True Crime has had a shaky history, with United Front Games taking over development after Activision disbanded the original development team, the reboot’s scheduled release being pushed back from 2010 to 2011, and then eventually being canceled on February 9, 2011. This was due to the publisher’s decision to work on online games instead, and that True Crime just would not be good enough to compete with other games of the open-world, sandbox genre, so it seemed like there would be no hope of getting the third True Crime installment.

Luckily, Square Enix London’s general manager noticed the game and decided that it was indeed good enough, and decided to buy the publishing rights, with UFG back as the developer. The game’s said to have an elaborate combat system, making use of martial arts moves and the environment to defeat several opponents at a time.

Marketing has just started with a live-action trailer, showing an undercover police officer named Wei fending off against members of the Sun On Yee triad in a club’s kitchen. Knowledge of Cantonese isn’t needed to view the trailer, as what little dialogue it has is in English. See the trailer below.

Hasbro is also trying to build up a franchise of Battleship for itself as well, if its partnership with Activision is any indicator. Together, they’re working on a video game version of Battleship. It still sounds a tad strange, but to clear things up a little, the video game will be based on the Battleship movie. How will this be done? By making use of the premise of the movie, set in the Hawaiian archipelago.

You’ll have control of elite demolitions specialist Cole Mathis as he attempts to command a US Navy fleet as they fight within a communications dead zone. The enemy of the game is the same as the movie’s, a race of aliens with enough technology and power to be able to fight on both land and sea. As such, you’ll need to rely heavily on strategy to win. The game also employs some first-person shooter scenes, so you’d better brush up on your FPS games to catch up with this one.

The Battleship movie will be arriving on May 18th, but there’s no word on the video game version just yet, but it will be for the PS3 and Xbox 360, with special versions for the Wii, DS and 3DS coming later on. See its recent teaser video below.

For the UK release, Sony partnered with Vodafone, which recently announced a PS Vita package prior to the official release date. The package includes a WipEout 2048 game and a 4Gb memory card. WipEout is a futuristic racing game that makes players battle one another in a anti-gravity racing league. The game is not actually free since account holders must first top their 3G Sim with £5.

The February release in the UK comes after 2 months from the release of the Vita in Japan. Aside from the 3G functionality, the Vita also has a built-in GPS, wi-fi and bluetooth capability. Likewise, as an improvement from its predecessor, the Vita boasts a 5” OLED multi-touch capacitive screen for touchscreen gaming, a rear touch pad and 2 dual analogue control sticks. Finally, the mobile phone-like functionality of the Vita is completed with its cameras located at the front and rear of the device, stereo speakers and a microphone.

The UK launch of the PS Vita will take place on February 22.

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Elite is the gaming service developed by Beachhead Studios for Activision. The service provides two versions, namely, a free and a subscription version. The subscribing members of Elite must pay subscription fees to get various Elite freebies, which includes monthly DLCs.

The monthly DLCs will be available starting January up to September and totals 20 contents. The lucky Modern Warfare 3 fans who will first get the monthly DLCs are the Elite Premium members on Xbox Live. Elite Premium members of Xbox Live got the first installment last January in 2 contents, Liberation and Piazza.

Good news for the Elite members since Activision already announced that the DLC for February will be available to them on February 21. The February DLC is called “Overwatch“, which takes places on top of a construction site of New York building. The battle involves multiple attack angles and players take the risk of falling into the ground. Activision has also announced the DLC maps for March, called “Black Box”, “Black Ice” and “Negotiator”.

The DLCs will also be available for other platforms but after the exclusivity period for the Xbox Live members. Those cannot wait may pay $49.99 to be premium Elite members.

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Canadian video game retailer Future Shop has been witnessed to be tweeting via Destination PlayStation that focuses on a proposed LittleBigPlanet Karting. While photos gathered from Twitter is somewhat blurry, images depicts that the game is, of course racing and is in third person mode from a raised view perspective, moving slightly away from the perspective of the original LittleBigPlanet games.

While some might say that it is high time for Sackboy to try karting, questions about Sony developing LBP Karting is boiling since they already have ModNation Racing as a kart racing title that also has custom made characters and other racing essentials. United Front, ModNation Racing’s developer is reported to be working on a title exclusive for the PS3 and with the rumors of LittleBigPlanet Karting, mysteries big and small are for sure to surface.

“Destination Little Big Planet Cart racing announced for PS3. Move compatible wheel and 3D capable!” As far as the official tweet is concerned, a steering wheel peripheral for the PlayStation Move is a possibility, just like the accessory bundled with Wii’s Mario Kart.

Furthermore, unconfirmed reports also states that costumes from LittleBigPlanet 1 and 2 are transferrable and the Kart version of the LBP should have mild action sequences which brings the idea of weapon equipped karts.

Aside from the leaked images, nothing has been confirmed about the game. Will it be a mover or will it consider being in the ranks of “games that shouldn’t have been developed?”

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The game is set 20 years in Pittsburgh after a fungus outbreak due to the cordyceps fungus from the ant video on the game’s website. The main character is named Joel, a violent, 40-something survivor and weapons dealer played by Troy Baker who bears a significant resemblance to Nathan Drake of Uncharted, Naughty Dog’s famous action-adventure series. Joel is accompanied by a teenaged girl named Ellie, played by Ashley Johnson, and described as the man’s one hope for redemption. The two characters meet when Joel, acting out a friend’s last request, smuggles Ellie out of her boarding home, but are found out by the military owning the base. Joel’s first instinct is to abandon the girl, but later allows her to stay with him.

Of course, you cant have a post-apocalyptic game without some zombies, so there will be fighting all around, and everyone, even the 14-year-old Ellie, will be throwing out swear words on a regular basis. The infected will come in all shapes and sizes due to varying strains of the cordyceps fungus that has evolved to other forms of life, such as humans. The game’s creative director, Neil Druckmann, mentioned that it would be “cool” to see a setting where the fungus moved from the ant to another species– could this be a hint that there may be infected animals?

However, the zombies will not be the main focus of the game, says Evan Wells, co-president of Naughty Dog. Humans will be the real enemies in this game, as there will be scavenging and ambushes throughout their journey across the United States, and The Last of Us explores the relationships of the two protagonists with each other and the rest of the world.

Gameplay will include some puzzle-solving and platforming, but nothing to the effect of Nathan Drake’s free-running abilities. Unlike other games where a single blow hardly means anything, one well-aimed bullet will mean life or death, and the fact that there are very few boxes of ammo means a lot of item management will be needed. There will also be some online components in the game, but Naughty Dog prefers to keep that a secret for now.

All in all, The Last of Us is starting to sound alike a game worth getting for the PS3 players. No word on the release date just yet, but Sony has just said that Game Informer’s date of late 2012 or early 2013 is simply speculation.

With PS Vita, you can discover entirely new ways of playing as the device has revolutionized such gaming experience with the integration of various components. These include front and rear multi touch pads, dual analog sticks, motion sensors, along with cameras placed on the front and rear as well. There may also be a considerable change in game ranking news feeds, real-time scores, multiplayer game sessions as well as cross-game text messaging with other players.

Because GameStop has currently 4,460 stores in the US alone whereas the official GameStop website has provided information on the stores which have the demo kiosks, it is highly likely that you can find a store near you. As such, through these demos, you can discover the system software and various applications integrated into the new PS Vita. Lastly, selected Best Buy outlets are also offering hands-on sessions with the device.

The price for PS Vita in the US may start at $249 and will be released by February 22, 2012.

The patent describes the functions of the device as being able to render an avatar of a real-world mobile device into a game, which will allow the user to interact with the elements seen on the screen. The player can move about and make gestures to make their avatar do certain movements as well. Some images added in the patent depict a tablet-like gadget connecting to a TV screen, suggesting that it may have touchscreen technology, while others have it interacting with a PS console wirelessly.

Why is this like Nintendo’s upcoming console? Because the Wii U controller contains a touchscreen, and interacts with the console itself wirelessly. It can also be moved around using motion control technology for maximum gaming experience. These similarities alone are enough to make people start talking about who got the idea first, Sony or Nintendo?

The exact nature of Sony’s device is still unknown, and whether or not Sony will push through with its development, and if it will be included in the upcoming PlayStation 4. However, this device might just have been a prototype for the capabilities of the PS Vita and its ability for data sharing with the PS3, as it’s been said that the two consoles together can imitate the functionality of the rival gadget.

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Wrong, says Motomu Toriyama, FFXIII-2 director. When asked for clarification about the message during the Taipei Game Show 2012, Toriyama said that they had several reasons for leaving those three words in the game, none of which are plans for a third game set in the world of XIII. Instead, the continuation of XIII-2′s story will be done through multiple endings called Paradox Endings. Due to the nature of XIII-2′s time traveling premise, changes in the timestream will trigger these alternate endings, but they will take a lot of digging to find. A few websites have already begun cataloguing these Paradox Endings and how to get them.

The upcoming DLC packs are also another reason. It’s already been reported that Lightning Farron, Snow Villiers and Sazh Katzroy will be prominently featured in their own story episodes, and that Lightning herself will be a downloadable character in the Coliseum. This means XIII-2 will be further expanded through post-game DLC and episodes, removing the need for a sequel.

So no, Serah Farron, Mog, and the rest of the gang wont be coming back for another game, which may be a bit of a disappointment to some hardcore fans who want more action in the settings of Cocoon and Gran Pulse. However, you can still go back to play key moments to change the story.

This may or may not be in relation to the scheduled maintenance by the company, but the predicament still stands firm and users are somewhat agitated to find the error code 80023102 and a “No content was found” message every time they opt to download a paid purchase or access a transaction list from the network.

The problem itself is not on worldwide status: only users in Australia, New Zealand, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom are affected. Users in the United States are somehow oblivious to the problem even if they are also included in countries affected by last week’s maintenance alongside Canada, Mexico, UAE, Australia, Great Britain, Ireland and New Zealand.

With the said unavailability, PlayStation Europe moderator SuperFastZombie said that the issue has affected a large number of users and was given high priority for it to be sorted. On the other hand, Yaster, also another moderator said Sunday that the cause of the problem has been identified but a resolution has yet to become available. In as such, users are left hanging and seeing the 500 plus posts from a thread on the European PlayStation forum, it doesn’t look good.

Moderators meanwhile lightened up the scenario assuring users that their paid contents are still intact and have not been lost and that access will return to normal once the problem has been resolved. Waiting for other signs, there is nothing much to do but to hope for something.

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