The cause for celebration: mounted combat. Yes, Skyrim Patch 1.6 will include a new feature to the game in the form of melee and ranged combat while mounted on a horse. And like other recently added features such as the kill cams and Xbox 360 Kinect support, this update is coming to you for free.

This highly-requested feature has fans itching for the downloadable content to arrive in their PCs and consoles for a first-hand experience. With the addition of mounted combat into the game, fighting enemies will have more versatility and challenges that are sure to appeal to gamers.

Luckily for PC users, they are able to get first dibs on the feature if they opt into the latest Steam Beta Update. Simply log into Steam and go to the account tab found under the settings menu to select “change” in the Beta Participation section to select Skyrim Beta. After the usual restart, Skyrim will be updated to the Beta version. Be sure to back up your saved games before opting into the Beta version so you can still revert to the current Skyrim release if you change your mind. If you’re playing Skyrim on other consoles, you’d still have to wait a bit more for the patch.

Bethesda Game Studios is also working on Dawnguard which is Skyrim’s first add-on DLC. Dawnguard is expected to come out in summer first on the Xbox then to other consoles. The patch also includes a few updates and bug fixes. Check it out.

Some fixes include the bug on Mehtan the Necromancer and a fix on disconnection issues when attempting to removea gem from an item with no sockets. Players trying to resurrect a fallen ally will now be properly interrupted. Aside from various fixes and ironing out of crash issues, one of the most notable is the nerfing out they did on the Monk character which has a super imba skill that causes critical hits during spirit regeneration. Another character that underwent balancing out is the Demon Hunter and the Wizard.

Diablo III’s real money auction house which is expected to launch this may was moved indefinitely supposedly to iron out more foreseeable issues. Blizzard doesn’t want game-related bugs to interfere with the smooth launch of the auction house so this is to be expected instead of again going through with bug-laden launch that could come back and bite them on the behind just like this one did.

Yes, Diablo 3 has set the record for the fastest selling PC game of all time with more than 3.5 million copies sold on its first day. Not included in this tally are more than 1.2 million gamers who got the highly anticipated Blizzard action role playing game after signing up for the World of Warcraft Annual Pass promo, which makes more than 4.7 million copies of the game installed in PCs worldwide on day 1.

Also impressive is the fact that it sold 6.3 million copies on the first week. This also does not include Korean internet game room players who made Diablo 3 achieve more than 39% record share in that same week, making it the top-played game today. It even broke the record for the most preordered PC game of all-time on Amazon.com.

Perhaps what makes this third installment of the action RPG series popular includes its epic storyline which focuses around the fight between good and evil coupled with a simple and intuitive gameplay. Developers also incorporated players’ opinions and suggestions to its improvements. Diablo 3 is also designed to fully function on the Battle.net platform where players can join forces for coop play.

Diable 3 is available on more than 8,000 retailers around the globe, or you can also purchase it via its official website for a digital copy.

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Internet journalist Paul Gale mentioned in his website that Konami will be giving Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 a release not only for the PS3 and Xbox 360, but the PS Vita and Wii U as well. This comes alongside the news of another Castlevania title that may be released for the 3DS, namely Mirror of Fate, which was supposed to be on the Wii U, but that console was given to Lords of Shadow instead.

Gale also goes on to say that the Wii U version of the game may be superior to the other ports. How this would be possible is still unknown, but it’s also worth noting that just considering the PS VIta for a game more suited for a full-blown console rather than a handheld is something to admire and it will be interesting to see how Konami and developer MercurySteam will be able to do so.

Of course, there’s always a chance that Gale and his sources are mistaken, but so far, he hasn’t been wrong with big news such as this. He once reported on the game PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale after all, and it turned out to be coming pretty soon. Should this report be true, then we can expect the action-adventure sequel to be announced at E3.

Tsunoda thinks that the current version of the interactive peripheral still has a lot more to offer the public and that developers should focus more on maximizing the potential of Kinect.

For now, the focus lies on grasping how to combine Kinect’s many different capabilities and use them in existing as well as upcoming games. Tsunoda cites one of the things they have come up with, a combination of facial detection, motion sensing, voice recognition, and vocal tone recognition to use in something like a character in a scene that allows the player to participate in it.

As developers get to know more about the peripheral and gain more experience in working with it, more and more games are being released that touch the full potential of the software.

Tsunoda further states that it’s not about waiting for a different hardware for Kinect 2 but rather for an upgrade of the current Kinect as well as the existing and upcoming games to further showcase the power of the software.

The good news is that gamers won’t need to be spending money on a new device to experience the full potential of Kinect.

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According to last year’s release, the original console will have a 1080p high-definition graphics, a new controller with a six- inch touchscreen, accelelorometer, gyroscope, and a camera. Other features include its backwards compatibility with Wii, and support capability of the Wii Remote Plus, Nunchuck, and Classic Controller Pro.

On the other hand, a twitter account by the name of @MATTYBOOSH (who was sent a console for QA) recently leaked photos of the new Wii U controller. Apparently, the new console features analog sticks instead of the nubs featured in the launched console. Other changes that we can see from the picture are the shift of the position of the Select and Start Bottons which are now on the right side, and a Wii U branding on the bottom left side of the console.

Unfortunately for us, the picture wouldn’t tell us if there’s any difference in the hardware so let us just wait for the product to come out in the market. The release of the game console in the US Europe, Australia and Japan is set during the last quarter of this year.

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Nietzschean philosophy aside, the strength of the Budokai series has been the constant leveling up if not in terms of gameplay, in terms of character roster and this incarnation of the series could be the Super Saiyan 4. Indeed, it was announced that Dragon Ball: Sparking Omega is the final form and would contain the largest ever number of characters ever assembled (eclipsing even the record-breaking 161 characters of its predecessor). This could be a good gift to the fans of the series who are clamoring for more. Although some of them are already asking for an evolution of the game franchise, this final offering will undoubtedly leave an impact equivalent to that made by an SSJ4 Kamehameha.

Coming out in Japan this winter on PS3 and XBOX 360, Dragon Ball Sparking Omega is still developed by Spike Chunsoft and published by Namco Bandai.

So far, the Unreal Engine 4 has a handful of screenshots from its tech demo. The demo doesn’t have much of a story, but it does feature a demonic knight decked in heavy fire armor waking up from a long slumber in a castle situated on a frozen mountain. Once it starts moving, the mountain is actually revealed to be a volcano and erupts for the first time in years.

The video hasn’t been released to the public yet, but the screens are still able to give a sense of how much the engine has improved from the previous version. The demon knight has lost the plastic look that still hounds character models in some of the more recent games, the special effects, most especially the flames, have a lot of detail and the background looks like better than anything a high-end camera can produce. In addition, Epic Games threw in some of the wire-frame models used to build some of the objects in the demo, showing just how the generated surroundings are build from scratch.

Unreal Engine 4 For Next-Gen Consoles

To create something of this magnitude, Epic cited James Cameron’s movie Avatar as something that comes very close to an inspiration because of how life-like the computer-generated graphics are, from the Pandora jungles to the characters themselves. The demo was made in just three months by 14 engineers and runs on a single NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680, whereas the Unreal Engine 3′s Samaritan demo needed three GTX 580 chips, which is also a good indicator of how powerful a console needs to be to properly run the Unreal Engine 4. Because of this, the Unreal 4 will not be released for the current consoles, but instead go for the next generation of gaming products, two of which are the rumored Xbox 720 and PlayStation 4.

Of course, it’s not confirmed if “Xbox 720″ and “PS4″ are going to be the actual names of the consoles or whether they’ll have the specs some rumors are talking about, but the Unreal 4 will be coming with the next devices Microsoft, Sony and other manufacturers will be releasing in the future. Epic Games may most likely make a splash at E3, so all we have to do is wait till June comes around.

Meanwhile, there’s an article here from pluggedin stating some arguments why the new engine may not arrive on Xbox 720 despite of the possibilities we laid out above. However, it’s noticeable the write-up seems to be a little confusing for some of its readers, giving an impression ‘unreal engine 4′ is a title not a next-gen tech for graphics engine.

Aside from that, Microsoft also gave the special features of Halo 4 like The Reclaimer Saga Begins where players get to share their screen (or not) to up to three of their friends and experience the beginning of a new adventure. The game also features numerous new multiplayer modes, weapons, vehicles, armor abilities, a new loud out and Spartan IV player progression system.

What comes along with that are the War Games (new game modes and strategies), group stats tracking through HaloWaypoint.com, and amazing sound and graphics during game play. The Spartan Ops also allows gamers to receive weekly episodes of an expanded campaign as well as new missions through the Xbox Live.

The features and functions of multiplayer map were also described in detail as part of the Limited Edition. They were Halo Infinity Multiplayer, Spartan Ops, War Games, and Total Combat Freedom and Player Progression.

The Limited Edition pack which includes nine multiplayer maps may be bought at 69.99 to 100 euros. This also allows players to access six Specializations earlier, access to new ranks and unlock new customization options.

On the other hand, to keep the fans interested Tetsuya Nomura did share a new development for the FF VII story. Apparently, the appearance of the new character Yufie, planned to be a criminal, changes based on the last poster a player sees in the game.

Yoshinori Kitase has been given the helm of the Final Fantasy series and Nomura, character designer and no director, has faith that the former will live up to the expectations of everybody for FF VII despite the game being put to the background as of the moment.

With the decision of the company, it is appropriate to conclude that Final Fantasy will not be released in the market in time to be played with the current gaming technology. If ever they will come around to releasing the game, then they will probably have to get a deal with Sony and Xbox.