Publishers and game developers have come up with various methods of extracting money from pre-owned sales, most recently through the sale of online passes. We had been warned way back in Dec 2005 that pre-owned game sales were damaging the industry. David Cage from Quantic Dream had recently kicked that little hornets nest with claims of losing €10 million worth of Heavy Rain sales due to the pre-owned market. So it was almost certain that Arkham City would feature some sort of revenue generator targeted at the second hand market. Cue Rocksteady Studio’s recent announcement that if you pick up a pre-owned copy of Arkham City you will have to pay to play as Catwoman. As I very rarely buy pre-owned games, I thought this wasn’t going to really affect me. And then I started to play the game.

Annoyance 1:

As soon as you start the main game you see this screen asking you to redeem your code (included with every new game) to unlock all the Catwoman content. F1 2011 was the last game I played that shoved this type of screen in front of you every time you loaded up the game until you entered an online pass code. With Arkham City I wondered what would happen if I didn’t enter/buy a code. Which leads me to annoyance number 2.

No code, no Catwoman

Annoyance 2:

The Riddler has hidden 400 Riddler trophies throughout the massive sprawl of Arkham City for you to find. I’d already collected a few of the green trophies as Batman and then came across this red one. As you can see from the screenshot (see below) the on-screen text gives no indication that this is a Catwoman only trophy. If you press X to pick it up as instructed, not only does Batman get zapped but you get the Riddler verbally mocking you for trying to take it. See, now were are getting into the realms of interfering with my enjoyment of the game simply because I didn’t enter a code at the start. Surely there was a more obvious way of segregating the Catwoman only content? Like hiding them. Yes, I know the trophy was coloured red but what if I was red/green colour blind?

Actually, as Batman you can't

Annoyance 3:

The stats screen has a whole section to point out that you don’t have Catwoman installed. Not a big deal in itself but in the context of the first nag screen and the Catwoman specific trophies everything was a bit too much “in your face” about not unlocking Catwoman.

Look, no Catwoman!

My point is this. If you put in DLC, online passes of whatever into your games to deal with the apparent “evil and industry killing” pre-owned games buyers don’t piss of the player with such a half-arsed way of segregating in-game content. What’s worse is there were also reports of people opening their Arkham City game box to find it was missing their Catwoman code. That’s one sure-fire way of killing off people’s excitement for your game right from the start.

Annoyances aside, the game is absolutely amazing so far and I’m loving it to bits which makes the whole Catwoman/pre-owned saga so disappointing.

Batman: Arkham City is out now on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and on PC from 18th Nov 2011.

Rugby World Cup 2011:

Three commentary teams will be included in HB studio’s promising Rugby World Cup 2011 game:

• Stuart Barnes and Miles Harrison
• Philippe Sella and Eric Bayle
• Greg Clark and Sean Fitzpatrick

I absolutely hate the rugby commentary from Sky TV’s Stuart Barnes and Miles Harrison. They are complete and utter muppets who have plagued my enjoyment of watching rugby for many, many years. Mercifully there are other commentators to choose from. Top of my list would be Fitzy (Sean Fitzpatrick) who captained the New Zealand All Blacks team for 5 years and is a hard talking, no nonsense type of bloke who is thoroughly entertaining to listen to. The other option is to just mute the commentators which is exactly what I’m going to do to the Sky duo.

Brink:

The delayed Agents of Change DLC pack finally arrives on the 3rd Aug 2011. Originally scheduled for early July, the pack includes 2 new environments and will be free for the first 2 weeks, after which it will cost 800 MS points on Xbox LIVE and ~ £6 on PSN.

Bodycount:

Codemasters have released the first of their developer diaries for the upcoming shooter Bodycount. As you will see from the video Bodycount is all about guns, shredding the in-game world and killing bad guys. It also features a nice cover system which gives you a full range of movement whilst in-cover using the sticks on your controller. It’s not just a press button to hide type of system that is commonly found in first-person shooters.

This cover system along with the awesome amounts of damage you can inflict on the environment were the bits of the game I was most impressive with when I played Bodycount at E3 2011.

Nintendo 3DS Console:

From the 12th Aug 2011 Nintendo are cutting the price of their 3DS console. Based on the announced price cut in Japan (from £196 to £118), we are looking at ~30% reduction in the UK retail price. As you can see from our Nintendo 3DS – Best Cheap Deals post the price in the UK does vary a lot, so we don’t know yet what price the 3DS is going to drop down to after this cut.

For the early adopters of the system, Nintendo is offering access to the loftily titled “Nintendo 3DS Ambassador Programme.” Members of this program will get to download 10 NES games and 10 Game boy and Game boy Advance games for free. The GBA games will be exclusive to the program members.

Note: You need to connect to the Nintendo eShop at least once before 23:59 on the 11th Aug 2011 in order to qualify for these free games.

NES games:

• Super Mario Bros
• Donkey Kong Jr
• Balloon Fight
• Ice Climber
• The Legend of Zelda
• Plus 5 unannounced games

Game Boy Advance games:

• Yoshi’s Island
• Super Mario Advance 3
• Mario Kart
• Super Circuit, Metroid
• Metroid Fusion
• WarioWare
• Inc.: Minigame Mania
• Mario vs. Donkey Kong
• Plus 2 unannounced games

48-hour SEGA iOS games sale:

SEGA have slashed the prices of their iPod/iPhone and iPad games for 48 hours. Either search for SEGA on the app store or click on this link to open up the SEGA app store page in iTunes.

SEGAs 48-hour iOS game sale

Mass Effect 2:

Until the 1st Aug 2011 there’s 50% off the following DLC packs for Mass Effect 2 on the Xbox 360. Price shown below is the sale price:

• Mass Effect 2: Lair of the Shadow Broker (280 MS Points)
• Mass Effect 2: Arrival – (400 MS Points)
• Mass Effect 2: Kasumi – Stolen Memory (280 MS Points)

Change your gamertag:

From the 2nd – 8th Aug, Microsoft are knocking 30% off the price to change your gamertag. During this period it will cost 560 MS Points to change it. I only wish Sony would offer this service on PSN.

Need For Speed: The Run:

Finishing off today’s news is the “Run to the hills” trailer showing one of the driving stages from the game without a single on-foot section in sight.

Nintendo 3DS owners will be able to get their hands on the original Kirby adventure Kirby’s Dream Land later on this week from the Nintendo eShop for €4.

The Uncharted 3 multiplayer beta kicks off tomorrow – 28th June 2011 – for all inFamous 2 and PlayStation Plus owners. There’s a multiplayer beta FAQ available and if you follow the Naughty Dog Twitter account you will get to find out as soon as the beta starts. Check out the video showing off the co-op Hunter multiplayer mode which will be available to play between the 4th-8th July 2011.

From Dust, the latest game from Eric Chahi, the creator of the Amiga Classics Another World and Flashback, will be available to download on 27th July for 1200 MS points from Xbox LIVE Arcade. PlayStation 3 and PC versions will be available later in the year. Described as a “spiritual heir” to Populous, you have to manipulate an archipelago environment in order to save and enlighten a nomadic tribe. Here’s the official From Dust trailer.

The British Computer Society (BCS) is running an animation competition for students at Universities, Higher and Further Educational Establishments in 2011.

The theme of this animation competition would be an animation, lasting say 2 or 3 minutes, on the benefits of computing, working in computing, and should also include a positive aspect of BCS – the animation to be hosted by the relevant university, and the links submitted to the BCS by Tuesday 5 July 2011

Initial judging will be done via an online public vote to find the 10 most popular animations. Then a panel of judges will pick the final 5 animations from these 10 animations plus 2 wildcard entries per judge. Certificates from the BCS will be awarded to the winners and runners-up in the competition. The contact email for this competition is: AGDanimationcomp@bcs.org. Good luck to those who enter.

Operation Flashpoint: Red River “Valley of Death” DLC is now available on the PlayStation Store for £4.79 and will be available tomorrow on Xbox LIVE for 560 MS Points. The DLC pack contains 8 new Fireteam Engagements playable in single-player or in 4 player online co-op set across new locales. Here’s a breakdown of the 8 new missions and a trailer:

• 2 new Combat Sweep missions
• 2 new CSAR missions
• 2 new Last Stand missions
• 2 new Rolling Thunder missions

At the moment this content pack is exclusive to the Xbox 360. No word of a release date for PlayStation 3 or PC yet.

The pack includes these multiplayer maps:

• Stockpile – Remote Russian farm town with secret WMD facilities
• Zoo – Abandoned Soviet Russian Zoo
• Convoy – Ambushed US military convoy
• Hotel – Roof of a luxury Cuban hotel

However, there is one more tasty treat within this map pack, namely Call of the Dead. This map is inspired by the zombietastic films of legendary director George A. Romero. Set on suitably spooky standard freighter in Siberia, players must try and escape the undead horde. The playable character models feature the voices and likenesses of 4 Hollywood stars:

• Michael Rooker – Mallrats
• Sarah Michelle Gellar – Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Danny Trejo – From Dusk Till Dawn
• Robert Englund – Nightmare On Elm Street

Even George A. Romero makes an appearance in this brilliant Call of the Dead trailer.

I’m not a big fan of the Call of Duty games, but I do like the look of the Call of the Dead. Zombies, gore, violence and Freddy Krueger. What’s not to like? Although, Sarah Michelle Gellar’s character model does look a bit crap and lifeless. She’s at risk of being mistaken for one of the zombie horde herself. Also Sarah’s now got a much bigger set of boobs! Seriously Treyarch, get a little carried away in the breast department did we?

Update 3rd May 2011: The content pack (986mb) is available now on Xbox LIVE. Here’s a direct link to the English [EN] pack on Xbox.com so you can start downloading it. NOTE: For those people outside the UK, please make sure you download the pack that matches your Black Ops disc. e.g. Russian users must download the [RU] version of the pack. Check before you buy.

The Escalation content pack will be available on the 3rd May 2011 on Xbox 360 for 1200 MS points. Call of Duty: Back Ops is available now on PlayStation 3, PC and Xbox 360.

For 3 wonderful hours, I was back in Ezio’s world; revelling in the sights and sounds of renaissance Rome, raiding tombs, leaping from building to building, stealthy assassinations, escaping from guards and listening to Jesper Kyd’s wonderful music. You now have a whole set of new missions restored memories adorning your (well used) map of Rome. Within these restored memories lie a couple of new locations to explore, which adds a bit of variety to the game.

I also found myself in the unusual position of repeatedly failing a mission. Whilst Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood is a brilliant game, it’s not exactly hard to play. Along comes this DLC pack and suddenly the missions are just a little bit tougher. Not too tough mind you, as after a few attempts you’ll be happily on your way again. The extra challenge is very welcome though. More of this please, Ubisoft.

On top of the “find Leonardo” missions, there are 2 new tombs to explore. Well, the second tomb is more of a quarry really, alive with flowing water and viaducts. I felt like Ezio was on his holidays, catching some rays and having a bit of a paddle in the water. I had huge amounts of fun exploring these tombs with Ezio performing even more outrageous feats of acrobatics using dizzyingly high rocky outcrops or bits of buildings. I love the confidence I have in Ezio that he will make even the most difficult jump or make a climb look effortless. These locations really take advantage of the tweaks that Ubisoft made to Ezio’s controls for Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood.

There is also a new dice game to play in the thieves’ hideout for when you fancy a break from all the killing and free-running. It’s called Hazard, sharing a name with the complicated Old English dice game from which a simpler version emerged in the 19th Century called Craps. The rules of the in-game version of Hazard are a little different: roll two dice to get a winning roll (7 or 11) or avoid the losing roll (2, 3 or 12). If you roll any other numbers they then become the “chance” roll; If you hit that number again you win (whilst still avoiding the losing and winning roll numbers). After each roll you can bet up to a maximum of 7500 florins. Whilst this game is mildly entertaining to play, as I had over 800,000 florins in my burgeoning money pouch, any money I won or lost was completely meaningless. If only the bets were hundreds of thousands of florins per roll then this game would at least give you some reason to play it.

The only real downside to the Da Vinci disappearance DLC is that it’s all over so quickly. I spent about 30 minutes exploring the 2 tombs and about 2.5 hours rescuing Leonardo. That’s it. It is also more of the same as far as the missions are concerned. So you might get a bit bored with the lack of variety on offer, particularly if you’ve played a lot of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood.

More back-stabbing

The multiplayer component to Brotherhood is significantly expanded with the addition of 1 new map (Alhambra), 4 new characters (the Dama Rossa, the Knight, the Marquis and the Pariah) and 2 new gameplay modes (assassinate and escort).

During the Assassinate game mode every other human player is a potential target. There are no assigned targets, unlike Wanted mode in which your targets selected by the animus. You also have to lock on to your target before killing them, otherwise it doesn’t count. Although your HUD points you in the general direction of the other players, the key is to watch for unusual behaviour – running, frequent changes of direction and killing. In the games I played, nobody runs around at all. It is just too dangerous, unless you are being chased of course. But then the act of escaping also puts you on the radar of other players! All in all, these Assassinate games are a lot of fun.

One thing I did suffer from in this mode was the problem of chained kills. Anyone performing a kill sticks out like a sore thumb making themselves an easy target. So when I killed someone, someone else then killed me, and then they got killed by someone else, all in quick succession. I don’t see how Ubisoft can stop this happening without substantially altering the gameplay. However, this problem does make it especially satisfying to escape unharmed following a nice stealthy kill.

In the Escort mode games, one team of hunters aims to kill as many of the animus-controlled VIPs as possible whilst the team of protectors have to protect the VIPs and kill any hunters. The protectors also earn points when each VIP passes through one of the many checkpoints littered throughout the map. Personally, I found playing as a hunter bloody hard, as whenever I got within sniffing distance of a VIP I’d get stabbed in the back by a protector. It was much, much easier to rack up the points as a protector by closely shadowing your assigned VIP through checkpoints. But you do end up looking at every single person that gets anywhere remotely close to your VIP as an assassin. Frequently, I found myself getting a bit twitchy and accidentally killing a few innocent civilians. Unfortunately, each civilian death gifts 100 points to the team of protectors. Ooops!

The multiplayer mode does suffer from one massive problem; there’s hardly anyone else online. I frequently have to wait over 15 minutes before the system finally discovered 5 other people to play against. This is true for every game mode. The words “searching for a program session” and “searching for other Abstergo agents” will be burned into your brain as you wait (im)patiently for the game to start. Unfortunately, there’s no way of telling how many people are online to decide: A – to keep waiting as you will get a game eventually, or B – to just give up as there’s no one there, just like Team Fortress 2 on the Xbox 360. Of course, if you have 5 other Assassins’s Creed: Brotherhood Da Vinci Disappearance DLC-owning friends then you’re fine. We all have those, right?

Summary:

The Da Vinci disappearance adds a very, very enjoyable 3-4 hours of gameplay to Brotherhood’s story mode and expands the multiplayer component nicely with 2 new interesting and challenging modes. This DLC pack represents an ideal reason to dust off your copy of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood as the multiplayer game really needs more players.

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood – The Da Vinci Disappearance is available now for Xbox 360 (800 MS Points) and PlayStation 3 (£7.99).

This will probably be the last Mass Effect 2 DLC pack before the Mass Effect 3 juggernaut arrives later on in the year.

Save the agent, save the world!

Mass Effect 2: Arrival is out now for PC (560 Bioware Points) and Xbox 360 (560 MS points). No UK release date yet for PlayStation 3.

Here’s the trailer. It’s all looking very sexy.

This new add-on pack will be released next week. 8th March for Xbox Live (800 MS points) and 9th March on the PlayStation Network (£7.99).

The Dead Space 2: Severed DLC weighs in at around 1.43Gb, so this is a fairly weighty expansion pack. It features 2 stand-alone single-player chapters to play as Gabe Weller. Presumably, Isaac Clark is still busy with his own escape. You may remember that Gabe Weller was the main character in the Dead Space: Extraction game on the Wii. Extraction was also included with the PlayStation 3 version of Dead Space 2.

The action takes place on The Sprawl with Gabe Weller equipped with his shiny new security suit and a super powerful pulse rifle as he tries to escape all the monsters. One of the Necromorphs from the first Dead Space game makes an appearance too. So say hello again to The Twitcher.

It is nice to hear that Gabe’s got a British accent and to see that lifts are still death traps. Remember kids, stay away from lifts in sci-fi games. They are always dangerous.

Look out for my epic review of Dead Space 2 later on this week.

Dead Space 2: Severed is available now on Xbox Live for 560 MS Points and from the 2nd March on PSN for £5.49

This DLC pack expands the Need For Speed world to include new events, new trophies and achievements and perhaps most importantly, some very sexy new cars – Bugatti Veyron SS, Porsche 911 GT2 and Gumpert Apollo

Incidentally, all 3 cars come in Interceptor and vanilla (i.e. without the police livery) flavours for your driving pleasure. You can see all 3 cars in action in the trailer below:

No word yet on pricing or release date, but we will let you know as soon as we find out.

Update 13th Dec 2010: Super Sports pack DLC will be available on the 21st Dec 2010 on Xbox 360 for 560 Microsoft Points and a day later on the PlayStation 3 for £5.49.

Update 22nd Jan 2010: The background music to this trailer is the song The Baddest by Tom Salta.

Need For Speed Hot Pursuit is out now on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.