abilities in the right order for maximum effect.

Character abilities are accessed through radial menus. While accessing them, the game does not pause but everything simply slows down (similar to what you’ll find in The Witcher 2). As a result you can still be attacked while searching for the right ability to activate, which offers a bit of extra tension and strategy to the game.

Thankfully, it looks like the Game of Thrones RPG is not trying to pander to the fans of the HBO series but is a game designed with gamers and RPG fans in mind. Fans of the books may also have incentive to play since the game will visit locations the HBO series has either ignored or not yet covered. The game also features its own unique 30-hour narrative that takes place near the end of book one – Atlus’ Aram Jabbari mentioned that people around the realm are still talking about Ned Stark, “and it will rhyme with his first name, if you know what I mean.”

Overall, Game of Thrones: The Game looks promising as a throwback to old-school RPGs with a focus on careful character progression, thoughtful leveling, and strategic gameplay. It launches May 15 on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC

Make sure to check out our interview with Aram Jabbari, PR & Sales Manager at Atlus, as he talks with us about Game of Thrones.

Lena Headey's likeness as Cersei Lannister in Game of Thrones: The Game (Cyanide Studios)

Much of the western world is currently enthralled by Westeros, thanks to the HBO series Game of Thrones adapted from George R. R.  Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire novels. It’s probably no surprise, then, that a videogame is in the works. What might surprise you, however, is that Game of Thrones: The Game has been in development for more than seven years.

Cyanide Studios, the company known for other videogames based on classic fantasy franchises such as Blood Bowl and Confrontation, got together with HBO when both parties were deep in development of their respective projects to make sure that the game included some of the now-iconic elements of HBO’s interpretation.

We spoke with Aram Jabbari, PR & Sales Manager at the game’s publisher Atlus, at Sony’s PlayStation Spring Showcase. We chatter about what players can expect when they boot up GoT:TG and how familiar the settings and characters will be to those who have been faithfully following the television series.

Dork Shelf: When did development start on the game, and how did you interact with HBO while it was working on the television show?

Aram Jabbari: The game’s development began well before the show. The developers, Cyanide, came to George Martin with an idea for the game that added to the canon but didn’t break it. They wanted something that was like a new book. They worked on it together and they got it to a point that it was true to Game of Thrones.

(Cyanide Studios)

DS: How familiar will the game be to those who watch the HBO show, but haven’t read the books?

AJ: James Cosmo, who plays Commander Mormont, lent his voice and his likeness. Conleth Hill, who plays Lord Varys, lent his voice and likeness. Lena Headey lent her likeness to the game. It’s a really great partnership with HBO. The developers reached out to them and they were able to forge that relationship.

When HBO aired the show, Cyanide had the opportunity to work with HBO to put in the voices, the likenesses, those elements, the music, into the game, and you can kind of see that, especially in the pre-order bonus art book that we’re giving out.

But there are things, in almost every place, [from the original designs.] But no one who watches the show will say to themselves, “this looks very different.” A lot of elements are very loyal to the very successful interpretation that HBO created. But there are vestiges of the fact that Cyanide has been working for seven years, from the conceptual stage to the completion, to make this game a reality.

DS: Who are the characters that we follow in GoT: TG?

AJ: You play as one of two original characters, Mors Westford and Alester Sarwick. One of the reasons for two original characters is the ability to tell a new story as opposed to being locked into deaths and all sorts of other fixed histories that the other characters are in.

Mors is a sworn brother of the Night’s Watch, Alester is a red priest of R’hllor. They both get a mission to find a girl by the name of Jane, and by that point forward, they are on a collision course with each other. So you don’t really know what this girl’s nature is, or what the purpose of this is, but that’s where things really get going. And you go from The Wall to King’s Landing, you go to new areas as well. Overall it’s like: you’ve read it, you’ve watched it, now you get to play it.

DS: At what point during the Song of Ice and Fire timeline does GoT: TG take place?

AJ: The events happen roughly around the end of the first book. You’ll hear people talking about Ned Stark, and it will rhyme with his first name, if you know what I mean.

DS: What locations will we see and visit throughout the game?

AJ: There are a number of different places in King’s Landing – for example the Iron Throne Room. At The Wall you’ll be able to visit Castle Black. You’ll be able to go to Mole’s Town, but as well there are a number of elements, characters maybe, who don’t appear in the HBO show, who either haven’t appeared yet or maybe have been written out entirely, like Chataya and her brothel in King’s Landing, Quorin Halfhand, and references to a lot of other characters in the books.

DS: How open are the environments in the game? Will we be able to explore the cities in any great depth?

AJ: For the most part the game is linear, because it’s so heavily driven by the story, it’s not an open world game in the Skyrim sense. It’s much more akin to a game like Dragon Age: Origins, the original Witcher. You’ll go to new areas and you’ll have the opportunity for main quests and side quests and things like that. You’ll be able to explore around King’s Landing, for example, but ultimately the game is a chapter-by-chapter perspective that alternates back and forth just like the books, and you’re moving towards, ultimately, the narrative’s conclusion.

DS: What was it like harmonizing the videogame with the television show when Cyanide and HBO were already knee-deep in their own versions of the projects?

SJ: That’s one of those things where the developers had done a lot of work, but they recognized the importance of how popular the show would become, and it was one of those things where they felt like it would add much richness to the game. To have the music, this is so iconic to the show, to have the visuals and likenesses that are so iconic.

Stay tuned later this week, when Dork Shelf’s James Farrington takes up the sword (or DualShock 3, as it were) and gives us his gameplay impressions.

Game of Thrones: The Game launches May 15 on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC.

Toronto's Berkeley Church adorned in Assassins' garb

Few places in Toronto are as appropriate for an Assassin’s Creed event as the Berkeley Church on Queen and Parliament. Originally built in 1871, it’s a mix of the modern and the historical – a perfect fit for the time-jumping, history-shaping saga that continues this week with the release of Ubisoft’s latest chapter in the series, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations.

Banners with series stalwarts Ezio Auditore and Altair Ibn-La’Ahad draped over the building’s entrance. To the side, flickering braziers could make a visitor wonder if they had been invited to a clandestine Templar gathering. Inside, multiple television screens were hooked up to Xbox 360 consoles, allowing guests and the media to try out Revelations‘ multiplayer mode, improved and expanded from last year’s version in Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood.

Darby McDevitt, lead writer for Revelations and the tie-in short film AC: Embers, ran though a demonstration of the game’s single player story. An older, burlier Ezio Auditore is joined by a team of assassins on their way to meet the young Prince Suleiman in Constantinople, while also protecting him from potential Templar attempts on his life.

The sequence began with the need for more subterfuge than usual – procuring disguises to enter a party thrown by Suleiman’s family, not unlike the festive scenes in Venice we’ve seen before. To do that, McDevitt-as-Ezio punches the living daylights out of those irritating minstrels, throws them into a straw wagon, and then dresses as one himself – including the ability to play the lute as a distraction.

Once at the party, Ezio uses his Eagle Vision to find the Templar infiltrators. Once found, he plays the lute – often singing a ditty belittling the Borgias from Brotherhood – distracting the crowd. Meanwhile his Assassin brothers grab the Templar, dispatch them with a trademark Snikt, and throw them in down a well or behind a bush. The crowd at the Berkeley Church roared with laughter at every Templar’s demise, punctuated by the juxtaposition of onlookers applauding Ezio’s performance.

Left to right: Art director Raphaël Lacoste, Revelations and Embers writer Darby McDevitt, Live Producer Andréane Meunier, Embers Producer Louis-Pierre Pharand and Marketing Brand Manager Carl Caldareri

The event’s host, Shaun Hatton, then sat down with McDevitt to talk about Revelations and where it fit into the Assassin’s Creed lore. They were joined by Live Team Producer Andreane Meunier, who oversees the multiplayer mode’s development, and Art Director Raphael Lacoste.

Hatton asked about the creative process for making a Creed game – which comes first, the game mechanics, or the story? McDevitt answered that, at least for AC2, the Renaissance was the first thing they decided upon. After that, “you immediately start to imagine a character in that world, and because he’s part of the Assassin’s order, how does that fit into the first game?”

For Revelations, “we looked around in history, wondering what else was going on in history while the Renaissance was going on [in Italy]. We looked to the east and realized there’s this amazing city called Constantinople. We saw this chunk of Ezio’s life where we said that yeah, he could plausibly go there – because there were certain questions that we wanted to have answered.”

When asked about fan interaction, McDevitt said he reads many online forum discussions to see what the fans of the games are talking about, and also what plot points they are feverishly debating.

“Around the time when I’m making the script, I will read the forums a lot, because I want to know the topics that the fans are arguing about, and getting into flame wars about. Because maybe there’s something that makes me think, ‘oh, you know, I didn’t even intend for that to be confusing. I should probably answer that question.’”

Meuning’s mission statement deals with the multiplayer component, “we’re really giving you a new inside look at what’s happening on the Templar side,” she explains. “You’ll have people from [Abstergo] talking to you, and it’ll probably let you in on a lot of secrets that are blurring the line of good and bad, Assassins versus Templars, and you’ll probably realize that there’s a lot more to the story than just the Assassins’ side of things.”

As for Constantinople itself, Lacoste said he and his team worked hard to introduce a wider array of vistas, colours, and personality to the different areas in the game compared to Rome in Brotherhood. He noted they especially paid attention to the large buildings such as the Hagia Sophia and Topkapi Palace, making no secret about the amount of planning it took to make sure Ezio would be able to climb and traverse the locations with aplomb. “It was a great challenge to re-create the city of Constantinople,” said Lacoste. “We hope it’s an exotic, fresh new experience for the players.”

As for the team’s Dork Shelves? McDevitt’s includes the collected works of Orson Welles, PC classic Another World, “all the Lucasarts Sierra games,” and two copies of Dark Souls. Lacoste owns several reference books about architecture, and his favourite designer is American Frank Lloyd Wright.

Meunier says she currently has a homemade, in-progress crochet Sackboy. “It’s mising a limb right now…I’ve been working on it for six months on-and-off.”

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations launches this Tuesday, November 15, on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. PC gamers will have to wait until November 29th.

Alexandre Breault, Ubisoft’s lead game designer for Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, gave Dork Shelf a rundown of the game’s latest preview build at Microsoft’s X-11 holiday preview event last week. Taking place early in the single-player narrative, a beardy, burly Ezio Auditore is on his way to Masyaf, former stomping grounds of his predecessor Altair, which is now overrun by Templars.

We begin on a horse-drawn carriage, racing alongside a mountainous setting in the middle of a cloudy snowfall, towards the gate to Masyaf. He’s after the captain of the Templar contingent here, who’s in possession of the key to the stronghold. Some Templar guards throw a bomb in his direction, blasting the cart apart and sending him flying down the rocky hills. Ezio plunges into the freezing waters below, but groggily makes his way to the shore. His character model is visibly hurt, limping and grunting in the cold air with every step. It’s not enough to impede his progress, however, as he scales the walls of Masyaf while dispatching several guards in the process.

Eventually he reaches a small town area, with a few citizens making their way through the shops and alleys as comfortably as the weather allows. It’s a sparsely populated area unlike most of the Italian city-states in the last two Creed games; the new (old?) setting alone makes for a refreshing change of pace. Ezio picks up some supplies from an abandoned doctor’s station, restoring his health and posture. As Breault explains, throughout the game the player will have to defend territory previously won over (as with the Borgia Towers in AC: Brotherhood). These attacks will be initiated by the player just like any other side mission, instead of popping up randomly. “We didn’t want the player to be forced out of his mission in order to defend the district.”

A small messenger box next to a stable allows Breault to enter the bomb-crafting screen, showing materials and some impressive cross-section diagrams of various bombs. Surprisingly, the player can dismantle bombs currently in his inventory to use their constituent parts to make other varieties: in this case, Breault uses parts from trip wires to make impact shell bombs, which will be more useful in upcoming conflicts.

At one location of the town, two paths branch off with little indication of where to go next. Here Breault shows a new feature of the Eagle’s Vision: a ghost of the Templar Captain appears, revealing his movements from earlier in the day. Ezio follows. Along the way he perforates a single guard, then sets a proximity bomb on his body. Hiding in a nearby pile of hay, he watches as a group of patrolling guards approach their comrade’s body before it explodes, sending “pieces of Eden” flying everywhere.

We eventually run into a large group of Templar warriors to show off the modest, but noticeable evolution of the combat system. Perhaps befitting Ezio’s age, each swing of the enemy’s sword that he blocks with his own comes with a thunderous clang, causing the screen to blur with recoil for a split-second. He drops a caltrops bomb before legging it. Caltrops are small bits of metal tied together, resembling the “barbs” on a barbed wire fence, preventing guards from following Ezio unless they want a foot full of shrapnel. Ezio climbs a wall, prompting the camera to change to a third-person view of enemy guards nearby firing with reckless abandon, affording the player few options other than to move as fast as possible.

Even with over half a dozen enemies on the screen, the frame rate didn’t slow down once. The overall graphical detail has been cranked up significantly from Brotherhood, and is impressive considering the console versions of the last installment were prone to chugging frame rates. The visual design has also improved, evidenced by the ornate armour on both Ezio and the Templar soldiers.

At the top of the tower, Ezio has his target, the Templar Captain, at his mercy. One Hidden Blade later, and the captain has a few words of protest before he slumps awkwardly on his knees to an ignoble death. Ezio picks up the key from the body, which turns out to also be a special artifact that allows him to re-live the memories of Altair.

Next we’re transported to a memory sequence with Altair, speaking with his mentor Al Mualim before the events of the first Assassin’s Creed. The demo ends shortly after the cut-scene, leaving behind – as usual – more questions than answers. Assassin’s Creed: Revelations is due for a simultaneous release on both PC and the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on November 15.

Rocksteady Studios showed off a preview build of Batman: Arkham City at Microsoft’s X-11 event last week, and we had a chance to romp through a wrecked of Gotham’s biggest prison yard ever. Unsurprisingly, we left as excited as the previews and trailers have been making us over the past year, and then some.

Batman is on his way to the court house we’ve seen in previous trailers, following the trail of Catwoman. Environmental design shines here; angular hallways are filled with portraits of judges in silly white wigs and dour expressions, their eyes seemingly judging your every move. Climbing the stairs to the upper level, Batman crosses a tightrope above Two-Face and about two dozen thugs. The player can initiate the inevitable chaos any number of ways. Throwing an errant Batarang into the crowd doesn’t really give you any advantages, so instead we use the new dive-bomb mechanic to land right on top of one poor, unfortunate soul and send half a dozen others flying in a move that’s more Bruce Banner than Bruce Wayne.

Half the thugs flee in terror while a sizable group stays behind to beat to a pulp. Some of them mirror their head Rogue, clad in split white and black clothing and equally eerie half-white, half-black paint. The fighting mechanics in Arkham City shine here, expanding on Arkham Asylum‘s foundation. Batman weaves between the foes, countering attacks with the Y button, occasionally smacking two thugs into each other for a double-K.O. One enemy throws a wooden chair at the player, but a quick counter (denoted by the same “Spider Sense” symbol as a thug’s regular hits) allows you to catch it and hurl it back at the enemy, both chair and face exploding into splinters, eliciting one of many OOOHH’s from the crowd watching the screen.

“Try holding the left trigger and pressing A for the last guy,” the Rocksteady rep suggests. Batman shoots out his grappling hook at the last enemy, pulling him in Mortal Kombat Scorpion-style, then levels him with a scintillating clothesline.

Soon after, Batman and a newly-freed Catwoman are shot at by a sniping Joker from several blocks away. In order to determine the trajectory of the bullet, we have to set up a crime scene using the revamped Detective Mode. Two bullet holes are highlighted in fluorescent yellow, allowing the player to scan them in a very Metroid Prime-esque fashion. We then get a short cutscene that follows the trajectory to a bell tower a few blocks away. It’s off to the next objective.

On the way to the tower we get a sense of just how big Arkham City is. Rocksteady claims it’s about five times larger than Arkham Asylum before it, but that hasn’t stopped the developers and design team from cramming it full of detail and character. Car wrecks belch out small fires in defiance of the dark and damp weather. Whole districts are barricaded off due to neglect or structural damage, and a small area designated for “political prisoners” is a slum within a slum, filled with despondent criminals standing next to flickering bonfires to keep warm. Snowflakes fall convincingly, even settling on your cape and cowl before melting away.

The mix of gameplay and procedural narrative really shined once we got to the bell tower – which wasn’t difficult, even in the gigantic prison playground, thanks to an unobtrusive compass-like indicator at the top of the screen. Walking straight through the front door, you’re faced with a group of Joker-branded thugs. From behind them comes a cartwheel-ing Harley Quinn, and within seconds you’re prompted to counter her attacks. A successful evade by the player throws Quinn to the ground, and initiates a short conversation between the two in a seamless transition.

Everything we’ve seen of Batman: Arkham City has proven just as fun and exciting as Arkham Asylum was, fulfilling the promises of the deluge of trailers and then some. Dork Shelf will certainly be there on release date Bat-time: October 18, Bat-Channels: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.

Yang's anti-air kick will catch most newcomers by surprise.

The slices of life we learn about the characters in the Street Fighter ethos often raise troubling questions about what they’re up to when not mauling each other into oblivion. Yun and Yang, two of four characters added in the latest iteration of Street Fighter IV, are apparently teenaged brothers with no concern for their education or a stable social life. They set out to find Chun-Li, an Interpol agent chasing a global terrorist organization, in the hopes of finding challenging and exhilarating fights. I guess that’s what two boys raised by a former assassin aspire to, instead of, say, going to college.

How they plan on their room and board while traveling is beyond me. Ryu gets it done, but it’s well-established that he’s a vagrant. But given the twins’ seemingly expensive, trendy clothing and totally sweet skateboard and rollerblades, it’s safe to say that they’re sitting on a family fortune without a care.

Regardless of their future employment viability, the twins are still as fearsome as their appearances in the Street Fighter III series. Newcomers will love their simple and damaging special moves while the more advanced players will use their Super Combos – which alter the properties of all their other moves, like increasing damage output and juggle properties – to absolutely waste an unsuspecting opponent. Personally, I’m excited that it’s another colourful way to destroy those cars in the bonus stage.

Evil Ryu (a raging, glowing Ryu) and Oni (a raging, glowing Akuma) round out the roster expansion, seemingly to attract the teenage male demographic that even Cammy’s leotard hasn’t reeled in before. They gnash their teeth and pulverize their opponents with Ultra moves straight out of a Shonen Jump manga. These four newcomers will interest those with an appreciation for the Street Fighter lore, but expect most to fall back to their favourite characters in online competition.

Evil Ryu (above) and Oni turn the Ultra Combo theatrics up to 11.

All the existing characters have undergone changes in specific, under-the-hood ways that only veterans will notice or fully appreciate. Most will be able to jump back into the competition with only minor tweaks to their strategies, such as trying to cope with the almost too-powerful and versatile Yun and Yang. The ranking points system is revamped, but it’s generally unimportant book-keeping. The replay database does, however, include a new section that includes matches by some of the top ranked players in the world for perusal. It’s probably one of the best ways a fighting game has ever taught players how to play competitively, simply by showcasing the best in the world at what they do.

Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition is flowery language for a satisfactory DLC release. It won’t get new players interested in the fighting game scene any more than the latest map pack will for the Call of Duty franchise. But anyone who’s sunk dozens of hours into the game over the past three years would do well to upgrade for roughly the price of two pints.

Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition is available as a digital download upgrade to Super Street Fighter IV for $14.99 on PSN and 1200 MSP on the Xbox Live Marketplace, or a stand-alone disc for $39.99 on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC.

Click here to view the embedded video.

…so. There’s a whole lot going on here. Columbia is populated by various factions, including the Vox Populi, who make things terribly uncomfortable for Booker DeWitt and the super-powered Elizabeth. While characters are seen acting amongst the setting without immediately jumping on the player, when they do things get more crowded and threatening than most encounters in the first two Bioshocks ever did. The “tears” are probably the most intruiging part of the demo, appearing in one instance as a variety of options Elizabeth can help you with during a firefight, and a baffling multi-verse tease in another. Comic book nerds like us are surely speculating the hell out of that moment.

We also get to see how much vertigo we’ll experience while flying along the skylines, and some insight into the relationship between Elizabeth, Booker and the steampunk predator called the Songbird in ways that surprise even at this early stage. If this wasn’t on your radar before, it probably is now.

Bioshock Infinite is scheduled for release in 2012. For some more insight from Irrational head Ken Levine, check out the extended interview with Geoff Keighley on the Gametrailers website, and this interview with Kieron Gillen on RockPaperShotgun.

Metro 2033 had some memorable characters and situations reminiscent of Half-Life 2, and breathtaking scenery made possible by technology that brought many gaming PCs to their metaphorical knees. The gameplay also helped convey the desperate nature of the Metro in a way that most shooters don’t. Guns had a ramshackle appearance and operation – the pneumatic sniper rifle had to be pumped every couple shots – and the good-quality ammunition also doubled as currency.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Now, developer 4A Games has released their first trailer of the sequel Metro: Last Light. In this early stage, it looks like we’re in for more of what made the last game fascinating: dark, oppressive environments underground and eerily peaceful wastelands outside, as well as gunplay mixed with more insight into the daily lives in the slum-towns of the Metro. 4A haven’t given Last Light a release date more specific than 2012, but consider this one to watch.

Continuing videogame trailer music watch 2011, our nightmarish glimpse of Metro: Last Light plays to the conveniently titled “Machine Gun,” by English band Portishead’s 2008 album Third.

Electronic Arts and DICE yesterday released a spectacular 12-minute gameplay trailer for their upcoming Battlefield 3. The military first person shooter (shocking, we know!) is being touted as EA’s answer to Activision’s incredibly popular Call of Duty franchise.

The release comes in response to EA’s campaign to “recruit” over 1 million Likes for its Battlefield Facebook page. The trailer was made available after over 800,000 users became fans of the page.

Battlefield 3 is easily one of the best looking games ever made. Whether those looks hold up across the various platforms the game is being released for is another question entirely. Presently the PC version of Battlefield 3 is the most impressive, featuring the aforementioned visuals, gargantuan maps and 64 player battles. The Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 versions on the other hand feature reined graphics, smaller map sizes and only support 24 player battles. The aging consoles simply cannot handle the sheer scale of Battlefield 3.

It’s a true return to form for the franchise. If Battlefield 3 is anything like it’s PC predacessors, then I’m in a lot of trouble.

Battlefield 3 is due out November 2, 2011.

There’s going to come a point when a genre simply can’t take it anymore. It’s not exhaustion; that comes much sooner. This is different, and while there’s no fantastic word that I can come up with, the closest I can hit is ‘implode’. After a while it’s like the genre couldn’t handle it, like older role-playing games, where you just get these infinite mirror reflections and what used to be traditions, then tropes, become these malicious and kind of snarky bad habits. It’s not offensive or annoying, it’s just like the elves, knights and archers are constantly winking at the screen as if you’re ‘in on it’. Shooters are going to hit that wall. Maybe Duke Nukem Forever will be the guiding hand, but shooters are going to collide with this unfathomable heap, where there is so little unexploited reasons for guns to shoot people left that the entire concept will just collapse in on itself.

So what is Bulletstorm? Originally hyped up due to the presence of developers Epic and People Can Fly, many folks expected a heinously cheeky, violent slaughterhouse that only a name like Bulletstorm could suggest. But as time went on, evidence started to mount that there was going to be something special about Bulletstorm, once again hard to pin, but unmistakably present. It’s angle and excuses for violence take clear cues and influence from previous shooters, but it’s the way these parts mix together that helps this quirky little thing present some real ingenuity. After all, even tried and true ingredients can be cooked together astonishingly by the right chefs. Beef. Chicken. Soy. Chunk. Mutant.

It’s always good to do something with a clear head. So when taking revenge on the warmonger who framed him and his team, Captain Grayson Hunt would soon regret not doing so while sober. Now his ship is wrecked, his friends mostly dead and the only other survivor is hacked together with a computer system in order to live. To make things a goofy brand of worse, the planet they crash land on is inhabited by crumbling cyber-deco and rabid pseudo-natives. Discourse between characters clearly has familiar bro/jerk origins, but they maul their selectively masculine language to the point of disassociation. Though all is not lost, if by some pinhole of a chance, they can get a hold of the very man they intended to kill, Grey and his now cyborg pal Ishi might be able to make it off this crazy weird world.

There are some obvious inspirations for the style of the game. Under a magnifying glass you can dissect and trace almost every classic FPS element, from something as sophisticated as Bioshock to as blunt as Serious Sam. The world feels massive, with many machines, buildings and monsters big enough to attack Ultraman, it becomes all the more spectacular when each comes a-tumblin’ down. Things you kaboom early in the game have surprising and generally charming repercussions. While the machoisms chucked out by Grayson aren’t too too distant from what you’d hear from any other grizzled space marine, the context that surrounds it, keeping Ishi more human than machine, makes it a touch more endearing. In general, Hunt seems to display emotions cold and unfamiliar to many FPS protagonists, often grieving over losses and mistakes in subtle ways.

What comes next to weird-up Hunt’s adventure and opening the gate for bloggers to unleash e-theses about the ‘genius of a meta-game’ is also the explanation why every screenshot you’ve seen has blazing slang quotes hovering about the gore: The leash. Early on Grayson nabs some new tech from the army of his enemy, discovering they wielded not only a plasma whip but aggressive encouragement. The leash tracks soldiers’ kill records, a sort of ‘game’, tallying up points which can be exchanged for ammo and upgrades from supply pods scattered about the planet, making sure only ‘the good die young’. But as always, killing isn’t enough, and your gun is only as good as you use it (or not use it). Getting creative with your casualties can unveil massive bundles of points and finding ways to merge your leash, your roster of guns, gun modes and ever powerful boot heel you’ll find a slight tug to ask yourself, “Yes, what would happen if I kicked this fanged pulsing pod on to that man’s head and then shot that angry glowing thing next to it whilst surrounded by suicide bombers and cacti?” Each gun has a secondary mode, which can sometimes make the difference between a revolver and a flare gun, though some classics are spruced up even in regular settings, like a sniper rifle that gives you direct control over the bullet. The kick is a titan all of its own, and if you’re strapped for ammunition there’s no shame in using the mighty gesture to launch enemies into spikes, magma, the open air or just into the wall over and over till they become nothing more than a red smear.

It’s strange how far a little push can go. While you’ve never really hesitated to test the variety of shooters that offer it, it’s a whole new experience to have it be the driving force. Bulletstorm is a game that resembles many games you’ve marched in before, and is difficult to call an homage, but it’s much more embracing of these elements. Things aren’t big, they’re titanic. Enemies aren’t violent, they’re rabid. These colours aren’t muddy, they pop radioactive like a sugar cereal box. Things don’t just blow up, they take the planet with them. But despite so many echoes, Bulletstorm isn’t afraid to blaze some new paths. Certain chapters shake with a creative headspace more inventive than ‘snow level’ and ‘fun fun carnival place’, these’ll stick. There’s a lot of legitimate pathos for these rag tag space pirates, and unlike so many other shooters it hits higher echelons than just simple martyrdom. You feel bad for Grayson and Ishi, and you feel bad for Grayson feeling bad about Ishi. With such great mood, setting and pacing, I really felt like I floated through Bulletstorm with a whimsical sense of glee. I don’t think of myself as a violent person, but Bulletstorm makes a great case for violence. Hooray for Violence!

The first trailer featuring in-game footage of the anticipated Elder Scrolls sequel, Skyrim, has arrived. Elder Scrolls V is Bethesda’s long awaited follow-up to the excellent Oblivion, a game that was praised at the time for its state of the art visuals. Skyrim seems to be following in its predecessors footsteps, the fantasy role-playing game’s visuals look second to none. Watch the trailer below.

Bethesda has had a wonderful track record with the Elder Scrolls games, which despite their many flaws, are some of the best role-playing games out there. If the time we spent playing Morrowind, Oblivion, and their expansions is any indication, we can easily imagine sinking days, if not weeks, of gameplay time into Skyrim.

Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim arrives for the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC on November 11, 2011.