Sometime earlier, Dead Island’s Facebook page read that Techland, Death Island’s developer, required additional time to do “extra polishing” to the core game before the $10 worth Bloodbath Arena content gets ready for release. Bloodbath Arena was previously a Special Edition Dead Island exclusive. It comprises of both multiplayer and single-player challenges in four unique areas. Tides of zombies will unleash havoc among the players in the DLC, with players thrust with the simple task of killing them all while saving  themselves in the process.

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In addition to that, players can track and display their development through the Arena’s leader-boards, and as assistance in those lethal quests, the content pack features a special weapon, i.e. a brain wave bomb.

In other news, Dead Island is ready to enter debut on the silver screen through the studio Lionsgate. Sean Daniels, producer of The Mummy is heading the team on the untitled film, which is expected to focus on “family ties, human emotions with nonlinear storytelling.”

The game’s Facebook page has also presented an update on the expected release date of the Bloodbath Arena DLC, which is expected to be sometime in mid November. The extra time for development will allow the developers to ensure the “best ever experience possible” on all the platforms.

The game was launched for the PS3, PC, and Xbox 360 on 6 September in North America and 9 September for PAL regions. The DLC of Bloodbath Arena pits the player and three of his friends against limitless flocks of zombies across distinct areas. The entire set of items, weapons and experience can be shifted to the main campaign mode.

Soon after the launch, Deep Silver revealed that they expect the global shipment figures to touch the 2 million units mark by the end of that month. These predictions were made keeping in mind the game’s top-selling status in global markets, along with the No. 1 slot attained by it on the digital distribution platform of Valve. The game has also witnessed headline controversy because of the sexist content in the development code of the game.

Published by Deep Silver and developed by Techland, Dead Island, a horror action-adventure game played in first person for Xbox 360, PS3 and Microsoft Windows, is based on the survival challenge in an open world zombie-stricken island with a major highlight on melee style combat.

Though the NBA Jam released in 2010 for the PS3 and Xbox 360 was decent, it was not as feature-rich as it was expected to be. The ‘over the top’ basketball that has been featured in the series has been cherished by many for ages, but the previous addition to the series was not praised universally and passed out of memory quite quickly.

However, EA has fixed things by launching the NBA Jam: On Fire edition a year later, as a game available for download and presenting a variety of content which can be enjoyed both solo or through multiplayer, and this is precisely what fans of arcade basketball have been craving for.

Taking the hint from the NBA Jam of last year, Road Trip of On Fire has been launched as the game’s main mode and substitutes Remix Tour where the player was matched against the 30 NBA teams in different match types, though this time around these matches are split according to medal statuses; the first round being the typical two-versus-two games.

Right after winning the first bronze match the player unlocks his silver match, and accomplishing that, unlocks the gold. In contrast to last year’s edition when the player had to win the whole set of the first round matches versus all the teams in a distinct division to unlatch the subsequent batch of matches, now he can play teams irrespective of the order. Hence if he wants to hop through the league, the game allows you to do that.

The game is over the top styled basketball at its best and that same, fierce experience from earlier editions is still on display in On Fire. Among other additions and improvements is the addition of Tag Mode that lets the player monitor the both teams’ players instead of depending on the AI. Thus, any mistake committed is the fault of the player, and it exerts more pressure on the player for finding the correct course of action.

Other features include online co-op campaigns and other online competitions. Supplementary animations and intense commentary by Tim Kitzrow, the legendary NBA Jam commentator are also featured, which adds up to a great package overall. Those of you who felt disappointed by last year’s edition can imagine On Fire as EA’s style of saying sorry.

The game can be directly purchased through the XBLA and PlayStation Network for 1200 points or $14.99 USD respectively.

Namco Bandai Games Inc. has recently unveiled the pre-order page for the clubNAMCO edition of Dark Souls. The exclusive publisher’s bundle features a model version of the action RPG along with a map bearing the land and a latest artwork sporting t-shirt from the gaming title. Plenty of images of the package along with the newest screens from the title are widely available on the internet.

The complete description from the store of Namco Bandai Games revealed limited availability further limited to per size, per order.  An exclusive of clubNAMCO, This edition of Dark Souls bundle arrives with the highly awaited standard version of Dark Souls, a special printed map bearing the land where the player will be wandering, along with an American Apparel branded Dark Souls T-Shirt, what they tout as the smoothest, softest, cool T-shirt available just about anywhere! The exclusive bundle is priced at $80.

Then there’s also a chance to grab a few extras with the game pack in case the buyer is one among those who couldn’t get the collector’s edition. Players can pre-order this exclusive edition and the bundle will be shipped when the game releases on 10 October.

The expansion of the gaming industry has had the unavoidable result of a ‘dumbing down’ trend, i.e. the games have become increasingly less challenging. New audience hence new interfaces signify that the games have to be even more fair, accessible and friendly – not punishing and cruel. However, Dark Souls promises to be uncompromising and tough. Marked as ‘the toughest game ever made’, Dark Souls has continuously been fetching dozens of glowing reviews, and the game’s wide popularity establishes that there’s a market out there for hardcore gaming.

So why is the game so terribly addictive? Developers quote that it’s developed around one of the most rewarding, tightest real-time spells and swords combat systems of gaming. Though the progression is slow, the achievements are genuine, with the game so amazing that the player will be literally dying to glimpse the next gloomy dungeon or sweeping vista. It’s a crushingly difficult game, but is playfully so. Well, any sort of game which allows the player to invade another player’s game online to permanently kill the main character can only be termed sadistic, and rightfully so.

Kalypso Media has declared the triumphant return of El Presidente to the Microsoft entertainment system and Xbox 360 with the Tropico 4’s release on 21 October, with the game being made available for purchase on the very next day. Tropico 4 is a management and construction simulation video game that concentrates on city building. Just like the first as well as the third game of the series, this one centres on a main character that goes by the moniker “El Presidente”, a dictator and ruler of an island called Banana Republic.

The game sees the players returning to Tropico, the paradise of the Caribbean, daring them to transform the backwater island into a universal superpower by forceful or financial means. The player gets to play as the tyrant, armed with the sole goal of enhancing his Swiss bank account or as a people’s ‘man’. New import as well as export features, buildings, supreme superpowers to deal with and more makes the return of El Presidente to the Xbox 360 a much anticipated release.

Tropico 4 will see the player return as El Presidente, the benevolent (tyrannical) dictator of the Tropico. With an altering world as the background, Tropico is racing with the times – the rise and fall of geographical powers and domination of the world market by brand new players with newer offers and demands – and as El Presidente, the player faces an entirely new set of dares and challenges. If players are to attain triumph over their naysayers they will have to attain as much support from their people as possible. Their decisions will mould the future of their nation, and more significantly, the size of El’s Swiss bank account.

The game’s campaign comprises of 20 missions laid on 10 distinct maps. Tropico 4 features more superpowers along with a council of ministers which exists to assist the player on a wide range of issues. Players will have to manage with demands of various political factions characterised with their very own ideological attitude. Also, an exclusive Steam version is soon to be made available that features another island for the sandbox mode and one more pair of clothes for the customised El Presidente. Also featuring in this new version are 20 new buildings along with a shopping mall.

The long yearned wish of hundreds of gamers for an intense, macho, unicorn game has finally come true. Yes, unicorns will now get their chance to blaze in Dragons Vs Unicorns, the brand new action cross-platform game that is expected to be out for the iOS, Mac, Android and PC.

Developer and COO at Digital Harmony Games, Keren Kang, expressed his views about the horn blasting, romp stomping action game in the press release and said that it is the ideal game for their first release as it has an amazing art style and provides a thrilling game-play experience. He stated that creating a flawless cross-platform experience is quite crucial, and part of which is to make sure that a multiplayer version will be available 24/7. With the connective cross-platform technology present in this release, the players can always get a game on against an Android, iOS or Windows opponent.

For decades, the obsolete Dragons have looked down upon and chastised almost all creatures, mostly the Unicorns. Disgusted by the Unicorns’ fondness and love for candy, rainbows and glitter, Dragons launched war on the Unicorns which has unleashed an all out fight for supremacy. Exclusively featuring a fantasy laden landscape, both of these mythical creatures will battle to devastate the opponent’s tower utilising a range of amazing abilities. Here, players will aid their side by defending their respective towers as they send in minions, cast abilities, lob objects and much more in this exciting action-packed multiplayer game.

Players will pick between the battle-toughened Dragons and the cupcake eating Unicorns, battling out in brutal PVP bouts. A single player mode is present to facilitate the honing of skills prior to going online for some butt whooping, special attacks, real-time dynamic physics, persistent character growth, super abilities and also a VS Store, as well as cross-platform functionality.

Dragons Vs. Unicorns presents an engrossing experience with an intuitive and simple scheme of control with gesture based and easy click control. Digital Harmony, the developer, is intending to show off the real time cross-platform connectivity of Dragons Vs Unicorns at the GDC Online Convention to be held in Austin sometime next week. For scheduling appointments, Mika Kelly can be contacted at mika@clevercomm.com or 408-693-0176. The game is scheduled to be launched in early 2012.

With a new challenge mode that lets the players pit themselves against their Steam friends, a bunch of co-op adventures for the bionic buddies P-body and Atlas and the community Portal, there’s an appreciable amount of fresh free content for the DLC pack of Portal 2. However, the response received by Valve’s largesse has been mixed, comprising of gamers both rejoicing and raging.

The set of co-op chambers are being quoted as fun and challenging, backed by the hilarious writing which has helped in boosting the series of Portal to staggering heights of critical acclamation. However, the latest challenge modes and the absence of test chambers for the single-player mode have not gone down too well with players.

The challenge campaigns let the player to play through the interrupted sections of every chapter of Portal 2. Players race against time to accomplish each section as fast as they can, using as minimum portals as possible. Not only are they up against the clock, but also against the Portal community and their Steam buddies at large. The players are also ranked based on the number of steps taken by them to accomplish the challenge.

The absence of any kind of award or medal for accomplishing the challenges has irked a few of the gamers, that means in case gamers like their challenges with a cut-throat edge, then all that is available is the mere thought of being a statistic on the leaderboards. In the earlier Portal, the challenge mode had silver, gold and bronze medals for each of the challenge chambers, which were slightly altered versions of the ones found in the single-player mode.

Apparently, even top quality free content is not flame-resistant against gamers’ rage. For the ones feeling let down by the DLC Peer Review, there’s something worth noting:

Dragon Age 2 presented a DLC option earlier this year called “The Exiled Prince” which gave an additional party member to the players along with a rather feeble story arc. This Downloadable Content pack was priced at $7 and appended a measly amount of content and scant value to the already existing game.

By contrast, the Portal 2 Downloadable Content offers players maybe more than  an hour of main additional content based on puzzle solving skill and speed and an option to challenge yourself again on each section of the content, marking themselves against both strangers and friends. All priced at… zip, zero dollars.

WRC 2 is scheduled to be out this month. GAME, the French online retailer, announced an exclusive pre-order offer for the DLC of the special Safari rally. The Safari DLC comprises of an exclusive rally in Kenya and Tanzania, which is expected to be a lot longer than any other WRC. The DLC is centered on the actual rally of the very exact name. Historically, this race takes place each year since June of 1953 in the East Africa’s massive territories and will be taking place this year too from 19 to 28 November.

However, no word regarding the validity period of the exclusive offer is out yet. However, since in the long run no publisher/developer would like to miss out on sales, this Downloadable Content is most likely to be widely available even after the expiry of the exclusive offer.

This time around, in WRC 2, the developers have significantly improved the game physics. The car will now behave much more realistically due to all-new suspension management system which allows the car to be more responsive to the irregularities of the driving terrain.

The driving experience is expected to be much more thrilling and fun, as well as more enjoyable and realistic. Developers have also introduced new graphics to highlight damage, thanks to an improved system that inflicts more detailed and realistic deformation after collisions.

Improved crumbling roads, vehicles, changing conditions…the enhanced driving experience will let the player to dip into the rally world as if he were actually behind the wheel of a 300 BHP monster. Environmental lighting and graphics now depict more vibrant colors, resulting in the tracks appearing more realistic, and due to the various different sessions of recording done in the field, the resultant in-game sounds of the cars are expected to be more accurate as well.

The surroundings in the races are loaded with plenty of vegetation which the developers say will produce amazing shadow effects. The inclusion a ‘haze’ effect will also improve the scenery. The player can now challenge their opponents in a one-on-one mode; also featured is a dedicated ranking syste, which will announce the best “duelist” among all of them, on the market.

The multiplayer mode, Hot Seat, allows the player to challenge up to three of his friends, taking part in a Single rally, a Single stage, or even a complete Championship. Thus, one after another they will be racing against one another’s times, which is essentially the true essence of rallying.

The story of Assassin’s Creed which started in 2007 is now going to be concluded sometime before December 2012, with Ubisoft Montreal’s developer strongly hinting that the tale of Desmond Miles will be concluded next year. The franchise stresses heavily on the disturbing Mayan prophecy regarding the world coming to an end in 21 December 2012, a date which is a bit over 14 months away.

Recently, the creative lead of Revelations, Alexandre Amacio, stated that this timeline pressurises Ubisoft Montreal to conclude everything by then. He commented that the series has a very strong and complex narrative and that they are trying their best to complete the game before the deadline. The developer also stated that it would be pretty stupid of them to be subjecting the title to such a semi-reality (the 2012 theme) and then overshooting the date themselves. This very utterance probably means that another game of Assassin’s Creed is coming in the fall of 2012.

Over all, Ubisoft Montreal has developed four chief games since the debut of the Assassin’s Creed series in 2007, and then Assassin’s Creed 2 of 2009 has even enjoyed a pair of follow-ups in immediate succession with 2010’s Brotherhood and the upcoming Revelations. Besides concluding the tale of Desmond, Assassin’s Creed is likely to be returning with a brand new lead character. Amacio said that the series all about cycles; they have the Altair cycle and the Ezio cycle. These two are expected to be concluded in Revelations and then there is the Desmond cycle that is expecting its conclusion on December 2012.

Even if the franchise does continue even after its next year release, it’s quite unlikely to be subjected to the annual launch routine that Ubisoft has been following since the time of Assassin’s Creed II. However, a change in development approach at Ubisoft Montreal signifies that the quick rate at which the new games are being produced is most likely to come to an end.

Even Amacio was quoted as saying that they are already structuring the manner in which they develop Assassin’s Creed, hence its release schedule will change significantly, possibly taking longer than it does now. The newest instalment Revelations is going to be released on the Xbox 360 and PS3 on 15 November, though recently the PC release was pushed back to sometime in early December.

Fate/EXTRA, the PSP game will be launched in the US within a month, all thanks to Aksys Games for the sudden localization. For those who have never played the titles of the series Fate/Stay Night, this is a great opportunity to get acquainted with the scenario in advance.

Now, for the first ever time in the Anime history, the TV series Fate/ZERO is officially being streamed on Nico Nico Douga, the Japanese website for international audiences in association with Aniplex. The series includes subtitles in French, English, Italian, German, Spanish, traditional Chinese, Korean and simplified Chinese, while the voices are in Japanese.

Fate/Zero takes place some 10 years earlier to the Fate/Stay Night events, highlighting the occurrences of the fourth Holy Grail War in the Fuyuki City. War of the Holy Grail is actually a contest where seven Magi summon seven Gallant Spirits to compete to attain the supreme power of the “Holy Grail” that grants a miracle, and after 3 indecisive wars for the Holy Grail, the 4^th War starts.

Founded by the families of Matō, Tōsaka and Einzbern centuries ago, the family of Einzbern is settled to attain success after three continuous failures. Consequently, they have decided to recruit Kiritsugu Emiya, the magus killer, into their ranks inspite of his reputation as a skilled hitman and a mercenary who does whatever he can to attain his goals.

The language of the subtitles is picked automatically based on the user’s browser settings and a registration page in all the 8 languages is available for international audiences who want to register on Nico Nico Douga to watch the video or even post in the ever increasing and infamous on-screen stream of comments. While the first episode is already available, the remaining 24 number of episodes will be aired at 12.30 AM Japan Time, every Sunday. Each of these episodes will be accessible for free only till the one succeeding the current episode is posted, which allows viewers a whole week to watch them.

This series act as a prequel to the original game of Fate/Stay Night, and if the games along with the previous anime adaptations are of any hint, it will surely be complicated and the plot will be full of twists. The series is produced by Ufotable studio from the anime cutscenes of Tales of Xillia fame.

NCsoft has launched a brand new content expansion for free, exclusively for Guild Wars. The Guild Wars series resumes with Winds of Change (second chapter), the biggest free content expansion for the title to date. This launch sees eleven additional quests, five re-spawned zones, and several concealed scenes for players seeking to live the story to the fullest.

In the earlier instalment, the players were subjected to an organisation dedicated to bring order and peace back to troubled Cantha, the Ministry of Purity. This organisation started their virtuous crusade by seeking to cleanse the land of the Afflicted who unleashed horrors during the Guild Wars Factions events. The organisation united the commoners to its cause under the conviction that Cantha is a land which doesn’t need idols or heroes; only people with the will and the strength to stand up and fight for themselves. Initiating from these plain beginnings, the Ministry expanded in size and attained influence over the Afflicted, and siphoned them off the land. People disappointed with the emperor of Cantha for his incapability to safeguard them looked to the Ministry of Purity for solace.

As the players overpowered the very last belonging to the Afflicted, the Ministry soon started prosecuting the Kaineng gangs, Jane brotherhood and Am Fah, as their next target. The gangs had posed as a threat for a long time which existed within the Canthan life and the Emperor was not capable enough to fight against them. The Jane Brotherhood and Am Fah have been at war continuously with each other, and their fight keeps them from being threatening enough to the empire directly. These three have lived as a system of balances and checks against each other rather a queasy balance of power that would to boil over into full blown violence at the slightest provocation. Under the control of Minister Reiko, the Ministry has announced that the reign of fear associated with the gangs must be put to an end, by any measures necessary.

In this instalment of the three-sectioned Winds of Change the clash between the gangs and the Ministry of Purity escalates. The Am Fah and the Jade Brotherhood find themselves shoved back and resorting to destructive, dire measures to hit back. Some people have even started to wonder if the price of peace is worth the fight.

Guild Wars is a 3D RPG developed exclusively for PC by ArenaNet.