Video Games

Mortal Kombat Komplete Edition Coming in February

The British Board of Film Classification, which contrary to what the name implies also rates games, has blown the lid off the existence of Mortal Kombat Komplete Edition. What, exactly, this package contains is currently unknown, but it seems safe to assume that this year’s Mortal Kombat reboot, including all DLC, will make the cut. It will come out in February 2012.

Mortal Kombat famously added Freddy Krueger as a DLC character, along with blind ninja Kenshi, purple ninja Rain, and lady ninja Skarlet, which is a lot of ninjas. Whether this is enough to justify a re-release remains to be seen. It’s possible the package will include the remade package of Mortal Kombat 1, 2 and 3, which came out for digital download earlier this year.

BF3: Back to Karkland DLC Hits Tuesday

Battlefield 3 is getting its first big DLC expansion  next week on Tuesday, December 6th.

“Back to Karkland” will include four popular maps from past Battlefield games, three new vehicles, ten new weapons, five trophies and a new optional element to game modes called Assignments. The maps in question are Wake Island, Sharqi Peninsula, Gulf of Oman, and the DLC’s title map, Strike at Karkand, all of which are fully re-imagined for BF3 with the impressive Frostbite 2 engine.

Holiday Shopping in the Arcade Marketplace Part 2

Many games have been released this year onto the Xbox Live Marketplace and last week some of the best were showcased. This week, three more have made the cut as the best of the year and are worth more than the small amount of points you should shell out for them. Section 8: Prejudice, Torchlight, and Iron Brigade (formerly known as Trenched) are must buys for all gamers and here is a snippet of why.

Need for Speed: The Run – Review

I had a lot of hope for Need for Speed: The Run, because I had some hands-on time with the game at PAX Prime and was really surprised by how the game looked running on Frostbite 2.  Although the car models don’t hold up to Gran Turismo 5 standards, they are still impressive, as are the damage models, lighting and environments.  Damp roads, rocky canyons, and snow capped mountains are all rendered with very pretty textures.  The Run also features a system called Autolog, which tracks the performance of your friends so you can compare your times and compete for top spots as it ranks individual stages and overall Run time.  Known as the “Speed Wall” it will show where you rank between each stage during The Run.  Like Most Wanted and Undercover, The Run is centered around a story campaign.

Zynga Involved in Lawsuit Over “Ville” Suffix

A Houston-based game developer named Night Owl Games filed a preemptive lawsuit with the Texas court, hoping to find declaratory judgment that their own proposed trademark for the name “Dungeonville” does not infringe on Zynga’s own trademarks, including Facebook social games like Farmville and Petville.

Q.U.B.E. Coming to PCs Before the End of the Year

Console gamers have seen the last hurrah for 2011 in terms of new games, but the PC scene can still look forward to several new games in this final month like Star Wars: TOR and Trine 2.  Another PC game whose release date was just confirmed is Q.U.B.E. a debut title by indie developers Toxic Games.

Capcom to Publish the Sour Patch Video Game

According to Sour Patch Marketing Director Sebastion Genesio, “Sour Patch is the #1 all sour candy brand in the U.S. but there is so much more to these iconic characters than just their sour exteriors and sweet interiors.”  To that end, the company have recruited video game giant Capcom to publish a game for the Xbox Live Arcade, which will put players into the role of “a lost piece of candy finding its way to its ultimate destination – the human stomach.”  I genuinely wish I was joking about this, but unfortunately it’s not April yet.

The press release goes on to describe the game, entitled World Gone Sour, as a platformer which will require “a combination of jumps, twists and puzzle-solving to negotiate and overcome larger than life obstacles” and pit the player against “unusual candy enemies”.  It will also feature a track by Grammy award-winning hip hop artist Method Man as part of the soundtrack, and narration by actor Creed Batton from the Office, all for just 400 Microsoft points.  The game could turn out to be quirky enough for low-level success, but at this stage the available screenshots simply leave a bad taste in my mouth.