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Cough up $100* – payable by Western Union – and you can have access to the latest Week in Review. You see, I don’t want every Tom, Dick and Harry casting their working class eyes over my words and putting off more privileged readers from taking a look.
Oh, and even if you can pay $100, I can’t guarantee you’ll get any satisfaction from reading the article.
Yes, this was the week in which Valve decided it would charge developers $100 in order to submit games to Steam Greenlight in an effort to separate the wheat from the chaff. This resulted in a Twitter-wide debate as to whether or not Valve made the right move. Let’s just agree that poor people shouldn’t be allowed to make video games.
Less controversial were this week’s three reviews: Mass Effect 3 DLC Leviathan, Super Hexagon from the people that previously brought us VVVVVV, and Skyrim Hearthfire.
As ever though, the week kicked off with the latest chart update, and shock horror… a PC game is at No.1. Guild Wars 2 shot to the top of the UK chart and nine others across Europe. It’s safe to say Guild Wars 2 has been a huge success for NCsoft and ArenaNet. VideoGamer.com video man, who also goes by the name Matt, has been spending the best part of his life for the past week running around in Guild Wars 2 and dancing. You can humour him and watch his moves below.
Not so funny was the passing of another European PS Store update and still no sign of Counter-Strike: GO, and no one appears to have any idea what’s going on. Thankfully the wait for Telltale’s The Walking Dead: Episode 3 is over, with the latest instalment arriving on PSN today. Sticking with Sony, the platform holder finally got PS Vita Remote Play working as intended, although only for The God of War Collection, ICO HD and Shadow of the Colossus HD. Once dubbed Sony’s “Halo Killer”, the original Killzone title for PS2 will be getting HDified and released this October as part of the Killzone Trilogy. I don’t want to be too down on Killzone, but it wasn’t a great game on the PS2 and no amount of HD visuals will fix that. Halo Killer… more like enjoyment killer! Amiright???
Skyrim’s Hearthfire hit Xbox LIVE Arcade, offering players the ability to build houses and adopt children – but only if you can actually figure out how to buy land. Martin and Neon took the DLC for a spin and things didn’t really go according to plan.
Next generation chatter continues, once again fuelled by EA’s Frank Gibeau, who said the next round of consoles will be “spectacular”. Frank really is the hype machine master. Not so next-gen was news on the Wii U’s release date, which was possibly revealed by two retailers. Thankfully Nintendo is expected to spill all the official beans next week, meaning all these speculative stories can stop. However, even before Wii U gets to stores it’s facing third-party publisher woes: Ubisoft has canned the Wii U version of Ghost Recon Online, and Bethesda is yet to be sold on the new platform.
Speaking of Ubisoft, the French publisher announced a string of digital titles this week. The pick is clearly Trials Evolution expansion, Origin of Pain which offers 36 new tracks, new skill games and tournaments, a new BMX bike and loads of course editor objects. Other new announcements included Call of Juarez: Gunslinger, Thunder Wolves, free-to-play Spartacus Legends, and mobile title Rayman Jungle Run.
Konami finally showed its footballing hand this week, pinning a September 21 release date on PES 2013. The decision to launch one week before FIFA 13 could be just what the doctor ordered, says Dave. Not to be outshone, FIFA 13 hit back with a super trendy soundtrack announcement, news of EA Sports Season Ticket, and attempted to give PES a good kicking by boasting the official license of 50 leagues. And a little later than usual, Football Manager stepped back into the ring, confirming a new streamlined classic mode and a pre-Christmas release.
As ever remember to check out The VideoGamer.com Podcast which comes free with your $100 access fee – it’s full of talk on some games you are probably interested in such as Rovio’s Bad Piggies, Hearthfire and The Walking Dead.
I’ll leave you with 15 minutes of The Last of Us.
*All money raised will be donated to a charity dedicated to supporting Killzone fans.
